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Which is why today's version of Downton Abbey might be better called "the Czars of Dorset."
Located in a gated, paved subdivision, this beautifully wooded 4+ acre tract offers fantastic views, privacy and the perfect location for your North Carolina mountain retreat. Gated entrance with a beautiful bridge leading into the subdivision makes this home site stand out. Several Building sites available on this acr...
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will announce whether he's entering the 2012 presidential race "very soon," his New Hampshire spokesman told the Boston Globe. Wait, Giuliani has a New Hampshire spokesman? Politico's Maggie Haberman says the hire is more telling than the statement itself. America's Mayor will visit ...
Last week, a poll of New Hampshire voters had Giuliani tied for third place with Ron Paul, behind Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann. In 2008, Giuliani staked his whole campaign on Florida, spent $50 million and was soundly defeated. But this year several Republican candidates--Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney--are making Flori...
“It’s definitely something I have thought about when considering making that very big decision,” she said.
Ms Lochhead, from Windang, is not alone. According to a national survey of 6500 women, a third of those below the age of 30 have similar concerns.
OMETEPE – A territorial, omnivorous African fish that scientists say is pushing other native species out of their habitats in Lake Cocibolca has the National Assembly debating a bill to prohibit the introduction of exotic species into Nicaraguan waters.
Known commonly as tilapia, the nonnative fish species was introduced into the hemisphere’s biggest tropical lake as early as the 1970s. Still, critics blame a tilapia export farm on OmetepeIsland for making matters worse by cultivating 3,000 tons of tilapia annually in the unique freshwater ecosystem.
Alex Gutiérrez, production manager of the tilapia farm NICANOR, says scientists and politicians are exaggerating the environmental impact that the fish have on the lake.
“Environmentalism is a trend right now,” Gutiérrez told The Nica Times during a recent visit to Ometepe, where NICANOR manages 26 floating tilapia production cages off the volcanic island’s southern shore.
“We get blamed for a lot of what happens to the lake,” he said.
Environmentalists have successfully blocked the company’s plans for a fish processing plant on the island, and warn they will also block any future plans for expansion. But despite the image problem of the 7-year-old company, its manager says business has only been getting better in recent months.
With nearly a decade of selective breeding and an intensive fattening process, the company has managed to nearly double the rate by which tilapia become fat enough to turn into an exportable filet. NICANOR cultivates the fish from birth at an incubation project in the Tipitapa river, and recently began processing filet...
NICANOR’s exports are calculated to reach $1.5 million this year.
Environmentalists, however, claim the environmental costs outweigh the business profits.
“We want legislation that regulates (the introduction of foreign species) starting today, not only in Cocibolca, but in all the lakes,” said Carlos García, president of the National Assembly’s Environmental Commission.
Nicaragua’s Water Law, approved last year, calls for the “prohibition and introduction of exotic invasive species” in Lake Cocibolca. But, García said, the legislation likely wouldn’t apply to tilapia, which NICANOR says is now part of the ecosystem, even if they are originally from the Nile River.
“We don’t want to put the company’s investment at risk. We don’t want to change the rules of the game,” said García, adding environmental authorities should keep a watchful eye on the project.
“We’re not going to allow (NICANOR) to expand,” said Rigoberto López, coordinator of the Lake Nicaragua Basin at the Environment Ministry (MARENA).
The company’s 20-year concession allows for the production of 5,000 tons of tilapia annually. They currently produce 3,000 tons.
Tilapia were first introduced in Latin America as early as the 1950s as part of efforts by international aid organizations such as the United Nations to bring a fastreproducing, highly adaptable, high-protein fish to countries with poor production and high malnutrition.
Exactly when and how tilapia entered Lake Cocibolca is unclear, though there’s a general consensus that the fish – which was being cultivated by small producers in other Nicaraguan lakes – was inadvertently washed into the great lake during flooding as early as the 1970s.
Most small-scale social development tilapia projects have since dissolved due to a lack of technical capacity and training, Gutiérrez said. But over the last decade, tilapia has become a booming export industry throughout the region, with large-scale projects in countries like Brazil, Costa Rica and Honduras.
Gutiérrez says tilapia critics are overstating environmental impacts caused by the ubiquitous fish.
Even if the omnivores eat the eggs of other fish, as scientists allege, in a “solid ecosystem” such as the 8,600-square-kilometer reach of Lake Cocibolca, the effect would be minimal, he said.
Still, he admits that tilapia escape in large numbers and on a regular basis from NICANOR’s floating cages. Last year, he said, 2,500 tilapia escaped because of problems with the nets.
“But local fisherman came and fished them day and night for weeks,” Gutiérrez said. Plus, he added, accidental introductions aren’t such a big deal at this point because tilapia already inhabit the lake.
He also plays down the effect that the waste produced by 3,000 tons of fish has on the lake.
“Not all of that food ends up in the lake as poop,” he said of the 4,500 tons of fish food that NICANOR feeds its tilapia each year.
Tilapia continue to be blamed for problems they have nothing to do with, he said, pointing to fish kills in recent years, which he blames on climactic change resulting in a drop in oxygen levels in the lake.
NICANOR’s manager in Managua, David Senna argues that tilapia – now a fact of life in Cocibolca – can actually benefit the lake’s ecosystem.
“They are a filter for some of these contaminants,” he said. They also serve as a large pool of fish that can counter over fishing problems, he said.
At the height of the tilapia controversy, the Central American Water Tribunal, a nongovernmental court that hears water issues but whose verdicts are non-binding, ruled in 2004 that the Ometepe tilapia farm was polluting the lake and violating environmental laws by depleting oxygen levels (NT, July 2, 2004).
Gutiérrez said the attack on the tilapia in Nicaragua came not just from environmentalists, but from politically influential people with stakes in the island. NICANOR, he noted, had no problem getting environmental permits until the former owner of the company moved the floating cages into deeper waters – and closer to...
But Gutiérrez said the “waters have calmed” since he took over the company’s marketing three years ago. The company recently signed on a major Mexican buyer. “Business is improving,” he said, weaving his panga between circular floating tilapia nets that hold 60,000 fish each.
Biologists argue that tilapia, which have the benefit of millions of years of evolution in Africa, are a more advanced species than the fish native to Nicaragua, such as the much younger cichlids, which represent half of the lake’s 40 fish species and have only evolved for a fraction of time.
One of tilapia’s evolutional advantages is that the female hides her eggs in her mouth, boosting the rate of birth success. Tilapia also has no natural predator in the lake here.
“The ironic thing is that its major enemy would be the shark,” said marine ecologist Joe Ryan, referring to the bull sharks that enter the lake via the San Juan River from the Caribbean. Shark populations, along with sawfish, have dwindled in the last three decades due to heavy over fishing and finning (NT, Feb. 3, 200...
Ryan, a U.S.-trained marine ecologist living in Granada, co-published a recent article in the academic journal Bioscience arguing that the more tilapia found in any given part of the lake, the less native fish will be found.
Bio-invasion can be the least predictable and most difficult, and thus expensive, environmental disturbance to fix, scientists say.
Recent findings regarding Lake Cocibolca’s algae make-up suggest a “severe ecological imbalance” that threatens the lake’s biodiversity, says leading marine ecologist Salvador Montenegro.
In all but one of 42 sample points around the lake, UNAN scientists found in a study last year that an invasive form of phytoplankton called Cyanophyta is the dominant algae species. The blue-green Cyanophyta feeds on high nitrogen and phosphorous levels that are a result of farming and ranching fertilizers that are dr...
Not only does the algae tend to behave monopolistically – pushing other species of plankton out of business – but they degrade the aesthetic quality of a lake by producing a foul smell and taste in the water, according to the study. Blue-green algae hogs the oxygen in the water, leaving less to go around for other aqua...
Montenegro, who has been studying algae trends in the lake for the last 12 years, said other types of “healthy” algae have been steadily dwindling.
“You can tell how ill an environment is by looking at species composition,” he said, “Different algae fuel an ecosystem. If algae mass is toxic, then everything changes in the food chain. Animal numbers are reduced. Whole ecosystems are reduced to simplicity. Many niches go empty,” he said.
Some are skeptical of the conclusiveness of the report, however.
“It’s a little unfair to conclude that bluegreen algae are predominating from one sample. They come and go seasonally.
They’re not present all year,” said Alex Gutiérrez, production manager of the NICANOR tilapia farm on Ometepe Island.
As expected, the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee formally announced yesterday that it would buy the closely held Frank Russell Company, the world's biggest consultant to pension funds, giving Northwestern's agents more investment products to sell. Terms were not disclosed, though analysts estima...
Opening-round 68 for Kent Bulle from Glasgow. A (sort-of) local boy? Uh, not exactly. That would be Glasgow, Kentucky.
PODCAST: We review Day 1 @RoyalBirkdale_ & hear from @JordanSpieth @BKoepka , @henrikstenson & @McIlroyRory .
Play has been suspended due to weather.
Round 1 play has been put on hold at @BarbasolPGATOUR .
O'Meara shot 81 today, starting with an 8 with a lost ball in gorse. It was his 109th round at British Open. Only his 3rd round in the 80s.
Each one is better than the last! @ChantelMcCabeGC & @TrippIsenhourGC count down today's @MitsubishiHVAC Top-5 Shots at #TheOpen .
A bet is a bet.
Looking for a replay of #TheOpen ? We've got you covered!
Rust? Not for this guy.
Bogey-free rounds: R1: Jordan Spieth (65), Matt Kuchar (65), Joost Luiten (68).
Your confidence level after hanging with this crew ????
SHARANA, Afghanistan, Aug. 11 — In the memorial garden at the American military base in this dusty provincial town, the names of four Afghans — a soldier, two policemen and an intelligence officer — were recently added to the list of American soldiers who have died here since 2002.
The names are a sign that Afghan government forces are now bearing more of the burden for security in this eastern province, Paktika.
But they are also an indicator of how, in the nearly five years since Al Qaeda and the Taliban were chased from Afghanistan, the groups have continued operating from bases just across the border in Pakistan.
While the terrorist scare in London last week provided a fresh reminder to the United States and its allies of the threat from militant groups that have made Pakistan their home, the soldiers here did not need reminding. That threat has been constant, and it has largely frustrated American efforts to rebuild the countr...
In Paktika itself, there are a few remote places where the Taliban have a foothold. Most of the insurgents filter across the border repeatedly from Pakistan, military commanders here said.
“The enemy is fighting hard, and we have to fight harder,” the commander of the American-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, told a unit of Afghan National Army soldiers on Friday as he toured their new, half-built barracks here.
Military and government officials in Afghanistan say they are resigned to the fact that establishing security and defeating the insurgency is going to take years, partly because the insurgents continue to enjoy a refuge in Pakistan’s turbulent tribal areas. Pakistani government efforts to combat them have largely faile...
“There is deep concern about the cross-border insurgency among Afghans and the international community,” said Samina Ahmed, the director of the International Crisis Group in Pakistan, an independent policy analysis group.
For their part, Afghans see that they still have much left to do, such as setting up and improving government administration in the rural areas and furthering reconstruction and security. But they also want to see more pressure on Pakistan, Ms. Ahmed said.
The issue has created tensions between Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, and Pervez Musharraf, the leader of Pakistan, who accuse each other of not doing more to contain militants in the region.
General Eikenberry would not comment on the cross-border problems because of the political nature of the issue.
During a day visit by helicopter to Sharana, the provincial capital, he pushed the mixed strategy that has been the hallmark of his two years in command in Afghanistan: encouraging American and Afghan soldiers who are doing the fighting and training, while urging Afghan government officials to do a better job in servin...
As much the politician as the military commander, he brought a group of Afghan ministers and communications officials with him. He shook hands and chatted with shopkeepers in the bazaar and spoke at the opening of a new government communications department.
“In four years the amount of change here is extraordinary,” he told them. He promised continued American commitment to bringing security and development to the province, which is one of the most impoverished in Afghanistan.
In an interview afterward, he conceded that one of Paktika Province’s 22 districts still remained outside government control, and that Taliban insurgents had the run of remote mountain areas where the rugged terrain and lack of roads have made it virtually impossible for the government to establish a presence.
“Where there are no roads, and no current funding, that is exactly the area where the Taliban is,” he said.
The provincial governor, Muhammad Akram Khapalwak, 35, in the job for only five months, said that two months ago things were far more perilous. American military units had been diverted to Helmand, new Afghan army units were rotating in and the police were still weak.
There are other provinces in the south where the government’s hold remains precarious, General Eikenberry conceded.
Taliban insurgents have swarmed in large numbers into neighboring Ghazni, which lies just three hours from the capital, Kabul, and in the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan, where newly arrived NATO forces have taken casualties from a stronger-than-expected insurgent force.
“In those hard-to-get-to areas, we need a security presence and then good governance,” General Eikenberry said. The money, men and time needed to bring just this one province to order are significant, he said.
New poll numbers came out about the U.S. Senate race in Texas that has the entire country engaged with Republican incumbent Ted Cruz and Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke.
AUSTIN — With less than a month to go until midterm elections, there have been varying results from polls released recently. In fact, new numbers came out Thursday morning about the U.S. Senate race in Texas that has people from around the country tuned in.
Quinnipiac University has received national recognition for its independent surveys with data collected from people around the United States. These polls usually revolve around the political atmosphere and public policy.
According to Quinnipiac, Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz holds a 54-45 percent lead over U.S. Rep. and Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke, based on data collected from likely Texas voters. Cruz had about the exact same lead from a Quinnipiac poll released on Sept. 18.
This most recent poll also said that men back Cruz 62-37 percent while women support O'Rourke 52-46. While O'Rourke has been preaching bipartisanship during his campaign, he leads 93 percent among Democrats while Republicans back Cruz 94 percent.
In terms of what is the most important issue Texas is currently facing, 26 percent of these likely voters said immigration with 19 percent saying it is the economy.
The race also featured numbers from the Governor's race in Texas. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has a 20-point lead over Democratic challenger Lupe Valdez.
If you would like to get more information about these candidates, there is a full voter guide with details at kvue.com/votetexas.
Jeffrey L. Wilson Editions by AOL (for iPad) Editions is the latest high-profile entry in the rapidly expanding iPad newsreader category, bringing with it an attractive, easy to read design. However, navigation and stability issues prevent it from being a must-try app.
Customization options. You can select the time when the new issue is delivered. Option to read previous day's issue.
The app sometimes stutters when you scroll through stories. Can't add RSS feeds. Doesn't enter landscape mode. Crashed numerous times after downloading a second issue.
Editions is the latest high-profile entry in the rapidly expanding iPad newsreader category, bringing with it an attractive, easy to read design. However, navigation and stability issues prevent it from being a must-try app.
The Daily ($0.99 per issue, 4 stars). Flipboard (Free, 4.5 stars). SkyGrid (Free, 3.5 stars). Zite (Free, 4.5 stars). The iPad has no shortage of news reading apps, which makes AOL's entry into the space with the freshly launched Editions by AOL (free) challenging. How does a company position its app, which culls news ...
You're prompted to connect to your social networksAOL/AIM, Facebook, and Twitter are offered herethat will assist Editions in customizing your reading experience. Zite, on the other hand, offers Delicious, Google Reader, Read It later, and Twitter, but no Facebook, so Editions may prove attractive to those who freque...
After doing so, I arrived at a screen that let me further customize the Editions experience, by selecting a color scheme. I chose light blue, which was one of the eight selections available, but users can select seven other colors. Just south of the color selection area is a personalization area. There I found two sect...
Tapping "I'm Done-Make My First Edition" took me to a grayed out Editions home screen, which replicated a magazine placed on a wooden table or countertop. I saw my color selection used in the Editions logo, and noticed small magazine-like touches such as a AOL barcode, and delivery sticker (which displayed the local we...
Similar to The Daily, Flipboard, Zite, and other iPad news reading apps, Editions features a print-style layout and plenty of white space that makes scanning headlines and blurbs very easy on the eyes. As I paged through the content, which leaned heavily toward the American debt crisis issue, by swiping from right to l...
Each news section (which is filled with stories from well known brands such as Bloomburg Businessweek, CNN, The Huffington Post, and Fox) has a splash page that features a large image and a highlighted article. There you find an edit button that lets you further customize by adding a source (such as The New York Daily ...
A menu bar rests at the bottom of the formatted pages. Using it you can open a table of contents sidebar for quickly jumping to any story (something that I wish that I wish every news reader possessed), alter the text size (small, medium, large), scroll through the various sections, and even set the time when you'd lik...
Tapping an article opens the full page within the app, but can opt to view it within Safari for a better view (which is something that the other news reading apps do as well). You can also bookmark it. Editions, like Zite, displays related tags on these pages that let you alter what's fed your way. For example, an arti...

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