The Spanish island Ibiza plans to hire young private detectives who can pass as tourists to help local authorities find out where private parties that flout virus restrictions will be held.
The Mediterranean island’s famous nightclubs, which attract famous DJs from around the world, are shut because of the pandemic, leading to a boom in illegal gatherings.
With Covid-19 infections surging on the island, the authorities are looking for detectives aged 30 to 40 who “find the parties before they start” and tip off police, said local government spokesman Armando Tur.
The gatherings are often held in homes in the countryside to evade detection and can draw more than 500 people, Mr Tur said.
Some are organised by “mafias”, which charge entry fees of about €100 ($118) per person and look for custom on social media or near bars, he said.
Ibiza has received several applications for the role from across Europe but it is interested only in hiring professional detectives, Mr Tur said.
The Balearic Islands, which include Ibiza, have one of Spain’s highest Covid-19 infection levels, driven by the more contagious Delta variant.
To curb the virus, late last month the archipelago’s government banned all gatherings between 1am and 6am of people who do not live together.
A student trip to the Balearic island of Majorca in June caused a major Covid-19 outbreak that infected thousands of people on mainland Spain.
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How to register as a donor
1) Organ donors can register on the Hayat app, run by the Ministry of Health and Prevention
2) There are about 11,000 patients in the country in need of organ transplants
3) People must be over 21. Emiratis and residents can register.
4) The campaign uses the hashtag #donate_hope
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History's medical milestones
1799 - First small pox vaccine administered
1846 - First public demonstration of anaesthesia in surgery
1861 - Louis Pasteur published his germ theory which proved that bacteria caused diseases
1895 - Discovery of x-rays
1923 - Heart valve surgery performed successfully for first time
1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
1953 - Structure of DNA discovered
1952 - First organ transplant - a kidney - takes place
1954 - Clinical trials of birth control pill
1979 - MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, scanned used to diagnose illness and injury.
1998 - The first adult live-donor liver transplant is carried out
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
