Author: Admin

Saturday, January 19, 2008

George W. Bush, the president of the United States has suggested an economic growth package that could be worth almost 1% of the United States’ GDP (the US GDP is appoximately US$15 trillion). The package is expected to come in the form of tax cuts.

In a speech which took place yesterday Mr.Bush said that the economy is an area of “real concern,” to the US government. He added that the US “economy is still creating jobs, though at a reduced pace.”

Democrats want the tax refunds to cover payroll taxes paid by lower-income groups and be combined with more unemployment benefits, food stamps and federal aid to states. It warned against bundling proposals to make Bush’s first term tax cuts permanent with the stimulus package, and the Bush administration has separated the two in this proposal.

When announcing the proposal George Bush said that “as Congress considers such a plan, there are certain principles that must guide its deliberations: This growth package must be big enough to make a difference in an economy as large and dynamic as ours — which means it should be about 1 percent of GDP.” He added that “this growth package must be built on broad-based tax relief that will directly affect economic growth — and not the kind of spending projects that would have little immediate impact on our economy. This growth package must be temporary and take effect right away — so we can get help to our economy when it needs it most.” He also added that he believed the package “must not include any tax increases.”

In the speech George Bush also made it clear that he believes the package should be passed through congress quickly. He said that his belief was that by passing the package through congress quickly would “provide a shot in the arm to keep a fundamentally strong economy healthy. And it will help keep economic sectors that are going through adjustments, such as the housing market, from adversely affecting other parts of our economy.”

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Torrential rains and floods in the North West and Gauteng provinces of South Africa have caused disruption, government bodies said earlier today.

The Greater Taung Local Municipality said a disaster area was declared, after 150 homes were affected and one person was confirmed dead from flooding.

Residents were warned to keep away from bridges and rivers, and to drive carefully in the inclement weather. Water Affairs spokesperson Mava Scott commented that “people in the low lying areas should be alerted.”

The Vaal Dam, meanwhile, was at 105% full, after six sluice gates were opened. Three more are expected to be opened soon, according to the South African Press Association. The Bloemhof Dam in North West province is 112% full, with flood gates having been opened there earlier today.

Officials encouraged people to remove their boats and pumps, as water flow would not be predictable. “It will also be rather dangerous for people to go too near to the river’s embankments during this time,” Superintendent Eugene Opperman noted.

Meanwhile, roads to places such as Manokwane, Lokaleng, Khibitswane, Mokgareng, and Pudimoe, were also inundated with water. 800 mine workers from East Rand Mines were evacuated as well.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

The June jobs report for the US shows job growth has almost halted while the unemployment rate rose from 9.1% to 9.2%, much higher than March’s figure of 8.8%. Employers added only 18,000 new jobs, far fewer than the average of 215,000 per month added from February to April. These numbers add to fears that the economic recovery has stalled.

Analysts were predicting the job growth number for June to reach 125,000, according to a CNN poll.

Additionally, the figures for May were revised downward from 54,000 to 25,000 for a two month downward trend. To keep up with normal population growth, the US economy needs to increase the available jobs by 150,000 monthly. Only one fifth of the 8.8 million jobs lost since 2008 when the recession began have been added.

There was no encouraging news in the report. Government jobs fell by 39,000, and construction jobs remained stalled. Manufacturing added an anemic 6,000 jobs. The temporary-job industry lost positions for the third straight month. The average work week was reduced by 0.1 hours to 34.3. And the average hourly salary for private sector workers fell by one cent.

The total number of unemployed people remains around 14.1 million, and 6.3 million have been unemployed at least six months.

“It’s just an across-the-board retreat,” said Heidi Shierholz, labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “This is two months of really scary reports.”

In an interview, Austan Goolsbee, Barack Obama’s chief economist said, “I view this number as a call to action. This number illustrates this thing that we knew, which is we’ve got to get the growth rate up. … When you see jobs reports like this, that should make it clear that we need to stop bickering, and get these things done.”

Monday, May 16, 2005

In France, workers by the millions stayed at home during the Whit Monday holiday despite the government’s cancellation of the traditional Pentecost public holiday. Some acted in defiance of the government’s decision, while some took leave or were put on forced leave by their employers due to uncertainties of public transportation.

Following the 2003 heat wave, which caused the deaths of an estimated 13,000 elderly people in France, the administration of prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has proposed the suppression of one day of public holiday in order to use the supplemental generated tax for a fund for the caring of the elderly.

Whit Monday was selected because, in normal years, France has several public holidays in May. Furthermore, attendance of religious celebrations is low, so holidays of a religious origin are nowadays generally mere family reunions.

However, the reception of this new working day was mixed. The administration says it promotes solidarity with the elderly. Trade unions and opposition groups argue that the measure is an ill-conceived stunt aimed at hiding the government’s bad handling of the problems of the elderly.

For instance, many remember that in 1956, the government created a tax (the vignette) on motor vehicles, allegedly for funding measures for the elderly. But in 1973, the products of this tax came, as any other tax, into the government’s general fund.

With this measure, the French government intends to raise 2 billion € to be donated to a new public establishment, the “national fund for solidarity for autonomy.” The new fund would be chartered to deal with losses of self-sufficiency of elderly or handicapped people. 1.2 billion € are earmarked for elderly people, 0.8 for the handicapped.

Trade unions had called for strikes in urban public transportation and paralyzed traffic in 27 cities, including Clermont-Ferrand, Lille, Montpellier ou Strasbourg. However, SNCF (the national railway operator) did not strike and RATP (the Paris transportation authority) suffered only minor disturbances, though both are normally known for their frequent and disturbing strikes.

SNCF considered the day as a holiday for payroll purposes and instead increased the work day by 1’52”, a measure that majority leader Nicolas Sarkozy considered shocking and contrary to the objectives of the government.

The protests are also widely considered to be motivated by the unpopularity of the administration of president Jacques Chirac and prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. Recent statistics show a five year-high for unemployment at 10.2%.

This discontent may result in a majority of “no” in the vote for the ratification of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.

Wednesday, December 8, 2004

LOS ANGELES — A commuter van (Van Pool No. 36) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) plunged 200 feet into a ravine in the Angeles National Forest this morning. The van was carrying ten people: six JPL employees, two NASA employees, and two private contractors. They are identified as:

• Javier Bautista: Regular Substitute Driver
• Cheryl Lynn Allworth: Executive Secretary in JPL’s Space Experiments Systems Section
• Dorothy M. Forks: JPL Human Resources
• Peter Robles
• Helga Maria Wurm
• Jane F. Galloway: JPL Business Manager
• Kerri Lynn Agey: Contractor for JPL Security Services
• Christopher Butts
• Jim Kitahara
• David Myers

Three of the passengers — Forks, Galloway, and Agey — lost their lives; the remaining seven sustained various levels of injury, including one passenger suffering critical injury, according to authorities. All victims were airlifted to local area hospitals.

According to witnesses who reported the crash, the van simply drove off the side of Angeles Forest Highway. Despite the presence of fog during the accident, the California Highway Patrol believes that this was not a factor. The CHP has said that the investigation into the crash may take two to three days before the cause is known.

JPL spokesperson D.C. Agle confirmed that the van was from the facility. Initially, JPL refrained from commenting, but JPL security was spotted at the site shortly after the incident occurred.

The Angeles Forest Highway is a two-lane mountain road considered a commuter route for many residents of the Antelope Valley including Palmdale and Lancaster residents. It is an alternative to get to Interstate 210, rather than taking the heavily traveled Antelope Valley Freeway (California State Route 14).

Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday party.

The boy was today awake and smiling, still in some pain but in good spirits and expected to make a full recovery, according to plastic surgeon, Mr Robert Love.

“What we have is parts that are very much alive so the reattached limbs are certainly pink, well perfused and are indeed moving,” Mr Love told reporters today.

“The fact that he is moving his fingers, and of course when he wakes up he will move both fingers and toes, is not a surprise,” Mr Love had said yesterday.

“The question is more the sensory return that he will get in the hand itself and the fine movements he will have in the fingers and the toes, and that will come with time, hopefully. We will assess that over the next 18 months to two years.

“I’m sure that he’ll enjoy a game of basketball in the future.”

The weight and force of the collapse, and the sharp brick edges, resulted in the three limbs being cut through about 7cm above the wrists and ankle.

Terry’s father Tan said of his only child, the injuries were terrible, “I was scared to look at him, a horrible thing.”

The hands and foot were placed in an ice-filled Esky and rushed to hospital with the boy, where three teams of medical experts were assembled, and he was given a blood transfusion after experiencing massive blood loss. Eight hours of complex micro-surgery on Saturday night were followed by a further two hours of skin grafts yesterday.

“What he will lose because it was such a large zone of traumatised skin and muscle and so on, he will lose some of the skin so he’ll certainly require lots of further surgery regardless of whether the skin survives,” said Mr Love said today.

The boy was kept unconscious under anaesthetic between the two procedures. In an interview yesterday, Mr Love explained why:

“He could have actually been woken up the next day. Because we were intending to take him back to theatre for a second look, to look at the traumatised skin flaps, to close more of his wounds and to do split skin grafting, it was felt the best thing to do would be to keep him stable and to keep him anaesthetised.”

Professor Wayne Morrison, director of the respected Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and head of plastic and hand surgery at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said he believed the operation to be a world first.

Friday, April 13, 2007

New Zealand’s state-owned broadcaster, TVNZ (Television New Zealand) announced yesterday its proposed redundancy cuts that will see jobs go from various sectors, the most going from their news and current affairs sector.

At least 140 people will be told that they will be set to lose their job in the next six months, at least 50 of those are from the news sector.

Seven general reporting journalists will be leaving, which only leaves six left from the Auckland newsroom. Two sports reporting journalists will also be leaving from the Auckland newsroom, leaving six. Accredited parliament reporters also look to face redundancy cuts, as well as reporters from the Christchurch newsroom. As well as people losing their jobs, the Queenstown, Wanganui and Rotorua newsrooms will be closed, as well as the news reference library, and the current affairs show, Sunday looks set to close its Wellington office. Head of journalism at the University of Canterbury, Jim Tully says that the closing of the Queenstown newsroom is a big mistake. Current affairs show, Close Up will also lose two journalists and a Christchurch producer, but will gain a producer in Auckland. Fair Go, consumer affairs show, will lose three senior producers. Breakfast will lose a weather and sports presenter, and a producer.

The final decision of the exact numbers will be disclosed in the next few weeks, following consultation with the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, which represents, altogether, 5,000 employees.

Some of the job losses include experienced journalists, and Bill Ralston, former head of news and current affairs for TVNZ, said that they will be replaced by cheaper, inexperienced journalists. “If you do that your audience will reduce even further . . . this move makes no commercial sense whatsoever,” he said.

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union has described the job losses as an attack on democracy, and have launched a campaign titled, ‘Our Media’ to bring these issues to light. The National Secretary, Andrew Little has said that an essential function of communities is good quality regional news reporting, which will be reduced because of the job cuts.

Steve Maharey, broadcasting minister, has refused to comment regarding TVNZ.

Mr Ralston has said that this move will destroy TVNZ’s 30-year reputation being “…a good quality public broadcaster who gives you a news and current affairs service that you can believe and trust.”

He also questioned why they were cutting the news sector heavily when there are other sectors that are unnecessary, such as human resources. “Last time I looked at TVNZ it had 25 people in its human resources division – TV3 has none.” One TVNZ staff member has said that the job cuts were run by the human resources decision, and that they are very “anti-journalist”.

TVNZ plan to launch a new continuous news channel next year on New Zealand’s new digital platform, FreeView.

The New Zealand Herald is currently also looking at reducing staff numbers by outsourcing their sub-editors/copy editors.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

A team of eight transplant surgeons in Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA, led by reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow, age 58, have successfully performed the first almost total face transplant in the US, and the fourth globally, on a woman so horribly disfigured due to trauma, that cost her an eye. Two weeks ago Dr. Siemionow, in a 23-hour marathon surgery, replaced 80 percent of her face, by transplanting or grafting bone, nerve, blood vessels, muscles and skin harvested from a female donor’s cadaver.

The Clinic surgeons, in Wednesday’s news conference, described the details of the transplant but upon request, the team did not publish her name, age and cause of injury nor the donor’s identity. The patient’s family desired the reason for her transplant to remain confidential. The Los Angeles Times reported that the patient “had no upper jaw, nose, cheeks or lower eyelids and was unable to eat, talk, smile, smell or breathe on her own.” The clinic’s dermatology and plastic surgery chair, Francis Papay, described the nine hours phase of the procedure: “We transferred the skin, all the facial muscles in the upper face and mid-face, the upper lip, all of the nose, most of the sinuses around the nose, the upper jaw including the teeth, the facial nerve.” Thereafter, another team spent three hours sewing the woman’s blood vessels to that of the donor’s face to restore blood circulation, making the graft a success.

The New York Times reported that “three partial face transplants have been performed since 2005, two in France and one in China, all using facial tissue from a dead donor with permission from their families.” “Only the forehead, upper eyelids, lower lip, lower teeth and jaw are hers, the rest of her face comes from a cadaver; she could not eat on her own or breathe without a hole in her windpipe. About 77 square inches of tissue were transplanted from the donor,” it further described the details of the medical marvel. The patient, however, must take lifetime immunosuppressive drugs, also called antirejection drugs, which do not guarantee success. The transplant team said that in case of failure, it would replace the part with a skin graft taken from her own body.

Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a Brigham and Women’s Hospital surgeon praised the recent medical development. “There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.

Leading bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania withheld judgment on the Cleveland transplant amid grave concerns on the post-operation results. “The biggest ethical problem is dealing with failure — if your face rejects. It would be a living hell. If your face is falling off and you can’t eat and you can’t breathe and you’re suffering in a terrible manner that can’t be reversed, you need to put on the table assistance in dying. There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.

Dr Alex Clarke, of the Royal Free Hospital had praised the Clinic for its contribution to medicine. “It is a real step forward for people who have severe disfigurement and this operation has been done by a team who have really prepared and worked towards this for a number of years. These transplants have proven that the technical difficulties can be overcome and psychologically the patients are doing well. They have all have reacted positively and have begun to do things they were not able to before. All the things people thought were barriers to this kind of operations have been overcome,” she said.

The first partial face transplant surgery on a living human was performed on Isabelle Dinoire on November 27 2005, when she was 38, by Professor Bernard Devauchelle, assisted by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard in Amiens, France. Her Labrador dog mauled her in May 2005. A triangle of face tissue including the nose and mouth was taken from a brain-dead female donor and grafted onto the patient. Scientists elsewhere have performed scalp and ear transplants. However, the claim is the first for a mouth and nose transplant. Experts say the mouth and nose are the most difficult parts of the face to transplant.

In 2004, the same Cleveland Clinic, became the first institution to approve this surgery and test it on cadavers. In October 2006, surgeon Peter Butler at London‘s Royal Free Hospital in the UK was given permission by the NHS ethics board to carry out a full face transplant. His team will select four adult patients (children cannot be selected due to concerns over consent), with operations being carried out at six month intervals. In March 2008, the treatment of 30-year-old neurofibromatosis victim Pascal Coler of France ended after having received what his doctors call the worlds first successful full face transplant.

Ethical concerns, psychological impact, problems relating to immunosuppression and consequences of technical failure have prevented teams from performing face transplant operations in the past, even though it has been technically possible to carry out such procedures for years.

Mr Iain Hutchison, of Barts and the London Hospital, warned of several problems with face transplants, such as blood vessels in the donated tissue clotting and immunosuppressants failing or increasing the patient’s risk of cancer. He also pointed out ethical issues with the fact that the procedure requires a “beating heart donor”. The transplant is carried out while the donor is brain dead, but still alive by use of a ventilator.

According to Stephen Wigmore, chair of British Transplantation Society’s ethics committee, it is unknown to what extent facial expressions will function in the long term. He said that it is not certain whether a patient could be left worse off in the case of a face transplant failing.

Mr Michael Earley, a member of the Royal College of Surgeon‘s facial transplantation working party, commented that if successful, the transplant would be “a major breakthrough in facial reconstruction” and “a major step forward for the facially disfigured.”

In Wednesday’s conference, Siemionow said “we know that there are so many patients there in their homes where they are hiding from society because they are afraid to walk to the grocery stores, they are afraid to go the the street.” “Our patient was called names and was humiliated. We very much hope that for this very special group of patients there is a hope that someday they will be able to go comfortably from their houses and enjoy the things we take for granted,” she added.

In response to the medical breakthrough, a British medical group led by Royal Free Hospital’s lead surgeon Dr Peter Butler, said they will finish the world’s first full face transplant within a year. “We hope to make an announcement about a full-face operation in the next 12 months. This latest operation shows how facial transplantation can help a particular group of the most severely facially injured people. These are people who would otherwise live a terrible twilight life, shut away from public gaze,” he said.