World of heat as southeast Australia swelters

theaustralian.com.au: The western Sydney suburb of Penrith was possibly the hottest place on the planet yesterday (Jan 7), reaching 47.3C as the NSW capital recorded its highest temperature since World War II.

The heat across the peak population centres in NSW was so ­extreme it plunged about 9000 homes into blackouts affecting Bateau Bay and Blue Haven on the central coast and Lane Cove, Gladesville, Bankstown and Punchbowl in Sydney.

The blackouts, according to Ausgrid, were related to “severe weather conditions”.

A heatwave caused by sweltering northerly air across central Australia swept across NSW, Victoria and South Australia at the weekend, prompting authorities to slap total fire bans on several states.

NSW residents were instructed by the Rural Fire Service to “head back home and sit in the aircon”, as temperatures soared in the greater Sydney and Hunter Valley regions.

Cricket fans braved the heat for the Ashes Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, where the mercury soared to 41C by midday, though a thermometer in the sun on the pitch recorded 57C.

Penrith recorded its hottest day in 80 years at 3.25pm, the hottest place in Australia and potentially the world.

It did not manage to break the hottest record in the area of 47.8C, which was recorded at an old ­observation site in Richmond in 1939 when it was not part of ­greater Sydney.

The Bureau of Meteorology had initially forgotten about the site and had to rescind an earlier announcement of a record for greater Sydney.

BOM duty forecaster Helen Reid said the weekend’s temperatures were well above 40C in central NSW as well as most places west of the ranges.

“We saw a weak trough in the southeast of NSW, in combination with a strong high pressure system over the Tasman Sea,” Ms Reid said. “That combination provided a good flow of hot northerly air in the central part of Australia, which dragged lots of heat through the state.”

Macron tells Erdogan: No chance of Turkey joining EU

BBC: French President Emmanuel Macron has told his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that there is no chance of progress towards Turkey joining the European Union at present.

At a joint news conference in Paris, Mr Macron said there were differences over human rights since Turkey's purges following a failed coup in 2016.

Mr Erdogan said Turkey was tired of constantly imploring to join the EU.

He lashed out at a journalist who asked about claims Turkey sent arms to Syria.

Mr Erdogan responded by accusing the journalist of talking like a member of the Gulenist movement, which he blames for the 2016 coup.

"When you ask your questions, be careful on this point. And do not speak with the words of another," he said.

Mr Macron said it was time to end the hypocrisy of pretending that there was any prospect of an advance in Turkey's membership talks with the EU.

"As far as the relationship with the European Union is concerned, it is clear that recent developments and choices do not allow any progression of the process in which we are engaged," he said.

The talks were in effect halted following Mr Erdogan's crackdown after the coup.

But the French president also said it was important to keep a close relationship with Ankara, and that perhaps this was the moment to explore an option short of full EU membership - a partnership, as he described it, that would anchor the Turkish people in Europe.

Mr Erdogan has for some time poured scorn on EU overtures towards Turkey, accusing the bloc of being insincere and wasting Ankara's time. He has said that most Turks "did not want the EU any more".

Both men hailed co-operation in the fight against the Islamic State group. ContinueReading

Canada’s unemployment rate plunges to lowest in 40 years

FinancialPost.com: Canada’s unemployment rate plunged to the lowest in more than 40 years, suddenly raising the odds of a Bank of Canada rate hike this month.

The jobless rate fell to 5.7 per cent in December, Statistics Canada said Friday in Ottawa, the lowest in the current data series that begins in 1976. The number of jobs rose by 78,600, beating expectations and bringing the full-year employment gain to 422,500. That’s the best annual increase since 2002.

The economy showed unexpected resiliency as the year came to an end, with the figures indicating rapidly diminishing slack in the labor market that may quicken the expected pace of interest-rate increases by the Bank of Canada. Since September, Canada added 193,400 jobs — the biggest three-month gain since at least 1976. ContinueReading

'Raw Water' Is a New Health Trend. But Is It Safe?

Time.com: A New York Times story in December introduced a new health buzzword to the masses: raw water, or water that hasn’t been treated, filtered or processed in any way.

While the beverage isn’t widespread yet, a number of untreated water startups have cropped up in states ranging from California to Maine, according to the Times. They’re attracting those with misgivings about tap water treatment processes and additives, as well as people who want to preserve the natural substances found in virgin water.

But is the stuff even safe?

The water system in the U.S. isn’t perfect — there are aging pipes and infrastructure issues, for example, and lead contamination like that in Flint, Mich. — but it has greatly improved public health over the past century. After the U.S. introduced filtration, chlorination and sanitation practices for public drinking water, the burden of water-borne illnesses such as cholera and typhoid fever plummeted almost to zero, says Kellogg Schwab, a professor of water and public health at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It was truly instrumental in improving public health in the United States,” Schwab says. “Having a central treatment process of our drinking water and then distributing it out to the individual homes and businesses is a tremendous asset that we, as a country, take for granted.”

Drinking untreated water, and the pathogens that can lurk within it, could expose Americans to disease outbreaks once again, says Vince Hill, chief of the CDC’s Waterborne Disease Prevention Branch. “When water isn’t treated, it can contain chemicals and germs that can make us sick or cause disease outbreaks,” he says. “Anything you can think of can be in untreated water, really,” ranging from agricultural runoff and naturally occurring chemicals to bacteria and viruses.

And while community tap water is treated to remove 91 different contaminants, there’s little data showing what’s in raw water. “That’s the part that is concerning, because there are many sources of water contamination that can affect spring water,” Hill says.

As for concerns about fluoride — a chemical added to community water supplies to help prevent tooth decay — Vincent Casey, a senior water sanitation and hygiene manager at clean water nonprofit WaterAid, says it’s not harmful at the levels found in drinking water, even though it is hazardous at high concentrations. (Due to its potential health consequences, some vocal opponents have called for an end to water fluoridation.)

“In low quantities, it is scientifically proven that it is beneficial to dental health,” Casey says. “If a water company or a utility is carrying out its treatment to the right standards, there shouldn’t be instances where these concentrations are going to hazardous levels at all.”

If you’re concerned about your tap water, Hill says, it’s better to invest in a home filtration or testing system than to turn to untreated water.

Casey agrees. “If you’ve got the luxury of a treated, piped water supply to your home available, it’s not really a good idea to drink untreated water,” he says. “There are obviously many people in the world who don’t have that luxury.” ContinueReading

Related: Stay away from romaine lettuce, Consumer Reports advises

Iceland equal pay law set to end gender pay gap

usatoday.com-

Until now women in Iceland have earned an average 19% less than their male colleagues. But those days are over. A new law makes equal pay for equal work a must in the country — irrespective of gender, ethnicity, sexuality or nationality.

The new law, which went into effect New Year's Day, covers about 150,000 workers in the country. The measure applies to 1,200 companies in Iceland that have at least 25 workers, and the firms will have to publish their wage scales.

There are courses to help the companies implement the new pay scales. Upon completion, the companies get a certificate that have to be renewed every three years.

The measure intends to close the gender pay gap by 2022. Although other countries have made similar moves, for now Iceland is the global pioneer.

"The legislation is basically a mechanism that companies and organizations ... evaluate every job that's being done, and then they get a certification after they confirm the process if they are paying men and women equally," Dagny Osk Aradottir Pind of the Icelandic Women's Rights Association, told Al Jazeera. ContinueReading

Further Reading: Introduction to how capitalism works

“Equal Pay for Equal Work” – socialist or capitalist?

Feminism is incompatible with capitalism

Amazon.com to Buy Target Corporation?

Actually, it Makes Some Sense.

investorplace.com: It remains to be seen if the eye-opening prediction that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) will acquire Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) this year was just a savvy publicity stunt, or an actual expectation. With TGT stock jumping nearly 2% on the mere mention of the idea though, the market may well be leaning towards the latter.

It was Loup Venture co-founder Gene Munster’s, by the way (yes, the same Munster that used to handicap stocks for Piper Jaffray), that made the call. He explained within a report dissecting a total of eight predictions for 2018 “Target is the ideal offline partner for Amazon for two reasons, shared demographic and manageable but comprehensive store count.”

It’s an idea that would have been laughable just a couple of years ago. While few could argue that Amazon isn’t the king of e-commerce, moving into the brick-and-mortar world wasn’t quite Jeff Bezos’ milieu.

In light of some recent acquisitions though — not the least of which was buying grocery chain Whole Foods Market — the idea doesn’t seem far-fetched at all today. More important, to current Target shareholders, such a deal may be the last bastion of hope for a graceful exit of an increasingly-troubled trade. Munster also thinks, should a deal go through, Amazon’s offer would be on the order of 15% more than the current per-share price of TGT stock.

With that as the backdrop, there are more arguments in favor of this proposed pairing then Munster laid out.

Iran unrest: New protests as Rouhani plays down violence

BBC: There are reports of protests breaking out in Iran for a fifth day, despite a statement from the president that the unrest "is nothing".

Anti-government chanting and burning cars were reported as night fell in the capital, Tehran, while police said an officer was killed in a central city.

President Hassan Rouhani said protests were an "opportunity, not a threat" but vowed to crack down on "lawbreakers".

The US meanwhile stepped up support for the protesters' "bold resistance".

The protests began last Thursday in the city of Mashhad, initially against price rises and corruption but now with wider anti-government sentiment.

The latest reports speak of a heavy police presence in the capital. The Mehr news agency reported a taxi being set alight. Police had used tear gas and water cannon the previous evening to quell a rally in Tehran's Engheleb Square.

State media were also quoting a police spokesman as saying that shots had been fired at police in Najafabad, near Isfahan in central Iran, killing one officer and wounding three.

Social media postings spoke of fresh protests in Birjand in the east, Kermanshah in the west and Shadegan in the far south-west.

In a statement on the presidency website, Mr Rouhani sought to play down the violence.

He said: "This is nothing. Criticism and protest are an opportunity not a threat."

But he also vowed to act against "rioters and lawbreakers".

ContinueReading