Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - Satellites Reveal New Views Of Pakistan's 'Earthquake Island'

Source      - http://www.nbcnews.com/
By            - Becky Oskin
Category  - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

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Earth performed the ultimate magic trick last week, making an island appear out of nowhere. The new island is a remarkable side effect of a deadly Sept. 24 earthquake in Pakistan that killed more than 500 people.

Satellite images snapped a few days after the earthquake-triggered island emerged offshore, near the town of Gwadar, reveal that the strange structure is round and relatively flat, with cracks and fissures like a child's dried-up mud pie.

The French Pleiades satellite mapped the muddy hill's dimensions, which measure 576.4 feet (175.7 meters) long by 524.9 feet (160 m) wide. Aerial photos from Pakistan's National Institute of Oceanography suggest the gray-colored mound is about 60 to 70 feet (18 to 21 meters) high.

Gwadar is about 230 miles (380 kilometers) from the earthquake's epicenter. The magnitude-7.7 earthquake was probably centered on the Chaman Fault, Shuhab Khan, a geoscientist at the University of Houston told LiveScience last week.

Geologists think the new island, named Zalzala Koh, is made of erupted mud, spewed from the seafloor when either trapped gases escaped or subsurface water was violently expelled.

The new island could be the result of a mud volcano. Mud volcanoes form when hot water underground mixes with sediments and gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. If the noxious slurry finds a release valve, such as a crack opened by earthquake shaking, a mud volcano erupts, according to James Hein, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Santa Cruz, Calif. Geologists from the Pakistan Navy report that Zalzala Koh is releasing flammable gas. But seafloor sediments commonly hold methane-producing bacteria, so the possible methane coming from the island isn't a clincher to its identity.

Shaking from the powerful Sept. 24 earthquake could have also loosened the seafloor sediments offshore of Pakistan, jiggling them like jelly. The great rivers coming down from the Himalayas dump tons of water-saturated sediment into the Arabian Sea every year. The new island could be a gigantic example of a liquefaction blow, when seismic shaking makes saturated sediments act like liquid, and trapped water suddenly escapes, Michael Manga, a geophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley, told LiveScience.

Similar islands have appeared offshore of Pakistan after strong earthquakes in the region in 2001 and 1945. If the earlier examples hold, the soft mud island won't last a year, disappearing under the erosive power of the pounding of waves from monsoon storms.

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - 5 Techniques For Maintaining Web Confidentiality

Source       - http://news.yahoo.com/
By             - Larry Greenemeier
Category    - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By  - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

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So many of the Web’s most popular services—e-mail and search as well as photo and video sharing—may be free, but that doesn’t mean they come without a cost. That price is information about the people using those services as well as their online behavior—intelligence that Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other Internet companies exchange for advertising revenue. The trade-off of privacy for free services is generally acceptable to most Web users, who are used to incessant advertising—and at times even benefit from personalized attempts to sell them products and services.

The darker side of bartering in personal data, however, is that Web users lose control over who has access to their information, which is often shared well beyond the scope of their original understanding. Google uses automated scanning to filter spam and deliver targeted advertising to its Gmail users, claiming they have “no expectation of privacy” when using its free e-mail service. Facebook, meanwhile, recently settled a $20-million class action settlement following a lawsuit over the social network’s lucrative "Sponsored Stories" program that shares users' "likes" of certain advertisers with friends without paying them or allowing them to opt out.

In addition to nuisance ads, unsolicited e-mails and unintended endorsements, this oversharing creates other, more serious threats to privacy, says Seth Schoen, senior staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Personalized ads could reveal to others a Web user’s sensitive or embarrassing medical condition, particularly if that user shares a computer with others or surfs the Web in a public place. “The better the ad personalization gets, the more significant those consequences could be,” Schoen adds.

Information collected via the Web could also be problematic for a person during legal proceedings. A lot of people don’t realize that subpoena power in civil cases is broader than it is in criminal cases, Schoen says. Internet service providers (ISPs) and other companies doing business on the Web can be forced to turn over most information they have about their users or customers as part of a lawsuit such as an employment dispute or divorce.

Another threat to privacy involves how well Web companies entrusted with their customers’ personal information secure that data from being lost or stolen and used to steal a person’s identity. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit that tracks data breaches, reports that nearly 1.8 million data records have been lost or stolen this year from businesses, government agencies and health care facilities. “The risk comes simply from the companies collecting and storing personal information, and it’s not a very unlikely or hypothetical concern,” Schoen says.

Despite this bleak outlook for privacy, there are tools available to Web users designed to protect personal information from prying eyes. None of these tools alone ensures complete privacy or protection from cyber snooping, but they do offer a way to trim the data trails that curtail one’s privacy.

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - Some Blood Pressure Drugs May Raise Breast Cancer Risk

Source - http://news.yahoo.com/
By - Bahar Gholipour
Category - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

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Taking one type of high blood pressure medication might increase women's risk of breast cancer, a new study suggests.

The researchers found women in the study who had been taking calcium-channel blockers to treat high blood pressure for more than 10 years were 2.5 times more likely to have breast cancer, compared with women who did not use blood pressure medication, or who used other types.

"While the results are intriguing, we really need to wait until we see confirmatory studies before we make any kind of recommendations," said study researcher Dr. Christopher Li, an epidemiologist and breast cancer researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

"People should absolutely not stop taking their medication," Li said.

About 1,900 women with breast cancer participated in the study, as well as about 850 women with no cancer who served as the control group. The researchers didn't find a link between an increased breast cancer risk and other types of high blood pressure medications, such as beta-blockers or diuretics, according to the study published today (August 5) in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Medications for treating high blood pressure, called antihypertensives, are the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States with an estimated 678 million prescriptions filled in 2010, including 98 million prescriptions for calcium-channel blockers, the researchers said.

"This is not the first time that the specter of a link between [calcium-channel blockers] and breast cancer risk has arisen," Dr. Patricia Coogan,professor of epidemiology at Boston University, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study in the journal.

But previous studies had yielded mixed results. They did not have a sufficient number of participants, or did not investigate long-term use of antihypertensives. The new study "is a very well-done study and therefore there appears to be a hypothesis that now needs to be confirmed," Coogan said.

The study shows a link, but does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between the drugs and breast cancer.

The evidence "is not at the stage where women should be panicking about taking these drugs," Coogan told LiveScience.

Calcium-channel blockers work by slowing the movement of calcium into muscle cells, which dilates blood vessels, reduces the force of the heart's contractions and slows the heartbeat.

In deciding which drug to use to treat a patient's high blood pressure, doctors may consider how the patient responds to different medications, and their other conditions.

"There are people who don't tolerate some of the other classes of medications, and respond well to calcium-channel blockers," said Dr. Randy Wexler from the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, who was not involved in the study.

"We still have to look at things in terms of the overall risk. Don't forget that heart disease is still one of the biggest problems in the United States," Wexler said.

However, if patients are concerned, and because there are several classes of hypertensives, patients can certainly discuss their options with their physician, and look into alternative blood pressure treatments, Wexler said.

The next step in the current research would be to look at more groups of people who take blood pressure medications, as well as to better understand the underlying mechanism by which the calcium-channel blockers may affect cancer risk, the researchers said.

"Antihypertensives only came on the market in the past few decades, so there has not been sufficient number of long-term users of these medications," Li said.

"We are now getting to the point where we have enough people who've been exposed to these medications for long periods of time to evaluate such long-term potential risks," he said.

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - Buffett Gives $2 Billion To Gates Foundation

Source - http://dealbook.nytimes.com/
By - WILLIAM ALDEN
Category - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By -  Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

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Warren E. Buffett has strengthened his bond with his friend and fellow billionaire Bill Gates, with a $2 billion charitable donation.

Mr. Buffett on Monday distributed 17.5 million Class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a gift valued at about $2 billion based on Friday’s closing price.

The donation was part of Mr. Buffett’s annual charitable contributions, which also included gifts to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the charity named for Mr. Buffett’s late wife, and the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which is named for Mr. Buffett’s son. In total, Mr. Buffett donated 22.9 million Class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway on Monday.

Seven years ago, Mr. Buffett pledged to give about $31 billion to the Gates Foundation, which aims to improve health and education in poor nations. He said at the time that he would give the bulk of his fortune to the foundation and four other philanthropies.

Mr. Buffett’s net worth is estimated by Forbes to be $53.5 billion as of March, making him one of the richest men in the world.

The billionaire has been active in deal-making recently, even amid a somewhat lackluster period for mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Buffett teamed up with 3G Capital in February in a $23 billion deal for the H.J. Heinz Company and said in his annual investor letter that he continued to hunt for “elephants.”

Mr. Buffett and Mr. Gates have also worked to persuade other wealthy Americans to give away much of their fortunes, through a commitment known as the Giving Pledge. The effort has attracted many prominent adherents.

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - Stocks Slide In Asia As Japan Holds Policy Steady

Source - http://www.businessweek.com/
By - Elaine Kurtenbach
Category - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita

Stock markets slid Tuesday in Asia, as Japan's central bank ended a policy meeting with no fresh stimulus or moves to curb bond market volatility.

Uncertainty also weighed on emerging markets in Asia, with mainland China's financial markets closed for a national holiday following the weekend release of discouraging data for the world's second largest economy.

Japan's Nikkei stock index fell 1.1 percent to 13,354.60 a day after soaring 4.9 percent following an upward revision of first quarter economic growth data.

A statement issued by the Bank of Japan at midday called for no major policy changes but reiterated its expectation for a moderate recovery in coming months, noting an improvement in exports and resilient demand in Japan.

However, the central bank offered no new monetary easing or measures to curb volatility in government bond prices that has alarmed some in recent weeks.

Regionally, an overnight decline on Wall Street weighed on sentiment, while investors in Hong Kong awaited the reopening of China's markets on Thursday, following the Dragon Boat festival.

"During the holiday, the data from China was not so good. It was below market expectations, so investors are waiting," said Linus Yip, a strategist at First Shanghai Securities.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down 1.1 percent at 21,389.09, while Korea's KOSPI slipped 0.7 percent to 1,919.33. Shares were lower in Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore but rose in Australia.

A decision by the Standard & Poor's ratings agency to raise its outlook Monday for its credit rating on the U.S. government's long-term debt did little to boost spirits, as the Dow Jones industrial average slipped 0.06 percent, or 9.53 points to 15,238.59. The broader S&P 500 index was down 0.03 percent at 1,642.81

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares edged down 0.2 percent to 6,400.45 while Germany's DAX rose 0.6 percent to 8.307.69. The CAC-40 in France fell 0.2 percent to 3,864.36.

Over recent weeks, investors have grown fearful that the Federal Reserve will reduce the amount of financial assets it buys in the markets — so-called tapering.

The prospect of unchanged Fed policy in the near-term, which became more likely last week following the release of strong job numbers, has weighed on the dollar. The euro rose to $1.3270 from $1.3261 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar fell to 98.18 yen from 98.70 yen.

Oil prices held steady, with the benchmark rate down 2 cents at $95.75 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 26 cents to close at $95.77 per barrel on the Nymex on Monday.

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - Apple’s Web Of Tax Shelters Saved It Billions, Panel Finds

Source - http://www.nytimes.com/
By -  NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and CHARLES DUHIGG
Category - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

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Even as Apple became the nation’s most profitable technology company, it avoided billions in taxes in the United States and around the world through a web of subsidiaries so complex it spanned continents and went beyond anything most experts had ever seen, Congressional investigators disclosed on Monday.

 The investigation is expected to set up a potentially explosive confrontation between a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, at a public hearing on Tuesday.

Congressional investigators found that some of Apple’s subsidiaries had no employees and were largely run by top officials from the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. But by officially locating them in places like Ireland, Apple was able to, in effect, make them stateless — exempt from taxes, record-keeping laws and the need for the subsidiaries to even file tax returns anywhere in the world.

“Apple wasn’t satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven,” said Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that is holding the public hearing Tuesday into Apple’s use of tax havens. “Apple successfully sought the holy grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars while claiming to be tax resident nowhere.”

Thanks to what lawmakers called “gimmicks” and “schemes,” Apple was able to largely sidestep taxes on tens of billions of dollars it earned outside the United States in recent years. Last year, international operations accounted for 61 percent of Apple’s total revenue.

Investigators have not accused Apple of breaking any laws and the company is hardly the only American multinational to face scrutiny for using complex corporate structures and tax havens to sidestep taxes. In recent months, revelations from European authorities about the tax avoidance strategies used by Google, Starbucks and Amazon have all stirred public anger and spurred several European governments, as well as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based research organization for the world’s richest countries, to discuss measures to close the loopholes.

Still, the findings about Apple were remarkable both for the enormous amount of money involved and the audaciousness of the company’s assertion that its subsidiaries are beyond the reach of any taxing authority.

“There is a technical term economists like to use for behavior like this,” said Edward Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and a former staff director at the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. “Unbelievable chutzpah.”

While Apple’s strategy is unusual in its scope and effectiveness, it underscores how riddled with loopholes the American corporate tax code has become, critics say. At the same time, it shows how difficult it will be for Washington to overhaul the tax system.

Over all, Apple’s tax avoidance efforts shifted at least $74 billion from the reach of the Internal Revenue Service between 2009 and 2012, the investigators said. That cash remains offshore, but Apple, which paid more than $6 billion in taxes in the United States last year on its American operations, could still have to pay federal taxes on it if the company were to return the money to its coffers in the United States.

John McCain of Arizona, who is the panel’s senior Republican, said: “Apple claims to be the largest U.S. corporate taxpayer, but by sheer size and scale, it is also among America’s largest tax avoiders.”

In prepared testimony expected to be delivered to the Senate committee by Mr. Cook and other Apple executives on Tuesday, the company said it “welcomes an objective examination of the U.S. corporate tax system, which has not kept pace with the advent of the digital age and the rapidly changing global economy.”

The executives plan to tell the lawmakers that Apple does not use tax gimmicks, according to the prepared testimony.

Mr. Cook is also expected to argue that some of Apple’s largest subsidiaries do not reduce Apple’s tax liability, and to press for a sweeping overhaul of the United States corporate tax code — in particular, by lowering rates on companies moving foreign overseas earnings back to the United States. Apple currently assigns more than $100 billion to offshore subsidiaries.

Atop Apple’s offshore network is a subsidiary named Apple Operations International, which is incorporated in Ireland — where Apple had negotiated a special corporate tax rate of 2 percent or less in recent years — but keeps its bank accounts and records in the United States and holds board meetings in California.

Because the United States bases residency on where companies are incorporated, while Ireland focuses on where they are managed and controlled, Apple Operations International was able to fall neatly between the cracks of the two countries’ jurisdictions.

Apple Operations International has not filed a tax return in Ireland, the United States or any other country over the last five years. It had income of $30 billion between 2009 and 2012. By shuttling revenue between international subsidiaries, Apple was able largely to sidestep paying taxes, Congressional investigators said.

In the prepared testimony, Apple executives disputed the characterization of Apple Operations International. “A.O.I. performs important business functions that facilitate and enhance Apple’s success in international markets,” the testimony states. “It is not a shell company.”

The Senate investigators also found evidence that the company turned over substantially less money to the government than its public filings indicated.

While the company cited an effective rate of 24 to 32 percent in its disclosures, its effective tax rate was 20.1 percent, based on the committee’s findings. And for a company of Apple’s size, the resulting difference was substantial — more than $8 billion in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Because of these strategies, tax experts say, Washington is forced to rely more and heavily on payroll taxes and individual income taxes to finance the government’s operations. For example, in 2011, individual income taxes contributed $1.1 trillion to federal coffers, while corporate taxes added up to $181 billion.

As companies’ earnings have accumulated offshore, many executives have been pushing more aggressively for a tax holiday that would allow them to bring back funds at lower tax rates. Apple has recently announced that it will return $100 billion to shareholders over three years through a combination of dividends and purchases of its own shares. Though Apple has enough cash on hand to pay for those initiatives, the company recently announced it would take on $17 billion in debt, rather than bring overseas money back to the United States to avoid paying repatriation taxes on those returning funds.

Family Hotel In Santa Clarita | "Yahoo Uses Summly Techonology in Latest iphone App"

Source:      http://www.itpro.co.uk/
By:             Mehael Toso
Category:   Family Hotel in Santa Clarita
Posted By:  Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Family Hotel in Santa Clarita

Yahoo has unveiled a brand new app for iPhones, which implements technology from the recently acquired Summly.

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO claimed the revamped Yahoo app will help to satisfy their “insatiable” appetite for information and has been designed with small screens in mind.

 “We acquired Summly less than a month ago, and we’re thrilled to introduce this game-changing technology in our first mobile application,” Mayer noted in the Yahoo blog.

The Yahoo app uses Summly’s natural-language algorithms and machine learning to deliver bitesized summaries.

Yahoo has also improved video and image search functionality on the app and Mayer noted that the app will adapt to your behavior as well.

“When you’re signed into Yahoo, the choices you make are saved across screens. The more you use Yahoo, the more relevant and interesting the experience becomes - on mobile and desktop.”
The rapid introduction of the technology acquired through the purchase of Summly shows Yahoo is keen to more forward in the mobile market.

Summly was first brought to the internet firm's attention after the application was downloaded over 500,000 times in the Apple App store. The text condensing technology was purchased in March from UK teenage entrepreneur Nick D’Aloisio for a reported $30 million.

The application claims to enhance user experience by employing natural language algorithms and machine learning to deliver quick story summaries, as well as personalising content to each user’s interest.

While it is rumored that Yahoo is to extend the service to other mobile platforms, such as Google’s Android, no such announcements have been issued at this time. 

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - Oil Rises To Near $93 After Sharp Drop Last Week Driven By US Job And Over Supply Concerns

Source - http://www.foxnews.com/
By - Press Release
Category - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

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The price of oil rose modestly Monday after sharp losses due to high supplies and weak U.S. employment figures.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was up 17 cents to $92.87 a barrel at midday Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 56 cents to close at $92.70 on Friday and was down 5 percent from midweek.

The price of oil fell after a weak jobs report cast doubt on the strength of the U.S. economy. The Labor Department reported Friday the economy added 88,000 jobs in March, the fewest in nine months. The slowdown may signal the economy will weaken this spring.

The U.S. Energy Department last week reported that crude in storage was at its highest level since 1990 even though refiners had begun to ramp up gasoline production to get ready for the summer driving season. Now the economy looks like it might not grow fast enough to churn through the nation's high supplies.

"The latest jobs data provide a useful reminder that this is still an uneven recovery in the US economy," said Caroline Bain, commodities analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

She expects oil prices to average less than $90 a barrel in the second quarter of 2013 "reflecting a comfortable market balance, lower refinery runs and only very modest growth in consumption."

Brent Crude, which sets the price of oil used by many U.S. refineries to make gasoline, rose 57 cents to $104.69.

In other energy futures trading on the Nymex:

— Heating oil rose 1 cent to $2.919 per gallon.

— Wholesale gasoline rose 0.8 cent to $2.871 per gallon.

— Natural gas rose 2.8 cents to $4.153 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - Stocks Decline On Europe Growth Worries

Source - http://www.usatoday.com/
By - Kim Hjelmgaard
Category - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita

Stocks declined Thursday after the European Central Bank turned up the heat on Cyprus and said it will cut emergency liquidity to the nation's central bank unless Cyprus adopts a fiscal aid plan by Monday.

In the U.S., technology stocks dragged the indexes lower after Oracle reported an unexpected decline in sales in its fiscal third quarter. Oracle shares fell $3.47, or 9%, to $32.30.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 90.24 points, or 0.62%, to 14,421.49. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 12.91 points, or 0.83%, to 1,545.80. The Nasdaq composite index shed 31.59 points, or 0.97%, to 3,222.60.

The Dow's weakness today, which included a short-lived, intra-day drop of more than 100 points, could be the latest sign that the rip-roaring stock market rally, which has catapulted the Dow to fresh highs, might be running out of steam, at least in the short run, says John Praveen, chief investment strategist at Prudential International Investment Advisors.

The main stock indexes in Paris, London and Frankfurt were all lower.

The Cyprus situation as well as some weak earnings from well-known names such as Oracle and package delivery giant Federal Express, could be catalysts for a pullback.

"These increased risks are likely to cause stock markets to struggle in the near term and prompt profit taking after the strong gains thus far this year," says Praveen.

Pressure mounted on Cyprus to fix its financial system. It must raise about $7.5 billion in the next four days to avoid bankruptcy. Several plans have failed, including a proposal to tax deposits held by the nation's banks.

If the Mediterranean banking haven is unable to secure a bailout, its banks will fail and it could be forced to leave the euro currency.

In the U.S., the yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.93% from 1.96% earlier as demand increased for ultra-safe investments.

Trans-Atlantic jitters and technology stocks overshadowed encouraging data about the U.S. economy.

The number of people seeking unemployment benefits barely changed last week, the Labor Department said before the market opened.

Home sales rose in February to a fresh three-year high, according to the National Association of Realtors. It is the latest signal that the housing recovery is solidifying.

Besides technology, here are other stocks that fell:

— Struggling drug company AstraZeneca jumped after saying it would cut 2,300 more jobs worldwide and overhaul its research operations. That brings to 11,000 the number of job cuts announced in the past 13 months. Shares rose $1.77, or 3%, to $47.95.

— Publisher Scholastic Corp. plunged after shrinking demand for its best-selling "The Hunger Games" books forced it to cut its guidance for the year. The company's fiscal third-quarter loss nearly doubled. Shares fell $4.32, or 14%, to $26.75.

— Movado Group dropped after the luxury watchmaker said its fiscal fourth-quarter net income fell 26%. The stock fell $4.08, or 10%, to $33.04.

And among technology stocks that fell:

— Juniper Networks dropped 42 cents, or 2%, to $18.89.

— Cisco fell 83 cents, or 3%, to $20.84.

— IBM declined $2.80, or 1%, to $212.26.

— Intel lost 14 cents, or 0.1%, at $21.04.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index surged 1.34% to 12,635.69. Benchmarks in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan also rose. South Korea's Kospi slipped 0.44% to 1,950.82. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.16% to 22,219.78.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was down $1.09 to $92.41 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said at the end of a two-day policy meeting that the Fed won't alter its aggressive monetary easing — $85 billion in monthly bond purchases to push down borrowing costs — until it is convinced the economy's gains can be sustained.

Fed officials reinforced their plan to keep short-term interest rates at rock-bottom levels at least until unemployment falls to 6.5%. The current unemployment rate is 7.7%.

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - FAO helps 10 800 people with food aid

Source - http://www.informativenews.co.ls/
By - Majara Molupe
Category - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

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MOHALE’SHOEK-Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, local authorities and communities, through extension workers in each 10 districts of Lesotho selected worthy project beneficiaries of the food relief program.

The communication and coordination assistant of FAO in Lesotho Elizabeth Tšehlo said the food aid was a direct response of national food security crisis declared by the Lesotho’s Prime Minister honourable Tom Thabane last year.

“Priority was given to vulnerable families headed by females, orphans, the elderly and those who had chronically ill family members, children under five or pregnant and lactating mothers,” she said.

Beneficiaries at

Tšehlo said statistics show that 725 000 Basotho are considered to be food insecure and this represents a staggering 39% of the total population of the country. 

“As a result”, she warned, “FAO as the agency of the United Nations (UN) scaled up its ongoing rehabilitation activities, with support from the European Commission Humanitarian Office, Belgium and the UN Central Emergency Relief Fund.

From the original 5,000 households, added Tšehlo, FAO is now helping 10,800 vulnerable families, providing seeds and fertilizers, as well as training beneficiaries on the use of sustainable agricultural techniques, such as Conservation Agriculture (CA) and improved Home Gardening and Nutrition”. 

She said the first stage of the nation- wide response program consisted of distributing agricultural inputs, such as maize and bean seeds, fertilizers and vegetable kits pointing out that there are vulnerable farmers in all the districts and the four agro ecological zones of Lesotho. 

In the project, the coordinator said her organization has encouraged the beneficiaries to change their farming methods to CA because it is sustainable, good for the land and enhances yields.

“The three pillars of CA are minimum disturbance of the soil, crop rotations and intercropping permanent soil cover,” she said.

Tšehlo stated that soil erosion is a major problem in Lesotho that affects both quality and quantity of harvests. “By adopting CA, farmers not only ensure better harvests, but also contribute to the improvement of soil quality.”

Although FAO’s programme aims at helping farmers in this emergency situation in the short term, she said it also believes that by disseminating knowledge and practices, farmers will be better placed to enhance their agricultural practices in the long term.

FAO representative in Lesotho Attaher Maiga said it is encouraging to see so many farmers taking CA.

”CA offers us one of the best options to adapt to Climate Change the declining production in the country. The involvement of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has been decisive for the success of this ambitious programme,” said Maiga.

He said this is the first time that CA is promoted widely at national level saying FAO remains committed in supporting Basotho communities and continuing the promotion of CA benefits.

One of the beneficiaries of the program ‘Maletsi Motjamela who is a widow looking after 10 children in the Mohale’shoek district at Mekaling area said the aid came at the right time when her family was struggling to survive.

Most Basotho are hard hit by poverty and hunger and leave below poverty line.