Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary – A Lost Legacy?

  Many have asked why Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary is closed to the public.  

 It has been 13 weeks since the closure, and as of Monday  all employees except for a small maintenance and security team have been permanently severed from their jobs. 

According to Peter Allard, Chairman of the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary, the decision to close was extraordinarily painful, as it affected the lives of many good men and women.   But the closure was inevitable because the physical survival of the Sanctuary is at stake.

 “After spending nearly $35 million US on the Sanctuary and its operations over fifteen years, we finally realized the Sanctuary would not survive,” said Allard.

“We rely on a natural healthy ecosystem, along with its natural peace and tranquility, because it is the only “inventory” that the Sanctuary has to offer visitors.”

 “It is not, as some would believe, about simple economics.    Increasing pollution and government policies and procedures outside of the Sanctuary are killing the wetlands at Graeme Hall, and no amount of continued investment inside the Sanctuary can change that.” 

“It is simply not prudent or feasible for one man to continue supporting the Sanctuary in perpetuity.   The matter is further complicated when governmental policies and actions are dooming its ecosystem to failure.”

• Read the complete press release – Adobe PDF
• Final Employee Terminations Scheduled for March 9 at Graeme Hall- Adobe PDF  

Donald Trump Blasts Rihanna For Brown Reconciliation

Business tycoon-turned-reality TV star Donald Trump has blasted Rihanna for reconciling with the boyfriend who allegedly beat her up.

The Umbrella singer and Chris Brown are reportedly back together – a month after the shamed R&B singer left Rihanna needing medical attention after a fight in Los Angeles.
And outspoken Trump can’t believe what he’s hearing.
He rages, “If she goes back, she’s a loser and she doesn’t deserve to have any future successes.”
Trump’s comments come just days after U.S. talk show host Oprah Winfrey urged Rihanna to split from Brown.
On her show on Friday (06Mar09), Oprah said, “You need somebody to tell you the truth in this moment. And the truth is guys, both Chris Brown and Rihanna, if I were your friend, I would call you up and I would say ‘Give it some time, get yourself some counselling, take care of yourself, heal yourself first.’
“And also, love doesn’t hurt. I’ve been saying this to women for years – love doesn’t hurt. And, if a man hits you once, he will hit you again. He will hit you again. I don’t care what his plea is, he will hit you again.’”

Source: contactmusic.com

• Rihanna Tells Police Of “Past Fights”
  

Foreign Investors Pull $1 Trillion Out Of The City Of London

A silent $1 trillion “Run on Britain” by foreign investors was revealed yesterday (6th March) in the latest statistical releases from the Bank of England.

The external liabilities of banks operating in the UK – that is monies held in the UK on behalf of foreign investors – fell by $1 trillion (£700bn) between the spring and the end of 2008, representing a huge loss of funds and of confidence in the City of London.

Some $597.5bn was lost to the banks in the last quarter of last year alone, after a modest positive inflow in the summer, but a massive $682.5bn haemorrhaged in the second quarter of 2008 – a record. About 15 per cent of the monies held by foreigners in the UK were withdrawn over the period, leaving about $6 trillion. This is by far the largest withdrawal of foreign funds from the UK in recent decades – about 10 times what might flow out during a “normal” quarter.

The revelation will fuel fears that the UK’s reputation as a safe place to hold funds is being fatally comp-romised by the acute crisis in the banking system and a general trend to financial protectionism internat- ionally. This week, Lloyds became the latest bank to approach the Government for more assistance. A deal was agreed last night for the Government to insure about £260bn of assets in return for a stake of up to 75 per cent in the bank. The slide in sterling – it has shed a quarter of its value since mid-2007 – has been both cause and effect of the run on London, seemingly becoming a self-fulfilling phenomenon. The danger is that the heavy depreciation of the pound could become a rout if confidence completely evaporates.

Colin Ellis, an economist at Daiwa Securities, commented: “The outflow of overseas banks’ UK holdings is not surprising – indeed foreign investors in general will still be smarting from the sharp fall in the exchange rate last year, as many UK liabilities are priced in sterling terms. That raises the question of what could possibly tempt overseas investors to return to the UK. Further heavy outflows of funds are probably a given.”

The Bank of England said that there had been a large fall in deposits from the United States, Switzerland, offshore centres such as Jersey and the Cayman Islands, and from Russia.

Source: independent.co.uk

Failure – UN Ten Wasted Years Drug Strategy

Photo credit: http://www.bbc.co.uk

The UN strategy on drugs over the past decade has been a failure, a European commission report claimed yesterday on the eve of the international conference in Vienna that will set future policy for the next 10 years.

The report came amid growing dissent among delegates arriving at the meeting to finalise a UN declaration of intent.

Referring to the UN’s existing strategy, the authors declared that they had found “no evidence that the global drug problem was reduced”. They wrote: “Broadly speaking, the situation has improved a little in some of the richer countries while for others it worsened, and for some it worsened sharply and substantially, among them a few large developing or transitional countries.”

The policy had merely shifted the problem geographically, they said. “Production and trafficking controls only redistributed activities. Enforcement against local markets failed in most countries.”

Representatives from governments are split in their efforts to formulate an international drugs policy for the next decade. The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs is due to formulate a strategy over the next two days, but there is widespread disagreement among delegates and a general feeling that an opportunity for a united approach has been lost.

In an article for the Guardian, Mike Trace, chairman of the International Drug Policy Consortium, says: “We’re about to see the international community walk up the political and diplomatic path of least resistance. It will do nothing to help the millions of people around the world whose lives are destroyed by drug markets and drug use. And the depressing thing about it is that we can all book our seats for 2019, to go through this charade again.”

Source: guardian.co.uk