The Speaker News Journal

McDonald’s Wins in Russia

October 14, 2014October 10, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

McDonald’s has won a ruling in Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court after Russia’s Federal Agency for Consumer Rights Protection (Rosportrebnadzor) shut down a dozen McDonald’s in Russia, claiming that the fast food restaurant sold products that violated national dietary standards.

“The lawsuit was filed due to the chain’s violation of the legal requirements. An examination of samples revealed that the information on energy values and the composition of the products provided to consumers was not correct. This is consumer fraud,” stated the plaintiff in court.

Rospotrebnadzir had requested a court order to “stop [McDonald’s] unlawful activity” and remove violating products from menus.

“The results of a second inspection showed that the products fully complied with the regulations. We do not understand what violation is being committed. The information that is not included in the energy value tables on the customer’s trays are posted in the customer’s dining area. You can see everything,” the defendants responded.

At least a dozen McDonald’s were shut down in Russia afer Rospotrebnadzor began filing suits against the restaurant chain in May. Rospotrebnadzor conducted examinations of over 100 of Russia’s 430 McDonald’s restaurants in August, and claimed that the restaurants violated the listing standards for protein, fat, carbohydrate and energy values.

The bans instituted included cheeseburgers, royal cheeseburger, filet-o-fish, chicken burger and berry ice cream and milkshakes.

McDonald’s is thriving in Russia. Although the company reported poor Q4 sales globally, and 1.4% decline in the US, sales in Russia have been up, thanks to promotions like the current “American Classics” cheeseburgers, according to industry experts.

By James Haleavy

First Sitting President Arrives for Hearing at International Criminal Court, Allies Warn Trial Risks Destabilizing Already Threatened Nation

October 14, 2014October 8, 2014 by Sid Douglas

Share this

Uhuru Kenyatta, the president of Kenya, arrived at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague Wednesday for a hearing over his indictment on charges of crimes against humanity. Kenyatta is the first sitting leader to appear at the ICC, and his trial court proceedings are taking place as Kenya is under threat from active militant groups in the region.

Kenyatta is accused of orchestrating a wave of violence in Kenya in 2007. The violence followed a set of contested elections. Kenyatta has denied the charges.

Kenyatta and his allies have warned that the trial poses a risk of destabilization for Kenya, where an active threat exists. Al-Qaeda-linked militant Islamists in Somalia are conducting ongoing attacks in the region.

“This is no time to weaken a country and a region by removing its President for trial,” said Mahboub Maalim, head of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) regional organization, who attended the hearing.

The ICC has secured only two convictions in its 11 years of service. Both convictions were of Congolese warlords for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

All of the ICC’s cases to date have been in Africa. Many Africans leaders continue to ignore the court, and the African Union has decided not to cooperate with the ICC.

The ICC has 34 judges, over 700 staff, and a budget of $166 million annually. To date, the court has cost $2 billion.

By Sid Douglas

Spread of Ebola Across Europe “Inevitable” – WHO Chief

October 7, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

[BRIEF] According to the World Health Organization, the spread of Ebola across Europe is “quite unavoidable.”

WHO European Director Zsuzsanna Jakab commented Tuesday on the recent first case of Ebola contracted in Europe and said, “Such imported cases and similar events as have happened in Spain will happen also in the future, most likely.”

“It is quite unavoidable … that such incidents will happen in the future because of the extensive travel both from Europe to the affected countries and the other way around.”

Read more: First Ebola Case in Europe

Jakab warned that more cases will spread across Europe and that the continent should be well prepared to control the disease.

At the top of the list of those at risk for infection are health workers, according to Jakab, who added, “The most important thing in our view is that Europe is still at low risk and that the western part of the European region particularly is the best prepared in the world to respond to viral haemorrhagic fevers including Ebola.”

After Death Consciousness Suggested by Largest Near-Death Experience Study

October 14, 2014October 7, 2014 by Cheryl Bretton

Share this

According to the largest study ever conducted treating near-death experiences, evidence suggests that there is consciousness after clinical death.

A University of Southampton team spent four years examining 2,060 cardiac arrest patients at 15 different hospitals on three continents.

The report, “AWAREness during CPR: Be careful with what you say!” was authored by Drs Edgardo Olvera-Lopez and Joseph Varon, and was published in Resuscitation magazine.

Overall, the team found that 40 percent of people who survived cardiac arrest–140 of 330 people–described some kind of awareness during the time they were clinically dead.

The kinds of experiences reported by the survivors included an unusual sense of peacefulness and alterations in time perception. Some said time slowed down while other said it speeded up.

Some survivors reported seeing a bright light. Some described it as a golden flash or like the Sun shining.

Others, however, reported feelings of fear, of drowning or being pulled down through deep water.

Of the survivors, 13 percent reported experiences commonly referred to as out-of-body. Another 13 percent reported that their senses had been heightened.

“We know the brain can’t function when the heart has stopped beating,” said Dr Sam Parnia, a former research fellow at Southampton University, now at the State University of New York. However, Parnia went on to describe specific instances of patients who reported things that suggested that after death consciousness was possible, including accounts of out-of-body like experiences.

Dr Jerry Nolan, Editor-in-Chief at Resuscitation said: “Dr Parnia and his colleagues are to be congratulated on the completion of a fascinating study that will open the door to more extensive research into what happens when we die.”

By Cheryl Bretton

World’s First Big Carbon Capture Coal Plant Will Sequester 90% Of Its Emissions

October 7, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

In the Canadian province of Saskatchewan the world’s first big carbon capture coal power plant has begun. The project will sequester almost all of its emissions–about a million tons of carbon per year.

Canadian utility SaskPower is undertaking the project at the 110 megawatt Boundary Dam power station near Estevan, Saskatchewan, where it will retrofit one of its units.

The unit will be transformed into a long-term producer of 110 megawatts of base-load electricity, meanwhile reducing greenhouse gas emissions by one million tons of carbon dioxide per year–the equivalent of taking over 250,000 cars off of the province’s roads every year.

The captured CO2 will be piped to oilfields in southern Saskatchewan where it will be used for enhanced oil recovery. Unused CO2 will be stored in SaskPower’s Aquistore project.

In addition to CO2, the project will also capture Sulphur Dioxide and Fly ash. These products will be sold for industrial use.

The experiment will cost $1.35 billion, but if it works, SaskPower will retrofit two other units at a cost 20-30 percent less. The utility has already gained insights into improvements on design and engineering from the current undertaking.

According to the company, “The Boundary Dam Integrated Carbon Capture and Storage Project is SaskPower’s flagship CCS initiative. Through the development of the world’s first and largest commercial-scale CCS project of its kind, SaskPower is making a viable technical, environmental and economic case for the continued use of coal.”

By Day Blakely Donaldson

North Korea Admits Labor Camps

November 11, 2014October 7, 2014 by Sid Douglas

Share this

For the first time, North Korean authorities have publicly acknowledged the existence of labor camps within North Korea. The admission came Tuesday, seemingly in response to critical UN reports published earlier this year.

North Korean foreign ministry official Choe Myong Nam, who is in charge of UN affairs and human rights issues, qualified that North Korea had “no prison camps” or “things like that,” but he briefly commented on “reform through labor” camps.

“Both in law and practice, we do have reform through labor detention camps–no, detention centers–where people are improved through their mentality and look on their wrongdoings,” said Choe.

North Korea is currently meeting with the EU in top-level meetings about rights issues, and North Korean officials have spoken of a willingness to engage the European Union in dialogue including on matters of human rights.

“We are expecting end of this year to open political dialogue between the two sides,” said North Korea’s deputy UN ambassador Ri Tong Il. Human rights discussion is expected to follow the opening of political dialogue.

North Korea has announced certain provisions, however. Among the stipulation is that the human rights dialogue will not be used as a “tool for interference” in North Korea.

The UN responded favorably to the North Korean expression of interest.

“While the North Korean human rights record remains abysmal,” said the executive director of the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Greg Scarlatoiu, “it is very important that senior North Korean officials are now speaking about human rights, and expressing even pro forma interest in dialogue.”

By Sid Douglas

Recession Means Many Women Will Never Have a Child – Study

October 7, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

Most studies have concluded that unemployment in the short run leads to a drop in fertility, but whether the negative effects persist–whether women simply postpone childbearing or if the effect is more long-term–has remained unknown. According to a recent study by Princeton University, living through a recession means that some women will never have a child, and a major recession such as that experienced in the US in 2008-2009 may cause losses of hundreds of thousands of births.

“Fertility falls when unemployment rises, but there may be no long-run effect if women simply postpone childbearing,” considered the authors of the study, but after completing their research the team concluded that unemployment not only causes drops in fertility in the short-term, but over time the negative effects actually increase. This increase was found to be characterized largely by women who did not have any children as a result of living through a recession in their early 20s.

Photo credit: Eileen Barroso — Dr Janet Currie

“The effects are actually bigger in the long run than in the short run,” Dr. Janet Currie, Henry Putnam, Professor of Economics and Public Affairs Director of the Center for Health and Well-Being at Princeton, told The Speaker.

“Macroeconomic events really matter for individual people’s lives, and can have a profound effect on them,” said Currie.

She commented on those women who were most vulnerable to fluctuations in employment rates. “What matters is unemployment in the early 20s. So a deeper recession at that time of a woman’s life would lead to fewer births long-term.”

The report, “Short- and long-term effects of unemployment on fertility,” was authored by Curie and Dr Hannes Schwandt at Princeton University, and was published in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The team analyzed the effect of unemployment by following fixed groups of US-born women. The team looked at year of birth and state in which the women lived, and drew on 140 million US birth records for the period 1975-2010.

They found that only a one percent decrease in the employment rate during a woman’s life from between the ages of 20-24 caused a drop in short-term fertility by six conceptions per 1,000 women.

When those women were assessed at their 40th year, that same one percent drop during their early 20s was associated with an overall drop in conceptions of 14.2 per 1,000 women.

Taking this finding to the national level, the effects of a major recession can account for hundreds of thousands of lost births.

“On a national scale effects of the magnitude we find suggest a loss of about 400,000 births stemming from the ‘Great Recession’ that started in 2008,” Currie told us.

“This larger long-term effect is driven largely by women who remain childless.”

By Day Blakely Donaldson

First European Nation Joins Majority of World in Recognizing Palestinian State

October 14, 2014October 7, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

With Sweden’s recent announcement that the Nordic nation will recognize the state of Palestine, the first European nation has joined the majority of the world in supporting the two-state solution.

“The conflict between Israel can only be solved with a two-state solution, negotiated in accordance with international law,” said Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven during his inaugural address to Parliament.

“A two-state solution requires mutual recognition and a will to peaceful co-existence. Sweden will therefore recognize the state of Palestine.”

The move was welcomed by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, who called the Swedish recognition “courageous.”

“We salute the announcement by the Swedish prime minister,” stated Saeb Erekat, the “chief negotiator” for the PA.

Over 130 countries officially recognize Palestine. The majority of the world by number of people and by land area recognizes Palestine.

Among the most prominent opponenets of recognition are the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and Europe.

The number is up from around 90 countries that recognized Palestine in 1988, before the Palestinian National Countcil unilaterally declared independence based on a two-state solution.

Although no other European nations recognize Palestine, some of the European Union’s 28 member nations do: Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia all recognize the state of Palestine.

The UK is set to consider recognition this year. The UK will vote on Palestine after the parliament’s summer recess ends Oct. 13.

By James Haleavy

Suicide and Depression Linked to Pesticides

October 14, 2014October 6, 2014 by Sid Douglas

Share this

According to a recent study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, pesticide use is positively linked to suicide and depression. The study analyzed data from various pesticide classes and found evidence supported a positive association between pesticide exposure and depression. Several specific pesticides were also positively identified as associated.

“Few previous studies have considered the episodic nature of depression or examined individual pesticides,” wrote the researchers of their findings, “We evaluated associations between pesticide exposure and depression among male private pesticide applicators in the Agricultural Health Study.”

The team based their findings on reports competed by those exposed to pesticides over the past 20 years.

“We analyzed data for 10 pesticide classes and 50 specific pesticides used by 21,208 applicators enrolled in 1993–1997 who completed a follow-up telephone interview in 2005–2010,” wrote the team in a summary of their work.

The team calculated the amount of applicators who reported a physician diagnosis of depression and those who had previous diagnoses of depression.

The team concluded that their study “supports a positive association between pesticide exposure and depression, including associations with several specific pesticides.”

Several specific pesticides were directly linked to depression.

“[T]he fumigants aluminum phosphide and ethylene dibromide; the phenoxy herbicide (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxy) acetic acid (2,4,5-T); the organochlorine insecticide dieldrin; and the organophosphate insecticides diazinon, malathion, and parathion—were all positively associated with depression in each case group.”

The study, “Pesticide Exposure and Depression among Male Private Pesticide Applicators in the Agricultural Health Study,” was authored by John D. Beard, David M. Umbach, Jane A. Hoppin, Marie Richards, Michael C.R. Alavanja, Aaron Blair, Dale P. Sandler, and Freya Kamel, and was published in Environmental Health Perspectives.

By Sid Douglas

First Ebola Case in Europe

October 14, 2014October 6, 2014 by Cheryl Bretton

Share this

A nurse who had served on the team that treated a Spanish priest who contracted the disease in West Africa has become the first Ebola case in Europe. She is also the first person to have contracted the disease outside Africa, despite the highest level of precautions having been taken.

The nurse tested positive for Ebola in two tests.

The woman was part of the team that had treated priest Manuel Garcia Viejo, a Spaniard who died Sept. 25 in a Spanish hospital after contracting the disease in Liberia.

The nurse began to feel ill last week while on holiday, and was admitted to a hospital near Madrid on Monday morning with high fever, according to Health Minister Ana Mato.

No information has been reported regarding those who would have been exposed to the woman during her illness.

The nurse is being held in quarantine in Spain, and is reported to be in stable condition.

The disease, which is spreading rapidly–with cases doubling every three weeks in West Africa–has killed 3,400 of at least 7,500 confirmed cases of infection–although the actual number is suspected to be much higher. Currently, over one hundred people are dying within 24 hour periods.

Ebola spreads through contact with any bodily fluids of an infected person. The only means of stopping the spread of the disease is isolation, according to authorities.

Despite numerous calls by politicians and experts for travel restrictions, the US and other nations have rejected any travel restrictions to the affected areas.

By Cheryl Bretton

Chris Dorner Autopsy Offered as Proof Dorner Shot Himself

October 6, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

[BRIEF] According to an autopsy report released Friday, Christopher Dorner, the fugitive ex-police officer who killed several people in February, 2013, was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head. The autopsy report is being offered as official confirmation that Dorner killed himself as he was under siege by a massive police force that had surrounded the Big Bear cabin in which Dorner was hiding out, and which was on fire at the time of Dorner’s death.

Dorner began a series of killings Feb. 6, motivated by vengeance against the LA Police Department for what Dorner perceived to be unjust treatment within the force.

Dorner had been fired by the LAPD under circumstances that included Dorner’s bringing of complaints against fellow officers for undue use of force against civilians during arrests.

Dorner detailed his motives in a lengthy manifesto.

By Day Blakely Donaldson

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCdqybEfy9w”][su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ctbc9kw1oHA”][/su_youtube]

Short Weight Lifting Sessions Boost Memory [video]

October 14, 2014October 6, 2014 by Cheryl Bretton

Short Weight Lifting Sessions Boost Memory, Research Finds

Share this

According to a new study led by the Georgia Institute of Technology, just one short burst of weight-lifting can enhance long-term memory for young adults by around 10 percent.

“Our study indicates that people don’t have to dedicate large amounts of time to give their brain a boost,” said Lisa Weinberg, a graduate student and the Georgie Institute of Technology and leader of the research.

The report, “A single bout of resistance exercise can enhance episodic memory performance,” was published in the journal Acta Psychologica.

Previous research had already established that exercise could improve memory, but much subsequent research had focused on regular sessions of aerobic exercise, such as running.

Th Georgia Institute research looked instead at the effect of just one weight-lifting session conducted two days before a memory test.

The test subjects were asked to monitor a series of 90 random photographs–but not memorize them–and afterwards work out on a leg resistance machine.

Half of the subjects did leg exercises–50 leg presses at their maximum ability–and half of the subjects did no exercise.

Two days later, when participants were again shown the series of images along with 90 new images, the leg press group was able to remember the first set of photos at a 60 percent rate, while the group that did no exercise recalled the first images at a 50 percent rate.

The research based its approach on recent studies on animals that had suggested physical stress after learning can strengthen memory formation.

“Even without doing expensive fMRI scans, our results give us an idea of what areas of the brain might be supporting these exercise-induced memory benefits,” said Audrey Duarte, a researcher involved in the study. “The findings are encouraging because they are consistent with rodent literature that pinpoints exactly the parts of the brain that play a role in stress-induced memory benefits caused by exercise.”

By Cheryl Bretton

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikartHi08XU”][su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ctbc9kw1oHA”][/su_youtube]