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by Andy Sambidge, Arabian Business, 31 August 2008
A group of UAE companies on Sunday announced a partnership with a US organisation in an initiative to build desperately needed homes for those living in poverty.
Property developer ETA Star, Dubai Lifestyle City, Homes r Us and Star Cement have teamed up with the Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI).
ETA Star and its partners will donate a percentage of their total sales during the holy month of Ramadan towards building homes for the destitute in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Ethiopia.
The initiative follows ETA Star’s Homes for the Homeless programme last year when a contribution of two million dirhams was made to the Red Crescent Authority.
Rapid population growth and urbanization has added to the urgency of the housing need. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on August 31, 2008 - ל' אב תשס"ח at 9:50 am
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By Health News Digest, Aug 28, 2008
(HealthNewsDigest.com) – WHITE PLAINS, NY, Aug. 28, 2008 — As the 2008 hurricane season becomes active, the March of Dimes has emergency preparedness tips and suggestions for pregnant women and parents of newborns.
The needs of pregnant women and families with newborns during a disaster are unique. While they still need to follow any evacuation and preparation instructions given by their state, there are also special things to consider.
Before an emergency hits, pregnant women and families with newborns should let their health care provider’s office know where they will be.
Make a list of all prescription medications and prenatal vitamins that are needed.
Get copies of medical records from their health care provider.
Give their case manager a phone number to use to contact them.
If their baby is in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU), parents should check with the hospital to find out its disaster plan and where their baby will be sent in the event of a disaster.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Health Sciences on August 31, 2008 - ל' אב תשס"ח at 9:23 am
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by Jane Sasseen, Business Week, August 30, 2008
At his four-day fete in Denver, Democratic Presidential contender Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) sought to reframe the Presidential race (BusinessWeek.com, 8/29/08) around the lunch-bucket economic issues he thinks give him the strongest appeal to squeezed middle-class voters. Now, as the spotlight turns to the Republican convention in St. Paul-Minneapolis, rival Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) takes his turn at trying to define the race around the issues on which he hopes he has a winning hand.
Much of McCain’s campaign, of course, is based on his record on national security issues. But with the economy in the tank, he knows he has to make the sale on the economic front, as well. So at the top of the Arizona Senator’s Twin Cities To-Do List will be heightened efforts to convince working-class and independent voters that the Republican alternative he’s offering—low taxes, less government, and aggressive energy drilling—will do more to improve the economy and their lives than the spate of initiatives offered up by his rival.
With his surprise pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, McCain may just have made that task a good deal easier. Soaring oil prices have caused energy to emerge as a central issue in the race.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Opinion, Recent Posts on August 30, 2008 - כ"ט אב תשס"ח at 9:55 pm
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Published on Scientific Blogging (http://www.scientificblogging.com)
Submitted by Michael White, Aug 27 2008 Evolution
Most people probably think of change when they hear the word evolution, but some of evolution’s most amazing molecular inventions have stuck around hundreds of millions, even billions of years. The complex protein machinery needed to express genes, metabolize energy sources, reproduce sexually, and lay out body plans has remained in place largely unchanged in spite of the tremendous variety we see in the living world. These constant core cellular processes are why biologists could crack the universal genetic code by experimenting with bacteria, and why we gain insight into cell division and cancer by studying yeast.
The big question, argue the authors of The Plausibility of Life, is not how evolution keeps inventing new genes – it’s how evolution can produce so much variety when the basic processes change so little. Later in the book Kirschner and Gerhart are going to argue that these basic systems have persisted so long because they are versatile, that they posses features which make them well-suited to facilitating the biological diversity we see today. We’ll come to that argument later; today we’ll take a closer look at the core conserved molecular systems that carry out the most basic cellular functions.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Evolutionary Biology, Recent Posts, Science on August 29, 2008 - כ"ח אב תשס"ח at 9:54 pm
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by The National (UAE) Editorial, 28 August 2008
ABU DHABI – Every so often comes a remorseful Israeli leftist academic, a well-meaning Western peace activist, or a frustrated Palestinian official like Ahmed Qurie, the head of the Palestinian peace delegation, who pronounces the death of the two-state formula and advocates a one-state solution on the whole land of historic Palestine as a way to end the 60-year Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The appeal of this solution is indisputable. Imagine two people divided by decades of rancour and blood agreeing to share the same land, the same resources, the same future. Imagine reciprocal recognition of all suffering and dispossession. Imagine a new citizenship that would weave together all the complexities of Israeli and Palestinian identities. Imagine the power of this model for the Middle East and the world.
The problem with this dream? It is just that, a dream. Worse, pursuing this fantasy could deal a deadly blow to the national aspirations of the Palestinians and postpone indefinitely any peace agreement.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on August 29, 2008 - כ"ח אב תשס"ח at 9:13 am
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By Avi Bar-Eli, The Marker Correspondent, August 28, 2008
Israel’s first solar power station is up and running. Moshe Tenne built the plant on his Negev farm for NIS 1.3 million, and he estimates he will sell NIS 220,000 of electricity a year to the national power grid.
The state incentives to produce solar power took effect on July 1; they allow home and industrial customers to install solar power panels and receive NIS 2.01 per kilowatt hour for the electricity they produce compared with the NIS 0.50 per kilowatt hour they pay the Israel Electric Corporation.
The new agreement is for photovoltaic cell array technology, and the power produced is intended for the producer’s use, while any extra power may be sold to the IEC. The state limits household power plants to 15 kilowatts, and business customers to 50 kilowatts.
Tenne inaugurated his 50-kilowatt solar array this week. It will provide two-thirds of the needs of his central Negev farm, located on the region’s so-called Wine Route. The Tenne family established its farm three years ago, and makes its living from a sophisticated dairy barn with 70 cows producing about 800,000 liters of milk a year.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, Science and Technology, Solar Energy on August 27, 2008 - כ"ו אב תשס"ח at 9:10 pm
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Funding will help 639 small businesses and farmers save energy, improve operations
USDA Press Release, August 27, 2008
BISMARCK, North Dakota, August 27, 2008 -Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer today announced that 639 individuals and businesses in 43 states and the Virgin Islands have been selected to receive $35 million in grants and loan guarantees for renewable energy systems or to improve energy efficiency in farm and business operations.
"America is a world leader in renewable energy and energy efficiency," Schafer said. "These projects are good for business, good for the economy, good for jobs, and they help secure more self sufficient energy resources for our country."
The grants and loan guarantees are being awarded through USDA Rural Development’s Section 9006 Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements program. The program provides financial assistance to agricultural producers and rural small businesses to support renewable energy projects across a wide range of technologies encompassing biomass (including anaerobic digesters), geothermal, hydrogen, solar and wind energy. It also provides support for energy efficiency improvements, helping recipients reduce energy consumption and improve operations. Of the $35 million announced today, $27.5 million are grants and $7.4 million are guaranteed loans.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Business and Commerce, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on August 27, 2008 - כ"ו אב תשס"ח at 8:57 pm
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Reprinted from NCSE, August 24, 2008
"A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash" — a story on the front page of The New York Times (August 24, 2008) — examines the creationism/evolution controversy as it plays out in the classroom of David Campbell, a biology teacher in Orange Park, Florida. The Times’s reporter Amy Harmon writes, "in a nation where evangelical Protestantism and other religious traditions stress a literal reading of the biblical description of God’s individually creating each species, students often arrive at school fearing that evolution, and perhaps science itself, is hostile to their faith." Campbell’s students are a case in point, and "their abiding mistrust in evolution, he feared, jeopardized their belief in the basic power of science to explain the natural world — and their ability to make sense of it themselves."
In addition to helping his own students, Campbell also helped to improve the treatment of evolution throughout Florida by co-founding the grassroots organization Florida Citizens for Science blog) and by serving on the committee that revised Florida’s state science standards in 2007. The new standards describe evolution as a "fundamental concept underlying all of biology" — a far cry from their predecessors, which sedulously avoided even using the e-word. Harmon writes, "Campbell defended his fellow writers against complaints that they had not included alternative explanations for life’s diversity, like intelligent design. His attempt at humor came with an edge: ‘We also failed to include astrology, alchemy and the concept of the moon being made of green cheese,’ he said. ‘Because those aren’t science, either.’”
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education Report, Evolutionary Biology, Recent Posts, Science on August 25, 2008 - כ"ד אב תשס"ח at 2:21 pm
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Editor’s Note: Now that Secretary Rice is visiting Israel again, there is increased pressure on Israel to "freeze settlement activity" and disband Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. This article by Eugene Rostow from 1991 is still relevant today.
Eugene V. (Victor Debs) Rostow (August 25, 1913 – November 25, 2002), influential legal scholar and public servant, was Dean of Yale Law School, and served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under President Lyndon B. Johnson.
By Eugene W. Rostow
Copyright 1991 The New Republic Inc.
The New Republic, October 21, 1991
"The British Mandate recognized the right of the Jewish people to "close settlement" in the whole of the Mandated territory. It was provided that local conditions might require Great Britain to "postpone" or "withhold" Jewish settlement in what is now Jordan. This was done in 1922. But the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan river, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors. And perhaps not even then, in view of Article 80 of the U.N. Charter, "the Palestine article," which provides that "nothing in the Charter shall be construed … to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments…."
Assuming the Middle East conference actually does take place, its official task will be to achieve peace between Israel and its Levantine neighbors in accordance with Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Resolution 242, adopted after the Six-Day War in 1967, sets out criteria for peace-making by the parties; Resolution 338, passed after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, makes resolution 242 legally binding and orders the parties to carry out its terms forthwith. Unfortunately, confusion reigns, even in high places, about what those resolutions require.
For twenty-four years Arab states have pretended that the two resolutions are "ambiguous" and can be interpreted to suit their desires. And some European, Soviet and even American officials have cynically allowed Arab spokesman to delude themselves and their people–to say nothing of Western public opinion–about what the resolutions mean. It is common even for American journalists to write that Resolution 242 is "deliberately ambiguous," as though the parties are equally free to rely on their own reading of its key provisions.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Resolution 242, which as undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until "a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces "from territories" it occupied during the Six-Day War–not from "the" territories nor from "all" the territories, but from some of the territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on August 24, 2008 - כ"ג אב תשס"ח at 12:29 pm
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By Daniel Hannan, Telegraph UK, August 22, 2008
See Also: Money for Palestinians
The EU is to increase its aid to the Palestinian Authority by €40 million, in order to pay the salaries of government employees. The first sympathy of any Eurocrat is, of course, always and everywhere with the public sector worker. If, in some bizarre parallel universe, the EU were to run out of money, you can bet its last euros would be spent on its own apparatchiks.
Still, the EU’s generosity with our money – it has paid the Palestinian Authority €256 million so far this year – creates two problems. First, the PA is run by Hamas, which is on the EU’s list of designated terrorist operations. Under Brussels rules, funding such an organisation is a criminal offence. Euro-lawyers have sought to circumvent the letter of the law by funnelling aid money through NGOs, but this is sheer sophistry. Many of the PA’s officials are Hamas militants, whose salaries are being paid while they serve their sentences in Israeli jails.
Second, it is becoming increasingly clear that overseas aid is arresting a political settlement in the region. (This goes equally for American subventions to Israel which, as Ron Paul argues, have sapped the enterprise of the Jewish state; but that’s another story.) Palestinians receive more assistance, per capita, than any other people on Earth, and live in one of its most violent spaces. The two facts are connected.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on August 24, 2008 - כ"ג אב תשס"ח at 11:22 am
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