NHS patients and ‘broken’ drugs industry
Sir, We disagree that the UK pharmaceutical industry industry is “broken”, as is asserted in the report led by Professor Mariana Mazzucato of University College London (“Drugs firms ‘chase profits and ignore global killers’ ”, Oct 15). There are more than 260 new vaccines and 7,000 medicines in development. Our members are funding the development of these medicines — many of which will fail before they reach patients. As we explore areas of science that are increasingly difficult and risky, failure rates are increasing. Patients across the world who benefit from the few medicines that do succeed (those offered personalised cancer care, curative hepatitis C medicines, immunotherapy and malaria prevention) would surely disagree that the drugs offer little therapeutic advance.
Source:The Times
October 15, 2018 22:52 UTC
Morning mail: Israel embassy move, MPs' Nauru call, Trump cites 'rogue killers'
Top storiesAustralia may follow US president Donald Trump’s lead and move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, is expected to make an announcement on Tuesday as part of a foreign policy statement on Israel in Canberra. Morrison has credited the Liberal party’s Wentworth byelection candidate Dave Sharma, a former Australian ambassador to Israel, with raising the issue. Donald Trump has said “rogue killers” may have murdered the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who is believed to have been killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Trump told reporters: “It sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers.
Source:The Guardian
October 15, 2018 20:03 UTC
Jerusalem embassy move a 'sensible' proposal, says Scott Morrison
Scott Morrison has flagged moving Australia’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, copying Donald Trump’s controversial proposal, in a shift that appears timed to coincide with the Wentworth byelection. In another Trumpian shift, the prime minister said Australia would also review the Iran nuclear deal. The prime minister dismissed questions about the timing of the announcement, and he insisted Australia remained committed to a two-state solution. On Tuesday morning Australian time the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a tweet he had spoken to Morrison about the proposal. He informed me that he is considering officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel & moving the Australian embassy to Jerusalem.
Source:The Guardian
October 15, 2018 19:24 UTC
Humanity is ‘cutting down the tree of life’, warn scientists
Humanity’s ongoing annihilation of wildlife is cutting down the tree of life, including the branch we are sitting on, according to a stark new analysis. The new research calculates the total unique evolutionary history that has been lost as a result at a startling 2.5bn years. Many scientists think a sixth mass extinction of life on Earth has begun, propelled by human destruction of wildlife, and 83% of wild mammals have already gone. When they went extinct at the end of the ice age, the mammal tree of life lost one of its deepest branches. Instead, the researchers added up the amount of time each lost species had spent evolving since it emerged, a measure called phylogenetic diversity.
Source:The Guardian
October 15, 2018 18:56 UTC
Angela Merkel: Brexit deal looking 'more difficult'
He said: “We should nevertheless remain hopeful and determined, as there is good will to continue these talks on both sides. Like the UK, the commission has started such preparations, and will give us an update during the meeting. Brexit: EU insistence on Northern Ireland backstop unacceptable, May tells MPs Read more“This is what our state of mind should be at this stage. Theresa May said that this would be neither legal under British law, nor feasible for any prime minister to accept. “There are one or two very difficult outstanding issues, but I think we can get there.
Source:The Guardian
October 15, 2018 18:10 UTC
Craig Kelly says Coalition must kill off renewable energy subsidies
The chairman of the Coalition’s backbench energy committee, the outspoken conservative Craig Kelly, says the government needs to axe current subsidies for households and businesses to install renewable energy technology like solar panels. With the Morrison government in the middle of formulating its new energy policy, and with Labor now promising to maintain subsidies for households and businesses to install small-scale renewable energy until 2030, Kelly told Guardian Australia the Coalition needed to wind up the program. The government’s energy policy rework will take up a number of recent recommendations from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s examination of the electricity market. Forget coal wars, says Alan Finkel – look at emission outcomes Read moreThe competition watchdog has called for the federal small-scale renewable energy scheme (SRES), which provides rebates for installations of renewables, to be abolished by 2021, but it is not yet clear if the government will accept that recommendation. St Baker has previously signalled interest in pursuing a replacement for the Hazelwood power station if the federal government settles on a favourable energy policy.
Source:The Guardian
October 15, 2018 16:52 UTC
The Guardian view on rising infant mortality: a warning from data | Editorial
Since the 19th century, infant mortality has been viewed as a marker of civilisation. But infant mortality has risen for two years in a row. As anyone who has known a family who has lost a baby is aware, infant deaths are desperately sad. But cuts to council budgets since they were given a statutory responsibility for public health in 2013 have had the opposite effect. This should not go on, as the infant mortality statistics demonstrate.
Source:The Guardian
October 15, 2018 16:52 UTC
The Ruck podcast: what was Freddie Burns thinking?
Burns ran in past the try line in the dying minutes against Toulouse but celebrated prematurely and was eventually caught out by Maxime Médard David Davies/PA WireIn the latest episode of The Ruck podcast, Stephen Jones welcomes Mark Evans, of The Rugby Paper, The Sunday Times’ Sam Peters and Alex Lowe to discuss Freddie Burns’ shocking error, the tackling laws of the game and there’s a look back at the first round of the Champions Cup. With the likes of Billy Vunipola and Jamie George picking up injuries, there’s a debate over who should get into Eddie Jones’ England squad and there’s another selection of The Ruck’s “God of the Week”. ● The Ruck podcast will be available free every Monday. For the latest episode click the link above or download from your podcast app. App users will need to visit thetimes.co.uk/sport
Source:The Times
October 15, 2018 16:52 UTC
The Guardian view on populism: belonging not believing | Editorial
The CSU lost votes to both right and centre; more votes to the centre, in fact, than to the populists. But across Europe is it the populist parties that seem to be having their moment now. There is also the sense of belonging that they produce by combining religion and nationalism to imagine, and so create, communities. The second point is that this kind of belonging isn’t earned by any merit. It may seem that the essence of populist parties is that they deny these rights to others.
Source:The Guardian
October 15, 2018 16:52 UTC
Punching mirrors and scrapbooking: things people only do in the movies
Actor Lili Reinhart asked Twitter if it’s only in films that people in a panic splash water on their faces. The Riverdale actor Lili Reinhart wondered this week if it is only in the movies that people splash water on their faces to suppress rising panic. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Morgan Freeman in Seven. Facebook Twitter Pinterest The line up … Straight Outta Compton.
Source:The Guardian
October 15, 2018 16:41 UTC
Fragmented Europe
The governance of the European Union has rarely been so complex, so fraught and so gripped by self-doubt. Battered by problems stemming from mass immigration, by a war on its eastern frontiers and by the strain between creditor and debtor nations, the continent’s political class is splintering. In the Bavarian regional election at the weekend Angela Merkel’s crucial conservative ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU), plunged to its worst result since 1950. Its attempts to stanch a haemorrhaging of support to the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) backfired. The AfD still won 10.3 per cent of the votes, thereby demonstrating a simple truth: when mainstream parties try to curry favour with voters by mimicking hardline policies on immigration it…
Source:The Times
October 15, 2018 16:30 UTC
Viking ship burial discovered in Norway just 50cm underground
Archaeologists have discovered a Viking ship burial in Norway using ground-penetrating radar that suggests the 20-metre keel and many of its timbers remain well preserved just half a metre below the topsoil. Just three other intact ship burials have been recorded in the country; the survival of this one is remarkable because the imposing burial mound that once covered it has long since been ploughed out. The find was described as “incredibly exciting” by Knut Paasche, an expert on Viking ships at Niku. Facebook Twitter Pinterest The ship burial forms part of a larger mound cemetery and settlement site next to the monumental Jelle mound. Viking ships, in which they raided, traded and struck terror across northern Europe, were precious objects, and such burials were reserved for high-status individuals.
Source:The Guardian
October 15, 2018 16:22 UTC
The Game podcast: Is Löw to blame for Germany’s sudden decline?
A 3-0 defeat by Holland - who weren’t even at the World Cup. What on earth has happened to Germany - and who (or what) is to blame for their sudden decline? From having their system of talent production and development eulogised before the World Cup, German football is now looking in the mirror and wondering where it has all gone wrong. So is it all Joachim Löw’s fault or is there a deeper problem? It’s the biggest issue in international football this week and very much a cause for debate in the podcast this week, as Gabriele Marcotti and Natalie Sawyer welcome chief sports reporter Martyn Ziegler and football writer Alan Smith…
Source:The Times
October 15, 2018 16:18 UTC
Brexit deal still in reach, May tells MPs
Theresa May warned that Britain could still not sign up to Europe’s demands to prevent a hard border in Northern IrelandTheresa May called on European leaders today not to “derail” an “achievable” Brexit deal by making unacceptable demands on her government. In a public appeal before a critical EU summit this week the prime minister claimed “real progress had been made” in the talks, with just a few “critical” issues still be resolved. However, she warned that Britain could still not sign up to Europe’s demands to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland and called for them to compromise to avoid a “no deal outcome that no-one wants”. Mrs May’s remarks came in a Commons statement after Brexit talks in Brussels reached an impasse over the weekend. The prime minister revealed that commission negotiators had told the government that there was not time to…
Source:The Times
October 15, 2018 15:56 UTC
Dr Mark Porter: Why your snoring could be a wake-up call to something more serious
It is wrong to brag, but, as a middle-aged man, I am proud to report that I don’t snore. Not that you have to be middle-aged or male to be a snorer. And while middle-aged men come out badly, it is women who are more likely to snore in the under-35s. Whoever is guilty of doing it, though, snoring is rarely a laughing matter. At the milder extreme it is an annoyance that stops your partner sleeping, while…
Source:The Times
October 15, 2018 15:56 UTC