Organ transplant

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Beautiful, Clean Guest Room in San Francisco (Discounts Available!) (haight ashbury) $69

Hello, Clean, comfortable guest rooms are available in a nice Victorian flat. (See photos below) STANDARD RATES: $69 / Night (Total) Sunday - Thursday $79 / Night (Total) Fridays, Saturdays, and Holidays $475 / Week (Total) ...when staying seven (7) consecutive nights SPECIAL DISCOUNTS: 10% Discount Available For The Following Guests: * Families & Friends of UCSF Patients (For example: Those who need to stay near UCSF Hospitals because a friend or family member is having life-threatening surgery, an organ transplant, or is admitted to an Intensive Care Unit, etc.) * Travelers Who Are Visiting San Francisco for the FIRST Time * Full-Time Students Enrolled at UCSF, USF, SFSU, or CCA (Valid Student ID Required) * Persons with a certified disability, and persons on a fixed income (who can provide proof of income) THE ROOMS & AMENITIES The sunny, tastefully decorated rooms have European charm, and real wooden furniture (not synthetic). They are very clean and 100% smoke-free and drug-free. The rooms sleep two persons (you will have either a queen bed or a double bed). The solid wood, antique beds contain very comfortable mattresses, which are fitted with super soft 400+ thread count (100% Egyptian cotton) sheets. The towels are spa-quality, and 100% Turkish cotton. The bath rugs are soft 100% Egyptian cotton. All beddings are professionally cleaned. Enjoy complimentary coffee, tea, and fresh fruit every morning. The Rate Also Includes... * High-Speed Wireless Internet (bring your laptop!) * Brand New (3.6 cubic foot) Mini-Fridge in Your Room * Complimentary Coffee & Tea Service Every Morning * Satellite TV (with HBO) on a 36" Flat Panel TV in the Parlour * The Shared Bathroom is Supplied with Handsoap, Body Wash, and Toilet Paper * Brand New Digital Clock/Radio and Box of Kleenex Tissues at Your Bedside * Iron, Ironing Board, and Blow Dryer Available Upon Request. --------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT THE HOME Nicely furnished, three bedroom Victorian flat with old-world charm. You'll find rich, pleasant colors throughout the flat, as well as European art & decor, hardwood floor, high ceiling, and fresh flowers & plants. The bathroom has just been redecorated, including new granite floor tiles. THE LOCATION Ideal, central San Francisco location. You'll appreciate staying just steps from cafes & restaurants, markets & shops, Golden Gate Park, the De Young Museum, bank, post office, gym, an independent moviehouse, bookstores, a brewery, dry cleaners, two universities (UCSF and USF), churches, hospitals, Buena Vista Park, etc. Public transportation and taxis are abundant. You can get anywhere in the city quickly and easily because of the central location. Just 15 minutes into downtown SF, and just 5-10 minutes from popular districts such as The Mission, The Castro, The Sunset, The Richmond, etc. -------------------------------------------------------------------- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION... * Photo Identification Required Upon Check-In * No Smoking, Drugs, Pets, or Unruly Behavior * Single or Double Occupancy Only (No parties of 3 or more) Please send inquiry, and be sure to specify exact dates. Thank you. Hope to see you soon. Book early!

At family farm, grim claims of organ culling from captured Serb soldiers

Seven members of the Katuci family sat silently in their living room, hands on knees, as rain tapped at the window. They had been asked if they hosted one of the most macabre war crimes of the 1999 Kosovo war. And they did not want to talk.It was to their country house in northern Albania's mountain region that Kosovan Albanian guerrillas are believed to have brought hundreds of captive Serbian soldiers to cull their organs in the aftermath of Nato's bombing."I did not do it," said Mercim Katuci, the 50-year-old head of the family, breaking the silence with a shot of liquor. "That is why I am angry. Shame has been brought on us. People in the village tell us: 'You killed the Serbs. You are evil people.' We are poor people - how could we kill hundreds of soldiers in this house?"The spotlight will soon fall on the house again when a fleet of 4x4 vehicles brings Dick Marty - a special investigator mandated by the Council of Europe to re-examine the case - and his team up a crumbling dirt track, seven miles south of the town of Burrel.There have been calls for an investigation into the Burrel "house clinic" since April, when the ex-chief prosecutor for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte, said there had been "credible" reports about the fate of Serbian soldiers held there. Del Ponte said her investigation was shelved because of lack of evidence and resistance from senior UN figures.However, the Guardian has obtained the report of a UN forensic examination of the Katuci house, commissioned by Del Ponte. The report, by a UN expert, José Pablo Baraybar, was previously believed to be missing. Though not conclusive, it mapped traces of blood that could have been human in two downstairs rooms. Discarded in a nearby stream, the report said, was material "consistent with surgical overalls", syringes, a handgun holster, pill containers and bottles, and four empty drug containers, including one that contained a muscle relaxant.Asked about the traces of blood found by the UN forensic team, Katuci said it originated from when his wife gave birth. The discarded medical equipment, he added, was used by his family to self-administer drugs because the nearest hospital is several hours' walk away.But Baraybar, the former director of the UN's missing persons and forensics unit in Kosovo, said his team found "highly indicative evidence" that pointed to organ removal at the Burrel house, and prosecutors received testimony from eight witnesses.They comprised "foot soldiers" who claimed to be present during the surgery, he said, and a driver who claimed he brought small groups of Serb soldiers to the house from across the Kosovo border. The driver then described taking conspicuous packages to Tirana airport, bound for flights to Turkey. The surgeon conducting the operations was identified as a Kosovan doctor from Pec, Baraybar said.'Slaughterhouse'"What the sources indicated was it was almost like a slaughterhouse," Baraybar said. "People came in alive, then things happened inside the house, and the people ended up dead. But certainly they were not just killed. The reference was of organs of some kind being taken out."Angry villagers prevented Baraybar and his team from conducting exhumations at a nearby cemetery where the bodies are said to have been buried. At the Katuci house - where Del Ponte is known as "the witch" - the family of subsistence farmers show letters requesting compensation for the UN investigation, which they complained was intrusive. "They wanted to get under the floor with pick axes," said Katuci. "What I want is for light to be shed on this case so my family's innocence can be recognised." Marty's investigation could gain additional impetus from the recent discovery of an illegal organ transplant clinic in neighbouring Kosovo. Police there raided a clinic in the suburbs of Pristina three weeks ago, arresting two doctors and the country's acting permanent secretary at the ministry of health, Ilir Rexhaj. Interpol is helping to search for a third doctor, Yusuf Ercin Sonmez, a notorious Turkish surgeon who they believe was behind the operation.The investigation was opened after a 23-year-old Turkish man was found at Pristina airport with scars from an operation to remove his kidney. At the clinic police found a 74-year-old Israeli man who had just received a kidney transplant. Although there is no evidence any of the individuals connected with the Pristina clinic worked in Albania, Marty is now expected to travel to Kosovo amid claims that the two cases could be linked. Serbian war crimes prosecutors, who were denied access to the Katuci home last month, said they handed over evidence about organ trafficking networks in Kosovo to Marty's investigation. Speaking at the weekend for the first time about his organ harvesting investigation, Marty said: "I have started gathering data from all quarters for my inquiry, and hope to visit Belgrade, Pristina and Tirana soon for further leads, including information from the Serbian prosecutor's office." Baraybar said information gleaned from the Pristina clinic could be crucial. "If police have cracked a network of organ harvesting linking Kosovan Albanian doctors with individuals in Turkey, that is a potentially huge development for solving the Burrel mystery," he said.For Marty, though, the focus is likely to remain on the Katuci house, where there are no obvious signs of the alleged horror story. Young children chase chickens around the same yard where, according to Del Ponte, Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas herded their prisoners. The shed where Serb soldiers were allegedly held captive is now filled with cows. Thick Albanian coffee simmers on a stove in the room where Baraybar discovered blood stains. "Do we look like a family that would do this stuff?" said Katuci's nephew, Defrim Kadiu, 32. "Does this house look as if it's been treated as a hospital for 300 people? If it's true, then my family needs to be hanged in front of everyone."BackstoryOf all the many atrocities that human rights groups want investigated from the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict, the alleged harvesting of organs from Serbian soldiers by ethnic Albanians is one of the most gruesome. Hundreds of Serbian families have for a decade been demanding what happened to those who disappeared during and after the war. In April, Carla Del Ponte the former UN war crimes prosecutor, gave greater credence to suggestions of a macabre operation, in which as many as 300 Serbs were allegedly abducted and transported to Albania to have their organs removed. In a memoir, she wrote: "Victims deprived of only their first kidney were sewn up and confined again inside the shack until they were killed for their vital organs."KosovoSerbiaBalkansWar crimesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Guardian Daily podcast: Tories scrap adherence to Labour spending plans; plus pioneering organ transplant

John Redwood MP, chair of the Conservatives' economic competitiveness policy group, defends David Cameron's decision to scrap the Tories' adherence to Labour's spending plans.Surgeons have successfully carried out the world's first airway transplant on a young woman using an organ partly grown from her own stem cells. Health editor Sarah Boseley explains the significance of the operation.Xan Rice describes the dangers facing shipping off the Somalian coast, where pirates rule the waves.Commentator Martin Kettle looks at the pros and cons of Barack Obama appointing Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state.Argentina take on Scotland tonight in a friendly, Diego Maradona's first match as national football team coach. Chief sports writer Richard Williams reports from Glasgow on the warm reception Maradona has received from the Scots.

Organ donor law overhaul still on cards

A RADICAL change to Britain's organ transplant laws could be started as early as 2013, a report will recommend this week.