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
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