MONTH THAT WAS
Over 37,000 villages have no mobile phones
Over 37,000 villages in the country have not got mobile phone connectivity till March 2011, according to data from the telecom department. Minister of State for communications and IT Milind Deora said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha that “37,184 villages in the country are yet to be connected with mobile connectivity as on March 2011”. The minister also said that till July 31, the stat-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has covered all district headquarters and 33,620 cities with GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) based cellular services. About 579, 486 villages, over 97 percent of the census 2001 inhabited revenue villages, have been covered with telephone connectivity through village public telephones. Shared mobile infrastructure scheme has been launched by universal service obligation fund to provide subsidy support for setting up and managing 7,353 towers in 500 districts and over 27 states.
KTCL buses for disabled
Panjim: The Kadamba Transport Corporation Limited launched two buses for persons with disability on Sept. 7, at 10.30 am at KTC bus stand, Panjim, Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat, inaugurated the buses in presence of Minister for Transport, Sudin Dhavilkar, and MLA Priol and Chairman KTCL, Deepak Dhavilkar.
Somalia & Muslim World
Nairobi: Famine has spread to six out of eight regions in southern Somalia, with 750,000 people facing imminent starvation, and hundreds of people are dying each day despite a ramping up of aid relief, the United Nations said.
“The entire Bay region has now been declared a famine area,” said Mark Bowden, the United Nations’ Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.
Bay is the sixth region of Somalia to slip into famine since the United Nations’ initial declaration of famine in the war-torn country in July that has left 4 million Somalis, or 53% of the population, unable to meet their food needs.
Hundreds of people are dying each day and at least half of them are children, the United Nation’s Grainne Moloney said, adding she expected the remaining regions of Southern Somalia to slip into famine by the end of the year.
Aid agencies are only able to get food aid to 1 million of those in need because the al-Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab rebel group, which controls much of the south, will not allow food shipments in.
“The rate of malnutrition in Bay region is 58%. This is a record rate of acute malnutrition." said Moloney.
Mormugao MLA donates portable morgue
Vasco: Mormugao MLA Milind Naik donated a portable morgue for the benefit of the people from Mormugao taluka. The portable morgue could be used free of cost by the people residing in four constituencies of Mormugao taluka - Mormugao, Vasco, Dabolim and Cortalim. The launching ceremony of the portable morgue was held at the office of Mormugao MLA Naik in the presence of Our Lady of Candelaria Church Samosollem-Baina Parish Priest Fr Vital Miranda, councilors and others. Speaking on the occasion, Naik said the purpose of launching and providing portable morgue is to keep the body fresh and to avoid inconvenience. “People irrespective of caste and creed can use the portable morgue at any time by contacting the BJP or BJP workers in Mormguao and Vasco,” said Naik.
Buffet to US: Tax me and my super-rich friends
Washington: Billionaire investor Warren Buffett urged US lawmakers to raise taxes on wealthier Americans to cut Washington’s huge budget deficit, saying the move would not dampen investments or jobs. In a New York Times opinion article, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway proposed a tax increase on Americans who make at least $ 1 million per year and an additional increase on those making $ 10 million or more.
“Our leaders have asked for ‘shared sacrifice’. But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched,” Buffett wrote.
“While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.” The man known as the “Oracle of Omaha” said his federal tax rate was 17.4 per cent last year, while some investment managers were taxed just 15 per cent on income reaching into the billions. He then noted that the middle class is taxed up to 25 percent in its income bracket, along with “heavy” payroll taxes. In contrast Buffett recalled “far higher” taxes rates for the rich in the 1980s and 1990s, and yet nearly 40 million jobs were added from 1980 to 2000. “You know what’s happened since then, lower tax rates and far lower job creation,” he said.
“People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off.”
Americans are losing faith with congress’s ability to tackle the country’s financial woes, Buffett warned, calling for “immediate, real and very substantial” action.
A protracted partisan battle between lawmakers culminated in a last minute deal on August 2 to raise the USD 14.3 trillion US debit ceiling and narrowly avoid a US default.
“My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,” he added. “It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”
Lockerbie bomber & the British bluff
Edinburgh (Scotland): A Libyan man convicted of murdering 270 people by blowing up a passenger jet could live for several more years, a leading cancer specialist said two years after the terminally ill bomber was freed on compassionate grounds because he was close to death.
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was released from a Scotish jail and flown back to Libya on August 20, 2009, two years ago, after prison doctors estimated he had only three months to live.
His survival has made him a propaganda asset for embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and an embarrassment for British authorities, who are facing calls to return al-Megrahi to prison if Gaddafi’s regime falls.
Al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of killing 270 people, most of them American, when New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.
Scottish authorities have come under attack from around the world for the decision to release him on compassionate grounds after he had served eight years of a 27-year sentence.
At the time, medical experts advising the Scottish prison service said he was close to death.
But Prof. Roger Kirby, a London prostate cancer specialist, said 59-year-old al-Megrahi is likely taking a cutting-edge hormone treatment and “could live much longer, for several more years because of this drug.”
Kirby, a consultant urologist at the Prostate Cancer Center in London, said doctors in Scotland would have been unaware of the new hormone-based therapy abiraterone, which was recently approved by the US food and Drug Administration and is still not available in Europe.
Over 37,000 villages in the country have not got mobile phone connectivity till March 2011, according to data from the telecom department. Minister of State for communications and IT Milind Deora said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha that “37,184 villages in the country are yet to be connected with mobile connectivity as on March 2011”. The minister also said that till July 31, the stat-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has covered all district headquarters and 33,620 cities with GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) based cellular services. About 579, 486 villages, over 97 percent of the census 2001 inhabited revenue villages, have been covered with telephone connectivity through village public telephones. Shared mobile infrastructure scheme has been launched by universal service obligation fund to provide subsidy support for setting up and managing 7,353 towers in 500 districts and over 27 states.
KTCL buses for disabled
Panjim: The Kadamba Transport Corporation Limited launched two buses for persons with disability on Sept. 7, at 10.30 am at KTC bus stand, Panjim, Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat, inaugurated the buses in presence of Minister for Transport, Sudin Dhavilkar, and MLA Priol and Chairman KTCL, Deepak Dhavilkar.
Somalia & Muslim World
Nairobi: Famine has spread to six out of eight regions in southern Somalia, with 750,000 people facing imminent starvation, and hundreds of people are dying each day despite a ramping up of aid relief, the United Nations said.
“The entire Bay region has now been declared a famine area,” said Mark Bowden, the United Nations’ Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.
Bay is the sixth region of Somalia to slip into famine since the United Nations’ initial declaration of famine in the war-torn country in July that has left 4 million Somalis, or 53% of the population, unable to meet their food needs.
Hundreds of people are dying each day and at least half of them are children, the United Nation’s Grainne Moloney said, adding she expected the remaining regions of Southern Somalia to slip into famine by the end of the year.
Aid agencies are only able to get food aid to 1 million of those in need because the al-Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab rebel group, which controls much of the south, will not allow food shipments in.
“The rate of malnutrition in Bay region is 58%. This is a record rate of acute malnutrition." said Moloney.
Mormugao MLA donates portable morgue
Vasco: Mormugao MLA Milind Naik donated a portable morgue for the benefit of the people from Mormugao taluka. The portable morgue could be used free of cost by the people residing in four constituencies of Mormugao taluka - Mormugao, Vasco, Dabolim and Cortalim. The launching ceremony of the portable morgue was held at the office of Mormugao MLA Naik in the presence of Our Lady of Candelaria Church Samosollem-Baina Parish Priest Fr Vital Miranda, councilors and others. Speaking on the occasion, Naik said the purpose of launching and providing portable morgue is to keep the body fresh and to avoid inconvenience. “People irrespective of caste and creed can use the portable morgue at any time by contacting the BJP or BJP workers in Mormguao and Vasco,” said Naik.
Buffet to US: Tax me and my super-rich friends
Washington: Billionaire investor Warren Buffett urged US lawmakers to raise taxes on wealthier Americans to cut Washington’s huge budget deficit, saying the move would not dampen investments or jobs. In a New York Times opinion article, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway proposed a tax increase on Americans who make at least $ 1 million per year and an additional increase on those making $ 10 million or more.
“Our leaders have asked for ‘shared sacrifice’. But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched,” Buffett wrote.
“While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.” The man known as the “Oracle of Omaha” said his federal tax rate was 17.4 per cent last year, while some investment managers were taxed just 15 per cent on income reaching into the billions. He then noted that the middle class is taxed up to 25 percent in its income bracket, along with “heavy” payroll taxes. In contrast Buffett recalled “far higher” taxes rates for the rich in the 1980s and 1990s, and yet nearly 40 million jobs were added from 1980 to 2000. “You know what’s happened since then, lower tax rates and far lower job creation,” he said.
“People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off.”
Americans are losing faith with congress’s ability to tackle the country’s financial woes, Buffett warned, calling for “immediate, real and very substantial” action.
A protracted partisan battle between lawmakers culminated in a last minute deal on August 2 to raise the USD 14.3 trillion US debit ceiling and narrowly avoid a US default.
“My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,” he added. “It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”
Lockerbie bomber & the British bluff
Edinburgh (Scotland): A Libyan man convicted of murdering 270 people by blowing up a passenger jet could live for several more years, a leading cancer specialist said two years after the terminally ill bomber was freed on compassionate grounds because he was close to death.
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was released from a Scotish jail and flown back to Libya on August 20, 2009, two years ago, after prison doctors estimated he had only three months to live.
His survival has made him a propaganda asset for embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and an embarrassment for British authorities, who are facing calls to return al-Megrahi to prison if Gaddafi’s regime falls.
Al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of killing 270 people, most of them American, when New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.
Scottish authorities have come under attack from around the world for the decision to release him on compassionate grounds after he had served eight years of a 27-year sentence.
At the time, medical experts advising the Scottish prison service said he was close to death.
But Prof. Roger Kirby, a London prostate cancer specialist, said 59-year-old al-Megrahi is likely taking a cutting-edge hormone treatment and “could live much longer, for several more years because of this drug.”
Kirby, a consultant urologist at the Prostate Cancer Center in London, said doctors in Scotland would have been unaware of the new hormone-based therapy abiraterone, which was recently approved by the US food and Drug Administration and is still not available in Europe.
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