Ireland’s trade mission to France yields almost €13m in deals for Irish companies
Almost €13 million in new sales contracts have been signed as part of a three-day Enterprise Ireland trade mission to France.
Three Irish companies working in agri-technology signed new business contracts with existing and new customers in France yesterday.
Co Meath-based Dromone, which designs and manufactures coupling technology for the agriculture and construction sectors, secured a €9.7 million contract with Beauvais-based AGCO Group, France’s largest exporter of agricultural products.
Limerick-based agricultural manufacturing company Samco signed its first contract with a French co-op, securing a €220,000 deal with Cavac.
Cavac will be the sole distributor of Samco machines and degradable plastic film in the Vendée region in west France.
Kerry-based Dairymaster, a leading manufacturer of dairy farm equipment, signed a contract with animal genetics company Genes Diffusion that is expected to deliver initial sales of €3 million.
Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton, who is leading the trade mission, said the contract wins by three indigenous Irish companies showed “what is possible for innovative exporting companies operating in growth sectors”.
The deals demonstrated “Ireland’s international reputation as a source of high-quality products” in agri-technology, he added.
Irish exports to France increased by 14 per cent last year to €9.6 billion. The world’s fifth-largest economy is Ireland’s fifth-largest market for merchandise and fourth-largest market for services. Major exports to France include pharmaceuticals, food and computer software.
'Donegal Woman’s body found named' 2 days after house fire happened
The woman’s body that was discovered in her bungalow two days after there was a fire in it was named as that of Bridie McFadden
Gardaí were alerted by concerned members of the community in Falcarragh, Co Donegal, on Saturday night and officers had to break into the home of Ms McFadden. The 40-year-old’s body was found in the hallway and there was evidence of a fire in the living room which had extinguished itself some time earlier.
There was no evidence of a blaze outside the house and most of the interior damage was caused by smoke. All doors and windows were closed.
Garda Supt Eugene McGovern said yesterday investigators had not ruled out the possibility that the fire might have started in an electric heater.
“The fire appears to have been in the living room and it burned itself out quickly. Most of the damage seems to have been caused by smoke,” he said.
“It could have happened up to two days before the body was found. . .It appears the fire may have been extinguished because of lack of oxygen,” he added.
Ms McFadden lived alone in the house at Dunmore Lane. A native of nearby Ranafast, she was a member of the choir at her local Catholic church, St Fionan’s.
Prayers were said for her at both Masses yesterday morning.
“People around here are stunned by what happened. She was a lovely person who did quite a bit of voluntary work,” said parish priest Fr Denis Quinn.
Gardaí believe the fire was an accident but forensics officers were still investigating it yesterday.
Ms McFadden’s body was removed to Letterkenny General Hospital, where a postmortem will take place today.
The Ulster Bank fails to meet the new deadline of clearing backlog for today Monday
Mr.Stephen Hester, RBS
The Ulster Bank says it does not expect full services to resume today, despite earlier pledges that a backlog of payments would be cleared by the beginning of this week.
In a statement, the bank said it was continuing to work through thousands of transactions affected by IT issues.
“We know this disruption is unacceptable and we continue to do all we can to help our customers,” the bank said.
“The staff in our branches and call centres are doing everything possible to help customers.”
The bank said about 50 of its branches will have extended opening hours – from 9.30am to 7pm – until Friday of this week.
Queues of people were visible over the weekend at some of the branches that were kept open on Saturday and Sunday.
In an information note for customers, Ulster Bank has sought to address concerns among those who are worried they may be disconnected from a utility or service provider if their account is not paid.
“We would like to reassure our customers and those of other banks that in most cases there will not be any impact,” the bank said.
It added some social welfare and children’s allowance payments continued to be affected by delays.
The bank said it would continue to provide welfare recipients with access to funds if they visited any branch with photographic ID and their account number.
The bulk of salary payments are now up-to-date; however, a small number of customers may still experience a delay, the bank added. It said any customer can access money via its ATM and branch network.
On the issue of credit ratings, it said it was working with the credit reference agencies to ensure customers’ credit ratings were not affected as a result of the payment backlog.
Will the world end in 2012? Newly discovered Mayan text says no
Archaeologists in Guatemala have discovered Maya text that references the “end date.” However, the Maya text suggests that the Maya calendar is not meant to predict the end of the world, but to promote continuity and stability.
Is 2012 the end of the world? A new Mayan text says absolutely not. While apocalyptic predictions will abound throughout the year, archaeologists have proof that the world won’t end in 2012. Archaeologists digging at the site of an ancient Mayan city in Guatemala have unearthed a 1,300-year-old Mayan text that includes the second known reference to the dreaded “end date” of the Mayan calendar (also known as December 21, 2012). Archaeologists presented their findings at the National Palace in Guatemala on Thursday.
“This text talks about ancient political history rather than prophecy,” says Marcello Canuto, director of Tulane’s Middle American Research Institute, in a press statement. Canuto and Tomas Barrientos of the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala have been in charge of the archaeological dig at La Corona since 2008. In the past, La Corona has been defiled by looters.
“Last year, we realized that looters of a particular building had discarded some carved stones because they were too eroded to sell on the antiquities black market,” said Barrientos, “so we knew they found something important, but we also thought they might have missed something.”
Canuto and Barrientos stumbled upon the longest text ever uncovered in Guatemala. The Mayan text is carved on staircase steps and details approximately 200 years of La Corona history, notes David Stuart, director of the Mesoamerica Center at The University of Texas at Austin.
Stuart was the first to see the 2012 reference in the Mayan text. He says it was carved on a stairway block that features 56 carefully carved hieroglyphs. The archaeologist say that the Mayan text chronicled a visit to the Mayan city in AD 696 by Yuknoom Yich’aak K’ahk’ of Calakmul. The Mayan ruler was visiting allies and reasserting his power after being defeated by Tikal in AD 695.
“This was a time of great political turmoil in the Mayan region and this king felt compelled to allude to a larger cycle of time that happens to end in 2012,” says Stuart.
The archaeologists say that the 2012 reference is not an apocalyptic prediction, but an attempt to restore stability by explaining the Mayan king’s shaky reign in the context of something much larger.
“In times of crisis, the ancient Mayan used their calendar to promote continuity and stability rather than predict apocalypse,” says Canuto.
The “end date” of December 21, 2012 is not actually the end of the Mayan calendar. In fact, the “end date” is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then another long-count period starts for the Mayan calendar on December 22, 2012.
In December 2011, NASA also weighed in on the question of whether 2012 is the beginning of the end. Citing Y2K as a similar example, space agency officials said that the “end date” will generate a lot of fanfare, but that 2012 will come and go just like any other year.
“Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012,” scientists said as part of a question and answer session.
NASA also noted that there are no threats to Earth or happenings in space that could end the world as we know it in December. Furthermore, the space agency cautioned that if unusual planetary alignments were to occur, the impacts on the Earth would be “negligible.”
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