Washing plea to avert tree plague

2 November 2012 Last updated at 09:52 ET

The environment secretary has urged the public to wash their dogs and boots and even their children after visiting wooded areas, to help stop the spread of a fungus which is killing ash trees.

Owen Paterson spoke after the government's emergency committee Cobra met to discuss the ash dieback menace.

Some 100,000 trees have been destroyed in the UK, where East Anglia has been particularly badly affected.

The infection has killed some 90% of ash trees in Denmark.

Ministers are concerned that the fungus could be present on fallen leaves and could be transferred via leaf mould.

Mr Paterson told the BBC: "Everyone should be responsible and if they do visit a wood just make sure they wash their boots, wash their dog, whatever's been running around the leaves, wash their child, to make sure they don't transfer to the next wood."

About 2,500 10sq km sites across the UK are being surveyed to establish how far the disease has spread, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Amid criticism from Labour, Mr Paterson denied the government had been slow to act when the infection was first discovered.

He said: "This disease was only established here on 7 March. During the summer, trees are not planted so a programme of inspection has gone on during which 100,000 trees have been destroyed.

"But as I have also made clear, this disease as we discovered recently has possibly blown in.

Continue reading the main story

Symptoms of Chalara dieback

• Diseased saplings typically display dead tops and side shoots.
• Lesions often found at base of dead side shoots.
• Lesions on branch or stem can cause wilting of foliage above.
• Disease affects mature trees by killing off new growth.

"It's on the basis of that information that we're now working together right across government at the highest level, using expertise in every department, to bear down on the disease," he said.

Ash dieback, also known as Chalara dieback, is caused by the fungus Chalara Fraxinea.

The disease was first discovered in the UK in February in a consignment of trees imported from the Netherlands by a nursery in Buckinghamshire.

The Forestry Commission has said it has since been found at sites across England and Scotland, including Leicester, South Yorkshire, County Durham and in Knockmountain Woods near Glasgow.

The trees at all the locations above had been grown from young ash saplings obtained from nurseries within the past five years.

In October, scientists confirmed a spate of cases in Norfolk and Suffolk in trees not planted recently, which appear to form a wider infection zone.

The BBC's Jeremy Cooke on how to spot an infected ash tree

Mobile app

Shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh has accused the government of "dithering" over the issue and has expressed concerns over cutbacks to the Forestry Commission's budget.

But environment minister David Heath denied there had been any cut back in resources "applied to plant health and tree health in this country".

Visible symptoms of ash dieback include leaf loss and crown dieback in affected trees and it can lead to tree death.

The disease has been listed as a quarantine pathogen under national emergency measures and the Forestry Commission has produced guidance, including help on how people can identify possible signs of infection.

Experts are urging people to report suspected cases of dieback in order to prevent the spread of the disease to the wider environment becoming established.

An app, Ashtag, has been launched to try to map the spread of the disease by allowing users to upload pictures and report possible sightings to a team which will pass any information to the Forestry Commission.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20176720#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Family-owned pharmacy gives up retail locations, evolves to survive ...

BRUNSWICK, Maine ? A third-generation, family-owned Maine pharmacy has repositioned itself by investing in new space and equipment that are allowing it to flourish in a new market.

In some respects, Waltz Long Term Care Pharmacy in Brunswick is nothing like the retail pharmacies in most towns and cities across the country. There are no aisles of over-the-counter drugs, no counters where patients pick up prescriptions and interact with pharmacists. Nevertheless, Waltz fills and ships thousands of prescriptions each month throughout Maine.

Dean Jacobs, the company?s president and co-owner, comes from a long line of pharmacists in his family. His grandfather opened the first Waltz Pharmacy in Damariscotta in 1948, a business that eventually included several retail locations across the state.

About a decade ago, Waltz began to serve long-term care, or LTC, facilities such as nursing homes and group homes out of a back room at its Camden location. As the LTC business began to grow, Jacobs realized its potential.

To say the LTC business grew by leaps and bounds has a literal meaning for Waltz, which can take on dozens or hundreds of new patients within a single new contract. The venture quickly outgrew the back room in Camden. As the company has closed its retail pharmacy locations in the past four years (Jacobs? parents retired from the business last year), the LTC business has flourished. One retail location, in Waldoboro, remains.

From the back room in Camden, the LTC pharmacy moved to a larger space in Topsham, ?which at the time we thought was palatial,? said Courtney Oland, who co-founded Waltz LTC Pharmacy with Jacobs in 2007 and now serves as the director of pharmacy.

As the business continued to grow, Oland and Jacobs spent almost two years looking for space in the Brunswick area. They chose Brunswick because of its central location among Maine?s population centers, ensuring high numbers of potential patients and workers. They also forged a partnership with Guardian Pharmacy, which provides working capital and consultation services for Waltz, but allows it to operate as a wholly independent entity.

?They help us make well-informed decisions about where to invest our money,? said Oland. ?It?s very important to our survival that we continue to do that.?

In September, Waltz moved again, this time to the Brunswick Industrial Park, where it has leased 13,000 square feet in a building owned by Brunswick Publishing Co.

In addition to renovations, the company invested in cutting-edge technology that integrates ordering, processing, delivery and billing under one roof and within one computer network. The system allows workers at every step of the process to check and double-check prescriptions for accuracy, which is absolutely crucial in the pharmacy business.

There are machines that count pills and seal them into day-by-day bubble packs and others capable of slicing tablets into perfect halves or quarters. A bar-coding system requires checks at every stage in the process ? and sets off a siren if it detects a mistake. And a computer program measures workload in each of the company?s departments ? the results of which are broadcast on large-screen televisions throughout the facility ? so employees can quickly shift to another area that?s busier than theirs.

Despite all that technology, Jacobs and Oland said what separates Waltz from other LTC pharmacies remains customer support. The nine pharmacists on staff spend about half their time at the Brunswick headquarters and half their time on the road consulting with clients. In that respect, their role is not unlike a retail pharmacist?s job of ensuring that the right drugs treat the right ailments without harmful side effects.

Just two months after moving to the Brunswick building, Waltz and its 75 employees are processing some 30,000 prescriptions a month and shipping them to more than 100 locations across Maine.

Debbie Marquis of Lisbon said she was a bank teller before Waltz hired her and trained her to be a pharmacy technician.

?It?s the best job I?ve ever had,? she said while placing pills into a counting device. ?Counting pills is much cleaner than counting money.?

Jacobs said he sometimes misses his days working in a retail setting, but only sometimes.

?I began to realize that in the future, making investments in retail pharmacies was not going to be a good business decision,? he said. ?I realized that we could grow our customer base from this one facility. I love the business of pharmacy, but it?s a hard business.?

Source: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/11/02/business/family-owned-pharmacy-gives-up-retail-locations-evolves-to-survive/

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Group Adjourns Without Acting on Antarctic Reserve - NYTimes.com

PARIS ? Frustrating advocates, an international commission charged with overseeing the Southern Ocean took no action Thursday on a proposal championed by the United States and New Zealand to create the world?s largest marine reserve in the seas around Antarctica.

The two nations had proposed the creation of a 872,000-square-mile reserve in the Ross Sea and East Antarctic; conservationists wanted more, some 1.9 million square miles of protected area. Crucially, despite months of talks between Washington and New Zealand?s government in Wellington, the two countries went into the meeting in Hobart, Australia, with slightly different plans and had to work out a joint proposal early this week.

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, whose members include the European Union and 24 member states, operates on a consensus principle, and the issue never came to a vote.
Gerald Leape, a marine policy official with the Pew Environment Group, said China and Russia had been the main opponents of the proposal, while Japan, South Korea and Ukraine had been lukewarm.

The Southern Ocean is one of the most important ecosystems on Earth, home to penguins, seals and whales, as well as vast populations of krill, one of the most important links in the ocean food chain.

A marine protected area can be a place where no commercial activity, including fishing and mineral exploration, is permitted, or an area in which only a few activities are banned. The commission said it would hold an inter-annual meeting ? an unusual step ? in July in Bremerhaven, Germany, to discuss the topic again.

?We?re very disappointed that CCAMLR didn?t take action,? Mr. Leape said. ?The scientific case for an M.P.A. in the Ross Sea and East Antarctica has been made.? Steve Campbell of the Antarctic Ocean Alliance said that 1.2 million people around the world had joined environmental organizations in backing the creation of marine reserves.

The commission has been criticized for holding its meetings behind closed doors out of sight of journalists. But the Southern and Antarctic Ocean Alliance, a coalition that includes environmental and conservation organizations like Greenpeace, W.W.F. and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, has observer status and reports on its activities to the media.

Conservationists said the meeting had not been a complete loss, as the commission adopted a proposal championed by the United States and European Union requiring it to inspect all vessels fishing in the Southern Ocean instead of only those carrying toothfish, commonly known as Chilean sea bass. The Pew Environment Group said in a statement that the action ?closed an important gap.?

Toothfish grow slowly, and little is known about the fishery. That has not stopped large-scale exploitation of the stock, with illegal fishing commonplace for many years.

Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/group-adjourns-without-acting-on-antarctic-reserve/

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Habana da man ? | Front Row Grunt

At a pretty cool function held at the Cape Town airport of all places last night, Bryan Habana was named as the SA Player of the Year for the third time.

Habana was in superb form for the Boks this year, scoring seven tries, including a hat-trick against Australia at Loftus, resulting in him being the top try scorer in the Four Nations. He becomes only the second player to win the title more than two times, following in the footsteps of Naas Botha, who won it four times.

Big thanks to the Energade team for inviting me ? Might need a few of those today in order to come right in time for the Sharks supporters golf day!!

The winners:

Rugby Player of the Year: Bryan Habana

Young Player of the Year: Eben Etzebeth

Team of the Year: The Sharks (Currie Cup)

Coach of the Year: John Plumtree (Sharks).

Super Rugby Player of the Year: Keegan Daniel (Sharks)

Currie Cup Player of the Year: Deon Fourie (Western Province)

Currie Cup First Division Player of the Year: Hansie Graaff (Griffons)

Vodacom Cup Player of the Year: Demetri Catrakilis (Western Province)

Players? Player of the Year: JP Pietersen (Sharks)

Sevens Player of the Year: Cecil Afrika

Try of the Year: Bryan Habana (Springboks v All Blacks).

SA Under-20 Player of the Year: Jan Serfontein (Blue Bulls)

Craven Week Player of the Tournament: Sergeal Petersen (Eastern Province)

Referee Award: Jaco Peyer

Women?s Achiever of the Year: Yolanda Meiring (Blue Bulls)

Club Champs Player of the Tournament: Nico Luus (Pretoria Police)

As said prior to the awards, I would have had Jannie du Plessis bringing home the bacon, but I have no issue at all with SA legenda Bryan Habana taking the title this year ? As said in my Virgin Active blog post this week: Bryan Habana you legend!

Quite clearly no one saw WP winning the Currie Cup this year, hence the Sharks taking the team of the year award, while WP were not even nominated. SARU might want to wait until after the Currie Cup before deciding on the nominations next year?

So the Currie Cup and Super Rugby players of the year cannot make it into the Bok EOYT squad? The above decided by the public voting on Facebook ? Clearly the public and the bok coach are singing from different hymn sheets ?

Dean Fourie was phenomenal at flank during the Currie Cup, but I would have had JC Janse Van Rensburg taking that title, and on a plane to the UK tomorrow with the Boks. He is a scrumming machine at loosehead ?

Categories: rugby, sport | Permalink

Author: Tank

Ex WP prop with a fair amount of experience in all things media ...

Source: http://www.frontrowgrunt.co.za/2012/11/habana-da-man/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=habana-da-man

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Sustainable SFU | Environmental Controversy

October 30th, 2012

ENV 222?: Environmental Controversy (Interdisciplinary Study) Spring 2013

Through lecture, field experiences, guest presentations and group projects, students will explore the complexity within a number of key environmental controversies, exploring its scientific, social, cultural, ethical, legal and personal contexts. These socio scientific issues can be described as, ?ill defined, multidisciplinary, value laden, and constrained by missing knowledge? as opposed to more traditional issues that are based on approaches using disciplinary knowledge, are objectively oriented, engage the ?right? procedures, and often result in a single right/wrong answer. SSI is also a pedagogical strategy with clearly defined goals: it aims to stimulate and promote individual intellectual development in morality and ethics, as well as awareness of the interdependence between science and society.

Prerequisite: two of the following: GEOG 102 or REM 100; and EVSC 100 or GEOG 111. Students who have received credit for ENV 399 (Environmental Controversy) cannot receive credit for ENV 222.

Posted in General

Source: http://sustainablesfu.org/environmental-controversy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=environmental-controversy

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NASA Curiosity rover takes a bite of Martian soil

	Essential News from The Associated Press

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Syria activists say warplanes hit Damascus suburbs

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian warplanes pounded opposition strongholds around Damascus and in the north Wednesday, as President Bashar Assad's forces intensified airstrikes against rebels seeking to topple him, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gathers reports from a network of activists on the ground, said government jets carried out five strikes in the eastern Ghouta district, a rebel stronghold close to the capital.

Three airstrikes also hit the rebel-held city of Maaret al-Numan that straddles a key supply route from Damascus to Aleppo, Syria largest city and a main front in the civil war. Maaret al-Numan has been under constant bombardment since it fell to the rebels on Oct. 10.

No casualties were reported in Wednesday's strikes, the Observatory said. However, at least 185 people were killed nationwide in airstrikes and artillery shelling the day before, pushing the total death toll from the relentless fighting in Syria to over 36,000 since March 2011, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the activist group's president.

At least 47 soldiers were also killed Tuesday, according to the Observatory.

Syria's crisis began as a peaceful uprising against Assad's regime inspired by the Arab Spring but quickly morphed into a bloody civil war.

The international community remains at a loss about how to stop the war and a U.N.-proposed truce last week for a major Muslim holiday failed to take hold. More than 500 people were killed in fighting during what was supposed to be a four-day cease-fire ending Monday.

In China, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, met Wednesday with China's foreign minister to solicit Beijing's support for international efforts to stop the bloodshed.

The U.S. and other Western and Arab nations have called on Assad to step down, while Russia, China and Iran continue to back him.

In the past weeks, the regime has intensified airstrikes on rebel positions and strongholds. Activists speculate that the government's heavy reliance on air power reflects its inability to roll back rebel gains, especially in the north of the country near the border with Turkey, where rebels have control of swathes of territory.

"The Syrian regime can't do anything on the ground, and that's why they use air strikes," Abdul-Rahman said.

The international community's failure to push for an even modest truce raised fears of a prolonged conflict in Syria that could drag in its neighbors such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

Turkey's support for the Syrian rebel movement has been a particular point of tension between the former allies. Turkey has reinforced its border and fired into Syria on several occasions recently in response to shells that have landed from Syria inside Turkish territory.

Syria's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jihad Makdessi, accused Turkey of having "destructive policies" against Damascus and claimed the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, was "targeting the security and stability" of Syria.

Makdessi was referring to Tuesday's comments by Davutoglu who expressed "great sadness" that the holiday cease-fire had failed and said his government was done talking to Assad's regime.

The spokesman insisted it was the unwillingness of Turkey and Gulf states to cease supporting the rebels that doomed the truce, the state-run SANA news agency reported late Tuesday.

Damascus views the rebels as terrorists and accuses them of being foot soldiers in a foreign plot to destroy Syria.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-activists-warplanes-hit-damascus-suburbs-091314244.html

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