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Saturday, August 30, 2014

Designing food packaging is child's play – so be afraid, brand managers | David Mitchell | Comment is free | The Observer

Designing food packaging is child's play – so be afraid, brand managers | David Mitchell | Comment is free | The Observer: "Dear Kellogg's,
As an enthusiastic Corn Flakes eater, I was moved to write to inform you of various changes in the world of which you appear to be unaware: very few people nowadays are awakened by cockerel. Even those in farming communities have come to rely on alarm clocks or smartphones. This makes the large picture of a male chicken plastered all over your product's packaging confusing, and possibly offputting to vegetarians and vegans who would otherwise be a core market for your bacon-and-eggless breakfast alternative. May I suggest a close-up of an iPhone's alarm app as a more contemporary backdrop to a photograph of a bowl of your meatless flakes?

Dear Planters Peanuts,
At a time when the government has been rightly condemned for the number of millionaires and public schoolboys in the cabinet, I was frankly appalled to see the elitist way in which you market your product. A monocled, spatted and ebony-cane-carrying peanut surely cannot be the best way inclusively to recommend your snack to modern Britain? "Mr Peanut" (as the writing on his top hat proclaims his name to be, though, from his attire, I suspect that Lord Peanut – or, at the very least, the Honourable Mr Peanut – is more accurate) seems completely out of touch with today's hard-working snack eater."



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Medtronic- the device company that devises "pay for escape to Ireland" tax avoidance

Medtronic Will Pay CEO’s $25 Million Tax Bill on Merger - Bloomberg: "Medtronic Inc. (MDT) plans to pick up a $25 million tax bill for Chief Executive Officer Omar Ishrak, the cost of a special penalty imposed by Congress on executives who shift their company’s tax domiciles out of the U.S.

The company is also paying a $38 million tab for the rest of its top officers and directors, Minneapolis-based Medtronic said in a filing with U.S. regulators. The tax penalty arises from Medtronic’s plan to adopt an Irish address as part of its takeover of Covidien Plc.

The requirement stems from a 2004 law meant to discourage CEO’s from lowering their companies’ tax bills by shifting their legal addresses out of the U.S. It imposes an excise tax, currently 15 percent, on the value of any restricted stock or unexercised options the executives hold at the time of the transaction."



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Thursday, August 28, 2014

Medical tourism generates millions for NHS and wider economy, finds study | Society | The Guardian

Medical tourism generates millions for NHS and wider economy, finds study | Society | The Guardian: "Medical tourism is a lucrative source of income for the NHS, according to a major new study that contradicts many of the assumptions behind the government's announcement that it will clamp down on foreigners abusing the health service.

Eighteen hospitals – those deemed most likely to be making money from overseas patients – earned £42m in 2010, according to researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and York University. Medical tourists spent an estimated £219m on hotels, restaurants, shopping and transport in the UK.

The researchers also found that more people leave the UK seeking medical treatment abroad than arrive in this country for care: about 63,000 people from the country travelled to hospitals and clinics abroad in 2010, while considerably fewer, about 52,000 people, came here.

The research flies in the face of assertions by Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, that the tourists cost the health service money."



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Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Closed shop at the top in deeply elitist Britain, says study | Society | The Guardian

Closed shop at the top in deeply elitist Britain, says study | Society | The Guardian: "Britain is "deeply elitist" because people educated at public school and Oxbridge have in effect created a "closed shop at the top", according to a government report published on Thursday.

The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission said its study of the social background of those "running Britain" was the most detailed of its kind ever undertaken and showed that elitism was so embedded in Britain "that it could be called 'social engineering'".

Alan Milburn, the Labour former cabinet minister who chairs the commission, said that, as well as being unfair, this situation was unacceptable because "locking out a diversity of talents and experiences makes Britain's leading institutions less informed, less representative and, ultimately, less credible than they should be".

The commission's 76-page report mostly focuses on analysis, but it does include recommendations, saying government, schools, universities, employers and even parents all need to play their part in promoting social diversity."



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Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Irreversible Damage Seen From Climate Change in UN Leak - Bloomberg

Irreversible Damage Seen From Climate Change in UN Leak - Bloomberg: "Global warming already is impacting “all continents and across the oceans,” and further pollution from heat-trapping gases will raise the likelihood of “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems,” according to the document obtained by Bloomberg.

“Without additional mitigation, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts globally,” the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in the draft.

Related:"



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Sunday, August 24, 2014

City’s air dangerously polluted - The Hindu

City’s air dangerously polluted - The Hindu: "Bangalore might be called an “air-conditioned city” but its residents are now choking on the most deadly form of air pollution. The respirable suspended particulate matter (RSPM) level is over four times the national permissible limit in certain areas of the city.

While the permissible limit for RSPM is 60 microgram per cubic metre, the most recent records with the Karnataka Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) reveal that this pollutant was as high as 264 microgram/cubic metre at the AMCO Batteries area on Mysore Road. Even the sensitive area of Victoria Hospital recorded RSPM level of 164 microgram/cubic metre.

The KSPCB monitored air quality in 15 locations across Bangalore — covering industrial area, mixed urban area and sensitive areas (such as hospitals and educational institutions). With the exception of two locations, RSPM level consistently exceeded the permissible limit over the last year. The Central Silk Board area on Hosur Road exceeded the national limit by 191 per cent during this period.

H. Paramesh, paediatric pulmonologist at Lakeside Hospital, said that among all air pollutants, the RSPM was the worst kind as the particulate was extremely minute (usually about 2.5 microns) and could easily enter the body. “The particulate matter causes inflammation in various parts of the body, triggers asthma, leads to oxygen deficiency and cardio-respiratory diseases,” he said."



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Saturday, August 23, 2014

Is On-the-Job Training Still Worth It for Companies? - Businessweek

Is On-the-Job Training Still Worth It for Companies? - Businessweek: "It’s not hard to see why. Training is expensive, and Philips notes that people now spend less time in their jobs, which lowers the expected return on the training investment. Craig Copeland, of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, estimates that in 1983, almost 60 percent of men (ages 45 to 49) had been at their job for more than 10 years. In 2012, only 45 percent had been. Rates of long-term tenure fell for all men under age 60.

If we want companies to revive a commitment to on-the-job-training, it’s worth asking what created our current nation of job hoppers. There are plenty of reasons, including the decline in union membership and the increased portability of benefits. The changing nature of work itself has also encouraged more frequent job changes. When jobs required unique, specific skills, training paid off; it was also harder for a worker to translate his experience into a new environment. Technology, in part, has made some skills far less specific. Take car manufacturing. According to the Center for Automotive Research, auto assembly now requires less mechanical ability and more technical skills—skills that are more standardized. Once, the skills you learned at General Motors were fairly specific to GM; now it’s easier to take them to Ford.

STORY: It's Not a Skills Gap: U.S. Workers Are Overqualified, Undertrained
Skills have also become more flexible as the service industry has grown. Service jobs place a higher premium on good interpersonal skills and access to a large network—the kind of skills often developed precisely by changing jobs. A new employer, after all, also means new co-workers. In all but the biggest companies, it’s almost impossible to develop the same skills by staying in one place."



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Thursday, August 21, 2014

Epic Drought in West is Literally Moving Mountains - Bloomberg

Epic Drought in West is Literally Moving Mountains - Bloomberg: "In fact, some parts of California’s mountains have been uplifted as much as 15 millimeters (about 0.6 inches) in the past 18 months because the massive amount of water lost in the drought is no longer weighing down the land, causing it to rise a bit like an uncoiled spring, a new study shows.

For the first time, scientists are now able to measure how much surface and groundwater is lost during droughts by measuring how much the land rises as it dries. Those are the conclusions of the new study published Aug. 21 in the journal Science by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the the University of California-San Diego.

The drought that is devastating California and much of the West has dried the region so much that 240 gigatons worth of surface and groundwater have been lost, roughly the equivalent to a 3.9-inch layer of water over the entire West, or the annual loss of mass from the Greenland Ice Sheet, according to the study.

While some of California’s mountains have risen by about 0.6 inches since early 2013, the West overall has risen by an average of about 0.157 inches.

“Groundwater is a load on the Earth’s crust,” said Klaus Jacob, a seismologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., who is unaffiliated with the study. “A load compresses the crust elastically, hence it subsides. When you take that load away (by the drought) the crust decompresses and the surface rises. From the amount of rising, one can estimate the amount of the water deficit.”"



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Global warming slowdown answer lies in depths of Atlantic, study finds | Environment | The Guardian

Global warming slowdown answer lies in depths of Atlantic, study finds | Environment | The Guardian: "The key to behind the slowdown in global warming in recent years could lie in the depths of the Atlantic and Southern oceans where excess heat is being stored – not the Pacific Ocean as has previously been suggested, according to new research.

But the finding suggests that a naturally occurring ocean cycle burying the heat will flip in around 15 years’ time, causing global temperature rises to accelerate again.

The slowdown of average surface temperature rises in the last 15 years after decades of rapid warming has been seized on by climate change sceptics and has puzzled scientists, who have hypothesised that everything from volcanic eruptions and sulphur from Chinese power stations to heat being trapped deep in the oceans could be the cause. Several studies have focused on the Pacific as potentially playing a major role.

The new study, published in the journal Science on Thursday, concludes that the Pacific alone cannot explain the warming “hiatus” and that much of the heat being trapped by greenhouse gases at record levels in the atmosphere is being sunk hundreds of metres down in the Atlantic and Southern oceans."



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Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Google offers Rs 1.4 crore pay at BITS-Pilani - The Times of India

Google offers Rs 1.4 crore pay at BITS-Pilani - The Times of India: "JAIPUR: Technology and e-commerce players have taken the lead over companies in core industries during the campus placements at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS)-Pilani. And Google has offered an annual package of Rs 1.40 crore to students selected this year, sources said. The institute hopes to break its last year record of Rs 1.44 crore, offered to one of its students by Facebook.

With companies such as Linkedln, Microsoft, Flipkart, Schlumberger, Goldman Sachs and Amazon also visiting the campus, students eye big offers. All these companies have increased their compensation offer by 5-25%, indicating a better job scenario."



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Monday, August 18, 2014

The Year in Heat: World on Track for Third-Hottest on Record - Bloomberg

The Year in Heat: World on Track for Third-Hottest on Record - Bloomberg: "The global heat map of 2014 has been marked by significant variation in temperatures, particularly in the U.S., where the eastern half of the country has been unusually cool while the western states bake. California has had its hottest year on record, by far, and is in its third year of drought. A few highlights from July’s extremes around the world:

Drought conditions worsened across the U.S. West, with 58 percent of California suffering exceptional drought. At the same time, Indiana and Arkansas had their coolest July on record.
Every state and territory in Australia was hotter than normal for the month. It’s also been unusually dry for most of the country; Queensland fell 86 percent short of its average rainfall.
Across the continent of Africa, mean temperatures were much warmer than average. Countries in the West broke historic heat records.
Records were also broken in Scandinavia. Norway had its hottest month ever, exceeding the previous hottest month by a full degree Celsius -- a very large departure for a monthly average.
The world is hot, and getting hotter. Here’s how 2014 looks laid out on a world map."



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The Year in Heat: World on Track for Third-Hottest on Record - Bloomberg

The Year in Heat: World on Track for Third-Hottest on Record - Bloomberg: "If you live in California, Australia or Scandinavia, 2014 may feel like the hottest year on record. Not quite; on a global scale, it’s “only” third-hottest.

The global average surface temperature for January through July was 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit (0.66 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century average, tying with 2002 as the third warmest in records going back to 1880, according to National Climatic Data Center data released today."



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Is Your Airline Poisoning You? - Bloomberg View

Is Your Airline Poisoning You? - Bloomberg View: "Can airplane cabin air kill? The question has nagged at airplane manufacturers, crew and passengers ever since the jet age shut us into pressurized metal tubes. As far back as 1955, aviation engineers worried about contaminated air in plane cabins, and in 2009, Boeing settled a lawsuit brought by an American Airlines flight attendant who claimed that toxic air leaking into a 2007 flight had caused her health to fail. In the wake of that suit, Boeing insisted that “cabin air is safe to breathe.” And until recently, airlines and planemakers could legitimately claim that there wasn’t enough scientific evidence to support the accusations.

That's changing, in large part due to Richard Westgate. A former pilot with British Airways, Westgate died in December 2012 after more than a decade of illness that he believed had been caused by long-term exposure to jet-engine lubricants bleeding into cabin air. Samples of Westgate’s blood and tissue were provided to Mohamed Abou-Donia of Duke University Medical School, an expert in organophosphate poisoning, who published the results of his investigation late last month in the Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry."



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Sunday, August 17, 2014

Humans now strongest driver of glaciers melting, study finds | Environment | theguardian.com

Humans now strongest driver of glaciers melting, study finds | Environment | theguardian.com: "Melting of glaciers caused by human activity has soared in the past 20 years, a study has shown.

Human influence is now the strongest driver of glacier melting, which has been occurring since the end of the “Little Ice Age” in the mid-19th century, it is claimed.

Between 1851 and 2010, only a quarter of glacial mass loss was due to human-induced climate change, scientists calculated. But during the last two decades of that period the human contribution rose to two thirds.

Lead researcher Dr Ben Barzeion, from the University of Innsbruck in Austria, said: “Typically, it takes glaciers decades or centuries to adjust to climate changes. In the 19th and first half of 20th century we observed that glacier mass loss attributable to human activity is hardly noticeable but since then has steadily increased."



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Saturday, August 16, 2014

Parasitic Plants May Be Talking To Their Hosts Through MRNA

Parasitic Plants May Be Talking To Their Hosts Through MRNA: "Westwood looked at the relationship between dodder, a parasitic plant, and two host plants, Arabidopsis and tomatoes. Dodder sucks nutrients out of its hosts with a haustorium, which penetrates the host, transferring thousands of mRNA -- or messenger RNA -- molecules between the plants.

Westwood said in a press release this exchange of mRNA might mean the parasitic plants are telling the host what do to, such as lower its defenses to allow the parasite to feed more easily. The next step is to determine what the plants are saying and whether the same relationship exists between bacteria and fungi.

"The beauty of this discovery is that this mRNA could be the Achilles heel for parasites," Westwood said. “This is all really exciting because there are so many potential implications surrounding this new information.""



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Thursday, August 14, 2014

How making London greener could make Londoners happier – interactive map | Cities | The Guardian

How making London greener could make Londoners happier – interactive map | Cities | The Guardian: "cities How making London greener could make Londoners happier – interactive map
London – with all its tarmac, brick and glass – is actually 38.4% open space and ranks as the world’s third greenest major city. Now Daniel Raven-Ellison wants to go further … and make Greater London a national park. His campaign and online petition aims to have the city treated in the same way as parks like the Peak District and the Brecon Beacons, to conserve its natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage. The maps below plot open space and happiness – and attempt to show how well-being would increase if London’s green space was expanded"



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Taking back your holiday: Daimler staff can opt to have emails deleted while on holiday

Daimler staff can opt to have emails deleted while on holiday: "Daimler employees can head to the beach this summer without worrying about checking their emails, sparing their partners and children the frustration of work-related matters intruding on the family holiday.
The Stuttgart-based carmaker said about 100,000 German employees could now choose to have all their incoming emails automatically deleted when they are on leave so they do not return to a bulging inbox.
The sender is notified by the “Mail on Holiday” assistant that the email has not been received and is invited to contact a nominated substitute instead.
“Our employees should relax on holiday and not read work-related emails,” said Wilfried Porth, human resources board member.
Traffic jam
“With ‘Mail on Holiday’ they start back after the holidays with a clean desk. There is no traffic jam in their inbox. That is an emotional relief.”
"



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Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Obama - love of money, dislike of principles

Obama Won't Return Money From Tax Deals He Dislikes - Bloomberg: "Donors involved with the tax deals include Blair Effron, an investment banker who hosted Obama for a May fundraiser at his two-level, 9,000-square-foot apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Others are Jim Rogers, co-chairman of the host committee for the 2012 Democratic National Convention; Roger Altman, a former senior Treasury Department official who raised at least $200,000 for Obama’s re-election campaign; and Shantanu Narayen, who sits on the president’s management advisory board.

Presidential Tensions

How U.S. Companies Buy Tax Breaks

The administration’s connections to these donors are causing tensions for the president as he urges Congress to act against the deals and prods the Treasury Department for short-term steps to curb them. The president’s tough talk also may become a liability as Democrats seek corporate America’s cash this year as they try to preserve their majority in the U.S. Senate.

“It’s populist rhetoric,” said former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat who advises clients at Carmen Group Inc., a Washington consulting and lobbying firm. “And at some point it’s sufficiently misleading that it draws the attention away from the difficulties involved with an agreement to lower the corporate tax rates -- that’s not an easy thing to do.”"



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Tuesday, August 12, 2014

From toymaker to Asia’s richest man

From toymaker to Asia’s richest man: "At the same time, he has spoken out against Occupy Central with Love and Peace, an activist group threatening mass sit-ins at the financial district if it does not get progress on making Hong Kong more democratic.
China has said candidates for the 2017 election of Hong Kong’s new leader must be vetted by a committee.
The shrewdness for which Li is known was exemplified in an interview with Forbes in 2010, when he was 81, when he was asked what advice he would give to an entrepreneur.
“Managing a family on a tight budget is hard, but managing a company with a tight cash flow is even harder. I am always vigilant about cash flow. I have adhered to a steady cash flow, high reserve and a healthy debt-to-equity ratio."



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Robots 'invade' Starwood Hotels

Robots 'invade' Starwood Hotels: "Look out Rosie the Robot, Starwood Hotels' Aloft brand has a taskmaster of its own.

His (or her?) name; A.L.O. pronounced "el-oh", the hotels' first Botlr (short of robotic butler.) Standing just under 3 feet tall, A.L.O. comes dressed in a vinyl-collared butler uniform and will soon be on call all day and night to fulfill requests from guests.

Forget your toothpaste? Need more towels? How about a late-night chocolate bar? All guests of the hotel have to do is call the front desk, where staff will load up the Botlr with requested items, punch in the guest's room number and send it off to make the delivery, navigating hallways and even call for the elevator using Wi-Fi.
At the Aloft in Cupertino, California, A.L.O is being fine-tuned for the Aug. 20 official launch of this pilot program. If successful, the Botlrs will appear in nearly 100 properties. Brian McGuinness, senior vice president for the Aloft brand, said he could see having one or two Botlrs in each Aloft hotel. "I think there is a chance that this could go enterprise-wide based on a successful pilot," he said."



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Monday, August 11, 2014

Colgate Total Ingredient Linked to Hormones, Cancer Spotlights FDA Process - Bloomberg

Colgate Total Ingredient Linked to Hormones, Cancer Spotlights FDA Process - Bloomberg: "he chemical triclosan has been linked to cancer-cell growth and disrupted development in animals. Regulators are reviewing whether it’s safe to put in soap, cutting boards and toys. Consumer companies are phasing it out. Minnesota voted in May to ban it in many products.

At the same time, millions of Americans are putting it in their mouths every day, by way of a top-selling toothpaste that uses the antibacterial chemical to head off gum disease -- Colgate-Palmolive Co.’s Total.

Total is safe, Colgate says, citing the rigorous Food and Drug Administration process that led to the toothpaste’s 1997 approval as an over-the-counter drug. A closer look at that application process, however, reveals that some of the scientific findings Colgate put forward to establish triclosan’s safety in toothpaste weren’t black and white -- and weren’t, until this year, available to the public."



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Sunday, August 10, 2014

Doubts raised about Scottish post-separation currency

Doubts raised about Scottish post-separation currency: "There’s a peculiar, contradictory symmetry to the arguments about politically reshaping the United Kingdom, both about Scottish independence and the UK’s relationship with Europe. With, on key issues, the same people, unionist on Scotland and Eurosceptic, asserting simultaneously diametrically opposed positions in each debate. But then, this is politics, and we are perhaps unreasonable to expect consistency.
Central to both arguments for independence are hotly disputed questions about what attitude the deserted state/entity will take to the deserter about things the latter might wish to maintain in the relationship once apart, the terms of divorce and alimony. In the Scottish case, the currency and EU membership. In the UK/EU case, unfettered continued access to the single market.
When the great charmer and political street fighter, First Minister Alex Salmond took on Britain’s mildest, to the point of utter dullness, ex-Labour chancellor Alistair Darling on Tuesday in the first TV leaders’ debate on Scotland’s referendum, the expected rout of the latter did not materialise. Darling unsettled his opponent, commentators seemed to agree, most effectively by repeatedly injecting doubt into the debate about Scotland’s post-separation currency."



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Friday, August 08, 2014

Ruining the Earth-Exxossian way

Exxon Drilling Russian Arctic Shows Sanction Lack Bite - Bloomberg: "Exxon Mobil Corp. will start drilling a $700 million well in the Arctic Ocean tomorrow, Russia’s government said, showing that for all the talk of action against Vladimir Putin’s oil industry, the largest U.S. energy company is undeterred.

As Russia’s relations with Europe and the U.S. deteriorated to the lowest point since the Cold war over the conflict in Ukraine, the European Union imposed a third round of sanctions last week, restricting the export of equipment used for offshore oil production. That doesn’t affect Exxon’s plans because the contract to hire the rig was signed before the measures were announced."



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Thursday, August 07, 2014

When a Rebuke is a signal to go ahead with business as usual, Roche speaking

Roche Rebuked by U.K. on $152,850 Breast Cancer Drug - Bloomberg: "The U.K.’s medical-cost oversight group rebuked Roche Holding AG (ROG) today for refusing a significant price cut to a breast-cancer drug that is used only for severe cases now, but may eventually be more broadly prescribed.

The medicine, Kadcyla, costs an estimated 90,831 pounds ($152,850) for the average 14 1/2-month course of treatment, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence said today. NICE said that’s too expensive to add the drug to the National Health Service’s budget for routine funding, even though it helped patients.

Breast-cancer patients in England will still be able to get Kadcyla by applying through the state-run NHS’s 200 million-pound supplementary Cancer Drugs Fund. The flap over price foreshadows a bigger fight if the medicine, one of the most expensive cancer drugs sold in England, is approved for broader use and ultimately combined with another pricey new Roche breast cancer drug, Perjeta."



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Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Congrats on a great quarter — now, you're fired

Congrats on a great quarter — now, you're fired: "Last week Amgen, one of the USA's biggest biotechnology companies, reported a sensational quarter.

Earnings per share leaped 25% and revenue jumped 11% from the second quarter of 2013.

Amgen's chief executive officer Robert Bradway called it "robust."

But Amgen also announced it would lay off up to 2,900 workers -- from 12% to 15% of its workforce -- and shutter facilities in Colorado and Washington State.

The company, which will take at least a $775 million charge against 2014-2015 earnings to cover restructuring costs, will offer voluntary severance packages and maybe jobs for some laid-off employees in expanded research facilities in South San Francisco and Cambridge, Mass.

Wall Street drove Amgen's stock up 5% to an all-time high above $130. "Investors are particularly excited about the restructuring plan . . . that could save $700 million per year," Barron's wrote.

Big layoffs and restructurings aren't new, of course. This year, corporate stalwarts like IBM, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have laid off thousands."



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Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Director James Cameron on Vegan Diet: Like I've Set the Clock Back 15 Years. | Ecorazzi

Director James Cameron on Vegan Diet: Like I've Set the Clock Back 15 Years. | Ecorazzi: "Cameron, 59, made these comments during an “Ask Me Anything” Q&A session on the social networking site Reddit. When the celebrated filmmaker, a producer on the new Showtime climate change series “Years of Living Dangerously” was asked what’s the best thing an individual can do to fight climate change, Cameron likely surprised many by answering: “Stop eating animals.”

“This may surprise you, because it surprised me when I found out, but the single biggest thing that an individual can do to combat climate change is to stop eating animals,” he said. “Because of the huge, huge carbon footprint of animal agriculture. I was shocked to find out that animal agriculture directly or indirectly accounts for 14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions, compared to all transportation – every ship, car, truck, plane on the planet only accounts for 13%. Less than animal agriculture. So most people think that buying a Prius is the answer, and it’s certainly not wrong, but it’s not the biggest agent of climate change.”

As for what his favorite sandwich is, Cameron had an answer for that too – just hold the cucumbers."



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Monday, August 04, 2014

Bollywood Billboards Costing Air India as Planes Slash Weight to Take Off - Bloomberg

Bollywood Billboards Costing Air India as Planes Slash Weight to Take Off - Bloomberg: "Mumbai’s towering billboards, which hawk everything from the latest Bollywood movies to soda, block out more than some sunlight. They’re also a physical hurdle preventing Air India Ltd. from reaching its potential on what should be one of its most lucrative routes.

The height of hoardings near India’s financial hub means the Boeing Co. (BA) 777-300ER jets the carrier uses for non-stop flights to Newark, New Jersey, near New York City must fly 51 fewer passengers, or 15 percent below capacity, in order to clear them. That’s costing 100 million rupees ($1.6 million) a month in lost revenue, India’s junior aviation minister G.M. Siddeshwara told parliament yesterday."



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Colorado Fracking Opponents Losing Local Control Fight - Bloomberg

Colorado Fracking Opponents Losing Local Control Fight - Bloomberg: "From Texas to North Dakota, companies are clashing with landowners and environmentalists over the local impact of expanded drilling in the U.S. as production has soared because of hydraulic fracturing, which uses sand, water and chemicals to free fossil fuels from shale rock.

The Colorado vote had been seen as a bellwether for “local control” concerns and other potential ballot initiatives to restrict fracking, including one in Denton, Texas, expected to reach voters in November. Communities nationwide have passed 430 measures against fracking, according to a running list kept by Food & Water Watch, a Washington-based public interest organization.

The stakes are greater in Colorado compared with elsewhere due to the amount of oil production at risk and the statewide nature of any regulations approved by voters. The local control initiatives, if passed, would have “severely” impacted hydraulic fracturing in Weld County, the core of new drilling activity, according to a July 29 report from Sanford C. Bernstein & Co."



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LinkedIn Pays $6 Million for Unpaid Overtime, Damages - Bloomberg

LinkedIn Pays $6 Million for Unpaid Overtime, Damages - Bloomberg: "“This was a function of not having the right tools in place for some employees and their managers to track hours properly; prior to the Labor Department approaching us, we had already begun to remedy this. LinkedIn has made every effort possible to ensure each impacted employee has been made whole,” Stubo said, adding that the affected workers were mainly in sales. The money was paid in the second quarter, she said.

Susana Blanco, district director for U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division in San Francisco, said: “‘Off the clock’ hours are all too common for the American worker.”

“We urge all employers, large and small, to review their pay practices to ensure employees know their basic workplace rights and that the commitment to compliance works through all levels of the organization,” Blanco said."



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LinkedIn Pays $6 Million for Unpaid Overtime, Damages - Bloomberg

LinkedIn Pays $6 Million for Unpaid Overtime, Damages - Bloomberg: "“This was a function of not having the right tools in place for some employees and their managers to track hours properly; prior to the Labor Department approaching us, we had already begun to remedy this. LinkedIn has made every effort possible to ensure each impacted employee has been made whole,” Stubo said, adding that the affected workers were mainly in sales. The money was paid in the second quarter, she said.

Susana Blanco, district director for U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division in San Francisco, said: “‘Off the clock’ hours are all too common for the American worker.”

“We urge all employers, large and small, to review their pay practices to ensure employees know their basic workplace rights and that the commitment to compliance works through all levels of the organization,” Blanco said."



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Sunday, August 03, 2014

Obama says CEOs should quit complaining: Economist - Yahoo Finance

Obama says CEOs should quit complaining: Economist - Yahoo Finance: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said corporate America has done well under his economic policies, telling the Economist magazine that chief executive officers should stop complaining about regulations and show greater social responsibility.

"If you look at what's happened over the last four or five years, the folks who don't have a right to complain are the folks at the top," Obama said in an interview conducted last week and posted on the magazine's website late on Saturday.

Republicans have sought to portray Obama as anti-business, and businesses have complained that Obama's signature healthcare law and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms have raised costs.

Business groups are lobbying against his new plan to curb climate-changing carbon emissions from power plants."



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Saturday, August 02, 2014

If it ain’t broke, don’t prefix it

If it ain’t broke, don’t prefix it: "When that Paddy Power data-breach story broke this week, it was reassuring to hear how the bookmakers were “proactively contacting” the 650,000 customers affected. I don’t know what the alternative would have been - some kind of passive contact, presumably – but that sounds time-consuming, and probably a bit creepy for those on the receiving end. N o, all things considered, proactively contacting customers was the right approach.
Of course, some linguists might quibble with the unnecessary prefix, arguing that the old-fashioned word “active” does a more than adequate job on its own. And that if Paddy Power had confined itself to “actively contacting” people, they wouldn’t have noticed anything different.
In fact, I’m reminded of my own most recent involvement with the company – a €20 bet on Brazil’s Fred to win the World Cup Golden Boot – which only reinforced my respect for the un-prefixed term.Alas, even in a team of incompetents, Fred’s immobility and general uselessness at the tournament was of lighthouse-in-a-bog proportions. Far from expecting him to be proactive, I would have settled eventually for signs of a pulse."



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Friday, August 01, 2014

I was Victoria Beckham’s ghost | Hadley Freeman | Comment is free | The Guardian

I was Victoria Beckham’s ghost | Hadley Freeman | Comment is free | The Guardian: "I’ve since been asked to ghost a few other books but I lack the capacity for self-surrender, so I always say no. But not a week has gone by since without someone asking me about it. That ghostwriters exist proves we live in an era obsessed with fame; that people are interested in ghostwriters proves how ridiculous this obsession is."



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Indian parliament hires monkey impersonators to restore order | World news | The Guardian

Indian parliament hires monkey impersonators to restore order | World news | The Guardian: "India's new government won an overwhelming mandate in the recent elections, and now it has taken on another parliamentary foe: marauding monkeys.

India's housing and urban development minister, Venkaiah Naidu, told MPs that 40 professional monkey impersonators would be deployed around government buildings to police the cheeky rhesus macaque monkeys who regularly trespass in the corridors of power, terrorising senior bureaucrats, stealing files and snatching food.

The human monkey scarers will disguise themselves as the macaque's natural nemesis, the larger, black-faced langur, Naidu said.

Reports suggesting the scarers will dress up as langurs are not true, said PK Sharma, the chief health officer for the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC).

"These are men who are village performers and some of them have played monkeys on stage," Sharma said. "So they mimic the sound of the langur and it scares the smaller, red-faced macaques away."

If that doesn't work, authorities will use rubber bullets, Naidu said."



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