World Stock Markets maintain their three-month highs
World stock markets held near three-month highs yesterday as investors drew encouragement from signs that Europe is edging toward resolving its debt crisis even as the economic impact worsens.
EUROPE
European shares rose to their highest level in more than four months as firmer oil stocks and a rise in telecoms group Nokia offset a slump in banks due to the Standard Chartered scandal.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index closed up by 0.7 per cent at 1,092.85 points, its highest closing level since March 20th, and the Eurostoxx 50 index rose by 1.6 per cent to 2,440.24.
DUBLIN
The Irish market, however, was an underperformer, as a plummeting Elan dragged the index down. It closed lower by almost 1 per cent, falling back to 3,184.
Elan was the main news on the day as it sank by 8.7 per cent, or 80 cent, down to € 8.43, after testing on its Alzheimer’s drug Bapineuzumab was discontinued.
The drug, which was being developed as a joint venture alongside Johnson Johnson and Pfizer, sent the stock into a downward spin after a second trail failure.
CRH closed up by 1.4 per cent, or 21 cent, after it disclosed that it is looking to take an equity stake in Jaiprakash Associates’ operations in the western Indian state of Gujarat. It finished the day higher at € 15.65.
According to one Dublin broker it is a signal that the construction giant is stepping up its acquisition activity and is taking advantage of a distressed seller.
Aer Lingus released strong passenger statistics yesterday morning but this did not feed into its share price. It closed off by 2 cent, or 1.8 per cent, finishing the day down at € 1.07, albeit on low volumes.
There was additional good news from Providence resources as it provided an update on its Drombeg prospect. It closed up by 10 cent, or 1.3 per cent, on “decent enough volumes”.
LONDON
The bank’s shares plunged by 16.4 per cent in their biggest one-day sell off in four years after New York’s top bank regulator threatened to strip the lender of its state banking licence, saying it hid $250 billion in transactions tied to Iran in violation of US law.
The stock single-handedly sliced around 19 points off the FTSE 100, pushing the UK blue chip index to underperform its rallying European peers and setting up the UK banking sector for its worst performance since ECB president Mario Draghi gave risk assets a broad boost two weeks ago with a pledge to act to stem the euro zone crisis.
“It is so oversold that people are saying it’s a good time to buy, but I am saying fundamentally not.There is still a tail risk that the licence could be taken off. Even if that doesn’t happen you still suffer from lots of reputational damage, so the downside risk is so high. That’s why I will be a seller,” said Chirantan Barua, senior analyst at Sanford Bernstein.
“Broader implications are (that) there is no clean bank in the UK and the UK regulatory system will be under scrutiny. You have the last of the Mohicans, and if they’ve gone this whole sector is tainted.”
InterContinental Hotels, the world’s biggest hotelier, added 6.4 per cent after promising to return $1 billion to investors.
Belfast scientists claim big discovery with throat and cervical cancer therapies
Scientists at Queen’s University in Belfast have claimed a major breakthrough which they say could lead to more effective treatments for throat and cervical cancers.
Queen’s University said the discovery could see the development of new therapies to target non-cancerous cells surrounding a tumour, as well as the tumour itself.
Cancer Research and Cell Biology experts said they found the non-cancerous tissue, or “stroma”, surrounding cancers of the throat and cervix plays an important role in regulating the spread of cancer.
Queen’s believes this opens the door for the development of new treatments targeting the non-cancerous tissue to help prevent it being invaded by neighbouring cancer cells.
Professor Dennis McCance who led the research said: “Cancer spreads as the result of two-way communication between the cancer cells in a tumour and the non-cancerous cells in the surrounding tissue.
“We already know that cancer cells are intrinsically programmed to invade neighbouring healthy tissue.
“But the cells in the non-cancerous tissue are also programmed to send messages to the cancer cells, actively encouraging them to invade.
“If these messages – sent from the healthy tissue to the tumour – can be switched-off, then the spread of the cancer will be inhibited.
“What we have discovered is that a particular protein in non-cancerous tissue has the ability to either open or close the communication pathway between the healthy tissue and the tumour.
“When the Retinoblastoma protein (Rb) in non-cancerous tissue is activated, this leads to a decrease in factors that encourage invasion by cancer cells. And so, the cancer doesn’t spread.”
The research was published in the European Molecular Biology Organisation Journal.
Queen’s said the Rb protein is found in both cancer and non-cancerous tissue, and that its importance in regulating the growth of cancer cells from within tumours is already well-documented.
But it said this is the first time scientists have identified the role of the Rb found in healthy tissue, in encouraging or discouraging the spread of cancer.
The research was conducted using three-dimensional tissue samples, grown in Professor McCance’s lab, to replicate the stroma tissue found around cancers of the throat and cervix.
Speaking about the potential implications for cancer treatment, Professor McCance said: “Current treatments for cancer focus on targeting the tumour itself, in order to kill the cancer cells before they spread.
“This discovery opens the door for us to develop new treatments that would target the normal tissue surrounding a tumour, as opposed to the tumour itself.
“By specifically targeting pathways controlled by the Rb protein, it would be possible to switch off the messages that encourage cancer cells to invade, and inhibit the spread of the tumour.
“Our research has focused on cancers of the throat and cervix. But it is possible that Rb or other proteins in the healthy tissue surrounding other types of cancer, may play a similar role in regulating the spread of tumour cells.
“Therefore, the implications of this discovery could go far beyond throat and cervical cancer, and that is something we plan to investigate further.”
The research was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre and the National Institutes of Health (USA), and was supported by the Northern Ireland Biobank.
TYPE 2 DIABETES?
Normal Weight in People With Type 2 Diabetes tied to higher risk of Early Death
People who are overweight or obese when they are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes appear to live longer than people whose body weight is normal when their disease is detected, a new study shows.
Obesity increases the risks for illness and early death. Despite this, doctors have long puzzled over why bigger patients with certain chronic diseases seem to fare better than those who are thin. This so-called “obesity paradox” has been noted in patients with kidney disease, heart failure, and high blood pressure.
The new study, which is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests the protective effect of a higher body mass index (BMI) may also extend to people with type 2 diabetes. BMI is a measure of size that accounts for both height and weight.
“This was unexpected given the close association of diabetes with obesity,” says researcher Mercedes R. Carnethon, PhD, an associate professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
Excess body fat worsens the body’s ability to use insulin properly, which affects blood sugar control. People with diabetes who are overweight are routinely advised to lose weight to help keep their disease in check.
Carnethon cautions that this study doesn’t mean that people with diabetes who are overweight should abandon their weight loss efforts.
Instead, experts say the study suggests that people who are normal weight when they are diagnosed may be at increased risk of poor health outcomes, though doctors don’t fully understand why.
“If you are normal weight, you may be at higher risk from diabetes, especially if yourfitness status is not so good,” says Hermes Florez, MD, PhD. Florez is the director of the division of epidemiology and population health sciences at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. He wrote an editorial on the study but was not involved in the research.
“It’s not just the issue of fatness. It’s also the issue of fitness,” he says.
Body Size and Death Risk: For the study, researchers pooled data from five different studies of heart disease. During the course of those studies, 2,600 adults over age 40 were diagnosed with diabetes. A total of 293 people (11.2%) had normal weight based on body mass indexes (BMIs) at the time of their diagnosis.
Even after accounting for health risks, like smoking, high bad cholesterol, waist size, and high blood pressure, people who had normal BMIs were about twice as likely to die during the studies compared to people who were overweight or obese.
The study wasn’t able to tease out what it was about normal-weight people with diabetes that might have made them less healthy than those who were overweight or obese, but researchers have some theories.
Ming Flanagan’s divisive political style is always to never back down in an argument
When Luke Ming Flanagan first entered the political fray his motto was “Ming the Merciless”, his shaved head and pointed beard a homage to the baddie in the Flash Gordon fantasy series.
Since then the nickname has been whittled down to Ming, but it’s clear the “Merciless” part of it wasn’t based on looks alone.
The Independent TD for Roscommon-South Leitrim has become embroiled in a number of high-octane and personalised spats with fellow TDs since being elected to the Dáil in February 2011. His exchanges with colleagues and the personal nature of his political style have made him a highly divisive figure among his colleagues.
That came to a head when he was involved in a nasty verbal altercation with Ceann Comhairle Seán Barrett in the Dáil corridor last month. That controversy has rumbled on into the summer recess and Flanagan has made further allegations about Barrett across various media – his Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as an op-ed article in the Irish Daily Mail this week.
He has alleged that Barrett is incompetent, biased and unfit for office and has also made a highly personal comment about Barrett “guzzling pints” in the Dáil bar. That latter criticism has drawn the ire of the Fine Gael TD Mary Mitchell O’Connor, who described his comments as disgusting and disgraceful.
But the outburst is not atypical. When Flanagan becomes involved in rows with political opponents he is unrelenting, ruthless, shrill and occasionally nasty.
A passionate and able spokesman, he has been a leading figure in high-profile local campaigns including Roscommon Hospital Action Committee, the turf-cutters’ campaign and farmers’ protests about excessive flooding in the Shannon basin.
But in so doing he has occasionally brought hyperbole to new – and sometimes banal – heights. It culminated in the Dáil when he compared the plight of turf-cutters being deprived of turbary rights to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. It so happened that the Minister leading the debate on the Government side was Alan Shatter, who is the only Jewish member of the Oireachtas. When Flanagan refused to withdraw the comment, Shatter called him an “ignorant buffoon”.
Indeed, the first controversy involved Mitchell O’Connor.
Flanagan and Shane Ross were sitting beside Mick Wallace in the chamber when the latter dubbed her “Miss Piggy”. While the other two apologised, Flanagan refused to do so on the basis that he had said nothing (which was true).
In his article this week, he described Barrett as a bad referee in his role as Ceann Comhairle. To extend the metaphor, Flanagan has had a habit of playing the man rather than the ball in rows with Dáil colleagues.
The Fine Gael TD for Roscommon-South Leitrim Frank Feighan was the focus of some very negative comments over Roscommon County Hospital, while other Fine Gael TDs Marcella Corcoran- Kennedy (from Laois-Offaly) and Paul Connaughton (from Galway East) have got blasted by Flanagan on Twitter for public positions they adopted on Shannon flooding and the turf-cutters’ dispute.
The Dáil press gallery has been another target in the past few months, with Flanagan complaining that reporters in the gallery don’t adequately report on Oireachtas proceedings. He has suggested they be selected by lottery, and has also made an issue of the fact that the chair of the gallery is the Irish Independent’s political editor, or “Denis O’Brien’s chief scribe”, as he calls him.
Several TDs who witnessed the row between Flanagan and Barrett in the Dáil corridor said Flanagan’s attack was ferocious and completely over the top.
“He lost the plot. He was flailing his arms and shouting and roaring,” said one TD with no party axe to grind.
On his local radio station the following day, Flanagan justified the outburst: “The reality is I was born this way. I do not have a choice but to be the person I am. If I was born black or if I was born with one leg or whatever, would he have a right to have a go at me? No, he wouldn’t.”
The modus operandi he has established since becoming a TD is never to back down or apologise; to assert that he is always right and that others are, therefore, always wrong.
Almost 14,000 people sent to prisons in Ireland last year 2011
The report maintains that good progress was made last year in dealing with overcrowding in Mountjoy Prison’s C wing
Almost 14,000 people were sent to jail last year, but the prison population appears to have stabilised, the Irish Prison Service’s annual report suggests.
There were 17,318 committals last year, an increase of 0.8 per cent on the 2010 total of 17,179. Many of these offenders were jailed more than once during the period. The actual number of people sent to prison increased slightly by 1.4 per cent, from 13,758 in 2010 to 13,952 last year.
Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said there appeared to be a “levelling off in numbers” after big increases in previous years.
The prison population increased by 11.4 per cent between 2008 and 2009 and 13.8 per cent between 2009 and 2010. The increase has been attributed to a larger number of fines not being paid, which has been attributed to the recession, and longer sentences for those convicted of serious crimes such as murder or drug smuggling.
The number of committals for unpaid fines rose from 6,683 in 2010 to 7,514 in 2011. The vast majority (86.4 per cent) of those committed were male. Just 13.6 per cent were female, but the number of women incarcerated increased by 201, from 1,701 in 2010 to 1,902 last year.
Irish Penal Reform Trust executive director Liam Herrick described the rise in the number of women going to jail as “worrying” and noted that a quarter of them were serving short sentences.
“The increase in women being committed to prison for short sentences demands a focused response from both the Prison Service and Probation Service,” he said. “Both services have acknowledged that specific alternatives to prison for low-level female offenders are needed.”
The cost for prison cell fell by more than €5,000 a year, from €70,513 in 2010 to €65,359 last year. The decline is as a result of a €3.2 million decrease in the overall prison budget coupled with an increase in bed capacity from 4,203 to 4,486.
The prison population at the end of November 2011 totalled 4,313 inmates, including 3,697 serving sentences, 609 on remand awaiting trial and seven immigration detainees. There were also 20 fine prisoners. The overall figure was more than 4,500 last month, the Penal Reform Trust said.
The report said that during 2011, “significant progress” had been made in implementing the public service agreement in the Prison Service, which aims to save €21 million in payroll costs by 2014. The number working in the service has fallen by 250 since 2010.
It also said that good progress was made last year in dealing with overcrowding in Mountjoy Prison’s C wing, with the construction of 38 new cells in the basement area. All other cells on the wing have a toilet and wash-hand basin in them.
A major extension to the Midlands Prison with an additional 179 cells is also under way.
Mr Shatter said 300 new places should be made available in the Midlands Prison by the end of the year and he had received approval for the development of a new prison on the site of the current Cork Prison car park and an adjacent greenfield site.
Ireland’s manufacturing output rose by 10.5% in June 2012 against June 2011,
‘NEW FIGURES FROM CSO SHOW’
Manufacturing production was 3.3 per cent higher in June compared with May 2012, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office.
Production was 10.5 per cent higher for June 2012 when compared to June 2011.
The seasonally adjusted volume of industrial production for manufacturing industries for the three-month period between April and June was also 5.1 per cent higher than the previous quarter.
The CSO data shows the seasonally adjusted volume of industrial production for June 2012 was 4.5 per cent higher than the same month last year. On an annual basis, turnover increased by 5.6 per cent when compared with June 2011.
Production in the so-called “modern” sector, which comprises a number of high-technology and chemical fields, showed a monthly increase of 1 per cent in June while a rise of 0.3 per cent was recorded for the “traditional” sector.
Neither sector appears to have been affected by the slowdown in the European economy since late last year. Most output of both sectors is for export to foreign markets
No comments:
Post a Comment