Organic burger chain Shake Shack shakes up Wall Street

Organic burger chain Shake Shack had the New York stock exchange cooking on its first day of trading on Friday, leaping 129.7 percent from its IPO. The "all-natural" fast food trend is the latest fad among US investors.

Deutsche Welle, 30 Jan 2015

The hamburger chain that prides itself on fresh ingredients and good service raised $105 million (93 million euros) selling 5 million shares at $21 per share.

That was a huge hike on its initial forecast, which said its shares would fetch $14 to $16 per share from investors, and raised that forecast to $17 to $19 per share on Wednesday as demand grew.

Shares then leapt to $27.40 on Friday before climbing even further to $48.40 in the afternoon. Analysts estimated the company could have sold its stock for a higher price in its IPO and raised more money.

Trading up with natural ingredients

The burger chain, created by restaurateur Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group, started life as a humble New York City hot dog cart. Now it is considered the latest in the trend of "fast-casual" chains that sell fresh ingredients, and has investors' mouths watering.

The firm plans to add at least 10 new US locations per year and to license the brand overseas. It currently has 63 locations globally, 31 in the US with most overseas sites in the Middle East.

Shake Shack, whose motto is "Stand for Something Good," cooks its burgers to order using hormone- and antibiotic-free beef.

It has been compared to the fast-growing burrito chain, Chipotle Mexican Grill, which also emphasizes food customization, high-quality ingredients, and the use of natural meats.

"There's a seismic shift in how people are eating today. People are trading up," Shake Shack chief executive Randy Garutti told US news network CNBC. "They're not eating fast food. They want more. They expect more."

bk/hg (AFP, Reuters)

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The slow decline of fast food in America

Dutch babies laugh and like to cuddle more than American ones: research

DutchNews.nl, January 29, 2015

Dutch babies laugh, smile and like to cuddle more than their American counterparts, new research by psychologists in the US has found. 

The study examining temperamental differences between US and Dutch babies found infants born in the Netherlands are more likely to be happy and easier to soothe in the latter half of their first year, the Washington State University researchers said. 

US infants, on the other hand, were more active and vocal, said study co-author Maria Gartstein in a press release. 

The results in many ways reflect American and Dutch parents’ unique cultural values, the researchers said. 

American parents often ‘emphasise the importance of stimulation, exposing their children to a wide variety of new experiences to promote independence’. However, in the Netherlands, parents ‘are more likely to incorporate children into daily activities at home, placing strong value on the importance of rest and regularity’. 

A greater understanding of these values and the impact they have on an infant’s temperament will help psychologists fine-tune ways to prevent infant temperament issues from becoming behavioral problems later in life, the researchers said. 

More on this

Related Article:

Kryon Q&A

Question: I’ve been working with young children for many years as a first- and second-grade teacher near Toronto, Canada. I have yet to clearly see any of the characteristics attributed to the Indigo Children. Is it possible that Indigo behavior manifests differently nearer the Poles?

Answer: Dear one, this is indeed so. The energy of magnetics is very different in certain colder areas near the Poles, and we have indicated this in past channellings. In addition, your area is magnetically different—even from the western areas of your own country. All of this changes the potential consciousness of Humans, should they wish to give intent for it. Do you think it’s a coincidence that the equator carries such a dark potential in so many areas of Humanity? There hasn’t been much Human thought on this. 

You have Indigos in your classes, but what is different is that the area where you live is more attuned for the parents to know how to intuitively raise them. Remember the axiom of the Indigo: Their seemingly difficult behavior patterns are in direct relationship to their home and school environments. Indigos are not difficult when they are honored and given choice. You do this intuitively in your classroom, and many around you are also doing it at home. This is not the case a few hundred kilometers below you, or even west of you, and the mainstream news reports bear this out.

Blessed are those who are passionate for the children of Earth, for they understand that they are children as well.

African Union vows Ebola fund as Oxfam calls for 'Marshall Plan'

Yahoo - AFP, 28 Jan 2015

Medical workers spray their protective gear at an Ebola treatment centre in

Monrovia on December 19, 2014 (AFP Photo/Evan Schneider)

Addis Ababa (AFP) - The African Union plans to launch an Ebola fund and disease control centre, officials said Wednesday, as aid agency Oxfam warned leaders needed to keep their promises to boost healthcare systems on the continent.

Oxfam called for a "massive post-Ebola Marshall Plan", referring to the United States aid package to rebuild Europe after World War II.

"This disaster might have been avoided if African governments had made free public health care and spent more on their health systems, under the commitment they made 14 years ago in the Abuja Declaration," Oxfam said in a statement.

"It's clear that Africa's existing architecture for early disease detection, response and control is wholly inadequate," the aid agency added.

AU Commissioner for Social Affairs Mustapha Sidiki Kaloko on Wednesday said an African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention would be set up by mid-2015.

"It is a reality, it is going to happen," Kaloko said, with the first phase concentrating on setting up "an early warning system" for the detection of epidemics. "We should be ready the next time. We shouldn't be caught unprepared."

However, its exact location remains undecided.

"We will start with a coordination centre within the AU and then set up up to eight regional centres," Kaloko added.

The AU Ebola Solidarity fund will be launched on Friday during a summit meeting for leaders of the 54-member bloc, which has already sent hundreds of health workers as part of its mission to tackle the outbreak in west Africa.

In November, the AU, African Development Bank and regional business leaders set up a crisis fund to help areas hit by the Ebola outbreak, with some $28 million pledged.

"It is time for Africa to mobilise its own resources in support of its development and take charge of its own destiny," AU chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said Wednesday.

The worst outbreak of the virus in history has seen nearly 9,000 deaths in a year -- almost all in the three west African countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone -- and sparked a major health scare worldwide.

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Obama urges Africa's leaders to 'serve their people'

"The Timing of the Great Shift" – Mar 21, 2009 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“… PHASE THREE

The years 2013 to 2025 are the final phase. I tell you now that these things are going to sound too grand. What I give you now are only potentials and you may hear them and say, "Well, those are just potentials. They're too grand. Those things can't happen." Go back with me 20 years. All the potentials I gave you in 1989 took place. They took place because that was what was within the potentials. It was a reading of humanity within your consciousness. So I do it again, now. These are the potentials for the final phase of the Great Shift.

The first one is the adjustment of actual Human societal thinking. It represents the energies in the way you work and think. These are the kind of things a sociologist would study. Let me give it another name: It's an actual shift to a higher vibration of Human nature. "Kryon, that's impossible. Human nature is Human nature. We can't change it." Well, you've already begun it. You're starting to clean up your financial institutions worldwide. Did you notice? Dear ones, if anyone had ever told you 30 years ago that you were going to clean up your financial institutions, they would have laughed. For don't you know the way society works? Those who have the money win. Banks hold all the cards, and they are run by the those in high places. They are untouchable, since the government is often the same people! Well, why don't you tell them that today. Look around you, because something just happened. It's not working that way, is it? What would make the difference? Consciousness. A new paradigm. You can see it in the news.

Here is another one. A change in what Human nature will allow for government. "Careful, Kryon, don't talk about politics. You'll get in trouble." I won't get in trouble. I'm going to tell you to watch for leadership that cares about you. "You mean politics is going to change?" It already has. It's beginning. Watch for it. You're going to see a total phase-out of old energy dictatorships eventually. The potential is that you're going to see that before 2013. They're going to fall over, you know, because the energy of the population will not sustain an old energy leader. Remember where you heard it... in a strange, esoteric meeting with a guy in a chair pretending to channel. [Kryon being factious... Kryon humor] Then when you hear it, you'll know better, won't you? "Maybe there was something really there," you'll say. "Maybe it was real," you'll say. Perhaps you can skip all the drama of the years to come and consider that now? [Kryon humor again]

These leaders are going to fall over. You'll have a slow developing leadership coming to you all over the earth where there is a new energy of caring about the public. "That's just too much to ask for in politics, Kryon." Watch for it. That's just the beginning of this last phase. So many things are coming. The next one is related to this, for a country in survival with sickness cannot sustain a leadership of high consciousness. There is just too much opportunity for power and greed. But when a continent is healed, everything changes.

The next one: You're going to heal a continent. Watch for it. It begins. Watch for major shift in Africa. We have said this before, even within the meetings I spoke in what you call the United Nations. Africa has never even been a potential player in the economic field, because it has been sick. What happens when you heal a continent? I'm going to tell you. Suddenly, the people on that continent also want what you have - government that works, peace, their own homes, schools, hospitals, and even banks where they can borrow from. They don't have any of those now, not really. Everything with substance is from somewhere else. That means you're going to have a continent that's going to arise that will become a major player on the stage of Earth's finances and political influence - an entire continent with all the resources on it, with even the potential for unification of common purpose, much like what you have now in your EU. I'm giving you information, and when it happens, again, I say you'll remember where you heard it.

Many years ago, the prevailing thought was that nobody should consider China as a viable player on the economic stage. They were backward, filled with a system that would never be westernized, and had no wish to become joined with the rest of the world's economic systems. Look what has happened in only 30 years. Now, look at Africa differently.   …”

"The End of History"- Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) - (Text-Version)

" .... Africa

Let me tell you where else it's happening that you are unaware - that which is the beginning of the unity of the African states. Soon the continent will have what they never had before, and when that continent is healed and there is no AIDS and no major disease, they're going to want what you have. They're going to want houses and schools and an economy that works without corruption. They will be done with small-minded leaders who kill their populations for power in what has been called for generations "The History of Africa." Soon it will be the end of history in Africa, and a new continent will emerge.

Be aware that the strength may not come from the expected areas, for new leadership is brewing. There is so much land there and the population is so ready there, it will be one of the strongest economies on the planet within two generations plus 20 years. And it's going to happen because of a unifying idea put together by a few. These are the potentials of the planet, and the end of history as you know it.

In approximately 70 years, there will be a black man who leads this African continent into affluence and peace. He won't be a president, but rather a planner and a revolutionary economic thinker. He, and a strong woman with him, will implement the plan continent-wide. They will unite. This is the potential and this is the plan. Africa will arise out the ashes of centuries of disease and despair and create a viable economic force with workers who can create good products for the day. You think China is economically strong? China must do what it does, hobbled by the secrecy and bias of the old ways of its own history. As large as it is, it will have to eventually compete with Africa, a land of free thinkers and fast change. China will have a major competitor, one that doesn't have any cultural barriers to the advancement of the free Human spirit.. ...."

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version) 

“… The Future of the Illuminati

Now, I want to tell you something that you didn't expect and something I've reported only one other time. What about all of the money that the Illuminati has? There are trillions and trillions of euro in banks, under their control, waiting. What are they going to do with it and where are they going to use it? It's still here. They're waiting.

This group is waiting for something to happen that they know is going to happen, for they see it coming as much as I do. However, I would like to tell you something that they don't expect. With awareness comes generational shift. Those in charge of this money will not always be elders. The indigos eventually will have it.

They are waiting for something to happen in Africa - the building of a new civilization, a continent that has nothing to unlearn. Once Africa is cured, once it's ready, a new civilization can be created from the ground up. Africans will be ready to learn everything about building a foundation for the most advanced civilization ever and will do it with the most modern and inventive systems available. Eventually, this new continent will even beat the economics of China.

This is the prediction and always has been, and the Illuminati's money will fund it. Did I say the Illuminati will fund it? [Kryon laugh] The Illuminati's money will fund it, but there is a difference from the past, dear ones. The ones who inherit the positions in the Illuminati will be a different consciousness. Listen, they are not suddenly going to be the ones who have the good of everyone in their hearts - hardly. They want to make money, but what they will see instead is a way to make a great deal of money through this investment. In the process, it will automatically help hundreds of thousands, and they will be at the beginning, the foundation, that builds the new Africa. The new African states of unification eventually will create a continent stronger than any of the others, and it will have one currency. The resources alone will dwarf anything in the world. ...”

Organised chaos helps keep Dutch health service on top

Irish Examiner, Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Despite its number one ranking and its many admirers both here and abroad, the Dutch health care system is still a work in progress, writes Dan Buckley

WELL-ORGANISED chaos is, perhaps, the best way to describe the Dutch health service, which has been consistently ranked as one of the best in the world by many indicators.

At least, that is how Dr Arne Björnberg sees it.

He is chairman of Health Consumer Powerhouse (HCP), a Swedish company that conducts an annual evaluation of European health care systems.

For the third year in a row, the Dutch service has been judged the best in Europe by the Euro Health Consumer Index, the survey carried out by HCP.

According to Dr Björnberg, the rest of the EU could learn a lot from the Dutch.

“The Netherlands has what we call ‘a chaos system’, meaning patients have a great deal of freedom in choosing where to buy their health insurance to where they get their healthcare service.

“The difference between the Netherlands and other countries is that the chaos is managed. Health care decisions are being made in a dialogue between the patients and the health care professionals.”

In 2006, the Dutch launched a major reform of their health service which, like Ireland, was creaking at the seams. Under the old system, the patient was secondary to that of the doctor or hospital. They sought to make that more patient focused — or customer driven, to borrow a phrase from private industry.

They also wanted a system with the potential to harness the benefits of real competition and real choice through private insurance arrangements, while maintaining health care for public benefit.

They have — by and large — succeeded in this to such an extent that Dutch healthcare is regarded as a reference for health reform elsewhere. It has been favoured by James Reilly, the former minister for health, even while he was in opposition.

From 2010 to 2014, he made numerous trips to the Netherlands to see the system for himself and was impressed by what he saw. Dr Reilly’s universal health insurance system remains the centrepiece of the Government’s ambitious health service reform plans although his successor, Leo Varadkar, has decided to delay its introduction which had been scheduled for 2019.

Under the current Dutch system, health insurance must be purchased for every citizen from highly-regulated private providers. Described as “private health insurance with social conditions”, insurers are tightly regulated for quality, provision of basic services, and they are required to accept everyone in their coverage area at a flat rate, no matter what their health status.

The “basic package” is the minimum health insurance deal that must be offered by insurers and must cover for all essential health care.

To prevent loss of profitability from recruiting chronically-ill patients, they have a risk equalisation system so that insurance companies are compensated for providing service to those patients who need it most.

It’s a system that encourages competition, but is regulated to prevent the companies from selecting only healthy patients, or otherwise abusing the system to deny health care provision to sick people.

The Dutch system is not without its critics, both within and outside of the Netherlands.

While it has reduced waiting lists, health costs have doubled in the past nine years. In addition, patients can wait up to a week to see a family doctor and consultations are regularly limited to 10 minutes of the doctor’s time.

The creaks were outlined to delegates attending the 2011 annual general meeting of the Irish Medical Organisation.

Dr Wim Heres, a GP in the Netherlands, said: “I would like to spend more time with my patients but to do so would see my income fall… We have less than 10 minutes to spend with the average patient. We hardly do any social visits we spend so much time on quality-related issues.”

Although the system provided greater equity, the patient could “always get what you need, you can’t always get what you want”.

The doctors are not always getting what they want, either, according to the results of a survey of Dutch GPs released last Friday.

“Family doctors are very unhappy about the contracts they are being asked to sign by health insurance companies and many feel they are being forced to accept them, according to research by the doctors’ association LHV,” reports DutchNews.nl, an online journal.

“Doctors want to offer the best possible care to their patients,” said LHV chairwoman Ella Kalsbeek. “They want to be listened to and taken seriously and if that does not happen, they feel powerless and angry.”

Even the system’s inventors concede that it is still a work in progress. At a health conference in Cork in 2011, delegates also heard a note of caution from Wynand Van de Ven, who helped spearhead reform of the Dutch health care system in the 1990s.

Outlining the evolution of the health service in the Netherlands in the past 30 years, Prof Van de Van said that, although the current system is a huge improvement on what went before, there are still problems and it was too early to fully assess its effectiveness. “The jury is still out,” he told delegates.

Obesity rising among Fukushima children, survey shows

Concern grows about health risks to children amid parents’ fears that allowing them to play outside will expose them to radiation

The Guardian, Justin McCurry in Tokyo, 27 January 2015

Children bow to greet their nursery school teacher as they get into a school bus
 heading to kindergarten in Koriyama, west of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power
plant. Photograph: Toru Hanai/Reuters

Children from Fukushima are the most obese in Japan, due in part to fears among parents that allowing them to play outside will expose them to harmful levels of radiation, a survey has found.

Almost four years after the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, concern is growing about the long-term health risks to inactive children from the prefecture.

According to Japanese media, an education ministry survey of schoolchildren aged five to 17 found that 15.07% of nine-year-olds in Fukushima prefecture were 20% heavier than the standard weight for their age – the level at which a child is considered clinically obese.

The rate was dramatically higher than the national average of 8.14% and the highest of Japan’s 47 prefectures, or counties. Fukushima children aged six, seven, 11, 12 and 13 were also heavier than their contemporaries, the study found.

Children from the Tohoku region of northern Japan, where Fukushima is located, tend to be fatter than their peers because they are forced to spend long periods inside during the bitterly cold winters.

But the disparity has grown in the four years since the nuclear disaster due to radiation fears, even in areas of the prefecture where levels are well below those considered safe, and lifestyle changes associated with living in temporary housing.

While most schools in the region have eased restrictions on playing outside, many children have become accustomed to staying indoors and have lost interest in physical exercise, education officials said.

The disaster on 11 March 2011 forced the evacuation of 150,000 residents from a 20km radius around the Fukushima plant – a move some health experts have credited with preventing exposure to dangerous levels of radiation. Local authorities also quickly banned the sale of milk, consumption of which was blamed for juvenile cancers observed in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster 25 years earlier.

Comments by parents and teachers in Fukushima suggest that many children, even those living in areas where radiation levels are below government safety limits, are spending more time at home after school and during weekends and holidays than they did before the disaster.

A rise in the incidence of thyroid cancer among children who lived near the plant at the time of the disaster has sparked a debate about the possible health effects of Fukushima’s radioactive fallout.

Just over 100 people aged 18 or under at the time of the disaster had been diagnosed with confirmed or suspected thyroid cancer by last summer.

They are among 370,000 children and adolescents in the prefecture who will be regularly screened throughout their lives for the illness, which can be caused by radiation exposure and is more prevalent in the young.

Japanese health officials, however, have so far ruled out a connection between the elevated cancer rate and the Fukushima meltdown.

They point out that thyroid cancer cases did not emerge until about three to four years after the Chernobyl disaster. In addition, they say the rate in Fukushima is significantly higher than the national average because of the large number of people being tested and the use of hypersensitive ultrasound, which can detect the tiniest lesions.

Thyroid cancer normally affects one to two people per million among 10 to 14-year-olds in Japan, a rate far lower than observed in Fukushima, although tests there apply to people aged up to 18.

Japanese farmers bring a cow to the front of the agriculture
ministry in Tokyo, on June 20, 2014

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"Fast-Tracking" - Feb 8, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Reference to Fukushima / H-bomb nuclear pollution and a warning about nuclear  (> 20 Min)

Payouts promised to Fijian veterans of British nuclear testing

Fijian victims of British nuclear testing in 1958 are to get compensation, according to Fiji's government. Seventy military personnel were taken to Christmas Island, a test site in the Pacific, more than 50 years ago.

Deutsche Welle, 27 Jan 2015

Fiji's government said on Tuesday that military veterans exposed to radiation 56 years ago or their families are to get compensation for subsequent health problems, including cancer of the blood.

The Fiji Sun newspaper quoted the country's National Security and Defense Minister Timoci Natuva as saying Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama would outline compensation details on Friday.

Maleli Naigulegu, now aged 80 and one of the surviving veterans who has campaigned for decades for assistance, told the Fiji Sun it was "the greatest news."

"At last my group has been recognized," the former laboratory technician said.

During British Cold War nuclear testing in 1957 and 1958, some 70 Fijian military personnel were sent to Christmas Island on board New Zealand naval ships.

The island is now part of the Pacific nation of Kiribati.

Naigulegu said the Fijian personnel were not briefed on the purpose of their deployment to the test zone.

Several Pacific test zones

Last year, a lawsuit was filed at the International Court of Justice by another Pacific nation, the Marshall Islands, where the US conducted 60 nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958.

The Marshalls, with a population of 70,000, became fully independent in 1986 after being administered in the past by the United States.

The lawsuit seeks to hold the US and eight other nuclear-weapon nations accountable for breaching or allowing violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Nuclear weapons have been used twice - at Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan by the US, near the close of World War Two in the Pacific region.

Several thousand tests

From 1946 until the 1990s nuclear powers conducted more than 2,000 nuclear tests worldwide.

A French 'test' over Mururoa in 1971

The United State's largest was at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in 1954. The former Soviet Union's largest test "Tsar Bomba" took place in 1961.

France conducted tests in French Polynesia in the 1970s and 1990s, prompting strong protests from New Zealand, Australia and environmental rights group Greenpeace.

Last year, remote southern Australian land used by Britain to test atomic bombs in the 1950s and 1960s was handed back to its Aboriginal owners, the Maralinga Tjarutja, after attempts to decontaminate it.

Around 16,300 atomic bombs remain, held mainly by the US and Russia, despite the various versions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

Some 70,000 to 80,000 had existed at the height of the Cold War.

ipj/jlw (AFP, IPS)

A huge dome is shown in 1980 covering a crater left by one of the 43

nuclear blasts on Runit Island, in the Marshall Islands, the fallout from

which is expected to last 25,000 years (US Defence Nuclear Agency/AFP)

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"Fast-Tracking" - Feb 8, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Reference to Fukushima / H-bomb nuclear pollution and a warning about nuclear  (> 20 Min)

Police Arrest Four in 4.25-Ton Aceh Marijuana Bust

Jakarta Globe, Jan 27, 2015

A marijuana plantation in Indrapuri, Aceh, discovered by police in
February 2013. (AFP Photo/Atha)

Jakarta. Indonesian police have announced the seizure of more than four tons of marijuana bound for Jakarta from Aceh, the latest such bust of the drug from the ostensibly staunchly conservative province.

Police discovered the drugs in a truck on the highway between Medan and Binjai in North Sumatra on Jan. 17, Insp. Gen. Eko Sutedjo, the chief of the North Sumatra Police, said in Medan on Monday as quoted by Detik.com.

The truck was loaded with 96 sacks of marijuana, weighing a combined 4,250 kilograms, Eko said.

Police arrested the driver, Nasir, 33, and his assistant, Fadli, 40, both from Aceh.

The suspects told investigators that the drugs came from Aceh and were destined for Jakarta. Two of their associates, Mursal, 40, and Zulkifli, 33, were picked up by police in Jakarta, Eko said.

“These two suspects worked as informants, letting the others know about any police raids,” the police chief said.

He added that the North Sumatra Police were working with their counterparts in Aceh to hunt down the suppliers and growers of the drugs.

Busts of large amounts of marijuana from Aceh are common, with the drug grown on vast farms in the province, which enforces a limited form of shariah, or Islamic law. In October last year, police seized a truck carrying 2,000 kilograms of the contraband after it broke down by the side of the road in Aceh. Police later tracked down and arrested the driver, who had wandered off to find spare parts.

In early December, police in Medan arrested nine people found with 350 kilograms of marijuana, which also came from Aceh. And in the last week of December, police in Jakarta arrested a truck driver from Aceh who had driven all the way to the capital with a load of 1,200 kilograms of marijuana.

Earlier this month, police discovered eight hectares of marijuana plants growing in Aceh Besar district. They have not been able to identify the owner.

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WHO calls for revamp after 'too slow' Ebola response

The head of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, has called for reform amid criticism of the body's response to the Ebola crisis. She warned against complacency despite progress in fighting the epidemic.

Deutsche Welle, 25 Jan 2015

A baby receives a vaccine during a routine doctor's visit at the Kuntorloh Community
 Health Centre in the outskirts of Freetown on November 14, 2014. AFP Photo/
Francisco Leong/Getty Images

Chan told a rare emergency session of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva on Sunday that it had been too sluggish in responding to the recent Ebola crisis in West Africa, saying the agency should learn from its mistakes.

"This was West Africa's first experience with the virus and it delivered some horrific shocks and surprises," she said.

"The world, including WHO, was too slow to see what was unfolding before us," Chan admitted, adding that "never again should the world be caught by surprise, unprepared."

Chan went on to say that although the "worst-case scenario" had been avoided and progress in fighting the disease was evident in the three worst-hit countries - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - the world should not let down its guard.

"Cases are clearly declining in all three countries, but we must maintain the momentum and guard against complacency and donor fatigue," she said, warning that cases of the disease could easily surge if bodies were buried unsafely or communities violently resisted attempts at disease prevention.

Zero target

She added that the WHO aimed to reduce the number of Ebola cases in the three countries this year "to zero," while admitting this was "not going to be easy."

Chan said the Ebola crisis
taught many lessons

In her speech, Chan called for a "dedicated contingency fund to support rapid responses to outbreaks and emergencies" and for help to be given to countries so they can maintain their own highly trained teams to react quickly to emergencies.

She also demanded better international coordination and surveillance and improved crisis management within WHO itself.

The director of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Tom Frieden, also pointed out failings in the WHO reponse to the outbreak, calling for "significant changes."

"We have to be frank that too many times the technical is over-ruled by the political in WHO. We have to reverse that. It must be technical, from the selection of regional directors to the establishment of rapid response," he told the meeting.

African dissatisfaction

Sunday's meeting of the WHO executive board was called by several member states critical of the United Nations agency's slow response.

"Countries in the African region feel that building WHO's capacity to respond to emergencies must be a priority activity," said Liberia's deputy health minister Dr. Bernice Dahn, saying the Africa region had "been disappointed by slow progress."

The recent outbreak of Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever transmitted by body fluids, has left at least 8,641 people dead over the past year or so, most of them in West Africa, according to WHO estimates.

tj/bw (AFP, Reuters, dpa)

A medical worker checks the temperature of a man, in quarantine since his daughter

died from Ebola, in Omega town, a suburb of Monrovia, on January 21, 2015.The

World Health Organization said in its latest update that 8,688 people had died,

among a cumulative total of 21,759 cases. AFP Zoom Dosso/AFP/Getty Images 

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Australia simplifies overseas child adoption

Yahoo – AFP, 25 Jan 2015

Thai surrogate mother Pattaramon Chanbua (L) holds her baby Gammy, born
 with Down Syndrome, at the Samitivej hospital in Chonburi province on
August 4, 2014 (AFP Photo/Nicolas Asfouri)

Australia said on Sunday it was simplifying the process of adopting children from overseas, setting up a single body to manage applications while working on new arrangements with the United States, Poland and Vietnam.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said a new "one-stop shop" -- the Intercountry Adoption Support Service -- will have staff advocating on behalf of prospective families and dealing with local state authorities and partner countries.

Australia has one of the lowest levels of intercountry adoption in the world, according to a government report last year.

"For too long adoption has been in the too hard basket, for too long it has been too hard to adopt and for too long this has been a policy no-go zone," the Australian leader said in a statement.

"It shouldn't be that way because adoption is all about giving children a better life."

The new service -- which could start as soon as April -- will also seek to reduce the length of time parents have to wait to adopt children, currently an average of five years.

The announcement came just a week after a baby boy at the centre of an international debate about surrogacy was granted Australian citizenship.

Baby Gammy was reportedly abandoned in Thailand by a Perth couple who went home with just his healthy sister.

While commercial surrogacy is illegal in Australia, growing numbers of people are travelling to countries such as India and Thailand to engage women to carry their babies.

Adoption levels have fallen to a record low in Australia, Abbott said, with just 317 domestic and international adoptions finalised between July 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014, nine percent lower than the previous year and 76 percent down from 25 years ago.

Australia has intercountry arrangements with 14 countries, and the government said it was establishing new adoption programmes with the US, Poland and Vietnam, and working on schemes with four other countries.

The four countries were not named by the government, but the Sunday Telegraph said they were Latvia, Kenya, Bulgaria and Cambodia.

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Just five Ebola cases left in Liberia

Yahoo – AFP,  Zoom Dosso, 24 Jan 2015

Red Cross workers wearing protective suits prepare for the burial of victims
of the Ebola virus in Monrovia, on January 5, 2015 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso

Monrovia (AFP) - The United Nations said on Saturday Liberia was dealing with just five remaining cases of Ebola, in the clearest sign yet that the country is nearing the end of the outbreak.

The worst outbreak of the virus in history has seen the west African nation and its neighbours Guinea and Sierra Leone register almost 9,000 deaths in a year, although experts believe the real toll could be far higher.

The UN, whose health wing the World Health Organization (WHO) collates Ebola figures, said in a statement that the number of confirmed cases now stood at five and had even dropped as low as one earlier this week.

A Red Cross worker prepares to bury

 Ebola victims in Monrovia, on January 5,

2015 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)

"According to the WHO, the five cases are laboratory confirmed cases," Lisa White, a spokeswoman for the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, said.

She added that government figures for Tuesday had shown 21 suspected and probable cases -- but only one lab-confirmed case.

"WHO is supporting the government of Liberia in getting down to zero cases," she said.

"Now is the time to stay vigilant and make sure the good trend continues."

Assistant health minister Tolbert Nyensuwah confirmed the figure, adding that three of the cases were in the capital Monrovia, while the others were in the northwestern counties of Bomi and Grand Cape Mount.

"It means that we are going down to zero if everything goes well, if other people don't get sick in other places."

Need to stay vigilant

At the height of the epidemic in August and September, Liberia was reporting more than 300 new cases a week and overwhelmed aid workers were having to turn people away from swamped clinics, often to die in the streets.

But a huge international response has seen hundreds of US healthcare workers and troops flood into the country to train nurses and set up Ebola units.

A medical worker checks the temperature of a man, in quarantine since his

daughter died from Ebola, in Omega town, a suburb of Monrovia, on January 21,

2015 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)

The WHO said in its latest update on the epidemic that 8,688 people had died, among a cumulative total of 21,759 cases, since the disease emerged in Guinea a year ago.

The agency has recognised significant progress in beating back Ebola but warned on Friday that the crisis was still "extremely alarming".

In a further sign of progress, Sierra Leone lifted quarantine measures on Friday which had been imposed as reports of new cases began to spiral in the summer.

'Steady downward trend'

The nation of six million had restricted travel for around half its population, sealing off six of its 14 districts and numerous tribal chiefdoms.

President Ernest Bai Koroma pointed to a "steady downward trend" in new cases in recent weeks, adding that "victory is in sight".

But the move came as the WHO warned that progress made so far could rapidly be undone unless $250 million was made available to continue the fight over the coming months.

"We are still in a very, very dangerous situation with this virus," WHO number two Bruce Aylward told reporters in Geneva.

Red Cross workers wearing protective suits carry the body of a victim of

Ebola during a burial in Monrovia, on January 5, 2015 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)

"Especially now... that we are heading into the rainy season very, very soon. That's going to hit us in April, May, and that will make the response that much more complicated."

The relaxation -- and the progress seen in Liberia -- nevertheless marks huge progress against an epidemic which has seen commerce all but grind to a halt, with restrictions on movement halting crop harvests and sparking warnings of a looming food crisis.

British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) said on Friday its candidate Ebola vaccine was expected to arrive in Liberia later in the day.

The batch of 300 vials will be the first to arrive in one of the main Ebola-hit countries and will be used in trials led by the US National Institutes of Health in the coming weeks involving up to 30,000 people.

Around 200 volunteers are already testing the candidate vaccine in smaller-scale trials Britain, the United States, Switzerland and Mali, with initial results showing it to be safe.

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TIME: 2014 Person of the Year: The Ebola Fighters


"Revelations of Darkness" - Oct 1, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“ .. The Role of Gaia in Human Consciousness

One of those times might be frightening for you to know about, since it was a full cooperation with Gaia for your termination, and a pandemic almost wiped humanity off the map. A pandemic! Now, you say, "What has that got to do with Human consciousness, Kryon?" Pay attention, dear ones, because this is the day where the teaching was given by my partner, and he put together the Nine Human Attributes. One of the attribute sets included three Gaia attributes and one of them was the consciousness of the planet. Gaia is related to Human consciousness!

Are you starting to connect the dots? You are connected to this planet in a profound and spiritual way. As goes humanity goes the planet's consciousness. Gaia, Mother Nature, whatever you want to call it, cooperates with Human consciousness. If you spend 1,000 years killing each other, then Gaia will do its best to cooperate with your desires! Gaia will look at Human consciousness and try to help with what you have shown you like to do! Did you know this role of Gaia with you? It's a partner with you, fast tracking what you give to it. You may wish to review what the indigenous of the planet still understand. Gaia is a partner!

Pandemic: Don't you find it odd that in the last 50 years, when you have a population of seven billion Human Beings, with up to 2,000 airplanes in the air at any given moment, going between almost every conceivable place, that there has not been a pandemic in your lifetime? There have been five starts of potential pandemics over the last 20 years, yet none became serious. Did any of you put this together? Dear ones, when the world was far less populated a few hundred years ago, with no mass travel to spread a virus, there were still millions wiped out by a pandemic. With the increased population and mass travel, there is far more danger today than before. It doesn't make sense, does it? What happened to stop it?

When you know humanity's relationship to Gaia, it makes sense. Gaia is a life-force that is your partner, watching you change the balance of light and dark and reflecting what Humans want. It has polarity, too! Perhaps it's time to start your meditations with thanking your planet Earth for supporting you in the spirituality of your Akash, for always being with you, a life-force that is always present. The ancients started their ceremonies in that way. Have you forgotten?

Ebola

Now, I've just set the stage for the next subject, haven't I? Ebola. Are you afraid yet? Gaia is a life-force that is a part of Human consciousness. My partner put it on the screen today so you could see the connections [during the lecture series]. Now it's time to connect the dots. Dear one, Gaia is in the battle, too, for here comes something scary that you haven't had in your lifetime and you're afraid of it - the potential of a pandemic on the planet.

There's a very famous film that has some dialogue that my partner will quote. Some of you will know it and some of you won't, but here it is: "Have a little fire, scarecrow?" What are you afraid of? Darkness? Gaia is in the battle with you and is actively pursuing solutions through light. The energy of the planet is with you in this fight! The ebola virus is a shock and a surprise. It is propelled by ignorance and fear, so it can flourish. Look at where it started and look at how it gets its ability to continue. It expands its fear and power easily with those who believe it's a curse instead of those who understand the science.

Villages are filled with those who refuse to leave their family members because they believe the disease is a curse! FEAR! Instead of understanding that they should be in isolation from the virus, the family dies together through ignorance and fear. This represents how darkness works. Are you going to become afraid also? Dear ones, ebola will be conquered. Know this and be at peace. Pray for light for those in the villages who are afraid, that they can know more about how to keep the spread of this disease and live to see their families. .”