Cairo Forum 2010 Education Site

Archive for August, 2011

China is eager to address one of the primary culprits behind its alarming coal mining fatalities, as evidenced by the Pre-Mining Degasification Symposium held in South China’s Guizhou province on March 31st and April 1st. Sponsored by the province’s Coal Mines Administration Bureau and the Coal Mine Safety Inspection and Supervision Bureau, coal mining executives gathered in Guiyang, a modest-sized city (by China’s standards) of more than three million people, to discuss how the latest foreign technologies could help degasify China’s 2,000 coal mines, both improving mine safety and reducing China’s global output of air pollution. More than 80 representatives from 40 coal mines attended in China’s second largest coal-producing province to find out about the latest foreign technology transfers, which might help reduce coal mining deaths.

Over the centuries as organic matter is converted to coal, methane, also known as CH4 and the primary constituent in natural gas, is produced during this process and stored in pockets within a coal seam. For every ton of coal produced, during the “coalification” process, more than 5000 cubic feet of methane is created. Coal mining releases this methane into the atmosphere. Over 90 percent of methane emissions come from underground coal mining. Because gas content is greater with depth, safety hazards increase during the underground coal mining process. Degasifying coal mines has been proven to help make those underground coal mines safer for miners.

Volatile gases produced during the coal mining process reportedly kill more than 15 miners every day in China, about 80 percent of the world’s coal mining deaths. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, a mining engineer by training, has demanded China improve conditions for Chinese coal miners. Critics, such as the Chinaworker.org, say the “underlying cause is a lack of investment in degasification equipment.” The website claims, “Managers calculate that it’s cheaper to pay out meager death benefits to miners’ families than (to) raise investment.” The Economist magazine reported that Chinese coal miners make as little as $60/monthly.

China is also concerned about its air emissions from coal mining. Worldwide, the coal mining industry released over 436 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2000. That accounted for about 8 percent of the total industrial methane emissions that year. China, Russia, Poland and the United States account for over 77 percent of coal mining methane emissions. Through the year 2020, China’s share of worldwide emissions will jump to 45 percent. These emissions could be severely reduced if Chinese coal mines captured the methane gas for use in meeting its soaring energy needs, rather than vented into the atmosphere each time a new coal tunnel is opened.

One of the major draws at the Guiyang Pre-Mining Degasification Symposium were presentations about the latest coalbed methane drilling innovation by Tunaye Sai, Director of China Operations for Pacific Asia China Energy (TSX: PCE; Other OTC: PCEEF), and Nathan Mitchell of Mitchell Drilling Company (MDC) in Brisbane, Australia. Coal mining companies opened discussions with PCE after their presentation. “Executives from fifty mines showed interest in the Dymaxion® drilling technology to improve mining safety,” said Tunaye Sai. All of them showed interest? “All of them,” responded Tunaye Sai. PCE reported in a news release on Wednesday, “The PACE-MDC joint venture group is currently preparing a business plan for the immediate development of this new strategy in order to address the demand, which arose from the attendees at this symposium.”
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Roots of the Disorder
Are the psychopath, sociopath, and someone with the Antisocial Personality Disorder one and the same? The DSM says “yes”. Scholars such as Robert Hare and Theodore Millon beg to differ. The psychopath has antisocial traits for sure but they are coupled with and enhanced by callousness, ruthlessness, extreme lack of empathy, deficient impulse control, deceitfulness, and sadism.

Like other personality disorders, psychopathy becomes evident in early adolescence and is considered to be chronic. But unlike most other personality disorders, it is frequently ameliorated with age and tends to disappear altogether in by the fourth or fifth decade of life. This is because criminal behavior and substance abuse are both determinants of the disorders and behaviors more typical of young adults.

Psychopathy may be hereditary. The psychopath’s immediate family usually suffer from a variety of personality disorders.

Cultural and Social Considerations

The Antisocial Personality Disorder is a controversial mental health diagnoses. The psychopath refuses to conform to social norms and obey the law. He often inflicts pain and damage on his victims. But does that make this pattern of conduct a mental illness? The psychopath has no conscience or empathy. But is this necessarily pathological? Culture-bound diagnoses are often abused as tools of social control. They allow the establishment, ruling elites, and groups with vested interests to label and restrain dissidents and troublemakers. Such diagnoses are frequently employed by totalitarian states to harness or even eliminate eccentrics, criminals, and deviants.
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El las campañas políticas, él que tiene una mejor imagen al público es seguro de ganar las elecciones. Es la razón porque los del otro campo tratan de asesinar la personalidad de los otros candidatos. Al fin, el «bien mayor» gana contra los buenos candidatos. También el «mal menor» gana contra los candidatos malos.

La construcción de la imagen pública empieza antes la misma campaña. Alguien que piensa en solicitar una posición en el gobierno debe pensar cual imagen va a proyectar al público. ¿Serás el líder recto que va a seguir las leyes hasta el punto? ¿Serás el ambientalista? ¿Serás el defensor de los derechos de los obreros? Hay que pensarlo. Hay que pensarlo bien. Y después de conocerlo, vivirlo bien.

Una mala elección de tu niche puede ser fatal. A veces, toman el papel de ambientalista solo porque todos los otros han tomados otros papeles. Y al momento que  los ambientalistas le piden preguntas, no puede decir nada. Y con eso, acabamos de matar nuestros sueños políticos.

Como los otros rasgos de la imagen pública hay que saber claramente cual es tu meta final. Claro que es para ganar una posición en el gobierno pero después de la victoria, ¿qué más? En cuanto que no tienes planes después la elección, no tienes planes de mantener la posición también.

Hay conferencias en imagen publica para saber estas cosas mejor. Acá, los expertos van a ayudarte formular tus objetivos política y como mostrarlos  los votantes. No es una cosa de la noche a mañana. Necesita bastante tiempo para construir la imagen. Hay que añadir un ladrillo cada día para fortificar tu imagen. Hay que aprender muchas cosas. No esta bien hacer una buena cara pero sin conocimiento de las cosas que apoyas. Debes ser todo para todo.

In the case of Hardys and Hansons plc v Lax [2005] EWCA Civ 846 (Court of Appeal), the appellant employers were brewers who ran a chain of public houses. The respondent was employed by the appellant and subsequently took maternity leave, and during this time, she put in a request to her employer to job share her post of retail recruitment manager upon her return from maternity leave, or alternatively to take up a tenanted support manager’s job on a job share basis. Her request was denied and she brought an action for unlawful sex discrimination and unfair dismissal in the Employment Tribunal (Tribunal).

Under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (SDA), inter alia, a person discriminates against a woman if “he applies to her a provision criterion or practice which he applies or would apply equally to a man, but… which he cannot show to be justifiable irrespective of the sex of the person to who it is applied…”.

The Tribunal stated that it was necessary for them to weigh the justification put forward by the employers against its discriminatory effect. The Tribunal rejected the employer’s justification, that their refusal could be justified irrespective of whether the employee was male or female. As a result, the Tribunal concluded that the employee had been unfairly dismissed. The employers appealed against this finding to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT). The EAT dismissed the appeal, finding no reason to interfere with the Tribunal’s decision. The employers appealed to the Court of Appeal (CoA).

The employer’s argument was that the Tribunal had applied the wrong test by weighing the employer’s justification against the discriminatory effect – instead the employer contended that the tribunal should have given them a ‘margin of discretion’ in deciding whether or not to allow the job share sought by the employee.
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