Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Ireland’s sovereign debt is upgraded by Standard & Poor's to A+ with growth

 

Rating agency expects economy to continue to expand until 2018.

Citing the rebound in Irish property prices, S&P expects Nama to redeem all of its senior bonds by the end of 2018. “We believe the likelihood that Nama will remit a residual gain to the government when it winds up its operations exceeds the likelihood that it will incur a shortfall,” it said.

Rating agency Standard & Poor’s has upgraded its assessment of Ireland’s sovereign debt, saying it expects the economy to expand at one of the fastest rates in the euro zone until 2018.

With the general election due in less than a year, S&P said the upgrade was premised on its expectation that the next government “will not deviate significantly from current fiscal targets and commitments.”

S&P has indicated it expects the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition to run its course. Its view is that the next administration is likely to take office a year from now.

The upgrade comes in spite of the fact that S&P foresees “some slippage” vis-à-vis the Government’s deficit-reduction targets until the election.

“We therefore don’t expect the fiscal balance to return to surplus before 2019 as we think expenditure overruns (especially in health care) will be recurrent,” it said.

“We also expect public-sector wage pressure to emerge after current accords lapse and public investment to pick up.”

However, S&P said Ireland’s policy and institutional effectiveness was supported by a “consensus” among most of the main political parties “in favour of sound public finances and policies aimed at promoting economic flexibility, competitiveness, and openness.”

Citing the rebound in Irish property prices, S&P expects Nama to redeem all of its senior bonds by the end of 2018. “We believe the likelihood that Nama will remit a residual gain to the government when it winds up its operations exceeds the likelihood that it will incur a shortfall,” it said.

“We note that the price rebound in the housing market hasn’t been driven by mortgage credit, though approvals for mortgage loans have started to pick up.

“We expect the constrained supply of new housing to remain a key factor behind rising house prices.

In a statement on Friday evening which it forecast average annual economic growth of 3.6 per cent between 2015 and 2018, S&P said it foresees a narrowing deficit, higher state asset sales and further redemptions of Nama senior bonds. This will bring net general government debt below 100 per cent of GDP by the end of this year, it said.

“We are therefore raising our long-term sovereign credit ratings on Ireland to ‘A+’ from ‘A’. The outlook is stable,” said S&P.

The upgrade was welcomed by Minister for FinanceMichael Noonan, who said it

recognised Ireland’s commitment to restoring the public finances to full health and the significant progress made to date in this regard. “It is also reflective of Ireland’s strong economic growth potential into the medium term,” Mr Noonan said.

Although Irish borrowing costs have risen in recent from record low levels amid volatility in international debt markets, rating upgrades such as the action by S&P mark a boost for the Government as it still needs to borrow to fund the budget deficit.

S&P, which said Ireland is taking a big benefit from the reduction in the euro’s value against the dollar, said it expects the unemployment rate to “fall sharply” to 7.5% in 2017 from the present rate of 9.8%.

“The upgrade reflects our view of Ireland’s improved fiscal performance, higher state asset sales, and robust economic performance, which have combined to lead to a quicker decline in net general government debt than we had previously forecast,” said S&P.

“Ireland’s economic performance has surpassed that of most euro zone countries, with real GDP growth reaching 4.8% in 2014, compared to an average of 0.9 per cent for the euro zone.

“The domestic economy, measured by gross national product, has expanded at a faster pace than GDP (which includes accounting effects from Ireland’s large multinational sector) for three straight years.

“We expect Ireland’s recovery to remain steady with real GDP growth of 3.6% over 2015-2018. Much of the strong growth in the past few years has stemmed from the economy rebounding from a deep financial crisis.

“Net exports contributed to two-thirds of Ireland’s economic growth in 2014, primarily in aspects of the services sector such as information and communications technology and business services. Ireland has notably benefitted from the economic recovery of some of its key trading partners such as the UK and US, which we expect to continue over the forecast period.

Dunnes workers to march to head office over zero-hours row "But will Margaret turn"

    

Dunnes Stores workers are marching to the retailer’s head office in Dublin tomorrow.

The march is part of their campaign to gain greater job security and end zero hours contracts.

The rally is being supported by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and follows a one-day strike in April.

ICTU General Secretary Patricia King said Dunnes Stores had full control over its workers’ hours and earnings, “over how and when the hours are assigned, (and) full control over the workers’ income…with little regard at all for the workers’ needs and how they run their lives”.

Sudden work stress can cause weight gain

   

It’s been suggested that switching from a relaxed work atmosphere to a stressful one could make you put on weight.

Sudden bouts of stress at work could cause an expanding waistline, it’s been claimed. You might think that’s not much of a surprise, after all who hasn’t heard that pressure can cause people to comfort eat? But what’s new is the suggestion that being under constant stress at your job won’t have much of an impact on the scales.

A team at University College London looked at eight studies boasting 60,000 people and compared the results. Overall, it seemed that those whose jobs were relatively relaxed to begin with but then ramped up a gear were more likely to be obese. In fact, they were 20 per cent more likely to have put on a dangerous amount of weight while their job intensified than those whose careers remained more stable.

Although the reason for the finding isn’t totally clear, Professor Sir Cary Cooper explained there could be a correlation between sudden stress and having little time for home life.

“If your job becomes more stressful, it means you are not coping with it,” the workplace health expert explained.

“You are probably working longer hours, which means you are probably not eating as well as before, you are probably not having a proper lunch or walking as much.”

It’s possible people who are struggling with their workload feel the need to boost their energy too, which could lead to them reaching for chocolate or fizzy drinks.

The findings were published in the International Journal of Obesity, where Professor Mika Kivimaki explained they show how important it is to tackle the obesity epidemic. That is especially so because the analysis didn’t point to people losing weight when their work stress drops off.

There are currently thought to be one billion overweight adults worldwide, with 300 million obese. That number has risen three fold since 1980, with those who are an unhealthy weight more at risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke and hypertension.

A death diet that is chips, toast, crisps, biscuits and coffee that give you cancer

 

A highly toxic chemical normally found in tobacco is also present in fried foods including chips and toast, according to a new study.

Chips and coffee are among the food items said to contain the harmful chemical.

The shocking report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) found acrylamide (AA) –  which is also found in crisps, biscuits and coffee – is a cancer risk.

Scientists warn that the toxins are also widespread in baby foods, with toddlers exposed to around 60 per cent of their daily intake of the chemical through food.

The toxin forms when foods are baked, fried or roasted at high temperatures

European scientists have warned that AA causes cancer in animals and that the risk extends to humans as well.

AA forms in numerous baked or fried carbohydrate-rich foods, including French fries, potato crisps, breads, biscuits and coffee

They add that it is “virtually impossible” to remove the chemical from foods, but consumers should try and reduce their intake.

Around half (51 per cent) of children’s exposure to the chemical comes from fried potato products, including chips and roast potatoes.

The EFSA warn: “AA forms in numerous baked or fried carbohydrate-rich foods, including French fries, potato crisps, breads, biscuits and coffee.

“AA is also known to be present in cigarette smoke.”

TTY: Bread – both soft and toasted – also contains the AA toxin

The study added that children were the most vulnerable based on their body weight.

Other harmful effects of AA include damage to the nervous system, harm to pre- and post-natal development and male fertility.

Tips for reducing AA include not allowing fried foods to burn or crisp and making sure toast is golden yellow rather than brown.

Experts also recommend not storing potatoes in the fridge as it increases sugar levels in the vegetables, leading to increased levels of AA.

The EFSA added: “Evidence from animal studies shows that acrylamide and its metabolite glycidamide are genotoxic and carcinogenic: they damage DNA and cause cancer.

“Since acrylamide is present in a wide range of everyday foods, this health concern applies to all consumers but children are the most exposed age group on a body weight basis.

“The most important food groups contributing to acrylamide exposure are fried potato products, coffee, biscuits, crackers, crisp bread and soft bread.”

The EFSA is recommending that individual countries across Europe now conduct their own investigations.

The findings mean European authorities could now look again at how chemicals in food are regulated.

It could also mean changes to advice on eating habits and home-cooking, and tighter controls on factory and restaurant food production.

New software gauges kids’ pain levels at a glance

  

Assessing pain according to facial expression could be a giant step forward in pediatrics.

Measuring the degree of pain kids are going through can be tricky, but a new method using facial pattern recognition software was recently developed at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

Currently, children and adolescents self-report their pain, usually on a scale of zero to 10, but the research team says most kids have trouble assessing their pain and young tots do not have the cognitive and conceptual abilities to belay their pain in such a way.

In such cases, members of the nursing staff are called to perform clinical pain assessments yet even with help from parents, they often underestimate the pain, says senior author Jeannie Huang, MD, MPH, a professor in the UC San Diego School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics and a gastroenterologist at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego.

What’s more, these pain assessment sessions are often scheduled at the convenience of the hospital staff, which may not coincide with the height of the kids’ pain, says Dr. Huang.

The software employs the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), which was developed in Sweden to connect feelings with the facial expressions they produce and contains 46 anatomically-based component movements.

Using the software to analyze the sort of facial expressions we have when we experience pain, the research team assessed 50 children and adolescents ranging in age from five to 18 years old.

All participants were patients at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, where they had undergone laparoscopic appendectomies.

They filmed the kids at three separate intervals after their surgeries, the first being one day later, the next being one calendar day after the first post-op visit and once more at a follow-up within the first two to four weeks post-op.

The video recordings taken using the software were compared against self-reported pain ratings by the kids and also against pain ratings by their parents and nurses.

“The software demonstrated good-to-excellent accuracy in assessing pain conditions,” says Dr. Huang. “Overall, this technology performed equivalent to parents and better than nurses. It also showed strong correlations with patient self-reported pain ratings.”

What’s more, Dr. Huang and her team detected no inconsistencies in the results concerning ethnicity, race, gender or age amongst the patients.

“Accurate assessment of pain is a fundamental tenet of delivery of care,” says Dr. Huang.

Pain control is not only a question of comfort, according to Dr. Huang, it aids recovery, for previous research has indicated that if left untreated, pain could lead to unfavorable surgical outcomes.

20-Foot Monster Shark Once Trolled Mesozoic Seas

  

A giant shark the size of a two-story building prowled the shallow seas 100 million years ago, new fossils reveal.

The massive fish, Leptostyrax macrorhiza, would have been one of the largest predators of its day, and may push back scientists’ estimates of when such gigantic predatory sharks evolved, said study co-author Joseph Frederickson, a doctoral candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Oklahoma.

The ancient sea monster was discovered by accident. Frederickson, who was then an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, had started an amateur paleontology club to study novel fossil deposits. In 2009, the club took a trip to the Duck Creek Formation, just outside Fort Worth, Texas, which contains myriad marine invertebrate fossils, such as the extinct squidlike creatures known as ammonites. About 100 million years ago the area was part of a shallow sea known as the Western Interior Seaway that split North America in two and spanned from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic, Frederickson said.

While walking in the formation, Frederickson’s then-girlfriend (now wife), University of Oklahoma anthropology doctoral candidate Janessa Doucette-Frederickson, tripped over a boulder and noticed a large vertebra sticking out of the ground. Eventually, the team dug out three large vertebrae, each about 4.5 inches (11.4 centimeters) in diameter. [See Images of Ancient Monsters of the Sea]

“You can hold one in your hand,” but then nothing else will fit, Frederickson told Live Science.

The vertebrae had stacks of lines called lamellae around the outside, suggesting the bones once belonged to a broad scientific classification of sharks called lamniformes that includes sand tiger sharks, great white sharks, goblin sharks and others, Frederickson said.

After poring over the literature, Frederickson found a description of a similar shark vertebra that was unearthed in 1997 in the Kiowa Shale in Kansas, which also dates to about 100 million years ago. That vertebra came from a shark that was up to 32 feet (9.8 meters) long.

By comparing the new vertebra with the one from Kansas, the team concluded the Texas shark was likely the same species as the Kansas specimen. The Texan could have been at least 20.3 feet (6.2 m) long, though that is a conservative estimate, Frederickson said. (Still, the Texas shark would have been no match for the biggest shark that ever lived, the 60-foot-long, or 18 m, Megalodon.)

By analyzing similar ecosystems from the Mesozoic Era, the team concluded the sharks in both Texas and Kansas were probablyLeptostyrax macrorhiza. Previously, the only fossils from Leptostyraxthatpaleontologists had found were teeth, making it hard to gauge the shark’s true size. The new study, which was published today (June 3) in the journal PLOS ONE, suggests this creature was much bigger than previously thought, Frederickson said.

Still, it’s not certain the new vertebrae belonged to Leptostyrax, said Kenshu Shimada, a paleobiologist at DePaul University in Chicago, who unearthed the 1997 shark vertebra.

“It is also entirely possible that they may belong to an extinct shark with very small teeth so far not recognized in the present fossil record,” Shimada, who was not involved in the current study, told Live Science. “For example, some of the largest modern-day sharks are plankton-feeding forms with minute teeth, such as the whale shark, basking shark and megamouth shark.”

Either way, the new finds change the picture of the Early Cretaceous seas.

Previously, researchers thought the only truly massive predators of the day were the fearsome pliosaurs, long-necked, long-snouted relatives to modern-day lizards that could grow to nearly 40 feet (12 m) in length. Now, it seems the oceans were teeming with enough life to support at least two top predators, Frederickson said.

As for the ancient shark’s feeding habits, they might resemble those of modern great white sharks, who “eat whatever fits in their mouth,” Frederickso                        

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Ireland’s economy ‘starting to fire on all cylinders’, says an IMF report

  

Annual assessment of Irish economy shows healthy economic growth despite high unemployment and widespread mortgage arrears

Irish economic growth is expected to be a healthy 3.5% in 2015, the IMF report shows.

Ireland’s economy is “starting to fire on all cylinders”, but the scars of the crisis are still visible in high unemployment, widespread mortgage arrears and house prices 38% below their peak, according to a new report by the International Monetary Fund.

In its annual assessment of the Irish economy, known as an Article IV, the IMF charts the country’s successful emergence from the deep recession of 2008 and 2009. Irish economic growth is expected to be a healthy 3.5% in 2015, slowing to 3% next year, much of it led by exports.

“Ireland’s recovery is off to a good start in 2013–14, with some of the adverse legacies from the crisis beginning to heal,” the IMF finds.

Unemployment has fallen from a peak of 15% to 10%, but remains well above the pre-crisis level of 4.5%. House prices have bounced back, rising at 16% a year, as fast as during the boom, but they are still 38% below the dizzy heights of 2008.

After more than five years of spending cuts, the deficit on public finances should hit 3% of GDP in 2015, the IMF predicts, which would allow the country to leave the EU’s “excessive deficit procedure”.

While Dublin was subject to the strictures of the “troika” of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank, which oversaw its €67.5bn bailout loan, its creditors were often accused of driving it into austerity.

The IMF, however, uses its report to urge Dublin to be cautious about the pace of future spending cuts, lest it choke off growth. It argues for a “phased and steady adjustment, allowing a continued build-up of the fiscal space while supporting the recovery in the near term.” The government left the bailout programme in late 2013.

Irish consumers have also worked hard to pay down their debts, mainly by slashing their savings ratio, the share of their income they put aside for a rainy day. Almost 15% of mortgage borrowers are still in arrears; however, and the average household has debt worth 177% of its annual income – very high by both historical and international standards.

The IMF cheers Ireland’s strong record of growth since it emerged from its international bailout in 2013, but points to the significant role of “contracted manufacturing”, under which multinationals score production in Ireland for tax purposes even though the goods may never cross the Irish border. The practice may have added as much as two percentage points to GDP in the first three quarters of 2014 alone, the IMF calculates.

Dublin insisted on maintaining its 12.5% corporation tax rate, unusually low by international standards, throughout the crisis negotiations with its international creditors.

Windfarm locals must be given energy policy role, Alex White says

Minister for Energy says citizens need stake for Ireland to meet targets on renewables

    

Minister for Energy Alex White has said that local people affected by windfarms must be given a ‘genuine stake’ in energy policy decision-making for Ireland to meet its targets on renewable energy.

Local people affected by the erection of windfarms must be given a “genuine stake” in energy policy decision-making if Ireland is to succeed in meeting its renewable energy targets, the Minister for Energy Alex White has said.

Mr White said the issue of consultation will be addressed in the White Paper on energy policy which is being prepared for publication later this year.

Speaking at the annual conference of the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA), Mr White said wind was now generating 16.5 per cent of all electricity demand in Ireland, but there was “quite clearly plenty more to do” if Ireland was to reach the EU target of having 40 per cent of electricity generated from renewables by 2020.

Mr White said the majority of Irish people are concerned about global warming and welcome the idea of a cleaner energy system.

However, Mr White also noted the “deep concerns” of local people about the effects that wind turbines will have on their lives.

Mr White said: “It is up to us . . . that our citizens have, and feel that they have, a genuine stake in our energy future.

“It is up to us, Government, industry and advocates, to make this happen by maximising the opportunities for citizens to participate in the transition to a carbon-free future.”

Mr White said it was important to locate wind turbines in areas that are compatible with the environment.

Survey results

A survey carried out on behalf of the industry found that 70 per cent of Irish people either agree or strongly agree that wind energy contributes positively to the national economy.

Some 30% neither agreed nor disagreed with the proposition, while 7% either disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Some 69% agreed that wind energy has a positive impact on the environment, while 81% of respondents believed it was important for Ireland to have its own secure source of energy.

The survey was carried out by Empathy research based on a representative sample of 1,093 Irish adults.

A report commissioned by IWEA in relation to the benefits of wind energy stated that each house would be €26 better off every year if Ireland meets its renewable targets by 2020.

The report found that new data centres, such as the one being built in Athenry, Co Galway by Apple, could increase electricity demand in Ireland by 900 megawatts a year.

Young people in Ireland are happier now than a decade ago

  

Young people are happier and healthier than a decade ago but social inequalities are impacting more on poorer adolescents’ health, research has found.

The results of health and social studies across 40 countries in Europe and north America, compiled in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, show overall improvements in the wellbeing of 11 to 15-year-olds between 1994 and 2010.

The Irish study partners at NUI Galway’s health promotion research centre say that, while there have been positive developments, issues about social inequality are a worry.

“Of real concern must now be the increases in social inequalities in Ireland, where children from poorer homes are more likely to report ill-health, and the gap between rich and poor has increased over time,” said NUIG senior lecturer in health promotion Saoirse Nic Gabhainn.

This inequality has increased significantly in only four other countries — Austria, Canada, France, and Lithuania — out of 37 where the relative risk of at least two health complaints a week among children in low-wealth families was measured.

Over the last decade in Ireland, there has been a decline in school-aged children drinking alcohol weekly and in experiencing multiple injuries. Self-rated health and ease of communication with parents have improved, but the study found increased pressure from school work and no reductions in bullying.

Ms Nic Gabhainn said policymakers can use the findings, published in The European Journal of Public Health, to ensure their decisions are effective.

Oldest Irish woman to make history at midnight tonight

  

In just a few hours, the oldest living person born in Ireland will make history and become the longest living Irish person ever.

Kathleen Hayes Rollins Snavely turned 113 last month, making her the oldest Irish person alive today.

Tonight, she will break a record by becoming the oldest person ever to be born in Ireland, overtaking Annie Scott, who was 113 years and 37 days old when she died in 1996.

Clare-native Kathleen was born in Feakle in 1902. She emigrated to America in 1921. Today, Kathleen is “hard of hearing but clear of mind” and has lived an extraordinary life.

She has been a resident of The Centers at St. Camillus in Syracuse, New York for a short number of years.

Kathleen marked her landmark birthday with a small party in her nursing home, which was attended by family and close friends.

“I thought it was intimate and nice, right at the home where she is – a mixture of people who have known her for years, people from the Francis House, Sean Kirst and his wife,” said Dave Liddell, a friend of Kathleen’s at the party.

Lidell has known Kathleen for 30 years and says “once she opens up and becomes part of the group she enjoys expanding and telling stories.

“She’s warm and cheerful and thoughtful of others, that comes through in a lot of the things she says.

“She’s very intelligent even though her education was somewhat limited, leaving Ireland so young, and she’s still sharp as a tack even though she has relinquished some of her physical vitality.

“And she’s Irish through and through.”

Kathleen doesn’t like sensationalizing or being defined by her age.

Having reached 113, Kathleen is often asked about her secret to longevity – it is a subject she hates to discuss.

“I get so tired of people asking me about my secret. I’ve got no secret,” she told Sean Kirst of Syracuse.com.

“You live and you do it the best you can.”

She finds questions about her age can often be rudely delivered.

“Someone came up to me in the cafeteria and said to me, ‘How old are you anyway?’ I said, ‘I’m old enough to have some manners.’”

Kathleen’s memories of the past 113 years focus on her personal life, rather than historic events.

“I’ve forgotten a lot of history,” she says. “I’ve been living my whole life. I didn’t think I’d need to remember these things.”

However, she remembers the night she left Ireland and the advice she gave to her two younger brothers: “Work hard and you be careful about drinking and grow up to be someone to be proud of.”

Many decades later, she offers new advice: “You can’t go through life thinking you’re better than the other guy.”

Last year, her adopted home of Syracuse declared March 17 Kathleen Snavely Day, to honour the popular resident.

Back in Clare, Peggy Hayes, the widow of one of Kathleen’s cousins, says she was told that Kathleen “left young and did well, and that she was from a long-living family”.

She was born on February 16, 1902 to farmer and publican Patrick Hayes and his wife Ellen.

Kathleen’s birth certificate:- 

Kathleen worked as a business apprentice in Ireland, before boarding a ship in 1921 and sailing from Cobh to Ellis Island at 19-years-old and with just $25 in her pocket.

She left the country in the midst of the War of Independence to live with her mother’s brother, Jeremiah Moroney, in Syracuse.

She worked at a state school for people with developmental disabilities and then found employment at E.W. Edwards Department Store.

She later set up a shop with her first husband, Roxie E. Rollins. “Neither of us had a formal business education,” she said

“We learned on the job, through experience. If you have a feeling for management and enjoy it, experience will give you the skills.”

She says they “were very much in love. It was the secret of our success.”

Roxie died in 1968. In December, 2000, she honoured his memory by making a gift of $1 million to the Syracuse University School of Management.

“I can’t think of anything that would please him more than supporting a cause that would help other ambitious young people like us.”

Two years after Roxie’s death, 68-year-old Kathleen married her second husband, Jesse Clark Snavely, Jr.

Ireland’s SMEs and banks to remain ‘economic bedfellows’

 

Despite the growth in alternative sources of finance, SMEs cannot but rely on banks to provide credit, the deputy governor of the Central Bank said

Despite new and welcome initiatives to diversify sources of funding, SMEs cannot but rely on banks to provide the credit they seek to function and expand, deputy governor of the Central Bank Cyril Roux told the audience at an event for the Leinster Society of Chartered Accountants on Wednesday.

Despite the growth in alternative sources of finance, Ireland’s SMEs and banks are to remain “economic bedfellows”, the deputy governor of the Central Bank said on Wednesday.

“Despite new and welcome initiatives to diversify sources of funding, SMEs cannot but rely on banks to provide the credit they seek to function and expand,” Cyril Roux told the audience at an event for the Leinster Society of Chartered Accountants.

While he recognised the importance in developing alternative sources of finance for small and medium sized businesses, noting that investment vehicles such as the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and the Strategic Bank Corporation of Ireland are “welcome additions” to the funding mix, he said that banks will remain the most important source of finance.

“While there are fledgling new avenues of non-bank lending, Irish SMEs will rely on banks to function and to grow for many years to come”.

Peer to peer lending, whereby individuals lend to small businesses, will, at best likely be “a marginal source of funding”, Mr Roux said.

“Rules around the protection of investors that have been painstakingly developed in the markets, securities and fund industry are missing and so are time and tested processes and procedures to assess the creditworthiness of borrowers, to ensure professional collection, and to devise and implement workouts of non-performing loans,” he said.

Lending by investment funds, following the introduction of domestic regulation for loan originating funds last year, is also a possibility, but “time will tell the place it will take in the market for SME lending,” he said.

Non-performing loans

Recognising that creating the right environment for SMEs to prosper is “of vital importance to the economy”, said that non-performing loans remain an issue, but that it “will take time” to resolve..

“Commercial loans still make up the sizable majority of distressed loans in Ireland and will take time to work through, even with an improving economic outlook,” he said.

Inspections

As part of the bank’s implementation of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), the regulator created a division dedicated to the performance of on-site inspection. This new division is now set to perform a programme of credit risk and other inspections, Mr Roux said.

“We expect that the inspection teams will be on-site in our largest credit institutions throughout the year with targeted inspections taking place in other institutions based on our risk assessment.”

With respect to new lending, Mr Roux said that it has conducted a number of inspections, and it will receive first reports from this work in the coming months.

“Overall, we are satisfied that governance and underlying standards are much improved relative to the crisis”.

An American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut leaving Earth this week for a year in space

 

An American astronaut and Russian cosmonaut will leave Earth this week and move into the International Space Station for an entire year.

Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko begin their marathon mission with a Soyuz rocket launch from Kazakhstan early Saturday — Friday in North America. They should arrive at the orbiting outpost six hours later.

It will be NASA’s first stab at a one-year spaceflight, a predecessor for Mars expeditions that would last two to three times as long. The Russians are old hands at this, but it’s been nearly two decades since a cosmonaut has spent close to a year in orbit.

FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE DUO’S EXTRAORDINARY ENDEAVOURS:

THE CREW

Both Scott Kelly (left) and Mikhail Kornienko have lived on the space station before. No-nonsense former military men, they were selected as an astronaut and cosmonaut in the 1990s. Kelly, 51, is a retired Navy captain and former space shuttle commander. Kornienko, 54, is a former paratrooper. The pair will blast off with Russian Gennady Padalka, a veteran spaceman who will spend six months at the orbiting lab.

THE MISSION

Kelly and Kornienko will remain on board until next March. During that time, they will undergo extensive medical experiments and prepare the station for the anticipated 2017 arrival of new U.S. commercial crew capsules. That means a series of spacewalks for Kelly. They also will oversee the comings and goings of numerous cargo ships, as well as other Russian-launched crews. Soprano superstar Sarah Brightman will stop by as a space tourist in September.

THE SCIENCE

Doctors are eager to learn what happens to Kelly and Kornienko once they surpass the usual six-month stay for space station residents. Bones and muscles weaken in weightlessness, as does the immune system. Body fluids also shift into the head when gravity is absent, and that puts pressure on the brain and the eyes, impairing vision for some astronauts in space. Might these afflictions peter out after six months, hold steady or ramp up? That’s what researchers want to find out so they can protect Mars-bound crews in the decades ahead.

THE TWINS

NASA’s scientists couldn’t resist when Kelly’s identical twin brother, Mark, a retired astronaut, pictured above, agreed to take part in many of the same medical experiments as his orbiting sibling. Researchers are eager to see how the space body compares with its genetic double on the ground. They won’t follow the same diet or exercise regime, however. Mark said he has no intentions of consuming bland space-type food or working out and running two hours a day on a treadmill, as his brother will be doing.

THE HISTORY

NASA and the Russian Space Agency announced Kelly, pictured far right, and Kornienko, far left, as the one-year crew in late 2012. This will be new territory for NASA, which has never flown anyone longer than seven consecutive months. The Russians hold the world record of 14 months, set by a physician-cosmonaut aboard the former Mir station in 1994-1995. Several other Russians spent between eight and 12 months at Mir. All but one of those long-timers are still alive. They will be accompaniedon the launch by Gennady Padalka, middle.