CPA chief: Freedom Air has to stay current with all its debts

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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

More than a month after Freedom Air filed for bankruptcy, the Commonwealth Ports Authority is still waiting for any development on the matter, which is now under the guidance of the bankruptcy court.

CPA executive director MaryAnn Lizama disclosed to Saipan Tribune yesterday that the agencys legal counsel, Robert Torres, is on top of the situation.

The Commonwealth Ports Authority legal counselhas been assigned to keep in communications with regards to the bankruptcy process and progress, she said.

Due to the bankruptcy filing, there is currently an automatic stay on all creditors of Freedom Air while they reorganize.

Freedom Air, which owes the ports authority some $1.23 million in passenger facility charges and facility use, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Guam in late September, to allows the carrier to reorganize while it continues operation.

Lizama said yesterday that CPA, like all other creditors of the airline, will respect the process. She admitted that all amounts owed CPA is not being addressed to date.

However, Freedom Air has to stay current with all its current debts, i.e., PFCs [passenger facility charges], land leases, etc. Until we hear from the courts or the assigned trustee, Freedom Air continues its operations, according to Lizama.

Airports in the U.S. may impose PFC on enplaning passengers, to be used to fund Federal Aviation Administration-approved airport improvement projects. Once the FAA has approved a PFC, it requires airlines and travel agents to collect PFCs from their passengers. Air carriers may be subject to financial penalties for non-compliance.

Saipan Tribune learned that of the $1.2 million total debt to CPA, Freedom Air is behind in PFC payment for Saipan amounting to $273,500; Rota with $148,392; and for Tinian $202,275.

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CPA chief: Freedom Air has to stay current with all its debts

New York's Freedom Tower, tallest building in the Americas

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New York, Nov 13 (IANS/EFE): The Freedom Tower in New York is the tallest building in the western hemisphere at 542 metres, surpassing Chicago's Willis Tower, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) said Tuesday.

The New York edifice, whose official name is One World Trade Centre, takes the title as tallest after including the spire installed this year, which raises it from 417 meters to 542 metres, leaving the 442 metres of the Chicago skyscraper behind.

Once complete, the Freedom Tower will be the third tallest building in the world, trailing only the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the Makkah Royal Clock Tower in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the CTBUH said.

"The design of One World Trade Centre, as explained to us, reinforces its role as a symbol of resurgence on this important site," CTBUH executive director Antony Wood said.

The building stands on the site of the original Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre, destroyed in the terrorist attack of Sep 11, 2001.

Chicago's Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower, stands 130 stories high and is topped by an observation deck with a very popular bar and restaurant.

For many years New York retained the title for the tallest skyscraper in the world, thanks to the Empire State Building, but in 1974 the Sears Tower went up in Chicago and snatched that honour away.

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New York's Freedom Tower, tallest building in the Americas

Freedom Elementary celebrates vets, responders and its 10th anniversary

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Students and veterans watch the school bell ring nine times Tuesday to honor soldiers past and present.SABRINA ROCCO/Bradenton Herald

EAST MANATEE -- Parents dressed in some form of red, white and blue filed Tuesday into Freedom Elementary School's cafeteria to watch their children honor veterans and first-responders while celebrating the school's 10th anniversary.

An elegant version of "God Bless America" played in the background as 760 Freedom Falcons took their seats on the floor for opening remarks, which included a Color Guard presentation of the U. S. and state of Florida flags, the reading of the school's mission statement, the singing of the school song ("...Freedom's a flame that burns within ya, Freedom's in the state of mind...") and a special anthem for each branch of the military and first responders.

"The kids feel good that they're supporting our veterans. They'll be singing these songs for months now," said Bonnie Christian, a technology teacher who organized the event.

Freedom Elementary, the only Manatee school not named after a person or place, was built around the time of Sept. 11, 2001. When it was finished in July 2003, founding Principal Gary Holbrook wanted its name to be unique.

"He wanted the theme of

freedom," said current Principal Jim Mennes.

Since the school was named Freedom, its mission has always been patriotic.

"Our main goal is to teach our children gratitude," said assistant principal Laura Campbell. "That's the goal here, and we really try to encourage it."

Music teacher Rick Bogner, who has been at Freedom all 10 years, said the goal has remained the same while the school greatly expanded.

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Freedom Elementary celebrates vets, responders and its 10th anniversary

Rappler's Pat Evangelista among 2013 Freedom Flame awardees

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by Rappler.com Posted on 11/12/2013 2:28 PM |Updated 11/12/2013 7:48 PM

MANILA, Philippines Rappler multimedia reporter Patricia Evangelista was a recipient of a 2013 Freedom Flame Award on Sunday, November 10, for her "insightful video documentaries and news reporting on issues on freedom and human rights."

The Freedom Flame Award is a recognition given to individuals for their commitment to good governance and freedom. In addition, the award also serves as an appreciation of the recipients' continuous support for the freedom campaign of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF), a German political foundation that promotes participatory democracy, human rights, and free trade.

A writer, producer and videographer, Evangelista covered, among others, the Zamboanga crisis last September. (READ and WATCH: Blood from the sky)

Evangelista joined 12 other recipients of this year's Freedom Flame Award:

The awarding ceremony took place at the San Diego Gardens in Intramuros, Manila. It was also attended by international delegates from Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD).

During the program, Senator Aquino delivered the annual Freedom Speech, addressing the state of freedom in the Philippines. "We are a freedom-loving people. It seems to be ingrained in each Filipino the love for freedom and the willingness to fight for our freedom," Aquino said. Rappler.com

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Aborting the disabled: 'Wrongful birth' or unborn eugenics?

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(AP)

Christian communities can become alarmist when it comes to stories about biotechnology. In June 2013 the news that the UK would be the first country to permit what were called 'three parent babies' was reacted to with wide negativity among many in the Church. However many people became less concerned when it was properly explained that said babies would have 20,000 genes from their parents, and only 37 from an external female donor, and no embryos need be destroyed.

Given the fundamentality of life that comes with any attempt to deal with research and issues surrounding genetics and embryology, it's understandable that Christian communities become concerned. But we must be wary of becoming too sensitive and criticising too often lest our protests be ignored as expected and clichd when a really important issue emerges. An important issue like the slowly rising number of 'wrongful birth' cases, the lack of legal protections around sex selective abortion, and the question of whether or not we are sleepwalking into a situation of eugenics for the unborn.

Since 1990 it has been possible, at least in the US certainly, for people to use IVF to pre-select a baby's sex (albeit at tremendous expense of $500,000 US), but it has been widely understood that in the UK it isn't legal to abort a pregnancy purely on the basis of whether it is male or female. After all, this is a practice that has resulted in a massive gender imbalance in China and many other parts of South Eastern Asia and only emerges because of what even many in China would regard as outdated gender role politics and archaic views about the place of women and their lesser position in failing to bear the family name in marriage. Surely such practices couldn't have a home in the UK?

Since October 2013 that hasn't been clear. The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, made the decision in the earlier part of that month to not prosecute two doctors secretly filmed by the Daily Telegraph permitting a gender-motivated elective abortion. In an expanded memorandum explaining the situation, Mr Starmer said: "The law does not, in terms, expressly prohibit gender-specific abortions; rather it prohibits any abortion carried out without two medical practitioners having formed a view, in good faith, that the health risks of continuing with a pregnancy outweigh those of termination."

But this assurance counts for very little, since Mr Starmer also revealed that this two-medical professional signature defence is routinely circumvented. Indeed, he said that "an abortion can be performed without either medical practitioner having actual direct contact with the woman requesting an abortion".

As much as medical professionals are intelligent and accomplished people, it's difficult to see how they can make a judgement about whether or not the risks of continuing the pregnancy outweigh those of an abortion without actually meeting the pregnant woman in question. A Care Quality Commission investigation revealed that in Hereford, 10 out of 20 forms permitting an abortion were "pre-signed" before the doctors ever met the patients, and out of a later investigation of 463 abortion cases, 236 of them contained photocopied signatures. Despite these findings however, no prosecutions have been brought forward.

Mr Starmer also admitted: "The discretion afforded to doctors under the current law in assessing the risk to the mental or physical health of a patient is wide and, having consulted an experienced consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, it appears that there is no generally accepted approach among the medical profession."

This lack of accepted medical procedure for the justification of abortions has also been highlighted in New Zealand. David Fergusson, a psychology professor from the University of Otago last month published new research revealing that despite 90% of pregnancy terminations in NZ being justified on mental health grounds, abortions in fact are associated with small to moderate increases in anxiety, alcohol misuse, illicit drug use and suicidal behaviour. Describing this issue as an "elephant in the room", Fergusson claimed that the law in NZ had been subverted to allow a large number of women to have abortions. Essentially, Fergusson argued, doctors were making decisions "on the basis of diagnostic criteria for which they have no evidence".

This seeming complete lack of understanding and proper oversight of the means by which an abortion can be legally justified is made even more startling when you factor in the 'wrongful birth' lawsuits that have cost the NHS 54 million over the previous half decade. The most recent case is that of Joanne Chinnock who is suing the law firm Veale Wasbrough and barrister Karen Rea for professional negligence after they advised the dropping of a case against Liverpool Women's Hospital NHS in 2001.

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Dead tired muttonbirds found on Capricorn Coast beaches

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Topics: dead birds, department of environment and heritage protection, kinka beach

WHAT is usually a pleasant stroll along the beach for Grant Norton and Trudi McDonald became an upsetting ordeal for the couple recently after a grim discovery.

It was on Sunday morning when the pair came across 16 dead birds and a dead turtle on Kinka Beach at the Capricorn Coast.

Trudi said they had been walking the beaches almost every day lately for the past few months and had never seen anything like this before.

"What's causing it? It needs to be looked into," she said.

"There was black stuff coated around it (the birds)it's just too many."

A Department of Environment and Heritage Protection spokesperson said the department has received many reports of dead short-tailed shearwaters, or muttonbirds, being found on Queensland beaches.

"This may continue along the Queensland coast over the next few months," the spokesperson said.

"The shearwaters are on their annual migration from northern Russia to rookeries in Victoria and South Australia. Unfortunately, the birds can succumb to exhaustion along the way."

In response to the dead turtle sighting, the spokesperson said at this stage EHP has received no reports of a dead turtle on Kinka Beach.

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Dead tired muttonbirds found on Capricorn Coast beaches

$40M replenishment project to begin on Long Branch beaches next week

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LONG BRANCH A $40 million federal beach replenishment project is set to get underway in Long Branch next week, officials announced today.

Even before Hurricane Sandy decimated much of New Jerseys coastline, beaches in Long Branch were narrow. Because of Sandys 10-foot storm surges, local officials said its even more imperative for the beach widening work.

Sandy severely damaged our beaches and caused serious erosion that needs to be repaired to protect us from future storms, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-6th Dist.) said at Pier Village in the Monmouth County city. With this critical beach replenishment project getting under way, we are moving a step closer toward recovering from Superstorm Sandy and rebuilding the Shore.

Pallone visited the area earlier today with Col. Paul Owen, commander of the New York District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which designed the project.

Long Branch is the third of four phases of the Army Corps work to reconstruct the coastline from Sea Bright to Manasquan. Work has already been completed in Sea Bright and Monmouth Beach. Work on the section from Belmar to Manasquan started last week and another section, from Avon-by-the-Sea to Asbury Park, is scheduled to start in January.

The Long Branch project will start at Pier Village and end at Lake Takanassee about two miles to the south. When that section is finished, work will begin on the nearly three miles of the citys northern beaches to the Monmouth Beach border.

The last of the Monmouth County phases, from the Elberon section of Long Branch to Loch Arbour, is expected to start next fall. This section never had beach replenishment so local and federal officials are working to obtain easements and to design the project, Pallone said.

Beach replenishment contracts awarded for Monmouth County coastal towns

Army Corps of Engineers begins $8M beach replenishment in Monmouth Beach

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$40M replenishment project to begin on Long Branch beaches next week

World's largest disease database will use artificial intelligence to find new cancer treatments

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

10-Nov-2013

Contact: Claire Bithell Claire.Bithell@icr.ac.uk 020-715-35359 Institute of Cancer Research

A new cancer database containing 1.7 billion experimental results will utilise artificial intelligence similar to the technology used to predict the weather to discover the cancer treatments of the future.

The system, called CanSAR, is the biggest disease database of its kind anywhere in the world and condenses more data than would be generated by 1 million years of use of the Hubble space telescope.

It is launched today (Monday 11 November) and has been developed by researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, using funding from Cancer Research UK.

The new CanSAR database is more than double the size of a previous version and has been designed to cope with a huge expansion of data on cancer brought about by advances in DNA sequencing and other technologies.

The resource is being made freely available by The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and Cancer Research UK, and will help researchers worldwide make use of vast quantities of data, including data from patients, clinical trials and genetic, biochemical and pharmacological research.

Although the prototype of CanSAR was on a much smaller scale, it attracted 26,000 unique users in more than 70 countries around the world, and earlier this year was used to identify 46 potentially 'druggable' cancer proteins that had previously been overlooked*.

The new database will drive further dramatic advances in drug discovery by allowing researchers access to, and the ability to interact with, unprecedented amounts of multidisciplinary data in seconds.

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World's largest disease database will use artificial intelligence to find new cancer treatments

Dual Process Tank Automated Ultrasonic Passivation System for Medical Device, Aerospace, and other – Video

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Dual Process Tank Automated Ultrasonic Passivation System for Medical Device, Aerospace, and other
More info at: http://www.besttechnologyinc.com/passivation-systems/ultrasonic-automated-passivation-systems/ This system is similar to our single automated u...

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Dual Process Tank Automated Ultrasonic Passivation System for Medical Device, Aerospace, and other - Video

Aerospace Industries Association to Offer Authorized 3D CAD Models of Critical National Aerospace Standards in …

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Milford, OH (PRWEB) November 12, 2013

CADENAS PARTsolutions, a leading provider 3D product catalogs and digital parts management solutions for manufacturers, announces an exclusive partnerships to offer authorized 3D CAD models of components based on critical National Aerospace Standards (NAS), providing a valuable new tool for engineers across the aerospace and defense industry to accelerate innovation, shorten design cycles and reduce costs.

CADENAS PARTsolutions has partnered with IHS, the leading global source of information and analytics, and the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), the premier trade association representing the nation's major aerospace and defense manufacturers, to offer configurable 3D models of NAS & NASM mechanical parts standards.

Under the partnership, the advanced PARTsolutions eCATALOGsolutions tools will be integrated with IHS Standards Expert and IHS Standards Expert with Goldfire, the market-leading engineering knowledge management solutions from IHS. Engineers will be able to quickly locate the appropriate NAS and NASM standard and use the integrated PARTsolutions configuration tool to define, visualize and refine the required part before generating a 3D model. The model can be saved into more than 150 native and neutral CAD and graphic formats, versions and revisions, and then inserted into a computer design to be tested for form, fit and function, as well as included in a bill of materials within the CAD software.

Key benefits of this solution include:

"AIA has a long and proud history serving the needs of the aerospace and defense industry through our National Aerospace Standards program," said AIA President and CEO Marion C. Blakey. "The AIA NAS 3D catalog allows us to provide solutions that will help the industry design and manufacture products faster and at a lower cost." "CADENAS PARTsolutions is thrilled to partner with industry leaders IHS and AIA to deliver a revolutionary new product to the aerospace and defense industry," said Rob Zesch, President & COO at CADENAS PARTsolutions. "The NAS 3D catalog is the first aerospace standard in the history of aviation to be 3D-enabled by its owner, and we are honored to have our technology chosen for this endeavor."

"Customers look to IHS as a trusted source for all their engineering and technical reference information, including critical industry standards," said Chad Hawkinson, Vice President, Product Design Solutions at IHS. "The 3D AIA NAS solution will allow engineers to more easily and accurately implement the standards' requirements and complete their projects, reducing design times while improving quality and generating savings for our customers."

The 3D AIA NAS standards capabilities announced today will be available in early 2014 as a catalog within the PARTsolutions parts management solutions, with available integrations to all major CAD & PLM applications. The NAS 3D Catalog will also be available in IHS Standards Expert and IHS Standards Expert with Goldfire in early 2014.

About CADENAS PARTsolutions (http://www.partsolutions.com)

CADENAS PARTsolutions is a leading provider of next generation 3D part catalog management and sales configuration solutions. For large manufacturers and OEMs, CADENAS PARTsolutions provides centralized 3D standard part catalogs making it easy for global design teams to find, reuse, and control standard and proprietary parts. For component manufacturers, CADENAS PARTsolutions provides 3D product catalogs with CAD download technology to increase sales lead generation and to ensure that components get "designed in" to OEM products.

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stem cell therapy treatment for dystonic cerebral palsy by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india – Video

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stem cell therapy treatment for dystonic cerebral palsy by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india
improvement seen in just 3 months after stem cell therapy treatment for dystonic cerebral palsy by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india. Stem Cell Therapy done date...

By: Neurogen Brain and Spine Institute

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