A brave Blog story by Donie Wednesday

Astra the horse is saved in dramatic quicksand type rescue in Australia

A race against the tide: Bravery of a young mother Nicole Graham who stayed by her horse’s side for three hours after getting trapped in mud ”like quicksand’

‘Panic as 78-stone show horse is ‘swallowed-up’ by mud
  

A horse called Astra was minutes away from drowning in quicksand was saved in a dramatic rescue early today Wednesday.

Nicole Graham and her daughter, Paris, were riding along a beach in Melbourne, Australia when their horses got stuck in the muddy sands.

The woman managed to dig her daughter’s horse free but her horse, Astro, was stuck.

Nicole stayed by Astro’s side for three hours until rescuers pulled him from the sands with ropes and a big tractor.

She said, “It was heartbreaking to see my horse struggling. He is so well trained, he knew I would get him out so he didn’t fight.”

Afterwards Astro was treated to bread and jam and a massage to help him recover.

A leap year-day Blog for the Girls

Girls, take a leap (It's the year & the day)

    

Marriage proposals are meant to be memorable. However if you want the “wow’ factor and not the ‘wah’ factor a little planning may be called for.

These days, couples often become engaged while on holiday or travelling together.

This usually means there are a myriad of wonderful locations where men (or women) can pop the question in style.

Timing is crucial but with 2012 being a leap year this means women have a greater chance of pinning down their man!

According to an old Irish legend, St Bridget struck a deal with St Patrick, allowing women to propose to men on February 29.

     A deal was made?   

On the other hand, it is also said that around the 13th century women grew tired of marriage proposals being a man’s prerogative. So, Queen Margaret of Scotland decreed that a woman could ask a man for his hand – and unless he was already married or engaged he was obliged to either accept or pay a fine.

While some men might be tempted to run for cover, those who are ‘leapt’ upon with a proposal this year might as well accept.

After all, February 29 comes but once every four years so there will be far fewer engagement anniversaries to remember!


Have a go Ladies?

Another Donie Blog Wednesday

A Failed plan? 

Fewer than 3% of public servants are leaving - Howlin declares

       

As few as 3 per cent of public servants are leaving before changes to pension and retirement arrangements come into effect tomorrow, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin has said.

Therefore, he added, it would be unduly alarmist to categorise the exit as a “wave’’. There had been much notice and a lot of strategic planning had been ongoing.

“I cannot guarantee that there will not be a glitch because it will be the area in which we least expected a problem to arise,’’ Mr Howlin said.“However, I do expect managers at local level to address problems as they arise and to solve them.”

Mr Howlin said the latest information across the public service indicated that 7,464 people had applied to retire in the first two months of this year. The sectoral breakdown was: health, 2,567; education, 2,058; Civil Service, 1,236; local authority, 931; defence, 362; Garda, 310.

Transition teams had been put in place in each of the sectors to deal with the specific short-term challenges which were arising.

Sinn Féin spokeswoman Mary Lou McDonald said there was no evidence of the type of detailed, robust planning that Mr Howlin claimed had been under way for some time. “There comes a point at which one cannot do more with less.’’

Mr Howlin said it was a falsehood to claim that, after reducing the full quantum, one must add everyone back again. “We have been involved in planning this process for each sector for months.’’

As an example, said Mr Howlin, Minister for Education and Skills Ruairí Quinn had laid out his plans in the House months ago.

Fianna Fáil spokesman Seán Fleming said it had emerged earlier on radio that circulars had been sent to nursing unions suggesting a change from a 12-hour to a six-hour shift.

“If that is emerging in the 24 hours prior to people retiring, how can the Minister possibly expect proper arrangements to be put in place?’’

Mr Howlin said that some nursing grades were not subject to the moratorium and they could be replaced immediately.

Some €16 million was available to the HSE to fill critical grades, he said, adding that all consultant posts were outside the embargo and could be filled.

‘Che Guevara’ memorial in Galway plan riles Declan Ganley

 Monument 

Libertas founder Declan Ganley has described plans to erect a memorial celebrating Galway city’s links with Argentinian guerrilla fighter Che Guevara as a “monument to a mass murderer” .

Mr Ganley said that “significant concerns” about the plan had been raised with him by members of the US business community during a trip there last week and that he feared it would “cast a shadow” on Galway’s international reputation.

Warning that it would “damage investment”, he said “we would not build a monument in Galway to Stalin, or to Pol Pot, or to Idi Amin, or to Oliver Cromwell”.

“Che Guevara was just as violent, just as brutal, and just as insane as any of them. We would never dream of honouring them, and we should not dream of honouring him, either,” Mr Ganley said in a statement yesterday.

Mr Ganley claimed that the proposal was “nothing more than the pet project of a small number of extremists in the Labour Party”.

“If the people of Galway knew the truth about this man, they would never allow it to be built,” he said.

“Che Guevara is responsible for the deaths of an untold number of people in his brutal quest for power in South America. Alongside Fidel Castro, he instituted a regime in Cuba from which people have been fleeing for decades. He worked to deny people the right to vote, the right to own property, and the right to freedom of religion. He persecuted Catholics with a psychotic zeal.”

Galway city Labour Party councillor Billy Cameron, a member of the Cuba Support Group, said the proposal had the full support of the city council and was currently before a public arts subcommittee. Funding is to be provided by the Cuban and Argentinian embassies.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna’s grandmother, Ana Lynch y Ortiz, was descended from one of the Lynch family of Galway who emigrated to Argentina in the mid-18th century. Guevara referred to his grandmother’s Irish roots during a stopover in Shannon in 1965.

Mr Cameron confirmed that he had received a number of emails from the United States “bordering on the abusive” in the past week since an opinion piece was published on the proposal in a daily newspaper. “One would question who Mr Ganley’s US contacts are, and [whether] they have connections with members of the US business community based in Miami, Florida,” he said.

“I won’t get into a mud-slinging match with Mr Ganley, but he is obviously being fed information from the extreme right.”

He questioned whether Mr Ganley was aware of human rights violations involving US support, including the celebrated case of six-year-old Elián González and the impact of the prolonged economic embargo on the island.

Mr Ganley said the memorial will be taken as “a grievous insult by the millions of Cubans forced into exile around the world”.

‘Referendum on Ireland’s new EU fiscal policy' soon 

Announced today as opposition parties welcome the proposal 

 I will fix it Boss 

OPPOSITION PARTIES HAVE WELCOMED THE GOVERNMENT’S DECISION TO HOLD A REFERENDUM ON THE EU’S NEW FISCAL TREATY.

The treaty which imposes strict budget rules on all member states, will be put to a vote in Ireland – after the attorney general advised that a referendum was necessary.

Tonight a Government spokesman’s confirmed the referendum will be held on its own and not bundled together with polls on Children’s Rights or the abolition of the Seanad.

The Fianna Fail leader Michael Martin says the governemnts decision to hold a referendum is the right one:

“We will be supporting a yes vote on the referendum; the ratification of the treaty. We regret that there hasn’t really been a comprehensive engagement with either the Dáil or indeed the people on the treaty itself”.

‘Wild west scenes’ as Slash-hook attack causes terrifying scenes at Ballinrobe Confirmation

  

Wild scenes of violence disrupted a Confirmation service in St Mary’s Church, Ballinrobe, this afternoon (Tuesday). Around a dozen men entered the church carrying slash hooks and chased down a man who was attending the Mass.

 

Over 90 local children were in the church at the time of the terrifying incident, which took place shortly after 1.30pm, just after Communion.

 

Onlookers said that the man fled into the porch of the church where a wooden table was broken over his back by one of the attackers. However, armed Gardaí were on the scene within minutes and eventually managed to defuse the situation.
No serious injuries have been reported.

 

The incident is believed to be part of an ongoing feud between two families in the area. 
Over 600 people were attending the church for the service, as children from the local national schools of St Joseph’s, Cloonliffen, Roxboro and Cregduff, along with a number of secondary school children, were making their Confirmation. Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, was the chief celebrant of the Mass. 

 

Gardaí arrested one man at the scene, and he is due to appear before a special sitting of a local district court this week. 
A Garda spokesperson said that the matter was still under investigation. He admitted that the situation was ‘volatile’ for a time, but reported that a number of gardaí, who were on patrol locally, brought the situation under control.

 

Many of the church-goers who witnessed the attack were shocked by the scenes.
“To see this happen before your eyes is unbelievable,” A witness said. “The lack of respect shown was incredible … To think that such an attack would take place on the day of a Confirmation, a special day for so many children and their families. These people had no regard for human safety …

 

A lot of people are very upset and shocked about what happened. I never saw the likes of this in Ballinrobe,”

Another Tuesday up-date Blog by Donie

Ian Baraclough is confirmed as the new manager of Sligo Rovers

     

Left picture the new manager Ian Baraclough and right pic the new kit for 2012.

 

Sligo Rovers have announced the appointment of Ian Baraclough as the club’s new manager. The 41-year-old joins Sligo Rovers after the unanimous approval of the club’s interview board as the outstanding candidate for the Bit o’ Red job.   

for more info click here http://donieconwayaddress.wordpress.com/north-west-sport/                        

 

Ireland’s home prices drop by 15.1% in a year ‘biggest decrease yet’

Official figures show that prices of houses and apartments across the country fell at their fastest annual rate in two years last month.

      

Official figures show that prices of houses and apartments across the country fell at their fastest annual rate in two years last month, with a particularly sharp fall in house prices in Dublin.

The Central Statistics Office said residential property prices dropped by 17.4% in the year to January, the biggest annual fall since January 2010.

There was a 1.9% decline during the month of January after a 1.7% drop in December. Prices nationally are now 48% below peak levels reached in early 2007.

In Dublin, residential property prices fell by 4% in January and were 21.1% lower than a year ago. Dublin house prices fell by 4.1% in the month – their biggest drop since March 2009 – and were 21.7% lower compared with a year earlier. Dublin apartment prices were 18.4% lower when compared with the same month of 2010. Dublin apartment prices dropped by 3.5% during January, having risen for the previous two months.

Prices of residential properties in the rest of Ireland dropped by 0.7% in the month, giving an annual fall of 15.1%.

The CSO says house prices in Dublin are 55% lower than their peak level in early 2007, while Dublin apartment prices are 59% lower than in February 2007. The fall in residential property prices in the rest of Ireland is lower at 43%.

Sligo father found guilty of rape and sexual abuse of his daughter

         

A 48-year-old Sligo man has been convicted of the rape and sexual abuse of his 13-year-old daughter which led to him fathering her child. The man, who has a previous conviction for rape and sexual abuse of another teenage girl, has been remanded in custody pending sentence next month.

He had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to eight counts of sexual assault and seven counts of rape at the family home between September 2005 and September 2007.

The complainant, now 19, said her father sexually abused her once every two to three weeks from when she was 13. The jury of eight men and four women returned unanimous guilty verdicts on all counts after just over an hour.

Donie's Tuesday Blog up-date

Discovery of Fruit Bats harbouring influenza virus in Guatemala

Bird flu, pig flu, now bat flu? The Human risk is unclear

A new subtype of the virus is discovered in Central American bats.

                     Little yellow-shouldered bats in Guatemala have been found to harbour a strain of influenza virus. 

Fruit bats in Guatemala are hosting a novel subtype of influenza A virus, according to a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The virus — designated H17 — appears to have diverged from known influenza viruses long ago, shedding light on their evolution. Therefore, it seems to pose no immediate threat to humans. However, it is similar enough to other subtypes that genetic exchange with them could pose a risk. “We can’t say don’t worry about it, nor can we say it’s not dangerous. We just don’t know yet,” says study co-author Ruben Donis, chief of molecular virology and vaccines in the influenza division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.

Donis and his colleagues are now testing bats in South America, Africa and Asia to document the geographical distribution of influenza — the first step towards determining whether bats are a reservoir behind outbreaks in humans.

“We are far away from speculating on any pandemic potential of this virus, but finding this ancient influenza subtype stresses again that bats are an important source of animal viruses,” says Ab Osterhaus, head of virology at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who was not involved in the work.

Bats have come in for scrutiny in recent years after being linked to the emergence of Ebola virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and nipah virus. “With more than 1,200 known species, bats are the second-largest mammal group, so it’s not surprising that they carry a large diversity of viruses,” says Jon Epstein, a veterinary epidemiologist at EcoHealth Alliance in New York. “Finding older lineages of influenza in bats doesn’t necessarily increase the risk of influenza emerging into human populations, but it does help us understand the diversity of flu viruses in nature and how genes may be swapped between strains and species.”

PROBE POWER:

Donis and his colleagues began developing molecular probes to detect viruses about eight years ago. At the CDC Field Detection Center in Guatemala, they used the probes to first screen for the presence of rabies virus in bats in 2009 and 2010. Then the samples were screened for other viruses, including influenza. Of 316 bats sampled from 21 species across eight locations, three little yellow-shouldered bats (Sturnira lilium) tested positive for H17.

 

“This study highlights the power of using generic PCR probes to broadly screen for and discover new viruses in new hosts — something that can be done at labs throughout the world,” says Epstein.

Ideally, Osterhaus says, the community will create an inventory of viruses identified in bat species to better determine the potential for viral spread to other mammals, including humans. “It is unfortunate that we are being blocked at the moment from publishing data on transmissibility of an avian influenza virus, which is crucial information we need for not just influenza viruses but for all emerging viruses,” he adds.

What is not yet clear is how influenza is transmitted between the bats. “We think the intestinal tract, where we found the highest concentration of the virus, is the target organ — suggesting infection may be the result of oral–faecal transmission,” says Donis.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR BUSINESS START-UPS IN GALWAY

           

High potential start-ups in areas including medical devices, cloud computing and software applications are being sought as part of a jobs initiative to be launched in Galway today.

Galway Mayo Institute of Technology is to open the “New Frontiers” entrepreneur recruitment campaign- as part of the Government’s Action Plan on Jobs.

GMIT is one of 13 institutes nationwide offering the programme which aims to help people start their own business.

It aims to deliver 100 new companies a year and is being rolled out in conjunction with Enterprise Ireland.

An open evening will be held at the GMIT Innovation Centre tomorrow week March 6th with sessions at 5.30 and 7pm.

NUIG and HP launch MSc in Cloud Computing Research

    
HP’s Dr Chris Coughlan, and NUI Galway’s president Jim Browne, Dr Tom Acton and Dr Emer Mulligan at NUIG and HP launch MSc in Cloud Computing Research


NUI Galway and HP have launched a new Master of Science degree in Cloud Computing Research which offers a programme of advanced research on the business-focused aspects of cloud computing.

The degree was designed by the JE Cairnes School of Business and Economics at NUI Galway with HP Galway’s Cloud Services Innovation Centre.

It’s available through a one-year full-time or two-year part-time research-based course which begins in September 2012.

“Through direct dialogue with key industry partners such as Hewlett-Packard, Information Mosaic and others, we constructed this degree to meet the needs of these and other companies moving into the cloud space, and to provide a vehicle for the realisation of knowledge-intensive research into cloud computing,” said Dr Tom Action of NUI Galway, who created the course.

Applicants should already be working in the ICT sector or tech-related role in other sectors with a qualifying degree with related experience. Alternatively, they can hold an undergraduate degree containing information systems, technology management or an equivalent.

The field was identified by the Government, Forfás and the IDA as one of the best potential high-value growth areas for Ireland which could create jobs for the country.

“This innovative and international master’s degree is a critical support component in developing and sustaining Ireland’s smart economy ahead of the curve, and in the creation of high-value employment within Ireland,” said Dr Chris Coughlan, manager of HP’s Worldwide Cloud Service Innovation Centre.

The mentally-ill are at greater risk of violence According to new re-search

       

Adults with disabilities are at heightened risk of violence, with those suffering from mental illness appearing to be particularly vulnerable to violent attacks, according to new research.

This is the first study to show the extent of this problem among people with disabilities.

The researchers concluded that disabled adults are more likely to be victims of violence than those without a disability.

They found that adults with mental health problems are nearly four times as likely to be a victim of violent acts than those without a disability.

Researchers analysed 26 studies involving over 21,500 people with disabilities in seven countries including Australia and Canada.

They found that the occurrence of a recent violent attack was high in adults with a mental illness – at ust over 24% and those with intellectual disabilities, where the prevalance was just over 6%.

Dr Mark Bellis from Liverpool John Moores University, who led the research, said the number of people with disabilities who have experienced violence, are directly threatened with violence or living in fear of becoming a victim are likely to be considerably higher than estimated in the study.

The research is published in The Lancet.