Tiwi Islands: Delays to multi-million-dollar port, forestry project turn up heat on land council

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ABC The $50 million Tiwi Islands port development.

A series of delayed development projects promising income and jobs for Tiwi people has led to calls for the Tiwi Land Council (TLC) regional authority to be replaced.

A $50 million port development, said to be worth up to $200 million in export revenue, has fallen months behind schedule.

A major forestry plantation project, developed in partnership with the council by company Sylvatech and then Great Southern, has also struggled to get off the ground.

The setbacks have raised concerns about TLC governance problems. Meanwhile, high rates of unemployment on the Tiwi Islands remain a source of community frustration and anger.

Former Northern Territory deputy chief minister Marion Scrymgour has called on the Commonwealth and Territory governments to deliver a new regional authority.

"I think there's been a whole lot of investments that have been wrong," she said.

"If this was a business or an organisation in mainstream Australia there'd be an outcry because it's taxpayer money. And yet because it's a remote Aboriginal community it doesn't hit the Richter scale.

"I've had concerns for a long time. I think I've done about two to three submissions to the Senate and tried to get through successive federal governments an independent external inquiry.

"Those two big projects have failed. People often forget that there were 52 business on the Tiwi Islands that have failed and gone bankrupt or people have walked away.

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Tiwi Islands: Delays to multi-million-dollar port, forestry project turn up heat on land council

Court dismisses second appeal to overturn ruling on corporate human gene patenting

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ABC Yvonne D'Arcy has lost her second appeal to overturn a court ruling on human gene patening.

The full bench of the Federal Court has thrown out an appeal against a ruling allowing private companies to patent human genes.

Last year breast cancer survivor Yvonne D'Arcy lodged an appeal after two bio-tech companies were granted the patent to a hereditary gene associated with an increased risk of cancer.

A court had previously ruled the patent applied because the genetic material needed to be extracted from the body to be tested.

Ms D'Arcy, from Brisbane, argued the genes existed in nature, so were discovered rather than invented.

She said she launched the case even though she herself did not have the BRCA1 gene.

Her case was against US-based company Myriad Genetics and Melbourne-based company Genetic Technologies.

The full bench of the Federal Court in Sydney has today dismissed her second appeal in the case, stating that "expressions such as the work of nature or the laws of nature are unhelpful when dealing with claims of a kind in this case".

"One may distinguish between discovery of a piece of abstract information without suggestion of a practical application to a useful end, on the one hand, and a useful result produced by doing something which has not been done by that procedure before, on the other," the five-judge panel said.

Ms D'Arcy's lawyer Rebecca Gilsenen from Maurice Blackburn said the judgment was disappointing.

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Court dismisses second appeal to overturn ruling on corporate human gene patenting

The Role of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care in a Modern National Health System – Video

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The Role of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care in a Modern National Health System
Professor David Haslam, Chairman of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE-UK) on the #39;Role of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care in Modern Health Systems #39; Speech...

By: SGUL Medical at UNic

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The Role of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care in a Modern National Health System - Video

Health care industry offers treatment and economic opportunities, leaders say

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Leaders in the health care industry showcased some of the area's assets during a special gathering Thursday.

The Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce and the Medical Center of the Americas sponsored the event, the first of its kind in the region, said Emma Schwartz, president of Medical Center of the Americas Foundation.

The single message that everyone agreed on was that collaboration among health care providers will be the key to the growth of the industry, and to the successful delivery of health-related services to the community.

"The best opportunity that I see is in regional collaboration," Schwartz said.

James Valenti, president and CEO of University Medical Center of El Paso, along with others, stressed that the future of health care includes a strong focus on prevention, more widely available outpatient care, and developing relationships with families to meet health care needs.

"We're looking at prevention, at keeping patients out of hospitals, so they can be at school or home," Valenti said.

Army Col. Michael Heimall, commander of Beaumont Army Medical Center, said construction is underway for the new $1 billion military hospital, and that among other things, there are plans to expand the center's program for medical residents.

Jacob Cintron, CEO of Del Sol Medical Center, said, "My colleagues and I, we compete, and yet we all support one another. The future of health care in El Paso is very, very positive."

And Dr. Syed Yusoof, a cancer survivor and president of the El Paso Medical Society, said he chose to stay in El Paso, and is actively helping to recruit more medical specialists to the region.

Oscar Cantu, another presenter and publisher of El Norte de Ciudad Juarez newspaper, told the audience that he too is a cancer survivor, and wants to increase the Jurez community's access to cancer treatment.

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Health care industry offers treatment and economic opportunities, leaders say

China Has Two New Experimental Satellites In Orbit

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The Chinese space agency launched two new satellites into orbit at 8:15am Beijing time on Thursday, August 4. The two satellites were carried by a Long March 2D rocket, which lifted off from theJiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

The two satellites are both used in different experimental capacities. One of them, theLing Qiao, is a communications satellite. According to a report fromXinhua, the Ling Qiao is a smart satellite being used for multimedia telecommunications experiments.

The second satellite is theChuangxin-1-04. This is the fourth a series of satellites built by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the first of which was launched in 2003. Its being used to collect information about natural disasters, weather, and other types of information.

A Long March 2-D rocket lifting off in 2012. (Credit: China Great Wall Industry Corporation)

Bill Ostrove, a space industry analyst for Forecast International, noted that this launch marks a ramping up of rocket launches by China this year after a slow start.

Through the first half of the year, only one launch was conducted when a Long March 2C carried the Shijian 11-06 into orbit in March, Ostrove wrote. However, in the second half of the year, China has picked up the pace. Two launches were conducted in August, and now another launch took place in early September. China will likely conduct another few launches before year-end.

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China Has Two New Experimental Satellites In Orbit

O3b Is Now Bringing Its High Speed Satellite Internet To Emerging Markets

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An Arianespace Soyuz rocket lifting off with 4 O3b satellites. (Credit: Arianespace)

Earlier this week, O3b Networks announced that its constellation of eight satellites, four of which were launched into orbit last month, are now fully operational.

O3b (the name comes from the other 3 billion people without internet access) is able to offer high speed satellite internet to places where its difficult to build a fiberoptic infrastructure. And while satellite internet isnt new, O3bs uniqueness is that it can provide that internet with low latency the time it takes the signal to travel.

Most satellite internet and data services are from satellites in geosynchronous orbit a little over 22,000 miles above the Earths surface. That distance increases the time it takes for data signals to travel. O3bs satellites, on the other hand, are only about 5000 miles above the Earths surface. That decreases the latency to a point thats competitive with fiberoptic services.

As a result of its data services, the company reports that many of its telecommunications company customers are now able to provide 3G data services to their customers when before they were only able to offer voice services. And its data trunking service is able to provide 600Mbps with a latency of less than 150 milliseconds.

The exciting part of our challenge now is keeping up with demand, O3b CEO Steve Collar said in a statement. We have 28 signed customers who are eagerly anticipating service activation and all have heard the reaction from customers already in service.

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O3b Is Now Bringing Its High Speed Satellite Internet To Emerging Markets

Economic freedom and human progress: Juan Carlos Hidalgo at TEDxIbmec – Video

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Economic freedom and human progress: Juan Carlos Hidalgo at TEDxIbmec
Juan Carlos Hidalgo analista poltico sobre Amrica Latina no Centro de Liberdade e Prosperidade Global. Anteriormente, ele foi diretor da Amrica Latina da International Policy Network....

By: TEDx Talks

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Economic freedom and human progress: Juan Carlos Hidalgo at TEDxIbmec - Video