Cell>Point plans to expedite research program on 99mTc-EC-Amifostine and 177Lu-EC-Amifostine as a potentially effective theranostic technology for…

Posted on by

CENTENNIAL, Colo., March 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cell>Point announced today its plans to move forward with its research program to clinically develop 99mTc-EC-Amifostine and 177Lu-EC-Amifostine to assess, treat and follow-up with confirmatory imaging for people who contract COVID-19. For example, EC-Amifostine is metabolized by alkaline phosphatase (ALP) to a thiol analog, followed by scavenging free-radicals and stabilizing DNA in combination with a radiotherapeutic such as 177Lu-EC-Amifostine, a beta emitter that is metabolized by ALP activity and may prove to be an excellent treatment for COVID-19. The initial focus of Cell>Point's research efforts have been with 99mTc-EC-Amifostine to differentiate the extent of tumor progression and the degree of viral infection involvement with tumor proliferation. We believe 99mTc-EC-Amifostine should provide imaging capability in patients who have contracted COVID-19, which can monitor therapeutic response and provide the choice for physicians to select the patient for ALP-directed therapy.

Because of the mode of action of the combination therapies, we believe that this treatment regiment will be an effective theranostic application for viral infection such as COVID-19. From data collect thus far, it's been noted that liver impairment has been reported in up to 60% of patients with SARS and has also been reported in patients infected with MERS-CoV. COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) shares 82% genome sequence similarity to SARS-CoV and 50% genome sequence homology to MERS-CoV. ALP levels elevate in diseases affiliated with inflammation of the gallbladder, liver cancer, hepatitis, bone cancers and SARS virus infection. As a theranostic target, ALP on the surface membrane of neutrophil activity is useful detection for distinguishing viral infections or bacterial infections (Kubota M, et al. J Infect Chemother. 2006;12(6):387-90). In this therapeutic regiment, ALP is responsible in transforming Amifostine to an active thiol metabolite which scavenges free radicals in the lesions to protect major organs as focus treatment is provided to the targeted areas.

Story continues

Amifostine was originally developed by the Antiradiation Drug Development Program of the US Army Medical Research and Development Command as a radioprotective medicine. It has been shown to protect normal tissues including the esophagus, lung, kidney, liver, bone marrow, immune system, skin, colon, small bowel, salivary gland, oral mucosa, and testis against radiation damage and cytotoxic agents including alkylating and organoplatinum agents, anthracyclines, and taxane. It was the first biodefense drug from that program to be approved for clinical use as a free-radical scavenger in the protection of dose limiting normal tissues in patients against DNA damaging effects from reactive oxygen species.

ABOUT CELL>POINT, L.L.C.

Cell>Point is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of universal molecular imaging compounds and molecular therapeutics for the diagnosis, staging, treatment and treatment monitoring of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and a range of ischemic diseases. Cell>Point has exclusive licenses to five drug-development platforms, all from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, a world leader in cancer research and care. Cell>Point has 59 patents issued for Oncardia, 14 patents pending, and is preparing to file additional patent applications based on improvements developed to further refine the active pharmaceutical ingredient and final kit formulation for commercialization. Information on Cell>Point's product candidates and licenses, recent press releases, and patents and patent filings can be obtained through its website at http://www.cellpointweb.com. The Company has offices in Centennial, Colorado and Houston, Texas.

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cellpoint-plans-to-expedite-research-program-on-99mtc-ec-amifostine-and-177lu-ec-amifostine-as-a-potentially-effective-theranostic-technology-for-covid-19-301029011.html

SOURCE CellPoint, L.L.C.

See the rest here:

Cell>Point plans to expedite research program on 99mTc-EC-Amifostine and 177Lu-EC-Amifostine as a potentially effective theranostic technology for...

CHAMPIGNON BRANDS APPOINTS DR. JOSEPH GABRIELE, ERNST & YOUNG 2018 HEALTH CARE ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR AND DELIVRA INVENTOR TO SPECIAL ADVISORY…

Posted on by

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 25, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Champignon Brands Inc. (Champignon or the Company) (CSE: SHRM) (FWB: 496) (OTC: SHRMF), a health and wellness company specializing in the formulation of a suite of medicinal mushroom health products, as well as novel delivery platforms for the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries, continues to bolster its Special Advisory Committee via the appointment of qualified experts in the areas of formulation chemistry, transdermal delivery systems, psychotherapeutics, mycology and molecular pharmacology.

Champignon is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Joseph Gabriele, a molecular pharmacologist specializing in signal transduction within the central nervous system, to its Special Advisory Committee. Dr. Gabriele, PhD, specializes in the areas of molecular pharmacology, transdermal delivery and formulation chemistry with pharmaceutical, natural molecules. Dr. Gabriele will champion the Companys development and commercialization of rapid onset treatments capable of improving health outcomes. His background will assist the Company in expanding the scope of its advisory committee to include novel ketamine, anaesthetics and adaptogenic delivery platforms.

Champignons Special Advisory Committee will evaluate the potential positive effects its medicinal mushroom formulations could have on individuals suffering from indications such as depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), as well as substance and alcohol use disorders.

A visionary and relentless innovator, Dr. Gabriele led the development of a transdermal delivery platform, delivraTM that can be tailored to carry drugs across the skin and into the skin dermis, circulatory system or muscles. As a co-founder of Delivra Corp in 2007, Dr. Gabriele and his team developed a transdermal platform that can shuttle small biologics to large peptides across the skin layers in a targeted, specific manner. As an industrial partner with the National Research Council of Canada, Dr. Gabrieles group conducts research in analytical/molecular biology laboratories located in Quebec and Ontario, Canada.

Dr. Gabriele has received numerous awards throughout his educational career including a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) studentship award in pharmacology, an NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship, and an Ontario Mental Health Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2007, he received the International Congress on Schizophrenia Research New Investigator Award, and in 2008 the Hamilton Health Sciences New Investigator Award. In 2018, Dr. Gabriele was bestowed the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Health Care. Dr. Gabriele has extensive experience in start-up companies that commercialize products for Medical Sciences and the Health Care Industry.

Dr. Gabrieles established research credentials, entrepreneurial nature and relentless pursuit of medical innovation represents the desired skill sets that Champignon needs as we accelerate our accession into the psychedelic medicine arena, commented Gareth Birdsall, CEO of Champignon Brands. The appointment of Dr. Gabriele equips us with both a celebrated medical researcher, as well as a seasoned CPG formulation specialist, which will allow for the continued development of our mushroom-infused health products, novel delivery systems and eventual drug discovery initiatives. Champignon Brands is set to emerge as an impact investment that may not only change peoples lives but may also revolutionize the face of medicine as we know it today.

About Champignon Brands Inc.

Champignon Brands Inc. (CSE: SHRM) is a research driven company specializing in the formulation of a suite of medicinal mushrooms health products, as well as novel ketamine, anaesthetics and adaptogenic delivery platforms for the nutritional, wellness and alternative medicine industries. Via its vertically integrated alternative medicine product range, Champignon is pursuing the development and commercialization of rapid onset treatments capable of improving health outcomes for indications such as depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), as well as substance and alcohol use disorders. Champignon continues to be inspired by sustainability, as its medicinal mushroom infused SKUs are organic, non-GMO and vegan certified. For more information, visit the companys website at: https://champignonbrands.com/.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

W. Gareth BirdsallCEO & DirectorT: +1 (778) 549-6714E:info@champignonbrands.com

FOR INVESTOR INQUIRIES:

Tyler TroupCircadian GroupE:SHRM@champignonbrands.com

FOR CHAMPIGNON BRANDS FRENCH INQUIRIES:

Remy ScalabriniMaricom Inc.E: rs@maricom.ca T: (888) 585-MARI

FOR CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS:

NetworkWire (NW)New York, New Yorkwww.NetworkNewsWire.com+1 (212) 418-1217 OfficeEditor@NetworkWire.com

The CSE and Information Service Provider have not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or adequacy of this release.

Forward-looking Information Cautionary Statement

Except for statements of historic fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the CSE. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Companys control. There are no assurances that the business plans for Champignon Brands described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties that could affect financial results is contained in the Companys filings with Canadian securities regulators, which are available at http://www.sedar.com.

See the article here:

CHAMPIGNON BRANDS APPOINTS DR. JOSEPH GABRIELE, ERNST & YOUNG 2018 HEALTH CARE ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR AND DELIVRA INVENTOR TO SPECIAL ADVISORY...

Seychelles Map / Geography of Seychelles / Map of …

Posted on by

The Republic of Seychelles is an archipelago of 115 islands located in the Indian Ocean, northeast of Madagascar.

Pre-European colonization the islands were known by Arab navigators on trading voyages, but were never inhabited.

Eventually Seychelles was settled by France in the 18th century, but it wasn't long before the British fought for control. A lengthy struggle between France and Great Britain for the islands ended in 1814, when they were ceded to the latter.

Although the new governor to the islands was British, he governed according to French rules, and allowed previous French customs to remain intact. Slavery was completely abolished in 1835, and the island nation subsequently began to decline as exportation decreased.

The anti-slavery stance was taken very seriously by the British government, and conditions started improving when it was realized that coconuts could be grown with less labour.

In the late 19th century, Seychelles became a place to exile troublesome political prisoners, most notably from Zanzibar, Egypt, Cyprus and Palestine.

Independence for the islands came in 1976, after the Seychelles People's United Party was formed and led by France-Albert Rene, campaigning for socialism and freedom from Britain.

Socialism was brought to a close with a new constitution and free elections in 1993. President France-Albert Rene, who had served since 1977, was re-elected in 2001, but stepped down in 2004.

Vice President James Michel took over the presidency and in July 2006 was elected to a new five-year term.

Upon independence in 1976, economic growth has steadily increased, led by the tourism sector and tuna fishing. In the past few years, the government has also created incentives for foreign investments. Per capita, Seychelles is the most indebted country in the world and currently had a population of 90,024.

This page was last updated on April 7, 2017.

The rest is here:

Seychelles Map / Geography of Seychelles / Map of ...

Seychelles Tourism Board CEO: Stay home and travel later – we are all in this together! – eTurboNews | Trends | Travel News

Posted on by

Sherin Francis is one of the hardest working CEOs in the travel and tourism industry, welcoming visitors to her island nation with open arms for many years.

Sherin is the CEO of the Seychelles Tourism Board, a country that is relying on tourism for its people to prosper. Seychelles is also paradise on Earth in a lot of ways, recognized as one of the most beautiful travel destinations and tourism infrastructures in the world. Located in the Indian Ocean, Seychelles is fragile, like any island region. Seychelles is also a country where everyone is a friend, and no one is considered an enemy.

Its important to maintain Seychelles as a beautiful travel destination and to protect its people.

Today Sherin Francis addressed friends of Seychelles and the world with this heartwarming message and advice:

The world as we know has taken a challenging turn on 30 January 2020, when the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.

We anticipated that we would be affected as a destination but even more so as individuals, we were concerned for our families, friends, acquaintances, business partners all over the world.

In the past few weeks, we have witnessed the spreading of an aggressive virus that has proven difficult for the medical corps around the world to understand and manage. Our thoughts go to everyone around the world as we are all affected by this crisis.

Over the past few weeks, I believe people have realized that the tourism industry is a very fragile one; everything that happens locally and internationally can affects the industry we all depend on as a country.

It is a sad moment for us to see the industry we cherish be brought to its knees; borders closing, airlines and cruise companies shutting their operations, hotel partners announcing the reduction of their activities.

The fast evolution of the situation makes it very difficult at this point for us as the Tourism Board to estimate and analyze the impact and damage to the industry and much less to plan the recovery of our industry. These sad days are fuelling our motivation as a Tourism Board to work harder to make sure that our industry now critically incapacitated shines again when brighter days will come.

We are currently working on various plans to bring Seychelles Tourism to new dawn basing ourselves on a short-term and a long-term plan.

Our short-term plan would be on the assumption that the situation does not deteriorate. If people are required to stay in confinement at home or if there is a countrywide fear, we will have to wait for these to pass before it can be executed.

Since at STB, we believe there are positive things that come out of everything even from crisis as this one, we now have the possibility to shift our marketing efforts locally and provide some supports to partners who are willing to tap into the staycation segment. We are looking forward to this new challenge!!!

On the long run, our recovery plan to get back on our feet as a destination after this crisis will depend on six major things including:

Above all, for our plan to work, we will need your continued support.

I would like to commend all STB staff for their dedication in this time of need. A special thought to the frontline staff at the Seychelles International Airport, at the Praslin Airport, the La Digue Jetty and also all staff stationed in the four corners of the world.

I am grateful to the industry partners, as most of them have responded positively in all instances when contacted by our teams. This has reassured us in showing that they have our industry at heart and are dedicated to its wellbeing.

My message to the industry and our partners is to remain strong in these trying times, encourage travelers to postpone and not cancel their travel. To all of our travelers, I am urging you to postpone your travel, stay home and travel later.

Remember we are all in this together!

Continued here:

Seychelles Tourism Board CEO: Stay home and travel later - we are all in this together! - eTurboNews | Trends | Travel News

President Faure visits La Digue and Praslin following announcement of measures in response to COVID-19 outbreak – Office of the President of the…

Posted on by

24 March 2020 | Enterpreneurship Development

President Danny Faure visited La Digue and Praslin this morning following the announcement of a series of measures on Friday to address the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The President announced that on Monday an office would open on both Praslin and La Digue to provide information on the measures in place, the guidelines that need to be followed, and provide any clarifications. Speaking to the Vice-Chairman of the La Digue Business Association, Mr Robert Pool, the President said, Seychelles is likely to remain in this state for some time to come. We are economically very vulnerable and what is key for Government is guaranteeing the salaries of all our people in this time.

Mr Pool had the opportunity to brief the President on the reality facing citizens and businesses on La Digue and thanked him for the economic measures in place that would safeguard wellbeing and economic activity.

The President also visited Logan hospital on La Digue and spoke with the nurse in charge, Ms Maria Cousin. She outlined the preparations that the hospital has made. The President thanked her and all health professionals for their dedication and hard work during the crisis.

President Faure also visitedPraslin today where he met with the Chairman of the Praslin Business Association, Mr Christopher Gill. Mr Gill discussed the difficult situation facing Seychelles and assured the President of Praslin Business Associations support to stabilise the countrys economy. He also made some suggestions of further economic measures the President could consider putting in place, and some of the more specific needs of the Praslin community.

The President visited Baie Ste Anne hospital where he met with the nursing manager Ms Myra Ernesta, who described the ongoing training for health professionals and the rapid response system in place. He also met with Mr William Rose at the Baie Ste Anne jetty who was able to share his first-hand experience of the effects of the pandemic so far.

Speaking to the press following his visit, the President said, My visit today has made the difficult reality the country is facing without tourism even clearer. This is a reality that we will face for some time to come and it will be tough, due to factors beyond our control. We need to ensure that the economy stays afloat, which is why Government has put a series of measures in place. After 12 years of hard work, we must be ready to face the economic crisis that is coming, worse than what we went through in 2008. There are measures and precautions we can take to keep ourselves, our family and the community safe. Changing our habits takes time, but the precautions are necessary if we want to ensure Seychelles is able to get through this difficult time. This is a moment that requires understanding, solidarity and discipline.

Here is the original post:

President Faure visits La Digue and Praslin following announcement of measures in response to COVID-19 outbreak - Office of the President of the...

‘We better go home’: Kearney couple returns from 11-country world tour, is now isolating – Kearney Hub

Posted on by

KEARNEY Mary and Ron Scott had traveled to 75 foreign countries before their last trip an 11-nation round-the-world journey that they concluded March 16.

The couple is back home in Kearney, but they must log another several days in self-quarantine before theyre free to leave their house.

The Scotts departed on Jan. 3 and intended to travel for three months. The first 10 weeks carried them to beautiful and exotic places. There were few signs of the COVID-19 pandemic that might have prompted them to abandon the trip that they had been planning since October.

Some airports were scanning travelers for fever, and the couple had to fill out health forms, but otherwise the trip seemed mostly worry-free, they said.

Nobody was wearing masks. We were ahead of it. We were surfing the coronavirus wave, Ron said.

A dose of reality finally struck as Mary and Ron headed toward Cartagena, a city on the Atlantic coast of Colombia. From there they planned to visit Ecuador and Panama before returning to Kearney.

Travel bans made the remaining Central American stops an impossibility, so the couple faced a choice: Travel elsewhere and risk being marooned in international airports or return to Nebraska.

Mary said, We woke up on March 16 and said, We better go home.

Since their return theyve been passing time mostly indoors, but theyve taken a few neighborhood strolls keeping their distance from others.

After more than a week in isolation, the couple was happy to share some of the details of their journey, which took them to Hawaii, Bali, Singapore, Myanmar, India, Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles, Dubai, Portugal, Canary Islands and Netherlands.

Amsterdam wasnt on their itinerary until the Scotts began searching for flights back to Kearney.

Most of their trip took them to places that arent well-known among American travelers, and they didnt encounter large groups of tourists until Portugal. Otherwise, the Scotts visited the worlds tallest building, saw the legendary Taj Mahal in India and witnessed what Ron described as ... weird-looking rocks on beaches in the Seychelles.

They also were able to share part of the trip with friends from the Kearney area.

Chris Raymond, who grew up in Kearney, works in public health and lives in Jakarta, Indonesia. He hosted the Scotts in Bali.

They also met friends Marsha and Jim Fairbanks of Shelton and shared time in Myanmar.

David and Carolyn Fairbanks of Lexington hosted them in their Hawaii home.

Myanmar was the strangest place. We took a balloon ride over a big area with many Hindu temples, Ron said. The pilot radioed to the chase team Landing in field one. ... and then he said, Landing in field two. ...

We cruised on a river. It was just so different, the jungles and temples, and the people were so friendly, Mary said about Myanmar.

All the kids were giving us high-fives while we rode by, Ron said about scooting around in three-wheel taxis called tri-shaws.

The Scotts planned their trip with a company named Air-Treks.

Mary said, Thats all they do is trips around the world. They were so good to help us when we had trouble. We are so grateful.

There was something very liberating about doing this on your own, Ron said, and also somewhat scary.

Mary and Ron said the two weeks in self-quarantine will be a part of their memory. Theyve been passing the time in various ways, taking their temperature each day, walking in the neighborhood and waiting for their daughter, Kathy Bokenkamp, to drop by with food.

Married 52 years, the Scotts said their longtime motto has been, Travel when you can. There will be a time when you cant.

Mary said after the coronavirus adventure, that may change.

Go when you can and get home when you can. Thats our new motto, she said.

mike.konz@kearneyhub.com

Read more:

'We better go home': Kearney couple returns from 11-country world tour, is now isolating - Kearney Hub

Sans Soucis Housing Estate officially opened – News – Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles

Posted on by

20 March 2020 | Housing

President Danny Faure attended the official opening of the Sans Soucis Housing Estate at Bel Air this afternoon. The President was accompanied by the Minister for Habitat, Infrastructure and Land Transport, Mrs Pamela Charlette, and had the honour of unveiling the plaque to officially declare the estate open.

24 families registered in the Bel Air district received keys to their new house today. The Sans Soucis Housing Estate comprises of 16 two-bedroom units and 8 three-bedroom units, at a cost of around 35 million Rupees. It was built by local contractor Turnkey Solution who began their contract in June 2018 and completed the work last month.

Speaking at the event, Minister Charlette said that as the country faces an extraordinary crisis, it is important that the Government continues to lead and bring comfort to its people. She stated that this will not be the last housing project in the Bel Air district, as it is in the programme for the construction of 2500 houses as announced in the Presidents State of the Nation Address last month.

With the official opening of this housing estate, this represents 276 housing units completed and allocated under the 24-24 housing project.

The ceremony was also attended by the Minister for Family Affairs, Mrs Mitcy Larue, Member of the National Assembly for Bel Air district, Hon Norbert Loizeau, Principal Secretary for Social Affairs, Mrs Linda William-Mlanie, Bel Air District Administrator, Ms Denise Dufrene, staff from the Ministry of Habitat, Infrastructure and Land Transport and PMC, and other distinguished guests.

Read more:

Sans Soucis Housing Estate officially opened - News - Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles

President Faure chairs first Joint Command Chain meeting – Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles

Posted on by

21 March 2020 | Defence

This afternoon, President Danny Faure chaired the first joint command chain meeting with the Seychelles Peoples Defence Forces, the Police and Intelligence Service.

The joint command chain has been established with the task of maintaining law and order in the country under any eventuality that may arise as a result of measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. It serves as a mechanism to ensure proper coordination and support for the Department of Health, and compliance for its advisories.

In the meeting, officials present had the opportunity to receive a full briefing on the existing public health emergency situation from the Department of Health, and discuss preparations for any additional measures that may be required to effectively respond. It was confirmed that there are currently no cases of community transmission in Seychelles.

Present at the meeting this afternoon was the Vice-President, Mr Vincent Meriton, Designated Minister, Mrs Macsuzy Mondon, Chief of Defence Forces, ColonelClifford Roseline, Commisioner of Police, Mr Kishnan Labonte, Attorney General, Mr Frank Ally, Secretary of State for Presidential Affairs, Mrs Aude Labaleine,Secretary of State for Health, Ambassador Marie-Pierre Lloyd, Chief of Staff of SPDF, Colonel Michael Rosette, Principal Secretary for Risk and Disaster Management, Mr Paul Labaleine, CEO of the Healthcare Agency, Dr Danny Louange, the Public Health Commissioner, Dr Jude Gedeon,Assistant Commisioners of Police, Mr Ted Barbe and Mr Romano Songore and Director General of the Seychelles Inteligience Service, Mr Benediste Hoareau.

View post:

President Faure chairs first Joint Command Chain meeting - Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles

President Faure meets with economic sector representatives following announcement of measures to tackle COVID-19 impacts – Office of the President of…

Posted on by

21 March 2020 | State House

President Danny Faure chaired a meeting with representatives of the economic sector at State House this morning, to discuss the way forward following his address yesterdaydetailing various measures in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in Seychelles.

The President thanked the representatives for sharing their ideas over the last 2 weeks and stressed on the importance of continuing to work as a team for the benefit of the people and the country.

We need to ensure from here on out we work together and adopt a coordinated approach, where Government and private sector ensures our economy remains stable and there is food and job security for our people, said President Faure.

Discussions centred on how to mitigate the impacts on the economy as well as other critical short and long-term concerns and implications the various sectors anticipate. As such, during the meeting this morning representatives were also able to share their feedback and views on the economic measures announced and together identify potential new measures required.

The President has also today created two new high-level committees focused on the critical aspects of providing financial support to businesses in need and ensuring food security. The committees are responsible for establishing the criteria for eligibility and the level of assistance that businesses will be able to receive. The Committees will meet on a daily basis under the Chairmanship of the Secretary of State for Finance, Mr Patrick Payet, and the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Mr Charles Bastienne respectively.

The first meetings of both committees will take place on Monday 23 March and be chaired by the President.

Present for the meeting this morning at State House, was the Minister of Finance, Trade, Investment and Economic Planning, Mr Maurice Loustau-Lalanne, the Secretary of State for Finance, Mr Patrick Payet, The Governor of the Central Bank, Ms. Caroline Abel, the Economic Advisor to the President, Mr Bertrand Belle, Principal Secretary for Finance, Mr Damien Thesee, the Chief Executive of STC, Mrs Christine Joubert, the Chief Executive of SEYPEC, Mr Conrad Benoiton, Chairman of the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr Oliver Bastienne, Chairman of Air Seychelles, Mr. Jean Weeling, Chairman of the Agricultural Producers Association of Seychelles, Dr. Barry Nourrice, Chairman of Seychelles Fishing Authority, Mr Cyril Bonnelame, and Chairperson of the Seychelles Hospitality and Tourism Association, Mrs Sybille Cardon.

Following the meeting, representatives of key sectors including tourism, agriculture, fisheries and business spoke to the press. To listen to the full interview please click the link below:https://youtu.be/qkoDOrZJSi0

An Extra-Ordinary Cabinet meeting was also held this morning to discuss and action on measures required by Government, in addition to the revised Budget for 2020.

Read the original:

President Faure meets with economic sector representatives following announcement of measures to tackle COVID-19 impacts - Office of the President of...

He’s the travel writer whose globetrotting adventures have won him legions of fans… but few of them have any idea that Tim Ecott grew up in Northern…

Posted on by

Travel writer Tim Ecott has been all over the world, from the Seychelles to the Faroe Islands and from Mozambique to Maine - which could be one reason why nobody in Northern Ireland ever recognises the accent.

ut no, he says - despite being born and reared here - he never had the accent, and continues to find it mildly irritating that people here dont accept him as Irish.

As you can tell, I dont sound Irish and I never have - its not a case of losing the accent or disguising it, he says.

My father was English and my mother had lived abroad a lot, so they didnt have Irish accents particularly.

Even though I was born there and christened there and went to school there and went to Queens University, its always, you know, even at Queens, people in the shops would say Are you here on your holidays?. Sometimes I would just say yes because I couldnt be bothered to explain.

A journalist and broadcaster whose work has taken him all over the world, Tim has slowed the pace right down for his latest written work, The Land of Maybe, an in-depth love letter to the Faroe Islands and its people, documenting the 18 remote North Atlantic islands through a calendar year.

He follows the arrival of the migratory birds, the overwintering of the sheep and the changing demands of the natural environment, where people still hunt seabirds and herd pilot whales to supply their dietary needs. Tim admits he did see some similarities between those remote Viking Isles and the landscape where he was brought up.

I was offered a travel writing assignment there about 11 or 12 years ago. I just took the opportunity and went there and fell in love with it pretty quickly, he says.

I think actually it reminded me of the Mountains of Mourne - I felt very at home there straight away. It was a very different and foreign place in many ways but there are a lot of cultural, historical and geological connections with Ireland. Its a very close-knit society and theres a lot of music, theres a lot of writing, theres a lot of poetry.

People are very family oriented - the church is still very strong - and there are lots of similarities with the Ireland in which I grew up, certainly the Ireland of my grandparents, and I think I responded to that on some level.

I also loved the remoteness of it and the harshness of the weather and the fact that it was underpopulated - you could get up in the mountains and be away from people quite easily. But at the same time, I found the people there were the friendliest, most hospitable people Ive ever met anywhere in my travels all over the world.

Born in Newtownards, Tim now lives in a village near Oxford with his wife Jessica, who did the line drawings for this book, and has a son and daughter of university age. He grew up in Ballyholme, attending Bangor Grammar School. My father was in the Army and moved around a lot - that is why I dont have the accent, he says.

While his dad Stuart was English, his mum Pamela had roots in Northern Ireland - her dad came from a farming family in Lurgan and fought in the First World War with his five brothers before staying on in the Army.

My mother was actually born in Egypt, when my grandmother was on my way out to join my grandfather in India. But they returned to Newcastle after India and thats where my grandparents spent the rest of their life.

In previous memoirs, Tim has documented how his dads role in the Army meant stints of living in Wales, Germany and Malaysia, but he left the Army once the family returned to Northern Ireland from overseas.

He was convinced that education in Northern Ireland was superior, and he loved living there more than England - slightly to my mothers frustration who was always dreaming of escaping the weather which she hated, having spent her childhood in India, Tim says.

As a child, Tim wanted to be a vet, admitting he was obsessed with animals.

My mother bred Siamese cats and we always had dogs and cats and whatever else, and I kept fish. Because we had so many cats and dogs I was always the one who had to go to the vet and I would take the stitches out and I was obsessed with looking after the animals, he says.

From the age of about six all I wanted to be was a vet and then the reality of not doing very well in my Physics O-Level hit home and that was the end of my veterinary ambitions.

Instead he went to Queens in 1982 to read English Literature, but soon fell in love with anthropology and switched courses.

Im sure being exposed to so much talk of foreign places etc drove my interest in anthropology, he muses.

If were talking about the Northern Irish side of my life, the Queens time is probably the most interesting and the happiest.

I loved every minute of being there and was sorry when it came to an end. Queens was a little bubble or oasis of peace. I was very, very active in the Queens University boat club - so many dark and grizzly winter days were spent down on the Lagan. I carried on rowing even when I worked at the BBC and I eventually was a member of London Rowing Club.

In his last year at school, Tims parents, brother and sister had emigrated to South Africa, so he was there in the holidays and returned to Belfast in term time.

I would usually go in the summer and work in Johannesburg to save up money for the coming academic year, he says.

Part of the final exam was to produce a 10,000 word dissertation and I was lucky enough to be able to use my summers in South Africa to be able to do the field work.

In Tims case, however, his field work didnt focus on a tribal or ethnic study - but a German restaurant, putting his summer job as a wine waiter to good use.

I wrote my thesis on power structures in a German restaurant in South Africa. So it was a kind of study of how somebody may on paper look like hes the boss, but maybe somebody lower down the food chain has more influence than you would expect because of their personal relationship, he says.

Its about collecting very detailed information about how the people worked together and the things they said off the record and behind each others backs and how that played out and what went on in the actual day-to-day running of the restaurant.

I think a lot of my friends at Queens thought I was swanning off to Africa to lie beside the swimming pool while servants brought me iced tea, but in fact I worked.

After Queens he did a postgraduate anthropology at Cambridge, then went into the film industry, before applying for a job at the BBC. While he didnt get the job, his CV went across to BBC World Service and he was offered a job in the Africa service.

I worked for a live current affairs and news programme that ran four times a day, something like the Today Programme but Africa. So we covered the whole of sub Saharan Africa and part of our job was to be familiar with the politics and conflicts all over the continent, but we would also make regular duty trips to do in-depth reporting, he says.

I also had a two-year stint working for the African service in Johannesburg, and actually my time there coincided with Fergal Keane so we did some jobs together. I also did another two years in the Indian Ocean based in Seychelles.

I was based in Johannesburg the year that Mandela was released and therefore the run-up to the democratic elections - that was a very interesting time to be in South Africa because all kinds of things were changing and all kinds of contacts with the outside world were being renewed.

I did a lot of interesting stories, everything I think from covering Crystal Palace coming to play in Soweto to Neil Simon coming and doing a concert with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I interviewed Christian Barnard about his life and his pioneering work as a heart surgeon and I became quite friendly with the King of Lesotho - so lots of interesting stuff really.

During his time in the Seychelles, Tim learned to scuba dive, which stood him in good stead when he left the BBC and went freelance as a travel writer.

Because I was a very experienced diver, I got a lot of great assignments, everywhere from Tahiti to Mozambique to Maine to Fiji, you name it Ive been there, done it.

The new book focuses on nature and the landscape in the Faroes Islands, as well as how history and climate have shaped the culture.

There are more sheep than people there and everybody owns some sheep, so Ive learned a lot about sheep and shepherding and Ive done a lot of rounding up of sheep, weighing of sheep, shearing of sheep, counting of sheep, slaughtering of sheep and butchering a sheep and eating bits of sheep that I never knew existed, Tim says.

Ive also been out catching seabirds and Ive also witnessed pilot whale hunting. The book is about how we make decisions, which animals we think its okay to kill and eat and how we make judgments about other cultures - and its about sustainability.

If a species is not endangered, is it better to kill and eat that animal locally, rather than buy imported meat which has been kept on a farm and wrapped in plastic and shipped in in a container or flown in? Is that morally better than catching things that are on your doorstep and killing them with a knife - Im not sure it is.

But he admits experiencing an internal battle over the pilot whale hunting.

Its a complex issue, and I think people are very quick to react on an emotional level. Because of my marine science background and my years spent diving, and some of my happiest and most spiritual encounters in my life have been with marine mammals, so the very idea of witnessing pilot whales being killed at first hand was something I wasnt sure I wanted to see, he says.

I didnt know how I would cope with it, so a big part of the journey in the book, if you like, is how I deal with that.

Tim says that globalisation has been affecting the islands ever since the Irish monks arrived in the 4th century, but the islanders have their own language and a strong social cohesion.

About 40% of the total population now live in the capital, and the remote villages on the smaller islands are becoming depopulated, certainly in the winter, he says.

But a lot of Faroese people have returned to the islands - for many years there was a net outflow of people but in the last five or 10 years, people have been returning to the islands because they want their children to grow up with Faroese culture - they want that strength of community, they want that family, that safety.

Its a very safe place - crime is still almost unheard of, people dont lock their cars.

They could go on holiday for two weeks to Spain and dont lock that house while theyre away.

The Land of Maybe: A Faroe Islands Year by Tim Ecott is published by Short Books on March 12, 14.99 hardback

Continued here:

He's the travel writer whose globetrotting adventures have won him legions of fans... but few of them have any idea that Tim Ecott grew up in Northern...

WATCH | Government puts nature centre stage in the Seychelles | Living – Euronews

Posted on by

The white sand, turquoise water and bright wildlife of the Seychelles just can't help looking like a tourism advert at all times. For long, this paradise was seen as an exclusive destination, however, reflecting a global trend, this group of 115 islands off the coast of East Africa is seeing visitor numbers climb ever higher. Many islands in the archipelago are at a crossroad in terms of tourism growth: some are facing the risk of a declining product and visitor experience due to unsustainable growth.

And yet tourism is a vital part of this nation's economy, accounting for more than sixty percent of its GDP. The key issue for the government is working out how to maintain this industry, without letting it overrun the place.

Protecting the fragile ecosystem is already at risk, as plastic washes up on the country's shores hardly touched by mankind.

On the one hand, nearly half of the Seychelles, 455 square kilometres, are classed as protected areas including two UNESCO world heritage sites: the Mai Valley and its indigenous coco de mer palm trees, and the Aldabra Atoll, home to the Seychelles' famed giant tortoises. By later this year, 30 percent of the country's 1.3 million square km of marine territory will have protected status too.

As part of their conservation efforts, the government introduced a temporary ban in 2015 on the construction of new hotels on the three main islands. "Development is kept to a minimum and that it does not really destroy what we inherited", said Tourism Minister Didier Dogley to AFP.

However, new resorts, approved before the 2015 ban, will add an additional 3,000 hotel rooms to the already existing 6,000. "We believe that we can go up to 500,000 tourists, that is just an estimate for the time being," said Dogley.

The tourism industry has implemented a certification programme Seychelles Sustainable Tourism Label and by 2023 half of the large hotels and guesthouses shall be certified, states the latest strategy of the government. The Seychelles Tourism Master Plan: Destination 2023 has been created last year, aiming to increase investment in sustainable tourism, support small establishments and increase locals' participation in the sector.

The Seychelles Sustainable Tourism Foundation has been advocating that the archipelago becomes a Global Sustainable Tourism Council certified destination. Poverty alleviation, gender equity and environmental sustainability (including climate change) are the main cross-cutting issues addressed in the criteria.

Large hotel groups have put measures in place to limit their impact on the environment, such as having their own vegetable gardens and reducing plastic and energy use. Smaller, Seychellois-owned establishments, though not leaving the same ecological footprint, sometimes lack the resources to match these efforts, despite government incentives.

The small, hilly country is forced to import more than 90 percent of its goods, and most of the energy needed to keep the islands running is derived from oil-powered generators. Still, the pursuit of eco-friendly growth over profit alone has struck a chord with some visitors.

"We didn't know much about the ecological side of tourism in the Seychelles... but once here, it really hit us," said Romain Tonda, a 28-year-old French tourist on his honeymoon on Cousin Island, fringed by coral reef. "It's not perfect, but we can see that it's something that is important for the Seychellois."

Watch the video to learn more about the efforts to preserve the Seychelles' natural resources.

Read the original here:

WATCH | Government puts nature centre stage in the Seychelles | Living - Euronews

Believe it or not: No coronavirus death recorded in 87 countries and territories – The News International

Posted on by

Believe it or not: No coronavirus death recorded in 87 countries and territories

LAHORE: As humans fear fellow homo sapiens in at least 196 countries and territories of the world, where 407,000 people have been affected by coronavirus and over 18,200 people have died from this deadly and ruthless disease till the filing of this report at around 11pm Pakistan Standard Time on Tuesday, there are 87 lucky nations that have not even recorded a single death due to this pandemic, reveals a painstaking research undertaken by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network.

These 87 lucky countries and territories with no recorded death despite confirmed COVID-19 cases (number listed in brackets) include:

Qatar (501 cases), Oman (84 cases), Kuwait (191 cases), Russia (495 cases), Nepal (2 cases), New Zealand (155 cases), Estonia (369 cases), Vietnam (134 cases), Malta (110 cases), Bhutan (2 cases), Angola (2 cases), Brunei (104 cases), Jordan (127 cases), Croatia (361 cases), Armenia (249 cases), Slovakia (204 cases), Latvia (197 cases), Uruguay (162 cases), Sri Lanka (102 cases), Cambodia (91 cases), Senegal (86 cases), Venezuela (84 cases), Myanmar (2 cases), Mauritania (2 cases), Belarus (81 cases), Georgia (70 cases), Kazakhstan (70 cases), South Africa (554 cases), Cameroon (66 cases), Palestine (59 cases), Liechtenstein (51 cases), Trinidad and Tobago (52 cases), Fiji (4 cases), Northern Cyprus (40 cases), Kyrgyzstan (42 cases), Guinea (4 cases), Namibia (4 cases), Uzbekistan (49 cases), Vatican City (one cases), Syria (one case), Somalia (one case), Liberia (3 cases), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (one case), Mozambique (one case), Papua New guinea (one case), Grenada (one case), Kenya (16 cases), Jersey (16 cases), Maldives (13 cases), Eretria (one case), East Timor (one case), Belize (one case), Dominica (one case), Antigua and Barbuda (one case), Rwanda (36 cases), Kosovo (31 cases), Zambia (3 cases), Chad (3 cases), Central African Republic (3 cases), Isle of Man (13 cases), Barbados (17 cases), Djibouti (3 cases), Honduras (30 cases), Bolivia (28 cases), Ivory Coast (25 cases), Macau (25 cases), Monaco (23 cases), Guernsey (20 cases), Laos (2 cases), Saint Lucia (2 cases), Niger (2 cases), Nicaragua (2 cases), Eswatini (4 cases), Suriname (6 cases), Benin (5 cases), Bahamas (4 cases), Congo (4 cases), Haiti (5 cases), El Salvador (5 cases), Uganda (9 cases), Seychelles (7 cases), Mongolia (10 cases), Madagascar (12 cases), Tanzania (12 cases), Equatorial Guinea (9 cases), Ethiopia (12 cases) and Togo (20 cases).

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the actual number of infections and cases in all countries are likely to be higher than reported, but impossible to ascertain.

View post:

Believe it or not: No coronavirus death recorded in 87 countries and territories - The News International

Solidarity Economicsfor the Coronavirus Crisis and Beyond – The American Prospect

Posted on by

While theres widespread agreement that we need an immediate, massive stimulus and targeted economic supports to deal with the economic collapse caused by the coronavirus, theyre clearly not enough. We also urgently need to think long-termboth about the all-too-predictable things that got us into this crisis, and how we can refashion our economy and society as we eventually emerge.

Guiding our own thinking is a basic public-health principle that should have long been our standard for all economic and social policy: We protect ourselves when we protect others. We are being asked right now to limit contact, to work remotely, and to do this mostly to shield those who are most vulnerable. We are being asked to dig deep into government coffers and bear the future burden of debt so that we can bring quick relief for those often left at the margins. And we are asking businesses to step up (or forcing them to step up) to their responsibilities and adjust schedules, offer paid sick leave, and understand family demands.

But why is this good for a crisis and not for daily life? While we should stand together by staying physically apart in this time of pandemic, we need to give up the sort of social distance that has allowed so many to ignore homelessness, immigration uncertainty, and rural poverty. We need to come out of this troubling moment with a deeper commitment to each other. We need to realize that an ethos of mutual caring and support not only leads to better health outcomes, but also helps to generate a more vibrant and resilient society.

We need a new solidarity economics.

Our lack of social solidarity has been a key contributor to our vulnerability to the coronavirus outbreak.

Unprecedented levels of inequality have left large numbers of Americans unprepared for an emergency, with nearly half of the U.S. population unable to handle just a $400 emergency expense. That inequality has also distorted our health care system, where we can provide world-class end-of-life care to the wealthy, but have underinvested in the basic infrastructure of our public-health system, leaving us dangerously unprepared for massive testing and waves of hospitalization.

Partly driving that inequality and partly resulting from it has been a low level of inclusion. Long before we were told to practice physical distance, we were already practicing an acute form of social distance: Increasingly, we have been sorted by income, race, and politics. It has become easy for some groups to ignore homelessness or incarceration or economic despair, seeing those as issues facing others. And that hurts all of usfor example, research shows that when there is a rise in the racial generation gap (the difference between the racial composition of the old and the young), public investment in education falls. That damages the economy as a whole.

Exacerbating the gaps between groups has been a problem with information. The lack of accountability of our social media systems, driven by the drive for super profits in winner-take-all markets, has contributed to the proliferation of misinformation and conflicting advice. Fake news crosses the ideological spectrumno, Donald Trump does not actually own stock in a company the Centers for Disease Control uses for COVID-19 tests, nor did U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hold back coronavirus funding to run negative ads about Republicans, both popularly shared stories. But profiteering from political and social polarizationthe basic business model of Fox Newshas been allowed to take deep root.

Not entirely new but certainly pushed along by the factors above has been a miserly commitment to social insurance. We have looked the other way as businesses expanded gig jobs with few if any benefits. We have settled for a limited social safety net that seems more aimed at saving dollars than saving lives. As a result, we have 28 million people without health insurance, and 44 million more with inadequate health insurance that imposes high deductibles and co-pays, preventing people from getting the treatment they need. With no mandated policies for paid sick leave, millions of people continue to have to work while ill, disproportionately including many workers in our restaurants and grocery stores, which contributes to the rapid spread of the coronavirus.

And while it may seem odd to say about an economy that has spawned Google, Facebook, and Amazon, we have a serious problem with innovation. We spend billions on speeding up the delivery of consumer goods but have failed to mount the infrastructure needed to solve the problem of homelessness. We are developing medicine to treat diseases of the wealthy, but neglect research on infectious diseases that kill millions in poor countries of the global South. We are forging ahead with the development of high-end electric vehicles even as we continue to allow environmental hazards to wreak havoc on the health of marginalized communities.

In short, just as Hurricane Katrina revealed the underlying inequities and vulnerabilities baked into the economic, social, and physical landscape of New Orleans, the COVID-19 crisis is shining a light on deeply rooted problems in America. Moving forward will require not just emergency actions but attention to and alignment with efforts to fundamentally restructure how we build and sustain our economy.

We offered the starting frame for solidarity economics in our 2018 publication From Resistance to Renewal: A 12-Step Program for Innovation and Inclusion in the California Economy. There we pointed to a range of policy solutions that seem almost prescient today: Among them were universal basic income funded by a technology dividend, increased investment in basic science, expansion and improvement of the caring economy, full immigrant integration to bring people out of the shadows, rapid de-incarceration and re-entry of the formerly incarcerated, universal health insurance and portable benefits, social-housing programs to ensure long-term affordability, industry-wide wage boards to coordinate labor and business, and realigned tax systems that were both more progressive and more stable.

Just as important as the policy package were our philosophical starting points. We had three central pillars to our thinking.

The first was that the standard economic models of human behavior were outdated. The general assumption by most economists has been that people act purely (or at least largely) out of self-interest. For conservatives, the good news is that the market will coordinate all that selfishness to a blissful outcome, and so limited government is the best recipe. (Hows that working for you today?) On the left, there has been a corresponding take, in reaction to the dominance of laissez-faire. It has featured a strong belief that the state must act to constrain the worst instances of bad behavior and corral the economy into serving the common good.

But as has become evident in this and other crises, people also act out of impulses of solidarity with one another. The challenge is that we have structured our economic and political systems to either reward or tame self-interest rather than to promote our connection with one another. We will obviously need enforcement for people to stay home, but the differences in containment by countries in this crisisChina and South Korea versus Italy and the U.S.have resulted not just from such factors as the strength of government and the social safety net, but also from the balance that different societies strike between communitarian and individualistic values.

The second pillar of our thinking actually flows from the first: The old canard that inequality is perhaps politically unpopular but economically necessary is just thata canard. In fact, a wide range of research studiesincluding from such unexpected sources such as the Cleveland Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fundhave shown that high levels of income disparities, racial segregation, and social fragmentation actually tend to limit the sustainability of growth in income and jobs. It turns out that mutuality matters.

We have, of course, been practicing just the opposite. Weve had a dog-eat-dog economic system in which short-term thinking dominates and venture capital is too often vulture capital. When societies and regions invest in all their members, by contrast, basic productivity rises. When there are trusting relations between economic and social actors, consensus on how to grow the economy increases. When businesses treat their employees, customers, and suppliers with dignity and respect, profits are stable and consistent. And as we now know from the principle of public health, when we protect the most vulnerable, we protect everyone.

The third pillar of our thinking was that the purpose of our economy is not just to generate GDP. Prosperity mattersbut so do security and community. Indeed, that was the secret of getting out of the Great Depression: Keynesian demand management to drive growth; the extension of a sense and the reality of security through, well, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and, eventually, the adoption of employer-based benefits like health insurance; and the reconnection of disparate parts of the nation through investments like the Tennessee Valley Authority.

We need that sort of triadprosperity, security, and communityin what will amount to this generations version of economic catastrophe and New Deal response. That response needs to be altered to fit our times. Growth can no longer come at the cost of the environment. The safety netas is evident from this crisisneeds to be universal and not employer-based, especially given the changing nature of work. And while the New Deal excluded African Americans and other people of color from a range of protections, partly to secure the support of Southern Democrats, this time we must ensure that community means all of us.

We are facing an immediate need to think long-term. In the same way that we need to flatten the contagion curve by spreading out the impact of the coronavirus, we also need to flatten the economic curve, linking short-term interventions with longer-term programs that provide security for families and community, strengthen connections between people and places, and grow employment and the economy.

To do this, policy needs to be brought together under another three-part frame: Lift the bottom, grow the middle, and tame the top.

For lifting the bottom, we need to provide immediate assistance to the most vulnerable among us, while using those interventions to build support for longer-term solutions. In the field of health, for example, we need now to provide a guarantee that everyone, regardless of income, availability of insurance, or immigration status, will be fully covered for the costs of testing and treatment for COVID-19, while using this to build the case for universal health insurance. We need targeted interventions for those most vulnerablepeople with disabilities, seniors, those with chronic illness, the poor, the homeless, and those incarceratedto build back the social safety net ravaged by Democrats and Republicans alike. Moreover, we should devise programs that include the undocumented and stress the public-health risks that have resulted from a broken immigration system that forces so many families away from needed services and into the shadows.

We should also now be providing paid sick days for everyone, including home health care providers, food-chain workers, and delivery drivers, who are providing essential services in our crisis, and are also highly vulnerable to being infected and further spreading the virus. But we should just as urgently stress that paid sick days and paid family leave be made permanent. Cash payments now are critical for people in need, as leaders across the political spectrum apparently realize. But rather than one- or two-time payments, we can and should guarantee a minimum basic income to all in need through the end of the economic crisis. That, in turn, can help us better understand the long-term benefits of some form of universal-income guarantee. Housing for the homeless, eviction moratoriums, and rent freezes are also needed now and can become the basis longer-term for much-needed rent stabilization and social-housing policies.

We need to think, too, about all parts of the working classfor example, those who work in what we call the caring economy. The coronavirus has made clear that those caregivers taking care of the most vulnerable are some of the most vulnerable themselves. What if we recognized and invested in them, providing training and better access to telemedical care and advice, and raising professional standards and wages. Wed improve our health care provision, reduce our vulnerability to future disease outbreaks (including simply the seasonal flu), and grow middle-wage jobs.

Or what if we devoted serious attention to the potentials of remote education and lifelong learning? The coronavirus crisis has made clear how not to develop remote-education opportunities, throwing teachers and professors immediately into having to run classes online with few resources, training, or curriculum support. But if done properly, remote education can play a critical role in making lifelong learning accessible to working people. As a percentage of GDP, we spend the lowest on adult workforce education out of all but two OECD countriesMexico and Chile. Most European countries spend two to five times as much as we do; Denmark spends nearly ten times as much. Investing resources here could both help our immediate education crisis and expand our middle class long-term.

Finally, we also need to tame the top. In the short term, that means ensuring that any public benefits to major corporations are conditioned on their maintaining employment levels; these should be in the form of loans, not grants, and should eliminate buybacks as an option for any company receiving assistance. A repeat of the financial crisis bailout is neither viable not desirable. Any stimulus legislation needs to prioritize employees, not profitsnot just now but in the long run.

Taming the top also means ensuring that the American public actually benefits from our nearly $700 million collective investment in coronavirus research that constitutes the basic science for developing a vaccineand that the results of such research be guided by policies of global solidarity and public health, rather than narrow nationalism and profiteering, which are already beginning to raise their ugly heads. In the longer term, it means restoring reasonable tax rates for our top-income earners, which were at 70 percent at the height of American prosperity in the 1950s and have now dropped so low that the top 400 income earners pay a lower tax rate than anyone else.

Ultimately, what a solidarity economics framework reminds us is that caring for others is not just the morally right thing to do. It both reflects our better angels and provides better outcomes for society at large. Whats true in a crisis is also true in the long haul: A deep commitment to mutuality and the common good is the right thing to do for both public and economic health.

More here:

Solidarity Economicsfor the Coronavirus Crisis and Beyond - The American Prospect

Coronavirus: Iain Duncan Smith says dont bring in universal basic income during pandemic as it would be disincentive to work – The Independent

Posted on by

Iain Duncan Smith has rejected suggestions that workers should be given a universal basic income during the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that it would be a "disincentive to work".

The former work and pensions secretary said the proposal, floated by Labour leadership candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey on Wednesday, was also "unaffordable".

Under the proposed policy, people would receive a universal flat payment to help cover their living costs during the pandemic. Ms Long Bailey's proposal is for the rate to be set at the living wage.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

But Sir Iain, said his think-tank the Centre for Social Justice had "ran the numbers" and found that the cost would amount to an "astronomic amount of money" - with a basic payment costing the Treasury around 260 billion a year.

He suggested that the delayed Universal Credit scheme, his main legacy at the DWP, would be a better alternative and "was designed with just such critical moments in mind".

"One proposal being pushed around at the moment is the redundant idea of a Universal Basic Income," Sir Iainwrote in an article for the Telegraph newspaper.

"Let me say now, its unaffordable, impractical, produces massive disincentives for people to work and most importantly wont make any difference to poverty in this country.

"And even if that werent enough, this would not be the moment for such a massive upheaval of our welfare system."

Sir Iain said the taper rate of his own Universal Credit system should instead be lowered to pay more money to people who lose hours due to the pandemic and "put a floor underneath employees as government steps in and takes the strain".

Writing in The Guardian on Wednesday, the Shadow Business Secretary Ms Long-Bailey called for "a fixed payment made to all, providing everyone with a basic minimum income of at least the real living wage, for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic".

The usually busy Royal Mile in Edinburgh is empty as people stay away from public areas amid the coronavirus outbreak on 13 March

Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS

Ho bart's Amusement Arcade in Westward Ho!, Devon is offering toilet roll and soap as prizes in grabber machines

Rob Braddick/SWNS

An empty platform at Farringdon Station in London the morning after the Prime Minister said that Covid-19 "is the worst public health crisis for a generation"

PA

Shopkeepers Asiyah Javed and husband Jawad from Day Today Express, in Stenhousemuir, Falkirk are giving away facemasks, antibacterial hand wash and cleaning wipes to the elderly in a bid to stop the spread of Coronavirus

Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS

A usually busy street in Cambridge is empty as people stay away from public areas amid the coronavirus outbreak on 2 March

James Linsell-Clark/SWNS

A hand sanitiser dispenser is seen inside the stadium during the Premier League match between Manchester United and Manchester City at Old Trafford on 8 March

Getty

Maaya Indian Kitchen in Milton Keynes is offerig customers a free roll of toilet paper with every takeaway order

SWNS

Oliver Cooper[L], was sent home from school for selling spurts of handsanitiser to fellow pupils at 50p a time. He poses with mum Jenny Tompkins by their home in Leeds

Ashley Pemberton/SWNS

Empty toilet paper shelves at a supermarket in London on 12 March

EPA

A member of the public is swabbed at a drive through Coronavirus testing site set up in a car park in Wolverhampton

Getty

A passenger wears a protective face mask as she travels on a bus in the City of London

AFP/Getty

A Southampton fan wears a face mask before the match against Newcastle United on 7 March

Reuters

A loudspeaker placed in grounds of St Mary's Catholic Church in Broughattin, Dundalk, County Louth ahead of funeral mass later this morning. The loudspeaker has been placed in the grounds after the Catholic Archdiocese said that funerals and weddings should not exceed 100 attendees within the church building

PA

A hand sanitising station set up outside Cheltenham Racecourse during day four of the Cheltenham Festival on 13 March

PA

People wearing protective face masks walk across London Bridge on 11 March

AFP/Getty

The usually busy Royal Mile in Edinburgh is empty as people stay away from public areas amid the coronavirus outbreak on 13 March

Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS

Ho bart's Amusement Arcade in Westward Ho!, Devon is offering toilet roll and soap as prizes in grabber machines

Rob Braddick/SWNS

An empty platform at Farringdon Station in London the morning after the Prime Minister said that Covid-19 "is the worst public health crisis for a generation"

PA

Shopkeepers Asiyah Javed and husband Jawad from Day Today Express, in Stenhousemuir, Falkirk are giving away facemasks, antibacterial hand wash and cleaning wipes to the elderly in a bid to stop the spread of Coronavirus

Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS

A usually busy street in Cambridge is empty as people stay away from public areas amid the coronavirus outbreak on 2 March

James Linsell-Clark/SWNS

A hand sanitiser dispenser is seen inside the stadium during the Premier League match between Manchester United and Manchester City at Old Trafford on 8 March

Getty

Maaya Indian Kitchen in Milton Keynes is offerig customers a free roll of toilet paper with every takeaway order

SWNS

Oliver Cooper[L], was sent home from school for selling spurts of handsanitiser to fellow pupils at 50p a time. He poses with mum Jenny Tompkins by their home in Leeds

Ashley Pemberton/SWNS

Empty toilet paper shelves at a supermarket in London on 12 March

EPA

A member of the public is swabbed at a drive through Coronavirus testing site set up in a car park in Wolverhampton

Getty

A passenger wears a protective face mask as she travels on a bus in the City of London

AFP/Getty

A Southampton fan wears a face mask before the match against Newcastle United on 7 March

Reuters

A loudspeaker placed in grounds of St Mary's Catholic Church in Broughattin, Dundalk, County Louth ahead of funeral mass later this morning. The loudspeaker has been placed in the grounds after the Catholic Archdiocese said that funerals and weddings should not exceed 100 attendees within the church building

PA

A hand sanitising station set up outside Cheltenham Racecourse during day four of the Cheltenham Festival on 13 March

PA

People wearing protective face masks walk across London Bridge on 11 March

AFP/Getty

She said the system would "assist employers, who would then top up salaries to the level a worker currently earns" and "would provide a basic protection to all, and guarantee much needed consumer spending power to help keep people and businesses afloat through the crisis and until we recover".

She added: "This country is facing an unprecedented shock: its time to move mountains. We must actually do whatever it takes to keep people safe and financially supported. People deserve nothing less than the same level of reassurance that the government has already afforded to business."

Originally posted here:

Coronavirus: Iain Duncan Smith says dont bring in universal basic income during pandemic as it would be disincentive to work - The Independent

We face a war against coronavirus and must mobilise accordingly | Free to read – Financial Times

Posted on by

This article is part ofa series in which leading commentators and policymakers give their views on alleviating the devastating global slowdown

The writer is a former president of the European Central Bank

The coronavirus pandemic is a human tragedy of potentially biblical proportions. Many today are living in fear of their lives or mourning their loved ones. The actions being taken by governments to prevent our health systems from being overwhelmed are brave and necessary. They must be supported.

But those actions also come with a huge and unavoidable economic cost. While many face a loss of life, a great many more face a loss of livelihood. Day by day, the economic news is worsening.Companies face a loss of income across the whole economy. A great many are already downsizing and laying off workers. A deep recession is inevitable.

The challenge we face is how to act with sufficient strength and speed to prevent the recession from morphing into a prolonged depression, made deeper by aplethora of defaults leaving irreversible damage. It is already clear that the answer must involve a significant increase in public debt. The loss of income incurred by the private sector and any debt raised to fill the gap must eventually be absorbed, wholly or in part, on to government balance sheets. Much higher public debt levels will become a permanent feature of our economies and will be accompanied by private debt cancellation.

It is the proper role of the state to deploy its balance sheet to protect citizens and the economy against shocks that the private sector is not responsible for and cannot absorb. States have always done so in the face of national emergencies. Wars the most relevant precedent were financed by increases in public debt. During the first world war, in Italy and Germany between 6 and 15 per cent of war spending in real terms was financed from taxes. In Austria-Hungary, Russia and France, none of thecontinuing costs of the war were paid out of taxes. Everywhere, the tax base was eroded by war damage and conscription. Today, it is by the pandemics human distress and the shutdown.

The key question is not whether but how the state should put its balance sheet to good use. The priority must not only be providing basic income for those who lose their jobs. We must protect people from losing their jobs in the first place. If we do not, we will emerge from this crisis with permanently lower employment and capacity, as families andcompanies struggle to repair their balance sheets and rebuild net assets.

Employment and unemployment subsidies and the postponement of taxes are important steps that have already been introduced by many governments. But protecting employment and productive capacity at a time of dramatic income loss requires immediate liquidity support. This is essential for allbusinesses to cover their operating expenses during the crisis, be they large corporations or even more so small and medium-sized enterprises and self-employed entrepreneurs. Several governments have already introduced welcome measures to channel liquidity to struggling businesses. But a more comprehensive approach is needed.

While different European countries havevarying financial and industrial structures, the only effective way to reach immediately into every crack of the economy is to fully mobilise their entire financial systems: bond markets, mostly for large corporates, banking systems and in some countries even the postal system for everybody else. And it has to be done immediately, avoiding bureaucratic delays. Banks in particular extend across the entire economy and can create money instantly by allowing overdrafts or opening credit facilities.

Banks must rapidly lend funds at zero cost tocompanies prepared to save jobs. Since in this way they are becoming a vehicle for public policy, the capital they need to perform this task must be provided by the government in the form of state guarantees on all additional overdrafts or loans. Neither regulation nor collateral rules should stand in the way of creating all the space needed in bank balance sheets for this purpose. Furthermore, the cost of these guarantees should not be based on the credit risk of thecompany that receives them, but should be zero regardless of the cost of funding of the government that issues them.

Companies, however, will not draw on liquidity support simply because credit is cheap. In some cases, for examplebusinesses with an order backlog, their losses may be recoverable and then they will repay debt. In other sectors, this will probably not be the case.

Suchcompanies may still be able to absorb this crisis for a short period of time and raise debt to keep their staff in work. But their accumulated losses risk impairing their ability to invest afterwards. And, were the virus outbreak and associated lockdowns to last, they could realistically remain in business only if the debt raised to keep people employed during that time were eventually cancelled.

Either governments compensate borrowers for their expenses, or those borrowers will fail and the guarantee will be made good by the government. If moral hazard can be contained, the former is better for the economy. The second route is likely to be less costly for the budget. Both cases will lead to governments absorbing a large share of the income loss caused by the shutdown, if jobs and capacity are to be protected.

Public debt levels will have increased. But the alternative a permanent destruction of productive capacity and therefore of the fiscal base would be much more damaging to the economy and eventually to government credit. We must also remember that given the present andprobable future levels of interest rates, such an increase in government debt will not add to its servicing costs.

In some respects, Europe is well equipped to deal with this extraordinary shock. It has a granular financial structure able to channel funds to every part of the economy that needs it. It has a strong public sector able to co-ordinate a rapid policy response. Speed is absolutely essential for effectiveness.

Faced with unforeseen circumstances, a change of mindset is as necessary in thiscrisis as it would be in times of war. The shock we are facing is not cyclical. The loss of income is not the fault of any of those who suffer from it. The cost of hesitation may be irreversible. The memory of the sufferings of Europeans in the 1920s is enough of a cautionary tale.

The speed of the deterioration of private balance sheets caused by an economic shutdown that is both inevitable and desirable must be met by equal speed in deploying government balance sheets, mobilising banks and, as Europeans, supporting each other in the pursuit of what is evidently a common cause.

Read more:

We face a war against coronavirus and must mobilise accordingly | Free to read - Financial Times

Beware of a lopsided lockdown – The Hindu

Posted on by

I am willing to go hungry if there is no other way to stop this virus, but how will I explain that to my children? We heard these poignant words two days ago from Nemi Devi of Dumbi village in Latehar district, Jharkhand. Her son and husband, both migrant workers, are stranded far away. In village after village, many other women expressed similar worries. And that was even before the Prime Minister announced a drastic 21-day lockdown, from Wednesday.

The enormity of the coronavirus crisis is gradually dawning on India. For you and me, it is still in the future. But for many informal-sector workers and their families, the crisis is already in full swing: there is no work, and resources are running out. Things are all set to get worse as the privileged hoard with abandon and food prices go north.

Hopefully, the Central governments decision to impose a 21-day lockdown will prove right in due course. But the lockdown (a virtual curfew) is crying out for relief measures, including income support for poor families. As it happens, most of them already receive a limited form of income support: food rations under the Public Distribution System (PDS). Under the National Food Security Act, two-thirds of Indian families (75% and 50% in rural and urban areas, respectively) are covered. In most States, including the poorest, the PDS works not perfectly, but well enough to protect the bulk of the population from hunger.

The PDS is the countrys most important asset in this situation. It is essential to keep it going, even to expand it, in terms of both coverage and entitlements. Fortunately, India has gigantic excess food stocks. In fact, it has carried excess food stocks (more than twice the buffer-stock norms) for almost 20 years, and this is the time to use them. Nothing prevents the Central government from, say, doubling PDS rations for three or even six months as an emergency measure. That will not make up for most peoples loss of income, but it will ensure that there is food in the house at least.

Some bold steps are required to make food distribution effective. For instance, biometric authentication (fingerprint scanning) is best removed at this time it is a source of exclusion as well as a health hazard. Distribution needs to be staggered and tightly supervised, to avoid crowds and cheating at the ration shop. Dealers who are caught cheating must be swiftly punished. All this is well within the realm of possibility; the main thing is to release the stocks without delay.

Having said this, the PDS is not enough. For one thing, many poor people are still excluded from it. Large-scale cash transfers are also required, starting with advance payment of social security pensions and a big increase in pension amounts (the Central governments contribution has stagnated at a measly 200 per month since 2006). Here, one possible hurdle is the payment system. Many pensioners collect their pension from business correspondents (BCs) a kind of human automated teller machine (ATM), who dispenses money on behalf of the bank. The problem is, unlike ATMs, most BCs use biometric authentication rather than smart cards. And mass biometric authentication could accelerate the transmission of the novel coronavirus.

Ideally, biometric authentication should be abandoned for now. Even if it is not, many BCs may vanish for fear of infection (most of them are poorly-paid employees of poorly-regulated private entities). Under both scenarios, something has to be done to ensure safe crowd management at the bank. New payment arrangements are also possible. For instance, social security pensions could be paid in cash at the panchayat bhavan on a given day of the month, obviating the need for everyone to go to the bank: this has been done in Odisha for years, with good results. Cash could also be disbursed, with due safeguards, through anganwadis or self-help groups. Cash transfers need not be limited to social security pensions. Revamping the PDS and social security pensions would go a long way, but a significant proportion of vulnerable families are likely to fall through the cracks. Further, food rations may prevent hunger but people have many other basic needs; they will need money to cope with this spell of unemployment.

Coronavirus | Interactive map of confirmed coronavirus cases in India

There are several possible ways of extending the reach of cash transfers beyond pensions. For instance, money could be sent to the accounts of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act job-card holders, or Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) beneficiaries, or PDS cardholders. How these lists are best used and combined is a context-specific question, perhaps best handled at the State level (my sense is that in many States, the MGNREGA job-cards list is the best starting point).

Coronavirus | Pandemic fallout revives talk of universal basic income

These are just some examples of possible emergency measures. Many other valuable suggestions have been made, relating for instance to midday meals, community kitchens and relief camps for stranded migrant workers. The first step is to make relief measures an integral part of the lockdown plan. Failing that, it may do more harm than good. For one thing, a hungry and enfeebled population is unlikely to fight the virus effectively. A constructive lockdown should empower people to fight back together, not treat them like sheep.

Finally, Centre-State cooperation is essential. Many State governments have already initiated valuable social-security measures, but they are far from adequate. The Central government, for its part, has been struck with inexplicable paralysis on this. Adequate relief measures require big money (lakhs of crores of rupees) from the Central government. Implementation, however, should be led by the States. They all have their own circumstances and methods. The Central government is unlikely to do better on their behalf. If it foots the bill, that will be a good start.

Jean Drze is Visiting Professor at the Department of Economics, Ranchi University

You have reached your limit for free articles this month.

Register to The Hindu for free and get unlimited access for 30 days.

Find mobile-friendly version of articles from the day's newspaper in one easy-to-read list.

Enjoy reading as many articles as you wish without any limitations.

A select list of articles that match your interests and tastes.

Move smoothly between articles as our pages load instantly.

A one-stop-shop for seeing the latest updates, and managing your preferences.

We brief you on the latest and most important developments, three times a day.

Not convinced? Know why you should pay for news.

*Our Digital Subscription plans do not currently include the e-paper ,crossword, iPhone, iPad mobile applications and print. Our plans enhance your reading experience.

See the original post here:

Beware of a lopsided lockdown - The Hindu

Lockdown to fight coronavirus is going to hit most Indian workers very hard – Livemint

Posted on by

With at least 250 million Indians going into lockdown from Monday morning, one question looms large - what will precariously placed workers do?

The share of those in India with precarious jobs is far higher than is commonly believed to be the case. According to the most recent labour statistics, 25 percent of rural households and 12 percent of urban households rely on casual labour as their main source of income. Casual labour was defined as a person who was engaged not in a fixed, but in a casual manner in another person's enterprise and, in return, was paid daily or periodically.

But this doesnt mean that other jobs are stable. Over 40% of those in urban areas are now in regular" or salaried jobs but these do not necessarily come with job security. Over 70 per cent of salaried employees in the non-agricultural sector had no written contracts, and over half were not eligible for paid leave. The share of workers not eligible for paid leave has grown steadily over the last 15 years, from a minority at 46% in 2004-05 to being the norm now. Nearly half of salaried workers in non-agricultural jobs are not entitled to any social security benefits including health care.

Self-employed work too is not the sort of entrepreneurial businesses that the term tends to conjure. Most of the self-employed in urban areas are solo workers who work 55-56 hours a week and make around 14,000 per month

Would the impact of the janata curfew" on March 22 have been blunted by the fact that it was a Sunday? For the average Indian worker, Sunday is just another day. Most workers across different forms of employment work nearly seven days a week on average.

Nor is there much in the bank to rely on as a buffer. The median rural family had under 4 lakh in total assets, while the median urban family had under 6 lakh in total assets, including all their household possessions.

Shocks can easily push vulnerable people into poverty, and in the absence of education, physical and social capital, people from marginalised communities including Dalits and Adivasis, are particularly in danger of falling into poverty.

What then can the government do to mitigate the impact of lost wages for a workforce that largely counts on its day-to-day earnings? The International Labour Organisation (ILO) recommends extending social protection and supporting employment retention to protect against job losses and worker hardship during the pandemic.

But for those who do lose wages, the most widely suggested solution currently is an income transfer, something that is being discussed even in developed countries hard hit by COVID-19-imposed lockdowns. The most recent National Sample Survey on consumption expenditure (not released by the government) found that the average monthly per capita expenditure in urban areas was a little under 4,000. In the 2016-2017 Economic Survey, then Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian authored a chapter outlining what a Universal Basic Income could look like. At 12,000 per month, it would wipe out poverty (based on older 2011-12) estimates, he suggested.

Yet, access to banking remains well short of universal, despite the Modi-era expansion. According to the World Banks Global Findex Database 2017 , while 80% of adults had a bank account in 2017, just 43% of them had made a withdrawal in the past year.

In-kind transfers would be another way to go, but reaching the poorest remains challenging. The Economic Survey noted that [a]n estimate of the exclusion error from 2011-12 suggests that

40 percent of the bottom 40 percent of the population are excluded from the [Public Distribution System]. The corresponding figure for 2011-12 for [the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme] was 65 percent". States that targeted less and universalised more had lower leakages and better success at reaching the poor.

India does not have to look far for a combination of targeted and universal, cash and kind assistance. Kerala and Uttar Pradesh have announced one months free rations, permission for advance drawing of welfare pensions and 1,000 in cash for those who are poor but do not receive pensions.

As a fifth of the country wakes up to life under lockdown, all states will need to draw up similar plans.

Rukmini S. is a Chennai-based journalist.

Continued here:

Lockdown to fight coronavirus is going to hit most Indian workers very hard - Livemint

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex – Science Magazine

Posted on by

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

By Katrina L. Grasby, Neda Jahanshad, Jodie N. Painter, Luca Colodro-Conde, Janita Bralten, Derrek P. Hibar, Penelope A. Lind, Fabrizio Pizzagalli, Christopher R. K. Ching, Mary Agnes B. McMahon, Natalia Shatokhina, Leo C. P. Zsembik, Sophia I. Thomopoulos, Alyssa H. Zhu, Lachlan T. Strike, Ingrid Agartz, Saud Alhusaini, Marcio A. A. Almeida, Dag Alns, Inge K. Amlien, Micael Andersson, Tyler Ard, Nicola J. Armstrong, Allison Ashley-Koch, Joshua R. Atkins, Manon Bernard, Rachel M. Brouwer, Elizabeth E. L. Buimer, Robin Blow, Christian Brger, Dara M. Cannon, Mallar Chakravarty, Qiang Chen, Joshua W. Cheung, Baptiste Couvy-Duchesne, Anders M. Dale, Shareefa Dalvie, Tnia K. de Araujo, Greig I. de Zubicaray, Sonja M. C. de Zwarte, Anouk den Braber, Nhat Trung Doan, Katharina Dohm, Stefan Ehrlich, Hannah-Ruth Engelbrecht, Susanne Erk, Chun Chieh Fan, Iryna O. Fedko, Sonya F. Foley, Judith M. Ford, Masaki Fukunaga, Melanie E. Garrett, Tian Ge, Sudheer Giddaluru, Aaron L. Goldman, Melissa J. Green, Nynke A. Groenewold, Dominik Grotegerd, Tiril P. Gurholt, Boris A. Gutman, Narelle K. Hansell, Mathew A. Harris, Marc B. Harrison, Courtney C. Haswell, Michael Hauser, Stefan Herms, Dirk J. Heslenfeld, New Fei Ho, David Hoehn, Per Hoffmann, Laurena Holleran, Martine Hoogman, Jouke-Jan Hottenga, Masashi Ikeda, Deborah Janowitz, Iris E. Jansen, Tianye Jia, Christiane Jockwitz, Ryota Kanai, Sherif Karama, Dalia Kasperaviciute, Tobias Kaufmann, Sinead Kelly, Masataka Kikuchi, Marieke Klein, Michael Knapp, Annchen R. Knodt, Bernd Krmer, Max Lam, Thomas M. Lancaster, Phil H. Lee, Tristram A. Lett, Lindsay B. Lewis, Iscia Lopes-Cendes, Michelle Luciano, Fabio Macciardi, Andre F. Marquand, Samuel R. Mathias, Tracy R. Melzer, Yuri Milaneschi, Nazanin Mirza-Schreiber, Jose C. V. Moreira, Thomas W. Mhleisen, Bertram Mller-Myhsok, Pablo Najt, Soichiro Nakahara, Kwangsik Nho, Loes M. Olde Loohuis, Dimitri Papadopoulos Orfanos, John F. Pearson, Toni L. Pitcher, Benno Ptz, Yann Quid, Anjanibhargavi Ragothaman, Faisal M. Rashid, William R. Reay, Ronny Redlich, Cline S. Reinbold, Jonathan Repple, Genevive Richard, Brandalyn C. Riedel, Shannon L. Risacher, Cristiane S. Rocha, Nina Roth Mota, Lauren Salminen, Arvin Saremi, Andrew J. Saykin, Fenja Schlag, Lianne Schmaal, Peter R. Schofield, Rodrigo Secolin, Chin Yang Shapland, Li Shen, Jean Shin, Elena Shumskaya, Ida E. Snderby, Emma Sprooten, Katherine E. Tansey, Alexander Teumer, Anbupalam Thalamuthu, Diana Tordesillas-Gutirrez, Jessica A. Turner, Anne Uhlmann, Costanza Ludovica Vallerga, Dennis van der Meer, Marjolein M. J. van Donkelaar, Liza van Eijk, Theo G. M. van Erp, Neeltje E. M. van Haren, Daan van Rooij, Marie-Jos van Tol, Jan H. Veldink, Ellen Verhoef, Esther Walton, Mingyuan Wang, Yunpeng Wang, Joanna M. Wardlaw, Wei Wen, Lars T. Westlye, Christopher D. Whelan, Stephanie H. Witt, Katharina Wittfeld, Christiane Wolf, Thomas Wolfers, Jing Qin Wu, Clarissa L. Yasuda, Dario Zaremba, Zuo Zhang, Marcel P. Zwiers, Eric Artiges, Amelia A. Assareh, Rosa Ayesa-Arriola, Aysenil Belger, Christine L. Brandt, Gregory G. Brown, Sven Cichon, Joanne E. Curran, Gareth E. Davies, Franziska Degenhardt, Michelle F. Dennis, Bruno Dietsche, Srdjan Djurovic, Colin P. Doherty, Ryan Espiritu, Daniel Garijo, Yolanda Gil, Penny A. Gowland, Robert C. Green, Alexander N. Husler, Walter Heindel, Beng-Choon Ho, Wolfgang U. Hoffmann, Florian Holsboer, Georg Homuth, Norbert Hosten, Clifford R. Jack Jr., MiHyun Jang, Andreas Jansen, Nathan A. Kimbrel, Knut Kolskr, Sanne Koops, Axel Krug, Kelvin O. Lim, Jurjen J. Luykx, Daniel H. Mathalon, Karen A. Mather, Venkata S. Mattay, Sarah Matthews, Jaqueline Mayoral Van Son, Sarah C. McEwen, Ingrid Melle, Derek W. Morris, Bryon A. Mueller, Matthias Nauck, Jan E. Nordvik, Markus M. Nthen, Daniel S. OLeary, Nils Opel, Marie-Laure Paillre Martinot, G. Bruce Pike, Adrian Preda, Erin B. Quinlan, Paul E. Rasser, Varun Ratnakar, Simone Reppermund, Vidar M. Steen, Paul A. Tooney, Fbio R. Torres, Dick J. Veltman, James T. Voyvodic, Robert Whelan, Tonya White, Hidenaga Yamamori, Hieab H. H. Adams, Joshua C. Bis, Stephanie Debette, Charles Decarli, Myriam Fornage, Vilmundur Gudnason, Edith Hofer, M. Arfan Ikram, Lenore Launer, W. T. Longstreth, Oscar L. Lopez, Bernard Mazoyer, Thomas H. Mosley, Gennady V. Roshchupkin, Claudia L. Satizabal, Reinhold Schmidt, Sudha Seshadri, Qiong Yang, Alzheimers Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, CHARGE Consortium, EPIGEN Consortium, IMAGEN Consortium, SYS Consortium, Parkinsons Progression Markers Initiative, Marina K. M. Alvim, David Ames, Tim J. Anderson, Ole A. Andreassen, Alejandro Arias-Vasquez, Mark E. Bastin, Bernhard T. Baune, Jean C. Beckham, John Blangero, Dorret I. Boomsma, Henry Brodaty, Han G. Brunner, Randy L. Buckner, Jan K. Buitelaar, Juan R. Bustillo, Wiepke Cahn, Murray J. Cairns, Vince Calhoun, Vaughan J. Carr, Xavier Caseras, Svenja Caspers, Gianpiero L. Cavalleri, Fernando Cendes, Aiden Corvin, Benedicto Crespo-Facorro, John C. Dalrymple-Alford, Udo Dannlowski, Eco J. C. de Geus, Ian J. Deary, Norman Delanty, Chantal Depondt, Sylvane Desrivires, Gary Donohoe, Thomas Espeseth, Guilln Fernndez, Simon E. Fisher, Herta Flor, Andreas J. Forstner, Clyde Francks, Barbara Franke, David C. Glahn, Randy L. Gollub, Hans J. Grabe, Oliver Gruber, Asta K. Hberg, Ahmad R. Hariri, Catharina A. Hartman, Ryota Hashimoto, Andreas Heinz, Frans A. Henskens, Manon H. J. Hillegers, Pieter J. Hoekstra, Avram J. Holmes, L. Elliot Hong, William D. Hopkins, Hilleke E. Hulshoff Pol, Terry L. Jernigan, Erik G. Jnsson, Ren S. Kahn, Martin A. Kennedy, Tilo T. J. Kircher, Peter Kochunov, John B. J. Kwok, Stephanie Le Hellard, Carmel M. Loughland, Nicholas G. Martin, Jean-Luc Martinot, Colm McDonald, Katie L. McMahon, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, Patricia T. Michie, Rajendra A. Morey, Bryan Mowry, Lars Nyberg, Jaap Oosterlaan, Roel A. Ophoff, Christos Pantelis, Tomas Paus, Zdenka Pausova, Brenda W. J. H. Penninx, Tinca J. C. Polderman, Danielle Posthuma, Marcella Rietschel, Joshua L. Roffman, Laura M. Rowland, Perminder S. Sachdev, Philipp G. Smann, Ulrich Schall, Gunter Schumann, Rodney J. Scott, Kang Sim, Sanjay M. Sisodiya, Jordan W. Smoller, Iris E. Sommer, Beate St Pourcain, Dan J. Stein, Arthur W. Toga, Julian N. Trollor, Nic J. A. Van der Wee, Dennis van t Ent, Henry Vlzke, Henrik Walter, Bernd Weber, Daniel R. Weinberger, Margaret J. Wright, Juan Zhou, Jason L. Stein, Paul M. Thompson, Sarah E. Medland, Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis Consortium (ENIGMA)Genetics working group

Science20 Mar 2020

Read the original here:

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex - Science Magazine

The Coronavirus Pandemic Shows Us The Importance Of Combatting Climate Change – Forbes

Posted on by

The common fruit fly which lives one to two months, suggesting insignificance has changed the world through medical research, leading to eight Nobel prizes in human genetics and disease prevention breakthroughs. Today an even smaller organism, Coronavirus, is changing the world even more significantly.

And confronting it with the same opportunity for breakthroughs as scientists treated fruit flies could hold the key to solving our greatest challenge climate change.

Of course, all of the coronaviruses impacts sickness, deaths, economic crises have been negative. But, like the scientists who saw something unique in the fruit fly instead of just an unwelcome pest, coronavirus offers us a unique opportunity: visceral lessons in how to approach future crises, and the horrible costs of not doing so.

First among those lessons is taking authoritative warnings seriously, even when that may result in tough decisions. We have been warned repeatedly over the last decade that a pandemic was an existential threat to our way of life. At the end of 2019, when the late Chinese doctor Li Wenliang first reported his alarm over a coronavirus outbreak, authorities detained him for spreading rumors. If they had acted on his warning, the spread in China would have been less severe.

But by January 21, 2020 China had 278 confirmed cases, other countries had 282, and the World Health Organization issued its first coronavirus advisory. Instead of preparing for the virus inevitable spread to the United States, President Donald Trump downplayed the risk, comparing it to a bad case of the flu. Two months later, tens of thousands of Americans have tested positive for the virus and millions more are under shelter-in-place rules, threatening to send the global economy into a devastating tailspin.

Unfortunately, weve consistently made these same mistakes of ignoring scientific warnings when dealing with other global crises, especially climate change. Beginning in June 1988, when climate scientist James Hansen warned Congress that global warming had begun, climate scientists predictions have repeatedly and increasingly warned of impending crises, and how climate change is accelerating faster than expected much like the Coronavirus. Sadly, the government response has ranged from non-existent to lacking.

Thirty years after Hansens warning, President Trump dismissed an official U.S. government assessment of climate changes risks in 2018, saying I dont believe it. As temperatures have risen, so too has the cost of inaction. From 1979 to 2017, the cost of global climate change-related disasters has increased 150%, costing $2.25 trillion, with the U.S. bearing the brunt of the financial pain at $945 billion nearly twice Chinas second-highest total of $492 billion.

Fortunately, in the battle against coronavirus, countries like South Korea that embrace science-based health warnings and act decisively are able to flatten the curve of the coronavirus spread to reduce infections and deaths. But when it comes to climate change, despite global accords such as the Paris Agreement, the world is still struggling to act decisively and in unison.

The Trump administration stands out with its rejection of science-based climate change policy, compounding decades of foot dragging by rolling back and undermining Obama administration efforts to rein in and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal, oil, and auto tailpipes. As of the end of 2019, a New York Times analysis identified 95 environmental rules that are being rolled back by the White House.

A key Trump environmental program roll back is expected to be finalized by the end of March. The administration is relaxing the auto greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards that President Obama announced in 2012. The first national program to reduce transportation greenhouse gas emissions, it was based on science, engineering capabilities, business capacities, as well as environmental and health benefits. It would have doubled fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2025, eliminated 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide, and saved consumers $1.7 trillion at the pump. It appeared the U.S. was finally listening to climate scientists.

But in early 2017 with Trump at the helm, the auto industry, amidst several years of record sales and profits, found an opportunity to renege on its commitment to the standards and asked the White House to relax the Obama administrations standards. After extensive analysis, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys scientists and auto engineers had recently re-affirmed the program. But facts were no longer in control of the process.

The final rule targets the standards for the 2021-2026 period. It is widely expected to pull back the standards to 37 mpg and reduce the annual fuel economy improvement to 1.5%, down from the current 5%.

Here is the rub. Transportation is now the fastest growing sector driving increased U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Even the Obama administrations standards, which the Trump administration is trying to scale back, were never enough to address this gorilla in the room. A landmark study by the National Academy of Science in 2013 calculated that the worlds entire fleet of vehicles in 2025 would have to average around 180 mpg to limit warming to safe levels. As detailed in my book, Driving the Future, if we achieved the original 2025 target and enacted rules to continue the 5% annual improvement curve through 2050, we would only reach 80% of the target required to meet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) earlier target of 2C target of safe warming and the gap will be even greater to reach the new IPCC target of 1.5C.

The only pathway to reaching the IPCCs targets is transportation electrification. The administration should abandon the new rules they are developing, leave the current rules in place and begin work on the post 2025 standards. The auto industry has four to five year planning horizons and needs policy certainty. The world needs to avoid the scale of disruptions that climate change will bring even if the slow pace is deceiving.

The current coronavirus crisis has produced one near-miracle: The bitterly partisan U.S. Congress and federal government are quickly negotiating emergency legislation to deal with the public health and economic crises. Hopefully, reliance on science-based health measures will now guide the countrys approach to combatting coronavirus. And, while the world awaits the worst yet to come in coronavirus infections and deaths, the lessons from this pandemic could result in an approach to bi-partisan, scientifically driven commitment to combat climate change.

Like the seemingly insignificant fruit fly, confronting greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards could produce outsized breakthroughs on climate change. Like the coronavirus, listening to scientific warnings about climate change before it is too late could prevent outsized public health and economic tragedies.

And no, this is not a dream. The reality of global disruption is staring us all in the face. Blinking is not an option.

See the original post here:

The Coronavirus Pandemic Shows Us The Importance Of Combatting Climate Change - Forbes

Kallyope Inc. Announces $112M Series C Financing to Support First Clinical Trials and Advance Portfolio of Programs Targeting the Gut-Brain Axis – P&T…

Posted on by

NEW YORK, March 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Kallyope Inc., a leading biotechnology company focused on identifying and pursuing therapeutic opportunities involving the gut-brain axis, today announced a $112 million Series C financing. This financing will be used to advance its portfolio of programs and the company's first clinical trials, further establishing its leadership in the gut-brain axis field.

All investors from the Series B financing participated in the Series C round, including The Column Group, Lux Capital, Polaris Partners, Euclidean Capital, Two Sigma Ventures, Illumina Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, and Bill Gates. New investors include Casdin Capital, Greenspring Associates, and two unnamed leading institutional investors.

"Four years ago, we started our journey to build a preeminent biotech based in New York City as a first-mover in the gut-brain axis space. Now, this Series C financing will enable us to advance multiple programs to clinical development," said Kallyope CEO Nancy Thornberry.

The Series C financing comes after four highly productive years in which Kallyope has built a portfolio of programs directed to novel targets in a wide array of diseases. In support of these programs, the company has established industry-leading capabilities in designing oral small-molecule drugs that selectively target the gut but not the rest of the body.

The company today also announced its lead program targeting satiety circuits for weight loss, with clinical testing expected to begin later this year. A second program targeting gut barrier function with potential relevance for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and several other diseases is anticipated to enter the clinic soon after. In addition, the company continues to advance a broad portfolio of programs for gastrointestinal, CNS, and inflammatory disorders.

"Kallyope pursues programs where the company's platform provides an edge over other approaches and where we have an opportunity to deliver major clinical benefits rather than incremental improvements over current treatments. We are targeting neural and hormonal circuits, including novel vagal circuits, involved in a broad array of physiology and disease," said Thornberry.

"Kallyope has made significant progress since the company's inception in late 2015. Its platform is enabling a mechanistic understanding of the gut-brain axis, which in turn has revealed new, actionable biology that the company is now exploring in several promising programs. I believe that Kallyope's platform and rigorous approach to identifying, characterizing, and targeting gut-brain circuits with gut-restricted small molecules has greatly increased its odds of success in clinical studies," said Kallyope co-founder and board member Tom Maniatis, Ph.D.

About Kallyope Inc.

Kallyope, headquartered at the Alexandria Centerfor Life Science in New York City, is a biotechnology company dedicated to unlocking the therapeutic potential of the gut-brain axis. The company's cross-disciplinary team integrates advanced technologies in sequencing, bioinformatics, neural imaging, cellular and molecular biology, and human genetics to provide an understanding of gut-brain biology that leads to transformational therapeutics to improve human health. The company's founders are Charles Zuker, Ph.D., Lasker Award winner Tom Maniatis, Ph.D., and Nobel laureate Richard Axel, M.D. For more information visitwww.kallyope.com.

Contact

Morgan Warners (202) 337-0808mwarners@gpg.com

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kallyope-inc-announces-112m-series-c-financing-to-support-first-clinical-trials-and-advance-portfolio-of-programs-targeting-the-gut-brain-axis-301029250.html

SOURCE Kallyope Inc.

Original post:

Kallyope Inc. Announces $112M Series C Financing to Support First Clinical Trials and Advance Portfolio of Programs Targeting the Gut-Brain Axis - P&T...