Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/297736101?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Unlike Margaret Thatcher, miners believed in society ? War in Context
Ken Capstick writes: In 1984 Britain had 186 working coalmines and approximately 170,000 coalminers. Today we have four coalmines and around 2,000 miners. They lived in close-knit communities built around and based on employment at the local colliery. Miners were a hardy race of people who faced constant danger in the cause of mining coal but underneath that they were caring, sensitive individuals with a commitment to the communities in which they lived. They looked after their old and young as well as those who were ill or infirm.
They built and provided their own welfare facilities and, well before today?s welfare state was built, miners created their own welfare systems to alleviate hardship. They rallied around each other when times were hard. They recognised the need for cohesion when at any time disaster could strike a family unit or indeed a whole community. The latest pit to close, Maltby in Yorkshire, still has a death and general purpose fund to help fellow miners and their families in times of hardship. In short, miners believed in society.
These values were the exact opposite of those Margaret Thatcher espoused. For miners, greed was a destructive force, not a force for good. From the valleys of Wales to the far reaches of Scotland, miners were, by and large, socialists by nature but this was tempered by strong Christian beliefs. Thatcher?s threat to butcher the mining industry, destroy the fabric of mining communities and in particular the trade union to which miners had a bond of loyalty, was met with the fiercest resistance any government has met in peacetime.
It might just be a scene in a film, but Pete Postlethwaite?s speech at the end of Brassed Off perfectly captures the spirit of the miners and the grievous suffering that Thatcher inflicted on industrial workers across Britain.
The Guardian reports: ?I?ll tell you what really annoyed us miners,? said Pete Mansell, sipping a pint of John Smith?s on Monday. ?She said we were the enemy within. We weren?t. We were just looking after our lives, our families, our kids and our properties, everything that we ever had. We were fighting for that big style.?
Along with most of the other men drinking in the Black Bull pub in Aughton, Rotherham, the 55-year-old former pit worker had borne witness to the fiercest confrontation in the miners strike at the nearby Orgreave coking plant on 18 June 1984.
Almost 30 years have gone by since Margaret Thatcher characterised those who took part in the ?battle of Orgreave? as thugs. But in a village that one drinker said had been ?decimated by Thatcher?, the words still cut deep. It is perhaps no surprise that those gathered in the pub were having what they described as a party after hearing about her death.
?I?m not a hypocrite,? said Mansell, who is from the nearby pit village of Swallownest and worked underground for 22 years. ?I spoke ill of her when she was alive and I?ll speak ill of her now she?s dead. She doesn?t mean two iotas to me.?
Source: http://warincontext.org/2013/04/09/unlike-margaret-thatcher-miners-believed-in-society/
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Add Your Face to Climate Change
By Larry Fine AUGUSTA, Georgia, April 8 (Reuters) - Guan Tianlang answered questions about his readiness to play the Masters at the record-setting age of 14 when he gave two-times champion Ben Crenshaw a putting lesson at the 18th hole at Augusta National on Monday. The 61-year-old Crenshaw, whose career was built on his ability as a putter, mentored the precocious Chinese during their practice round, advising the Asia-Pacific Amateur champion about the notoriously fast, sloping greens of Augusta. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/add-face-climate-change-023500789.html
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Mudslide causes Amtrak derailment in Wash.
By Alexandria Fisher, NBCChicago.com
CHICAGO -- A derailment on an Amtrak train from Chicago caused by a mudslide forced passengers to take buses for the last leg of their trip Sunday morning.
No injuries were reported for the train's 86 passengers and 11 crew members on board, however, travelers were forced to finish the last 30 miles of their trip via buses, according to Amtrak officials.
A mudslide, repotedly involving 30 feet of earth, trees and rocks, derailed the last three cars on the Empire Builder near Everett, Wash., around 10:30 a.m. Sunday, officials said.
More from NBCChicago.com
The train, uncoupled from the three derailed cars, continued to Mukilteo, Wash., where passengers were transferred to Charter buses.
Crews were working to clear the debris and repair the track, which was expected to reopen Tuesday, and BNSF Railway was investigating the incident.
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China's Xi offers to reduce friction over hotspots
China's President Xi Jinping, right, listens during a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, unseen, in Boao town, Hainan province, China, Sunday, April 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Tyrone Siu, Pool)
China's President Xi Jinping, right, listens during a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, unseen, in Boao town, Hainan province, China, Sunday, April 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Tyrone Siu, Pool)
Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard during their meeting in Boao town, Hainan province, Sunday, April 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Tyrone Siu, Pool)
China's President Xi Jinping speaks at the opening ceremony of the annual Boao Forum in Boao, in southern China's Hainan province, Sunday, April 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan, Pool)
BOAO, China (AP) ? With pressure growing on Beijing to get North Korea to step back from its war-like footing, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that no one country should be allowed to upset world peace and added China would work to reduce tensions over regional hotspots.
In a speech to a regional business forum with political leaders from Australia to Zambia present, Xi did not offer any concrete plans for how to deal with China's neighbor, North Korea, which has elevated regional tensions through war-like rhetoric and missile deployments in recent weeks. Nor did Xi offer concessions to other neighbors locked in fraught disputes with Beijing over outlying islands: Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam.
It isn't clear whether Xi was taking a swipe at North Korea or at the United States, a frequent target of Chinese criticism, when he criticized unilateral acts that threaten stability.
"The international community should advocate the vision of comprehensive security and cooperative security, so as to turn the global village into a big stage for common development rather than an arena where gladiators fight each other. And no one should be allowed to throw the region, or even the whole world, into chaos for selfish gains," Xi said Sunday at the Boao Forum for Asia, a China-sponsored talk shop for the global elite.
Ambiguity aside, Xi's speech stands in contrast to more strident remarks he has made in recent months and marks an effort to strike an active, cooperative posture to calm regional tensions. This year's Boao meeting ? an annual event billed as Asia's version of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland ? is being watched for signs of whether Xi, installed in power five months ago, is ready to stake out new directions in a foreign policy that has been bullying toward some neighbors and passive on many international security issues.
The new Xi government is being especially challenged over North Korea. Pyongyang's ratcheting up of tensions in recent months ? from tests of a long-range missile and a nuclear device to threats of nuclear strikes ? have concerned South Korea and the United States, important economic partners for China which have looked to Beijing to rein in its longtime, if estranged communist ally.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia, whose economy has been booming due to Chinese demand, appealed to Beijing to use its leverage to get Pyongyang to climb down.
"All countries in the region share a deep interest in strategic stability. But the consequences of conflict are even more severe for us all. This is nowhere more clear than on the Korean Peninsula. There, any aggression is a threat to the interest of every country in the region. For this reason, I do welcome the growing cooperation of all regional governments to prevent conflict on the Korean Peninsula and to counter North Korean aggression," Gillard told the forum.
Outside of North Korea, expectations of any change in Chinese policy have been focused on Japan. Months of friction over East China Sea islands led to frosty political ties, tense cat-and-mouse games between their maritime forces and flagging trade between the world's second and third largest economies.
Xi didn't address any dispute by name but he promised a constructive approach to regional tensions.
"China will continue to properly handle differences and frictions with the relevant countries," Xi said in his speech. "On international and regional hotspot issues, China will continue to play a constructive role, adhere to peace and facilitating talks and make unremitting efforts to properly handle relevant issues through dialogue and negotiations."
Still, Xi did not present any compromise. He insisted that China would safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity, language that makes it harder for Beijing to back away from territorial claims.
Xi also reminded countries that China represents a good business opportunity for neighbors and the world, saying over the next five years China's imports will reach $10 trillion while its companies plan to invest $500 billion overseas. "The more China develops, the more opportunities for development it brings the world and Asia," Xi said.
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Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Plain Vanilla Scores $2.4M Series A To Turn Its Multiplayer Quiz Games Into Something More
A year ago, Icelandic game studio Plain Vanilla had hit a wall. The product they'd poured their hearts into for months had fallen from the charts almost immediately after launch, and they were just weeks from running out of cash. This morning, the company is announcing a 2.4 million dollar Series A, following up on a one million dollar seed round they closed just nine months ago. So what changed?Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/MsV15YJLEAc/
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ACMG releases statement on noninvasive prenatal screening
Apr. 8, 2013 ? The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) has just released an important new Policy Statement on "Noninvasive Prenatal Screening for Fetal Aneuploidy."?
As background, in recent decades there have been many changes and improvements in prenatal genetic screening and diagnosis. The risk, however, of testing with specimens obtained by invasive procedures such as amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling (CVS) has led to the search for new methods using mother's blood specimens obtained noninvasively. The most recent advances in genomics and genomic technologies have resulted in such noninvasive prenatal screenings (NIPS). The acronym NIPS is used to emphasize the screening nature (false positives and false negatives do occur) of tests currently on the market.
The new ACMG Statement on Noninvasive Prenatal Screening addresses:
- The current limitations of NIPS
- The advantages of NIPS compared with current screening approaches
- Pretest and posttest genetic counseling
- The reporting of results by laboratories performing NIPS
- Oversight of analytical and bioinformatic components by testing of the laboratories performing NIPS
The Statement says that while studies are promising and demonstrate high sensitivity with low false-positive rates, there are limitations to NIPS, "NIPS for fetal aneuploidy has arrived; however, as with most new technologies, there is room for refinement." The report strongly states that positive results should be followed-up with an invasive diagnostic test before any decision is made regarding pregnancy termination.
Lead author of the ACMG Statement Anthony R. Gregg, MD, FACOG, FACMG and high- risk pregnancy physician said, "Obstetric care providers must become familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of the use of this approach. Clinicians should provide patients with both pretest and posttest counseling with the goal of avoiding patient harm or confusion -- I can't stress this enough."
Gregg added, "Most of the companies that are developing these tests have referred to it as NIPDiagnosis or NIPTest. In our view, it is NOT a diagnostic test such as chorionic villus sampling [CVS] or amniocentesis; hence, we coined the term Noninvasive Prenatal SCREENING (NIPS)."
NIPS was initially validated for Down syndrome screening and has been applied to other trisomies including 13 and 18 with sex chromosomes being added now.
ACMG Medical Director Barry Thompson, MD, FACMG, another author of the Statement added, "NIPS is now one of many approaches available to women who desire Down syndrome screening. Unlike other methods, it is minimally invasive in that it only requires a blood sample from the pregnant mother rather than the more invasive amniocentesis or CVS that have associated risks of miscarriage."
"NIPS is a very accurate screening test, " said Michael S. Watson, PhD, Executive Director of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics. However, it is well known that the cells originate from 'extraembryonic tissues' around the fetus so aneuploidy status may not always be identical to the genetics of the fetus. The advantages include that the detection rate is higher, the negative predictive value is greater, and the false positive rate is lower, than any other current screening approaches for Down syndrome. It must be followed up, however, by a diagnostic test since NIPS is a screening test."
"Finally, NIPS does not replace a first trimester ultrasound (12-14 weeks); rather, it complements it," Watson added.
The Statement can be found in the Publications section of the ACMG website at http://www.acmg.net and will soon be published in the peer-reviewed medical journal, Genetics in Medicine.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/OL916zUx7fk/130408133754.htm
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