One of the island’s top plastic surgeons is advocating the establishment of a specialist registry in light of a significant increase in the demand for body contour surgeries across the island. Senior plastic surgeon at the University Hospital of the West Indies Dr Guyan Arscott also wants the Government to format legislation that would facilitate this registry, something, he said, the Jamaica Medical Council has been working on for some time now.

The issue came to the fore at yesterday’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchangewhere Arscott told reporters that legislation to decide who can perform this procedure does not exist. Body contour surgery, Arscott said, includes surgery on the breast, liposuction of the stomach, back, buttocks, and thighs, among other areas.

“If we try to educate the public of what is available then they have a choice, and if I tell you that we have a training programme at the university with doctors…then the patient at least has a choice [about who operates on them],” he said.

“Not only can any other doctor go out there and inject whatever, but there are instances in this country where non-doctors and in fact even non-nurses fly into this country and inject all sorts of materials into buttocks all over the place,” Dr Arscott told editors and reporters at the Exchange held at the newspaper’s Beechwood Avenue headquarters in Kingston.(stabroek news)…[+]

Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has signalled he may abandon controversial plans to make his son ambassador to the United States, amid a fierce political backlash and growing signs Congress may block the move. “I’m not going to subject my son to failure,” Bolsonaro told reporters on Tuesday in what was the first public hint he may be reconsidering his nomination.

Bolsonaro’s bid to hand control of Brazil’s Washington DC embassy to his 35-year-old son, Eduardo, has outraged Brazil’s foreign service and set off a domestic political firestorm. A report prepared for senators who need to approve Bolsonaro’s move concluded it amounted to nepotism and identified three distinctly undemocratic precedents where leaders had made their children ambassadors: in Saudi Arabia, Chad and Uzbekistan.

Eduardo Bolsonaro’s appointment must be approved by a simple majority in Brazil’s 81-member senate, where such proposals are seldom challenged. But there are growing indications senators may block the nomination.(TheGuardian)…[+]

A 21-year-old woman acquitted of the aggravated murder of her baby in El Salvador has called on her supporters to fight for others like her. A judge said there was no evidence that Evelyn Hernández had killed her child, which was found dead in the septic tank of the toilet where she gave birth.

His ruling contradicted that of a 2017 trial, during which Ms Hernández was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years. Women’s groups hope the ruling will set a precedent for other jailed women. “I ask that justice and freedom be done for the other women,” Ms Hernández said, referring to at least 17 women who are currently in jail over similar cases. El Salvador has one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the world. Abortion is illegal in all circumstances and those found guilty face between two and eight years in jail.

But in many instances, including the case against Ms Hernández, the charge is changed to one of aggravated homicide, which carries a minimum sentence of 30 years. Evelyn Hernández was charged with aggravated murder, with prosecutors arguing that she had killed her baby in 2016. She has always maintained her innocence, saying that she had been raped by a gang member and had no idea that she was pregnant.(BBC)…[+]