News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch has stepped down as a director of News International, the company which oversees the Sun, Times and Sunday Times newspapers, an internal memo has confirmed.
The resignations follow the announcement in June that News Corp would be split into two separate companies: a smaller publishing division and a much larger entertainment and TV group.
“I wanted to let you know that Rupert Murdoch has resigned as director of a number of companies, including NI Group Limited, known to most of you as News International, and Times Newspapers Holdings Limited,” Tom Mockridge, the head of Murdoch’s British newspaper arm, said in the email, seen by Reuters.
“As you may be aware, Rupert resigned from a number of UK boards, including News Group Newspapers and Times Newspapers Limited, some time ago. He has also stepped down from more than a dozen boards of companies with interests in the US, Australia and India.”
Mr Mockridge said the decision formed part of the preparation of the business for the impending restructuring into two companies.
“He (Murdoch) remains fully committed to our business as chairman of what will become the largest newspaper and digital group in the world.”
Speculation had risen in the last year that News Corp could seek to sell the British papers, following a phone hacking scandal at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid that damaged the reputation and value of the company in Britain.
However, Mr Murdoch’s devotion to the papers, and the ongoing legal cases stemming from the hacking scandal, had been seen as a barrier to that option.
No one was available at the British newspaper arm to comment further
Dublin Zoo welcomes a new female baby giraffe
Dublin Zoo is celebrating the birth of a female Rothschild giraffe, which was born on June 27th.
The calf stands tall at six foot and takes after her mother Maeve with her light tan coat. This is Maeve’s second calf at Dublin Zoo as she gave birth to Arria nearly two years ago.
The giraffe calf made her first appearance in the African Savanna just three days after she was born. She joins a herd of ten giraffes of which six are pure Rothschild giraffes, including her sister Arria.
Helen Clarke-Bennet, team leader of the African Plains said, “She is a beautiful, strong and healthy calf. She is very confident for her age as most calves would not join the herd until a week after they are born, however she is has integrated very well. We are delighted with our new addition.”
The youngest member of the giraffe family is yet to be named and keepers are asking the public to provide suggestions for names based on her African origin. The keepers offered some tips on names they like to choose. They said, “We like names that are original, based on the animal’s country of origin and tell us something about the newborn.”
Name suggestions will be accepted can be submitted through Facebook www.facebook.com/dublinzoo and the in Learning & Discovery Centre at Dublin Zoo.
Passenger Woman (21) killed in Aghnaskeagh Co Cavan crash
A woman has died following a single vehicle crash in Co Cavan in the early hours of this morning.
The crash occurred at Aghnaskeagh on the Mountnugent to Finea road at about 4.30am.
A Garda spokesman said the road was closed to allow a forensic examination of the scene to be completed. Local diversions are in place.
The woman (21) was travelling as a passenger in the car and was fatally injured when it hit a tree.
The driver, a 20-year-old man, sustained injuries in the crash but they were not said to be life threatening.
Anyone who witnessed the crash is asked to contact Kilnaleck Garda station on (049) 4336202, the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111 or any Garda station.
Ulster Bank payments by credit card not yet processed for Irish customers
A number of payments made from Ulster Bank accounts have not been processed to Ulster Bank credit cards, it emerged this afternoon.
The problem with credit card balances arose because of the recent technical failure which left almost 600,000 customers without access to funds for over a month.
The bank said normal service has now been restored for the majority of customers, but “given the scale of the incident, the clean-up continues and a small percentage of outstanding transactions are being processed”, which includes some credit card transactions.
A spokeswoman for the bank said the issue with credit card balances was one of “high priority” and would be processed this evening.
“We are fully confident that it will be resolved with customer credit card balances up-to-date tomorrow,” she said.
It is not known how many credit card customers have been affected.
Ulster Bank chief executive Jim Brown said on Monday that the bank has set aside “tens of millions of euro” to cover refunds and compensation for customers affected by the technical error, but details have not yet been announced.
‘Ming Flanagan’ faces Dail investigation after Ceann Comhairle Sean Barrett ‘verbally abused’
A Dail watchdog is expected to investigate an incident involving Independent TD Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan and Ceann Comhairle Sean Barrett.
Mr Flanagan is said by witnesses to have verbally abused Mr Barrett and called him a disgrace.
The incident follows a dispute over the passing of legislation in the Dail without a vote. TDs and senators who witnessed the incident said Mr Flanagan followed Mr Barrett and criticed his decision.
Government chief whip Paul Kehoe has written to a Dail watchdog committee, asking it to look into the incident and take action.
The incident happened just after 10:30pm on Wednesday. Mr Barrett was chairing the end of the Dail debate on the Personal Insolvency Bill.
When the debate was finished, he asked TDs if it was agreed the Bill had passed the second stage.
The TDs in the Chamber replied: “Agreed.” Nobody objected so Mr Barrett declared it was passed.
Then a number of Independent TDs complained but Mr Barrett said the Bill was passed.
Shortly afterwards, Mr Flanagan and a number of other Independents were outside in the corridor when Mr Barrett passed.
The Ceann Comhairle was followed, being verbally harangued. Mr Barrett was said to be visibly shaken by the incident.
Older Irish women have ‘best sex lives in world’ new survey states
Pensioners lead way as we score high in bedroom stakes
Irish people are having sex at least once a week, according to a new survey.
The study shows that 66pc of adults are enjoying a bit of nookie every seven days, but only half are enjoying the ‘full pleasures’ of the act.
It seems the country’s mature ladies are leaving their younger counterparts in the shade when it comes to enjoying orgasms.
It has been revealed that women over 65 in this country are more likely to reach regular orgasms than those of any other country in the world.
And they’re also more likely to climax than younger Irish women, new data has shown.
The figures released from a new Durex survey has revealed that, on the whole, Irish people have healthy sex lives.
Sixty-six percent of Irish people have sex at least once a week and 11pc have sex at least once a fortnight. A staggering 89pc of Columbians have sex at least once a week. In stark contrast, only one in four Japanese people have sex weekly.
It appears Irish people are quite generous in bed, spending almost 17 minutes on foreplay, close to the international average. Greece, Brazil and Mexico spend the longest on foreplay (over 20 minutes) while Thailand fairs worst spending a measly 11 minutes on foreplay.
Irish people are spending slightly less time than average on intercourse at just over 17 minutes, compared to Hong Kong who spend 29 minutes and Brazil, 27 minutes. However, we spend a lot longer than our nearest neighbours. People in the UK are spending only 14- and-a-half minutes having sex and people in France spend only 14.3minutes. Statistics on orgasms are the most revealing with 54pc of Irish people saying they orgasm every time they have sex. Greeks, Hungarians and Spanish are the most likely to orgasm, while people in Malaysia, South Korea and China are the least likely to orgasm. However, women are fairing a lot worse than men with only 31pc saying they climax every time, whereas 77pc of men say they climax every time.
unsatisfied
Even if they don’t orgasm every time, 29pc of Irish people say they orgasm regularly and very few Irish people are going unsatisfied, with only 17pc saying they rarely orgasm. It’s the mature lady who fairs best with 46pc of women over 65 climaxing regularly. For men, it’s those aged 35 to 49 who are the most satisfied with 83pc enjoying regular orgasms.
Comfortingly, we ranked fourth in the world for condom use with 70pc of those surveyed saying they used one last time they had sex.
New child & family support agency in Ireland to tackle gaps in child welfare system
A new child and family support agency designed to give greater focus to State services for children will be established next January, according to the Minister for Children.
Frances Fitzgerald said the agency would bring a dedicated focus to child protection and family support issues for the first time in the history of the State. It would also be a major step in resolving the systemic issues identified in successive reports – most recently the independent review of the deaths of children while in State care.
She was speaking at the launch of the final report of the task force on the Child and Family Support Agency, which recommends that many services for children be moved from other bodies into a single, comprehensive, integrated and accountable agency.
The services involved include public health nursing, speech and language therapy, child mental health services and psychology services. The agency would also assume a role in social work and sexual violence services, as well as child detention services and probation services.
“When a child comes to the attention of social workers or an educational welfare office or a Garda diversion project, that child will come into a single system, a single continuum of services all focused on the child’s wellbeing,” Ms Fitzgerald said.
“It will take time for us to create that new reality out of the rubble of a system that has been crumbling for decades, but this report is a major step on the road.”
Maureen Lynott, chairwoman of the task force, criticised the existing “fragmented” delivery of services for children and said there was “diffuse” accountability.
The scale of failure, ranging up to the deaths of children in care, was disturbing. However, the problems were not the primary responsibility of social workers but were the result of a lack of communication and diluted accountability.
The agency offered a once-in-a- generation opportunity to make changes that could improve the circumstances of children, Ms Lynott added.
The Impact trade union welcomed the commitment to establish a dedicated agency for child welfare. However its assistant general secretary Christina Carney warned that adequate resources were required to ensure services were maintained and improved.
She said there were fewer social workers in child protection than at the time of the Ryan report in 2009, yet demand for such services was increasing because of the recession. A further increase in demand was likely when statutory reporting of child abuse came on stream.
Fianna Fáil spokesman on children Robert Troy welcomed the plans for the new agency but said its success would be dependent on the resources given to it and the extent to which the Minister was accountable for its work.
The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre said the new agency “marks a huge step forward from a position where child and family welfare was barely a priority to a position where children and families will be the sole focus of a single dedicated State agency, overseen by a single dedicated Government department”.
Surgery for most early-stage prostate cancer is not needed, A new study says
A new study shows that prostate cancer surgery, which often leaves men impotent or incontinent, does not appear to save the lives of men with early-stage disease, who account for most cases, and many of these men would do just as well to choose no treatment at all.
The findings were based on the largest-ever clinical trial comparing surgical removal of the prostate with a strategy known as “watchful waiting.” They add to growing concerns that prostate cancer detection and treatment efforts over the past 25 years, particularly in the United States, have been woefully misguided, rendering millions of men impotent, incontinent and saddled with fear about a disease that was unlikely ever to kill them in the first place. About 100,000 to 120,000 radical prostatectomy surgeries are performed in the United States each year.
“I think this is game-changing,” said Dr. Leonard Marks, a professor of urology at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study. “What this study does is call attention to the fact that there are a lot of prostate cancers that are diagnosed today that are not dangerous.”
Even so, the research, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine and paid for by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Cancer Institute and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, is unlikely to settle the debate about the best course of care for men with prostate cancer.
An editorial accompanying the report argued that the study of 731 men, while important, is still too small to draw definitive conclusions about the relative benefits of radical prostatectomy. In addition, slightly more men who did not undergo surgery developed bone metastases over the course of the 15-year study. There was no statistical difference in risk of death from prostate cancer or any cause among men who were randomly assigned to surgery or to an observation group. There was also a suggestion that men with very high scores on a prostate cancer screening test were more likely to benefit from surgery.
The study included only men with early-stage disease, about half of whom learned of their cancer as a result of the prostate specific antigen, or P.S.A., screening blood test. About 81 percent of men with prostate cancer have early-stage or localized cancer, which means it has not spread beyond the prostate. But the findings are not relevant to men with more advanced disease, who may benefit from aggressive treatment, said Dr. Ian Thompson, director of the cancer therapy and research center at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.
“The real point is that we shouldn’t focus on finding every prostate cancer because, as this study and all the screening studies show, the majority that you find don’t need to be found,’’ said Dr. Thompson, an author of the editorial. “What we should focus our screening on and our testing on are patients who are likely to have more aggressive tumors in which treatment seems to make a difference.”
This year, about 242,000 men will receive a diagnosis of prostate cancer, largely because of screening for high levels of P.S.A. in the blood. About 28,000 men die of prostate cancer each year, making it the second-biggest cancer killer of men, second only to lung cancer. Even so, large studies now show that early detection by P.S.A. screening makes little, if any, difference in whether a man dies from prostate cancer.
In May, the United States Preventive Services Task Force issued a controversial recommendation against regular P.S.A. screening. The task force concluded that the test offers little, if any benefit, yet subjects men to anxiety and painful biopsies and often puts them on the course of invasive and risky treatment. But several medical groups have criticized the finding, and P.S.A. testing remains an entrenched part of men’s health care at middle age.
The latest research, called the Prostate Cancer Intervention Versus Observation Trial, or Pivot, focuses on what happens after a man receives a diagnosis of early-stage cancer, often as a result of a P.S.A. test. The men in the study were randomly assigned either to surgical removal of the prostate or to an observation group, where a man’s cancer was monitored but not treated unless it showed signs of progressing. Although the study originally set out to recruit 2,000 men, the researchers could not reach that goal and revised the research plan to include 731 men.
By the end of the 15-year study, 354 men had died, but most of them had died of from a cause other than prostate cancer. There was no statistical difference in overall mortality rates in the surgical group, which had 171 deaths, compared with the observation group, which had 183 deaths.
During the study, only 52 men, or about 7 percent of the study subjects, died of prostate cancer, but again there was no statistical difference in the prostate cancer mortality rate between the groups.
But in a secondary analysis, the researchers did find an important difference between the groups, suggesting that surgery may benefit men with early-stage disease who have a high P.S.A. score. Among men with a P.S.A. value higher than 10 nanograms per milliliter of blood, surgery lowered a man’s risk of dying by 33 percent compared with the observation group. Overall, among men with high P.S.A. scores, there were 13 percent fewer deaths in the surgery group compared with the observation group. No difference was seen among men with a P.S.A. value of 10 or less.
Dr. Timothy J. Wilt, the study’s lead author and professor of medicine at Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Center for Chronic Disease Outcomes Research, said he hoped the results would give patients with early-stage disease more confidence to choose watchful waiting as an option.
About 90 percent of men with early-stage disease choose immediate treatment with surgery or radiation, he said.
“Many men, when they hear about a diagnosis of prostate cancer, become fearful,” Dr. Wilt said. “They think if they aren’t treated they will die from it. Our results clearly demonstrate that’s not true. The overwhelming majority will not die of their disease if it’s left untreated.”
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