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Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Chemotherapy is usually associated with a collection of side effects ranging from digestive problems to hair loss, but a study published this week in Human Reproduction demonstrated that female cancer patients may find they have something in common with much younger women in one specific area — their ovaries.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh examined donated ovarian tissue from fourteen female cancer patients, most of whom had Hodgkin lymphoma, and compared it to tissue from healthy women. They found the samples from women who had been treated with a specific chemotherapeutic regimen known as ABVD not only contained greater numbers of dormant ova — egg cells — than those from women treated with harsher regimens but also more than samples from healthy women. ABVD is named for combining several drugs known as adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine.

These reproductive cells were not merely more plentiful in ABVD patients. They also appeared immature, “new” in the words of lead researcher Evelyn Telfer. This challenges the conventional belief that girls are born with all the ova they will ever have and the numbers can only go down as the cells are either used up by the reproductive cycle or succumb to damage or natural aging. However, further research is needed to confirm this. The study covered relatively few patients by scientific standards, and David Albertini of the Center for Human Reproduction in New York has suggested the cells may not actually be freshly grown. Instead, they may have always been there and were merely rendered more detectable by ABVD treatment.

The ability to grow new egg cells may have significant implications for women in Western societies, many of whom postpone childbearing to establish careers, sometimes into their late thirties or forties. However, Telfer warns against making use of these findings too soon: “There’s so much we don’t know about the ovary. We have to be very cautious about jumping to clinical applications.”

The experiments had been discussed earlier this year at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

University of Ghana law professor John Atta Mills, age 64, was confirmed on Saturday as the winner of the runoff presidential election, the fifth in Ghana since the return to multi-party democracy in 1992.

According to Electoral Commission Chair, Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Atta Mills obtained 50.23 percent of ballots cast on December 28, or 4,521,032 votes, while Nana Akufo-Addo got 49.77 percent or 4,480,446 votes. Despite the ruling party’s call to boycott, the Tain local election officer also announced that Atta-Mills obtained 19,566 votes in Friday’s special election there, while Nana Akufo-Addo had only 2,053 ballots.

In the parliamentary elections, Atta Mills’s NDC won 114 seats to the NPP’s 107. Minor parties and independent candidates won seven seats while two are still being contested.

President John Kufuor appealed for sobriety and urged the candidates to accept the official result.

A presidential election was held in Ghana on 7 December 2008, at the same time as a parliamentary election. Eight candidates contested the first round of voting.

Ghana’s electoral commission announced on December 10 that a run-off election must be held on 28 December, 2008 for the Ghanaian presidency. The commission said that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo won 49.13% of the vote, slightly more than the other main candidate, John Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), who obtained 47.92%. However, neither candidate reached the 50% mark needed to declare an outright winner to succeed President John Kufuor, who will step down after two terms.

Turnout on election day was very high. Out of some 8.6 million votes cast, more than 200,000, or 2.4% of the full total, were rejected. Overall voter turnout in the election was 69.52%.

The second round was to be rerun on 2 January 2009 in the Tain District due to ballot papers irregularities. As the number of voters in Tain, which has a constituency of about 53,000 eligible voters, exceeded Atta Mills’ margin of victory without the results, the Election Commission stated it would not announce Atta Mills as the winner until after the election rerun in Tain.

The NPP sought to delay voting in Tain as it claimed that “the atmosphere in the rural district was not conducive to a free and fair election”, but the court said it would only hear the case on January 5, denying the NPP an injunction. The NPP then proceeded to call for a voting boycott, for which it was criticized by civil groups.

On December 21, 2006, former Vice-President John Atta-Mills, who unsuccessfully ran as the National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate in 2000 and 2004, was overwhelmingly elected by NDC as its candidate for the 2008 presidential election.

Former Foreign Minister Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was elected as the 2008 presidential candidate of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) at a party congress on December 23, 2007. Although he fell short of the required 50%, the second-place candidate, John Alan Kyeremanten, conceded defeat and backed Akufo-Addo.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Protests which began Monday escalated to a riot on Wednesday consisting of over 10,000 people in Chi?in?u, the capital of Moldova, protesting the results of Sunday’s 2009 Moldovan parliamentary election, which showed an apparent, narrow victory for the Communist Party (Partidul Comuni?tilor din Republica Moldova, PCRM). Demonstrators claim the victory was the result of electoral fraud.

The demonstration escalated to a “flash mob” of between 10,000 to 15,000 communicating via online tools like email, micro-blogging tool Twitter, and social-networking website Facebook. “We sent messages on Twitter but didn’t expect 15,000 people to join in. At the most we expected 1,000”, said Oleg Brega of the activist group Hyde Park.

Police deployed tear gas and water cannons, and fired blanks into the crowd. The rioters threw stones at the riot police and took control of the parliament building and presidential office. A bonfire was built out of parliamentary furniture and all windows below the 7th floor were broken.

Approximately one hundred protesters and 170 police officers are reported as injured. There have been conflicting reports as to whether a female protester died during the altercation.

193 protesters “have been charged with looting, hooliganism, robbery and assault,” said an Interior Ministry spokesperson. This announcement sparked another protest by those demanding the release for those detained.

There is wide speculation about who was to blame for the rioting.

President Vladimir Voronin has expelled the Romanian ambassador from Moldova, blaming Romania for the violent protests. “We know that certain political forces in Romania are behind this unrest. The Romanian flags fixed on the government buildings in Chisinau attest to this” said Voronin. “Romania is involved in everything that has happened.“ Voronin also blamed the protests on opposition leaders who used violence to seize power, and has described the event as a coup d’état.

Protesters initially insisted on a recount of the election results and are now calling for a new vote, which has been rejected by the government. Rioters were also demanding unification between Moldova and Romania. “In the air, there was a strong expectation of change, but that did not happen”, said OSCE spokesman Matti Sidoroff.File:Dorin Chirtoaca.jpg

“The elections were fraudulent, there was multiple voting” accused Chi?in?u mayor Dorin Chirtoac? of the Liberal Party. “It’s impossible that every second person in Moldova voted for the Communists. However, we believe the riots were a provocation and we are now trying to reconcile the crowd. Leaders of all opposition parties are at the scene,” said Larissa Manole of the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) proclaimed the PCRM to have won 61 seats in initial counts, enough to guarantee a third term in power for Voronin, who has held the position since 2001. But the Central Election Commission has received evidence of election violations, according to RIA Novosti, and upon recounts conducted of disputed polls, the commission reported that the Communists achieved 49.48% of the Moldovian vote, giving them 60 parliamentary seats — one short of the total needed to win the presidential election. “The electoral commission also granted opposition parties permission to check voter lists, fulfilling one of their chief demands,” said Yuri Ciocan, Central Election Commission secretary.

Voronin will step down in May, however his party could elect a successor with 61 parliamentary seats without any votes from outside parties as well as amend the Constitution. With the PCRM garnering 60 seats, the opposition will have a voice in the presidential election for a new successor.

The western part of Moldova was a part of Romania from the Romania’s independence until the region was detached by the USSR in 1940 to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. On independence in 1990 the country sought union with Romania but the eastern, Russian- and Ukrainian-inhabited areas of the country declared themselves independent from Moldova and formed the state of Transnistria and movement toward union was halted.

Moldova is Europe’s poorest country, where average income is less than $250 (£168) a month. The country’s neighbours are Romania and Ukraine. Romania is a European Union (EU) state.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The wife and sons of Bernard Madoff are now under pressure from prosecutors to give up US$2.6 million worth of jewelery and $31.5 million in loans. Madoff made the news recently when he pleaded guilty to running a Ponzi scheme worth billions of dollars.

Prosecutors, who stated their intent on Sunday to seize bonds and cash from Madoff, filed another notice on Tuesday listing assets that they intend to seize, among them “various pieces of jewelry owned or held in the name of Ruth Madoff valued at approximately $2,624,340,” and “approximately 35 sets of watches and cufflinks owned by Bernard Madoff,” as well as $31.5 million in loans made to Madoff’s sons.

Bernard Madoff, aged 70, pleaded guilty last Thursday to cheating investors out of as much as $65 billion in the largest ever Ponzi scheme. He was jailed immediately after his plea, and faces a prison sentence of up to 150 years. Neither his wife nor his sons have been accused of any wrongdoing.

Sunday, July 4, 2021

On Thursday, 130 countries and jurisdictions in the 139-member Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) agreed to support an overhaul to the international taxation system that would introduce a global minimum corporate tax rate, committing most of the world’s economies to a two-pillar “solution”.

The states which agreed to the plan’s key components included regional divisions such as Gibraltar, Hong Kong and Montserrat, tax havens according to the Associated Press (AP) Bermuda and the Cayman Islands and all Group of Twenty (G20) countries, according to an OECD list, but not Barbados, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Kenya, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Peru also abstained, but due to its lack of government, reported The Guardian.

Those that have signed represent over 90% of global gross domestic product (GDP). A press release by the OECD called the framework the result of “negotiations coordinated by the OECD for much of the last decade” and criticises the “century-old international tax system” for being “no longer fit for purpose”. The plan was backed by United States president Joe Biden according to multiple sources, and comes after a similar Group of Seven deal on international taxation agreed on June 5.

The plan, officially the “OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting”, adopted a pillared approach. An implementation plan is to be finalised by October.

If implemented, the first would force multinational enterprises (MNEs) with global turnover exceeding €20 billion and profitability above 10% to reallocate tax on over USD100 billion in profit from their home markets to each market jurisdiction it derived at least one million or 250 thousand euros from, depending on its GDP. An OECD statement confirmed the threshold for affected MNEs under pillar one may change to those exceeding ten billion euros in turnover, dependent on the results of a review to be conducted in seven years’ time.

The second pillar consists of two “Global anti-Base Erosion Rules” allocating top-up tax of a minimum of 15%, and one treaty-based “Subject to Tax Rule” to be made effective in 2023.

The effects of both pillars, though dependent on the plan’s final framework, was estimated by the OECD to increase global corporate income tax (CIT) reserves by between 1.9 and 3.2%, or 50 and 80 billion USD. If including the existing US tax on global intangible low-taxed income, the growth of CIT reserves would be between 2.3 and 4%, or 56 and 102 billion USD. This would also protect against tax avoidance practices the OECD says costs countries between 100 and 240 billion USD in lost revenue per year, according to the AP.

The OECD also projects a “relatively small” negative effect on investment and activity equivalent to 0.1% of GDP in the medium- to long-term. Other concerns cited include the potential governments may lose the ability to use tax incentives for policy objectives, as well as the cost of ensuring compliance.

Countries opposed include Hungary and Ireland who have, according to Politico, sought lower rates to attract foreign direct investment, and have, in addition to Estonia according to the BBC, at least some corporate rates below the proposed floor of 15%. The Irish and Hungarian headline corporate rates stand at 12.5 and 9%, respectively, according to The Guardian, with Ireland standing to lose over two billion euros in the next four years according to Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). A PricewaterhouseCoopers tax summary mentions a tax exemption on undistributed corporate funds in Estonia, in addition to instances where a 14% rate is applicable.

OECD secretary general Mathias Cormann said in the press release “this historic package will ensure that large multinational companies pay their fair share of tax everywhere”, adding while it “does not eliminate tax competition […] it does set multilaterally agreed limitations”.

Biden said the deal means the world is in “striking distance of full global agreement to halt the race to the bottom”, which US treasury secretary Janet Yellen described as a race “no nation” has won, according to The Guardian. Finance minister for France Bruno Le Maire called it the “most important international tax agreement in a century”, according to the BBC.

According to RTÉ, finance minister for Ireland Paschal Donohoe said while he “expressed Ireland’s reservation”, he remains “committed to the process” and assures the global community “Ireland will continue to play our part in reaching a comprehensive and, indeed, historic agreement”. According to Reuters, on June 9, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán called the proposal “absurd”, and insisted the country’s low rates “is not meant to attract certain companies to declare their taxes here”, nor makes it “a tax haven”.

Venice, Italy is to host G20 finance ministers and central bank governors at a “G20 High-Level Tax Symposium” on July 9, according to the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

War protestor Cindy Sheehan, the mother of fallen soldier Casey Sheehan who was killed in Iraq 3 years ago, wrote on what has been published by the Daily Kos as a personal web journal on Monday morning, a day in observance of Memorial Day in the United States, that “This is my resignation letter as the ‘face’ of the American anti-war movement.”

Her son Casey would have been 28 years old Tuesday. In what she writes are meditations upon developments in Sheehan’s life after she began a war protest that led her and a following of people to Camp Casey, beside the Texas ranch of President Bush in August 2005, included the notion that, “The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think.”

In the text of Sheehan’s diary she is unable to reconcile herself with the Democratic Party that on Thursday, May 24, succumbed to the Bush administration on language for a troop funding bill that at one time tied funding to a time limit for U.S. involvement in Iraq. The presidential veto of that legislation to set a deadline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq resulted in the U.S. Congress caving to executive branch over the issue of war funding, and may have been the final straw for Sheehan.

“I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike,” wrote Sheehan.

Sheehan said that she has spent every bit of money that she has received as compensation for the loss of her son from the U.S. government, and as a person who garnished speaking fees from the national attention on her campaign against the Iraq war, on trying to bring peace.

“I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost,” wrote Sheehan.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

One year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster which caused the largest oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and caused huge environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico, experts have warned there are serious questions over the safety of deep water drilling as the United States government approves more exploration without improving safety measures.

Scientists have raised major concerns over repeated assurances from the industry and the government, who insist lessons have been learned from the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Charles Perrow, a professor at Yale University, said the oil industry “is ill prepared at the least” to deal with another oil spill. “I have seen no evidence that they have marshaled containment efforts that are sufficient to deal with another major spill,” he said.

While the government has implemented new regulations, technical systems for stopping oil flowing from a leaking well, and increased oversight from oil officials, Perrow said deep water drilling had become no less dangerous. “I don’t think they have found ways to change the corporate culture sufficiently to prevent future accidents,” he said. “There are so many opportunities for things to go wrong that major spills are unavoidable.”

Last year, Doug Inkley, a scientist at the National Wildlife Federation, said the culture of an “addiction to oil” was ultimately responsible for the catastrophe. “How long must we wait for lawmakers to act to prevent future disasters? How many more lives, livelihoods and animals must be claimed by our addiction to oil?” Greenpeace also slammed BP, who ran Deepwater Horizon, for how they allowed the disaster to happen. “The age of oil is coming to an end and companies like BP will be left behind unless they begin to adapt now,” the organization said.

However, under pressure from industry executives the administration of president Barack Obama has resumed issuing drilling permits. It is understood regulators are still allowing oil companies to obtain drilling permits before reviewing new spill response plans. “I’m not an oddsmaker, but I would say in the next five years we should have at least one major blowout,” Perrow said. “Even if everybody tries very hard, there is going to be an accident caused by cost-cutting and pressure on workers. These are moneymaking machines and they make money by pushing things to the limit.”

BP has insisted it has changed safety procedures. The oil giant came under heavy criticism for how it handled the crisis, and other major oil companies insisted Deepwater Horizon was a result of a culture exclusive to BP. Michael Bromwich, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), the U.S. government agency responsible for regulating offshore drilling, said the view was “as disappointing as it is shortsighted,” and the issue of deep water safety was “a broad problem.”

The warnings came as it emerged BP had attempted to take control of an independent study into the environmental consequences of the Deepwater Horizon spill. Internal emails expose how BP executives attempted to influence the study, which was funded by a US$500m grant from the oil company. The study may be part of the final verdict as to what penalties, fines and criminal charges are brought against the company. Greenpeace, who uncovered the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request, attacked the reportedly unsuccessful attempts to influence the supposedly independent study as “outrageous”.

Protesters rallied outside BP’s annual conference in London this week, where shareholders met for the first time since the disaster off the Gulf coast. Executives faced questions over their competence and large salaries from angry shareholders, many of whom disapproved of the appointment of Carl-Henric Svanberg as chairman and Sir Bill Castell as the head of BP’s safety board.

Some demonstrators purchased shares in BP in an attempt to get inside the meeting; one woman, a fisherwoman who lives on the Gulf Coast was arrested after pouring a black substance down herself at the entrance to the conference centre and refusing to move. “I have travelled all the way over from the Gulf Coast and I just wanted to talk those responsible for destroying my community,” she said as she was led away by police. “My community is dead. We’ve worked five generations there and now we’ve got a dead community. I’m angry, I’ve been angry a long time.”