Home Blog Page 2089

Ogun State Curtails Outbreak Of Gastroenteritis

By
Olasunbo Okoromi
-
0

The Ogun State government says it has stepped up efforts to curtail the recent outbreak of gastroenteritis in Magboro, Ofada Ward of Obafemi Owode Local Government Area of the state.

This was disclosed by the State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Tomi Coker, in a statement on Sunday.

She said that the reported case of the outbreak is predominant among commercial bike riders and scavengers in the area.

” The index case who was reported to have returned from a trip outside the state had been linked to the source of the outbreak, while the common public toilet used had been the channel of transmission.

” The causative agent cannot be confirmed yet because appropriate sample could not be collected as there were no active case yet to commence antibiotics.

“A number of people are currently receiving treatment to control the number of casualties,” the statement read.

The Commissioner also noted that an unregistered clinic run by a quack had also contributed to the outbreak, as the cases were being managed unreported.

Dr. Coker, however, said a treatment centre has been set up at the Magboro-Akeran Health Centre where treatment items have been made available by The Department of Public Health, Ogun State Ministry of Health.

She added that neighbouring communities have equally been sensitize on steps to take and where to seek care or report any suspicious cases, while the suspected public toilet had been sealed for sanitisation.

Traditional rulers in the area, according to Coker, have also been engaged for their support in keeping their communities safe and calm, while healthcare workers continue active surveillance in the affected community.

Gov. Oyetola vows to prioritize Health Sector

By
Olasunbo Okoromi
-
0

Osun State Governor, Adegboyega Oyetola has stated his administration is giving unprecedented priority to the health sector in the state.

The governor disclosed this in Abuja while fielding questions at a Forum. Oyetola said: “ We have done very well in the area of health; we in this government believe that health is wealth.”

He added that his administration had built and renovated no fewer than 300 primary healthcare centres to ensure access to health facilities in the state.

Governor Oyetola further highlighted the establishment of  the Osun Health Insurance Scheme which is poised to complement the efforts of the Federal Government in the area of health.

“In addition to that, we are building a 130-bed hospital at Asubiaro and additional 30 staff quarters for the doctors. This is to ensure that the doctors reside in the hospital and our people have 24-hour medical attention,’’ Governor Oyetola added.

FG To Recover Millions Wrongly Paid To 588 Doctors

By
Olasunbo Okoromi
-
0

The Federal Government of Nigeria says it will recover millions of Naira wrongly paid to 588 medical doctors across the country.

This was stated by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige, when he fielded questions from State House correspondents in Abuja.

He explained that affected doctors wrongly benefited from Medical Residency Training Fund meant for particular category of doctors.

He said the names of the doctors were uncovered after a thorough investigation of the 8000 names submitted by Chief Medical Directors of Federal Government health institutions for the training programme.

The minister, however, revealed that a substantial amount of the money had been refunded by some of the affected doctors while efforts had been intensified to recover the balance.

He maintained that the delay in making the refund by the affected doctors was holding back the Residency Fund payment by the government.

Doctor’s strike: Labour Minister says Demands have been Addressed

By
Olasunbo Okoromi
-
0

The Nigerian government says it has addressed all the demands of striking Doctors except one which touches on the “no work no pay” rule.

The government is therefore calling on members of the National Association of Resident Doctors to call off their 33-day old strike.

Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige revealed this to State House Correspondents after he met behind closed doors with President Muhammadu Buhari.

According to him “We have come to an agreement on all the demands including those that even affect the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria and the medical Doctors who are in the academics and teaching in universities”

The Minister said it was unfortunate that the strike is taking so long because, in other climes, people on essential services like the health sector don’t go on strike arbitrarily. Ngige said the ‘no work no pay’ rule had been applied in the past and the case of the resident Doctors cannot be an exception.

The Minister called on the striking doctors to resume work first, in order to give room for further action on their sole demand that has not been granted.

Toyota To Spend $13.5 Bln To Develop EV Battery Tech, Supply By 2030

By
Koko Lawrence
-
0

Toyota Motor Corp said on Tuesday it expects to spend more than $13.5 billion by 2030 to develop batteries and its battery supply system – a bid to lead in the key automotive technology over the next decade.

The world’s largest automaker by volume, which pioneered hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles with the popular Prius, is now moving rapidly to deliver its first all-electric line-up next year.

Considered a leader in developing batteries for electric vehicles, Toyota said it aims to slash the cost of its batteries by 30% or more by working on the materials used and the way the cells are structured.

“Then, for the vehicle, we aim to improve power consumption, which is an indicator of the amount of electricity used per kilometer, by 30%, starting with the Toyota bZ4X,” Chief Technology Officer Masahiko Maeda told a briefing, referring to an upcoming compact SUV model.

The company is also the front runner to mass produce solid-state batteries – a potential game changer for automakers because they are more energy dense, charge faster and are less prone to catching fire. If developed successfully, they could replace liquid lithium-ion batteries.

While it was still struggling with the short service life of these cells, Maeda said there was no change in Toyota’s target to begin manufacturing solid-state batteries by the mid 2020s.

“We are still searching for the best materials to use,” he said.

Efforts to mass produce solid-state batteries have stumbled as they are expensive to fabricate and are prone to crack when they expand and contract during use.

Toyota also plans to use solid-state batteries in hybrid electric vehicles such as the Prius, it said.

2,000-Year-Old Quarry Found To Supply Stones For Ancient Jerusalem

By
Koko Lawrence
-
0

Har Hotzvim, one of Jerusalem’s main hi-tech hubs, owes its name, which in Hebrew means “Quarrymen’s Hill,” to a much more ancient industrial activity: It is where archaeologists from the Antiquities Authority have uncovered a quarry dating back some 2,000 years, the IAA revealed.

The quarry was discovered during a salvage excavation before a new building project was set to begin. According to law, a salvage excavation must accompany all construction projects.

“The large-scale building projects in ancient Jerusalem, such as the Temple Mount, required a vast amount of building materials and the ability to organize and coordinate the quarrying and transportation of thousands of building blocks to the ancient city,” IAA excavation director Moran Hagbi said.

“Building blocks in various stages of spadework were discovered in the quarry,” he said. “For example, we uncovered large, cubical blocks of stone about to be detached from the bedrock, prior to being loaded and transported to the ancient city.”

The site has only been partially uncovered. Researchers believe it was two or three times larger than the 600 sq.m. currently exposed.

“For us as archaeologists, this quarry presents a golden opportunity,” Hagbi said. “Because some of the stones were left in situ in this way, we can copy ancient technologies and experiment with them to recreate the processes by which the building stones were quarried.”

To better understand how ancient workers operated, the researchers plan to reproduce tools and techniques known to have been used at the time to test their efficacy.

During the Second Temple period, magnificent construction projects were carried out in Jerusalem. In the first century BCE and up to the destruction of the city at the hands of the Romans, Jerusalem underwent great changes.

The Temple was expanded, and several monumental buildings and other infrastructure were erected. All this work required a lot of building materials.

“In a symbolic way, Jerusalem’s current development boom presents us with an opportunity to excavate and research the great building projects in ancient Jerusalem,” IAA general director Eli Eskozido said. “Before any development project begins in Jerusalem, our archaeologists are called upon to excavate and examine any ancient finds for the sake of future generations.”

Eynat Guez: The Only Woman Who Heads A Hi-Tech Unicorn In Israel

By
Koko Lawrence
-
0

“I’m not a big fan of being singled out as a female entrepreneur,” says Eynat Guez, the only woman who heads a hi-tech unicorn in Israel. “I have talked a lot about my experiences creating a start-up and giving birth and having kids, because it serves a bigger purpose of helping other women entrepreneurs, and encouraging women in general to pursue their dreams. I see the purpose it serves, but I don’t like being categorized.”

A fair request, but after Guez’s company, Papaya Global, raised money at a valuation above a billion dollars in March, it became hard not to put her on a pedestal. In a year where Israel’s hi-tech industry soared into the stratosphere, Guez took a unique place at the table.

Israeli hi-tech companies have raised a whopping $15 billion in investments in the first eight months of 2021. For comparison, Israeli companies raised $10.5b. for the whole of 2020, which was a record amount then. Israel now has about 70 “unicorns,” private companies valued above a billion dollars, and about half of those joined the list this year.

When Papaya Global, a company providing simple international payroll management solutions, said in March that it raised $100 million at a valuation of more than a billion dollars, all eyes suddenly focused on Guez. She had signed those investment agreements just weeks after having her third child. But the 41-year-old Guez took it all in stride.

“I try not to make it looks like everything is amazing,” Guez says. “Building a company requires a lot of sacrifices and hard choices. But I think that just raising the discussion, speaking about being pregnant and leading a company, having babies and still achieving the company’s goals, is important.

“My husband is in charge of the day-to-day operations at home, and our children – aged four, two, and eight months – know very well that Papaya is my first kid, not my fourth kid. I work from the time I wake up until 1 a.m. most days, but I try to spend high-quality time with each kid, even if it’s only a half-hour or an hour. I don’t think I’m great at life balance, but we make sacrifices along the way.” After she finished her army service, Guez began her career in positions with companies in Africa and China, but she always dreamed of creating a start-up of her own. She launched Papaya in 2016 with two partners, without raising any funding.

“The first two years were a nightmare,” Guez recalls. “We couldn’t convince any investors to believe in us. This was before the pandemic, and they would say that a global payroll solution wasn’t solving a real problem in the market. So we had to focus on selling to customers from the beginning. The company grew organically, and we scaled quickly. Now, Papaya has nearly 300 employees in six countries, and we don’t have trouble reaching investors anymore. We are hoping to finalize another round of funding very soon as well.”

UK Prime Minister Johnson To Hike Taxes To Pay For Social Care

By
Elizabeth Williams
-
0

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will address lawmakers on Tuesday on his plans to fix Britain’s social care system, with many in his own party furious that he wants to pay for it by hiking taxes in a clear breach of his election pledges.

Johnson is now trying to address Britain’s creaking social care system, whose costs are projected to double as the population ages over the next two decades.

For years, British politicians have been trying to find a way to pay for social care, though successive Labour and Conservative prime ministers have ducked the issue because they feared it would anger voters and their own parties.

Johnson wants to raise the National Insurance (NI) tax paid by around 25 million working people to subsidise care for pensioners, including wealthy retirees, according to British media.

The prime minister will chair a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning and is afterwards expected to address parliament at around 1130 GMT. Johnson, his finance minister Rishi Sunak and health minister Sajid Javid will then hold a news conference.

“We must act now to ensure the health and care system has the long-term funding it needs to continue fighting COVID and start tackling the backlogs, and end the injustice of catastrophic costs for social care,” Johnson will tell parliament, according to extracts released by his office.

“My government will not duck the tough decisions needed to get NHS (National Health Service) patients the treatment they need and to fix our broken social care system.”

Like many other Western leaders, Johnson is facing demands to spend more on welfare even though government borrowing has ballooned to 14.2% of economic output – a level last seen at the end of World War Two.

Toyota To Spend $13.5 Bln To Develop EV Battery Tech And Supply By 2030

By
Elizabeth Williams
-
0

Toyota Motor Corp said on Tuesday it expects to spend more than $13.5 billion by 2030 to develop batteries and its battery supply system – a bid to lead in the key automotive technology over the next decade.

The world’s largest automaker by volume, which pioneered hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles with the popular Prius, is now moving rapidly to deliver its first all-electric line-up next year.

Considered a leader in developing batteries for electric vehicles, Toyota said it aims to slash the cost of its batteries by 30% or more by working on the materials used and the way the cells are structured.

“Then, for the vehicle, we aim to improve power consumption, which is an indicator of the amount of electricity used per kilometer, by 30%, starting with the Toyota bZ4X,” Chief Technology Officer Masahiko Maeda told a briefing, referring to an upcoming compact SUV model.

The company is also the front runner to mass produce solid-state batteries – a potential game changer for automakers because they are more energy dense, charge faster and are less prone to catching fire. If developed successfully, they could replace liquid lithium-ion batteries.

While it was still struggling with the short service life of these cells, Maeda said there was no change in Toyota’s target to begin manufacturing solid-state batteries by the mid 2020s.

“We are still searching for the best materials to use,” he said.

Efforts to mass produce solid-state batteries have stumbled as they are expensive to fabricate and are prone to crack when they expand and contract during use.

Oil Mixed Amid Slower Demand Weighing On Sentiment

By
Elizabeth Williams
-
0

Oil prices were mixed on Tuesday as some investors scooped up bargains following recent losses, while Saudi Arabia’s sharp cuts in crude contract prices for Asia sparked fears over slower demand and weighed on sentiment.

Brent crude futures for November rose 35 cents, or 0.5%, to $72.57 a barrel by 0654 GMT, after falling 39 cents on Monday.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude for October was at $69.16 a barrel, down 13 cents, or 0.2%, from Friday’s close, with no settlement price for Monday due to Labor Day holiday in the United States.

State oil group Saudi Aramco notified customers on Sunday that it will cut October official selling prices (OSPs) for all crude grades sold to Asia by at least $1 a barrel.

The deep price cuts, a sign that consumption in the world’s top-importing region remains tepid, come as lockdowns across Asia have clouded the economic outlook.

Markets are also contending with a decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies, a grouping known as OPEC+, to raise output by 400,000 barrels per day a month between August and December.

“Brent came back as investors adjusted positions, but market sentiment remained weak due to slow demand in Asia and in the United States amid a resurgence of the pandemic,” said Tetsu Emori, CEO of Emori Fund Management Inc.

1...2,0882,0892,090...2,706Page 2,089 of 2,706