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MCCA plays up $1.1M temporary Lawn on D

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 16 Agustus 2014 | 18.39

The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority spent $1.1 million to build a lush open space in the Seaport District to host concerts, artwork and lawn games, but it will be usable for no more than two years before the acres of newly laid sod and rows of fencing are ripped up to make way for an expanded convention center.

James E. Rooney, head of the MCCA justified the expense of creating the new, 2.7-acre open space, dubbed The Lawn on D, as a working experiment that will help fine-tune plans for a permanent green space farther up the block where there are currently state transportation department buildings.

"The idea in our research on great open spaces is that most of it has been redesigned two or three times before it achieves greatness," Rooney said. "And there is a lot of money in building open space and then rebuilding it, and then rebuilding it again. Our idea is to make this part of the design process, experiment with it, figure out what we did wrong, program it, figure out what worked and didn't work. Then build it once."

Rooney acknowledged that much of the area that has been spruced up — a once rock- and gravel-covered field now wired with electricity and Wi-Fi, hooked up with water and landscaped with trees and grass — will be torn up in 18 months to two years as the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center gets a $1 billion, 1.3 million-square-foot add-on.

"It's not all throw-away. Some of it we will be able to reuse," said Rooney, who noted that the event space, when not in use by conventioneers, will be open to the public to play bocce and ping-pong, and enjoy live music and interactive art. "We wanted to create a sense of space in the South Boston waterfront. ... Think of it as a college quad, that you just go out and just hang out with your friends, with Wi-Fi."

The MCCA said in May it was paying HR&A Advisors $200,000 for the concept and the design, and Chris Wangro, another New York consultant, $50,000 to develop programming for the space.

It is also a walkable connection to and from the Convention Center, D Street and the Aloft and Element hotels, as required under an agreement the MCCA has with their developers.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh called the lawn "really a great way of showcasing our city."

"It gives the neighborhood a sense of pride," Walsh said. "Having The Lawn on D is another way to make our city more innovative."


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B.R.A. vows no more secrets

The BRA's acting director hopes a new policy requiring the agency to hold public meetings and a 10-day open comment session before giving away any city-owned land will help restore some of the credibility it lost in the backlash over last fall's secret dealings that gave the Red Sox rights to use Yawkey Way forever.

"The public should have had an opportunity to scrutinize the deal and comment on it before it was presented to the board for action," Boston Redevelopment Authority chief Brian Golden told the Herald yesterday. "That is what this policy does. If we are going to convey an interest in public land, there must be a public process. … We think it is absolutely essential to the long-term credibility of our agency and the legitimacy of our decisions. That's what really hangs in the balance."

Golden said a new edict adopted Thursday by the BRA board will greatly increase transparency and prevent what happened in September, when the agency kept the public in the dark on the terms of its deal with the Red Sox up until just before the board's vote on the 
$7.3 million pact. No public forum was ever held.

The board also approved a disclosure policy that requires developers to divulge the names of all investors — to "1/10th of one percent" — involved in their projects. Another measure will require developers seeking "Public Development Area" designations, which allows them to skirt zoning regulations, to provide community benefits.

"They appear to be trying to institute policies where there weren't any," Matt Cahill, head of the Boston Finance Commission, a watchdog agency, said of the new policies. "That is a step in the right direction."

Golden served as secretary and executive director of the BRA at the time of the Yawkey Way deal but said he — and most other BRA staff — was cut out of the Sox negotiations because they were handled exclusively by then-BRA chief Peter Meade and chief of staff Jim Tierney.

Tapped by Mayor Martin J. Walsh to lead the BRA and carry out his mission of creating greater transparency and accountability at the agency, Golden has publicly criticized the sale that gave the Sox permanent rights to close Yawkey Way on game days and concert dates for as long as the team plays at Fenway Park, calling it a "bad deal" for taxpayers. The contract also gave the Sox the air rights below its pricey Green Monster seats on Lansdowne Street.

On the disclosure policy, Golden said citizens have a right to know the investors in projects in their neighborhoods, and the agency needs to know as well to prevent conflicts of interest among its staff and board members. Failure to comply could result in the agency rescinding its approval of a project, said Enrico Lopez, the BRA's policy director who drafted the three policies.


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Boston online retailer Wayfair files for public offering

Boston-based online home goods retailer Wayfair filed paperwork for its initial public offering yesterday, a long-awaited move for a company that has seen more than $1 billion in sales during the past 12 months.

According to the paperwork filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Wayfair is hoping to raise up to $350 million in its IPO.

Wayfair sells furniture and other home goods, and said it took in $574.1 million in the first half of the year. Still, Wayfair took a $51.4 million loss, largely because of sales and marketing expenses.

William Preston, a research analyst at Renaissance Capital, said e-commerce companies have done well with their IPOs recently.

"We've seen pretty good success in e-commerce this year," he said.

Founded in 2002, Wayfair will likely be the first U.S. e-commerce company to go public this year. Other e-commerce offerings this year have been from foreign companies.

Preston said one of Wayfair's biggest challenges will be proving to investors it can coexist alongside Amazon, the established king of e-commerce.

Wayfair has raised $363 million in venture funding, but co-founders Niraj Shah and Steve Conine each still own 28.9 percent of the company.

Wayfair said in the filing it will trade under the symbol "W" on the New York Stock Exchange.

A spokeswoman for Wayfair declined to comment.


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Mercedes S550 worth its high price

When the 2014 Mercedes-Benz S550 4matic sedan was delivered for testing, my first thought was, why would anyone spend $128,000 on a car? After a few days behind the wheel, I now wish I had $128,000 to buy this car.

Opulence, elegance, style, superb engineering and tech goodies are hallmarks of this flagship four-door.

A 4.6-liter V-8 biturbo engine produces a prodigious 449 horsepower and easily pushes this full-sized and heavy all-wheel-drive. Select your driving mode and the car will adjust the suspension and shift points to maximize your driving pleasure. From gas-sipping ECO to quick-reacting Sport, the S550 has it all for your driving pleasure. And it's a pleasure to motor about in this car.

The cabin is adorned with full-grain, supple, perforated leather seats that can be heated or cooled. The driver's seat features a massage mode along with multiple adjustable settings. Tech features run the gamut from navigation to the extraordinary Distronic Plus with steering assist that will make hands-free steering lane adjustments in cruise control.

Active Blind Spot assist, night-vision cameras and a pedestrian-recognition back up camera are just some of the long list of equipment available. Our tester came with the optional $6,400 Burmester surround sound system that absolutely fills the interior with symphony hall quality audio. Even AM news sounded special. The interface could have been a tad more user-friendly, but after a day or two it was mastered.

But as expected, it's the marvelous fit and finish that make a Mercedes so attractive. The polished wood-grain inlay and leather-trimmed door panels, the velvety head and pillar liners and the pillowed rear seat headrests all caress you in luxury. Add the reclining rear seats, separate rear climate control and sun roof and you see why you may have to get a driver to chauffeur you about. And it has a built-in air freshening system — just pick your fragrance.

The exterior remains simple and elegant. The five-louvered grille has only the radar panel embedded, the famed hood ornament is back on the nose and the LED lights wrap around the fender flares. The simple lines still imbue class yet have single creases along the hood that draw your eye toward the slightly upturned trunk. Despite its length and width, the car maneuvers easily and parking assist helps swing the four-door into tight spots.

The car handles like a dream for a full-sized cruiser. The seven-speed automatic shifts seamlessly and the 19 miles per gallon in the city and 26 on the highway won't have you pulling into the gas station at every exit. Step onto the accelerator and the Benz responds with aplomb. The car almost feels like it pulls itself closer to the ground, drops down a couple of gears and just rockets forward without making a fuss of it or snapping your head backward. It may not have the explosiveness of a pure sports car, but there's an effortless muscular engine under the hood.

In the ultra luxury class, only a few cars demand your attention. The Jaguar XJL, Bentley, Rolls-Royce and maybe the Lexus LS among them. But having­ tested the Jag and the Lexus­, I think the S-Class easily outduels them.


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GE Healthcare life sciences division’s moving in

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 14 Agustus 2014 | 18.38

GE Healthcare will relocate its American headquarters for its life sciences division to Massachusetts — a major move expected to create hundreds of jobs, coming on the heels of similar arrivals in redent years by Sanofi-­Aventis and Pfizer.

"GE is not a leader here — they're following the other large firms here in order to be close to where the action is," said Barry Bluestone of North­eastern University, who co-­wrote a report last year on the Bay State's life sciences industry. "It continues quite a trend."

The company's current life sciences headquarters in Piscataway, N.J., employs about 400 people, and a spokesman would not say which area of the state it is considering.

"A project is currently underway to create a new U.S. headquarters in Massachusetts for the life sciences division of GE Healthcare," said GE Healthcare spokesman Benjamin Fox. "More specific details will be available once they are finalized. Once completed, the new U.S. life sciences headquarters will create a significant number of new jobs and economic activity in Massachusetts."

Gov. Deval Patrick has made promoting the life sciences industry in the state a focus over the years. Bluestone said that, coupled with an influx of smaller, highly specialized firms, has been a magnet drawing larger companies.

"Even with the billions of dollars they spend on research, the large firms aren't sure they'll come up with a big breakthrough in life sciences technology," said Bluestone. "Therefore, they want to be near small firms on the cutting edge."

Massachusetts Life Sciences Center CEO Susan Windham-Bannister told the Herald the organization had been in discussions with GE Healthcare over the past two years about a move.

"We're talking about a company that's more diversified, has a big imaging­ component to it, and a big bioinformatics component," she said. "This is a different kind of company. We're really excited about that. They've certainly had a modest presence in Massachusetts, but for them to make this decision is big."

The 2013 report for the Boston Foundation, conducted by Bluestone and Alan Clayton-Matthews of Northeastern, found the state's life sciences industry growing at a faster pace than any other­ industry in Massachusetts — and cre­ating more jobs than in any other­ state since 2008.


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Biotech center developer asks BRA for 70-year lease

An empty Marine Industrial Park parcel, the site of Cirque du Soleil's big top tents this summer, could be one step closer to being developed as a possible biotech center if the long-stalled project gets the BRA board's approval tonight.

The Kavanagh Advisory Group is seeking a 70-year lease with the city's Economic Development Industrial Corp., the arm of the Boston Redevelopment Authority that manages the park. The lease, according to BRA documents, would require the developer to pay an initial rent of $314,667 in March 2017 and annual payments of $539,430 thereafter.

The EDIC in 2011 gave the Danvers-based group a one-year contract to redevelop the 179,810-square-foot site at 6 Tide St. That contract, which has been renewed five times, requires Kavanagh to pay $75,000 a year to lease the site. It got a pass on rent this year, however, because Cirque du Soleil paid $175,000 to use the site from May 5 until July 1.

Eric Gervais of the Kavanagh Advisory Group said its proposed 360,000-square-foot, four-story building — its permitted uses include biomedical and life-science offices and labs — "will set the standard for innovation within that district."

Gervais cited negotiations with prospective tenants for delaying development. "These projects simply take time," he said.

City Councilor Michael Flaherty said yesterday he wants the BRA to make the developer pay its six-figure rent sooner­ to ensure the site is developed quickly.

"We need to protect against land banking," he said.

The BRA in a statement called it an "extremely competitive lease structure" that will lead to the development of an underused parcel and the creation of new jobs.


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Reported deaths, injuries jump at major Mass. hospitals

The number of "serious reportable events," such as deaths or injuries, at Massachusetts acute-care hospitals more than doubled in the last three years, according to data collected by the state Department of Public Health.

The total number of events soared from 366 in 2011 to 753 last year at acute-care hospitals, and from 123 to 206 over the same period at non-acute-care hospitals, the department said.

Dr. Madeleine Biondolillo, DPH's associate commissioner, said the increases can be attributed to a number of factors.

"The adoption of new national quality definitions led to an expansion of the number and types of events that need to be reported, which resulted in a marked rise in reporting in several existing categories, particularly falls and pressure ulcers," Biondolillo said in a statement. "The implementation of online reporting system reduced barriers and streamlined the facility reporting process to DPH. DPH also increased outreach to facilities to emphasize reporting as an important part of patient safety and quality improvement. DPH anticipates a continued upward trend in number of reported events in 2014 as facilities become increasingly efficient in evaluation & reporting."

At acute-care hospitals, the number of suicides or serious injuries resulting from self harm jumped from one to 22 from 2011 to 2013, while the number of serious injuries or deaths rose from six to 16 due to burns, and from five to 14 due to assaults or abuse. The number of wrong surgeries or procedures performed climbed from two to 11.

In a statement, Anuj Goel, the Massachusetts Hospital Association's vice president for legal and regulatory affairs, said: "Massachusetts hospitals are closely focused on eliminating serious reportable events (SREs) and make patient safety a top priority. Hospitals are diligent in reporting adverse events, including those that fall within the definition recently updated by the National Quality Forum (NQF) and adopted by the state Department of Public Health. The Massachusetts Hospital Association and our member hospitals have worked very closely with DPH to develop and provide guidance materials, educational sessions and best practices to ensure that hospitals are reporting events that meet these revised and expanded SRE criteria."


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Raytheon pays feds for ineligible meal expenses

BOSTON — Raytheon has agreed to pay $350,000 to the federal government for charging the Department of Defense for ineligible meal expenses.

Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, said in a statement Wednesday that the Waltham-based defense contractor submitted expenses for "group meals, business group meals and group meals at conference events" that were ineligible for federal reimbursement from 2007 to 2009.

Spokeswoman Pamela Erickson said in an email that Raytheon is pleased that the matter is resolved.


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Asbestos pushed in Asia as product for the poor

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 13 Agustus 2014 | 18.38

VAISHALI, India — The executives mingled over tea and sugar cookies, and the chatter was upbeat. Their industry, they said at the conference in the Indian capital, saves lives and brings roofs, walls and pipes to some of the world's poorest people.

The industry's wonder product, though, is one whose very name evokes the opposite: asbestos. A largely outlawed scourge to the developed world, it is still going strong in the developing one, and killing tens of thousands of people each year.

"We're here not only to run our businesses, but to also serve the nation," said Abhaya Shankar, a director of India's Asbestos Cement Products Manufacturers Association.

In India, the world's biggest asbestos importer, it's a $2 billion industry with double-digit annual growth, at least 100 manufacturing plants and some 300,000 jobs.

The International Labor Organization, World Health Organization, the wider medical community and more than 50 countries say the mineral should be banned. Asbestos fibers lodge in the lungs and cause many diseases. The ILO estimates 100,000 people die every year from workplace exposure, and experts believe thousands more die from exposure outside the workplace.

The asbestos executives who gathered in the ballroom of a luxury New Delhi hotel wanted to knock down those concerns. The risks are overblown, many said, and scientists and officials from rich Western nations who cite copious research showing it causes cancer are distorting the facts.

More than two-thirds of India's 1.2 billion people live in poverty on less than $1.25 a day, including hundreds of millions still in makeshift rural dwellings that offer little protection from insects, harsh weather and roaming predators such as tigers and leopards.

"These are huge numbers. We're talking about millions of people," Shankar said. "So there is a lot of latent demand."

Yet there are some poor Indians trying to keep asbestos out of their communities, even as the government supports the industry by lowering import duties and using asbestos in construction of subsidized housing.

"People outside of India, they must be wondering what kind of fools we are," said Ajit Kumar Singh from the Indian Red Cross Society. "They don't use it. They must wonder why we would."

___

In the ancient farming village of Vaishali, in impoverished Bihar state, the first word about the dangers of asbestos came from chemistry and biology textbooks that a boy in a neighboring town brought home from school, according to villagers interviewed by The Associated Press.

A company was proposing an asbestos plant in the village of 1,500 people located about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) east of New Delhi.

The villagers worried that asbestos fibers could blow from the factory across their wheat, rice and potato fields and into their tiny mud-and-thatch homes. Their children, they said, could contract lung diseases most Indian doctors would never test for, let alone treat. Neither India nor any of its 29 states keep statistics on how many people might be affected by asbestos.

The people of Vaishali began protesting in January 2011. They objected that the structure would be closer to their homes than the legal limit of 500 meters (1,650 feet). Still, bricks were laid, temporary management offices were built and a hulking skeleton of steel beams went up across the tree-studded landscape.

The villagers circulated a petition demanding the factory be halted. But in December 2012, its permit was renewed, inciting more than 6,000 people from the region to rally on a main road, blocking traffic for 11 hours. They gave speeches and chanted "Asbestos causes cancer."

Amid the chaos, a few dozen villagers took matters into their own hands, pulling down the partially built factory, brick by brick.

"It was a moment of desperation. No one was listening to us," said a villager involved in the demolition, a teacher who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the company. "There was no other way for us to express our outrage."

Within four hours, the factory and offices were demolished: bricks, beams, pipes and asbestos roofing, all torn down. The steel frame was the only remnant left standing.

"Still, we did not feel triumphant," the teacher said. "We knew it wasn't over."

They were right. The company filed lawsuits, still pending, against several villagers, alleging vandalism and theft.

___

Durable and heat-resistant, asbestos was long a favorite insulation material in the West, but has also been used in everything from shoes and dental fillings to fireproofing sprays, brake linings and ceiling tiles.

Scientists and medical experts overwhelmingly agree that inhaling any form of asbestos can lead to deadly diseases including mesothelioma, lung cancer and asbestosis, or the scarring of the lungs. Exposure may also lead to other debilitating ailments, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

About 125 million people worldwide are exposed to asbestos at work each year, the WHO says. Because the disease typically takes 20 to 40 years to manifest, workers can go through their careers without realizing they are getting sick.

Dozens of countries including Japan, South Korea, Argentina, Saudi Arabia and all European Union nations have banned asbestos entirely. Others including the United States have severely curtailed its use.

Most asbestos on the world market today comes from Russia. Brazil, Kazakhstan and China also export, though some have been reviewing their positions.

Canada's Quebec province was the world's biggest asbestos producer for much of the 20th century. It got out of the business in 2012, after a new provincial government questioned why it was mining and exporting a material its own citizens shunned.

Asia is the biggest market. India last year imported $235 million worth of the stuff, or about half of the global trade.

The global asbestos lobby says the mineral has been unfairly maligned by Western nations that used it irresponsibly. It also says one of the six forms of asbestos is safe: chrysotile, or white asbestos, which accounts for more than 95 percent of all asbestos used since 1900, and all of what's used today.

"Chrysotile you can eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner!" said Kanat Kapbayel of Kazakhstan's United Minerals and a board member of the International Chrysotile Association.

Chrysotile is a serpentine mineral, meaning its fibers are curly and more flexible than the other more jagged and sharp forms called amphiboles. The lobby and its supporters say this distinction makes all the difference.

A vast majority of experts in science and medicine reject this.

"A rigorous review of the epidemiological evidence confirms that all types of asbestos fiber are causally implicated in the development of various diseases and premature death," the Joint Policy Committee of the Societies of Epidemiology said in a 2012 position statement.

Squeezed out of the industrialized world, the asbestos industry is trying to build up new markets and has created lobbying organizations to help it sell asbestos to poor countries, particularly in Asia, it said.

___

Developed nations are still reckoning with health and economic consequences from past asbestos use.

American businesses have paid out at least $1.3 billion in the largest and longest-running collection of personal injury lawsuits in U.S. legal history, according to a 2012 report by the California-based Rand research corporation. Two years ago, an Italian court sentenced two businessmen from Swiss building material maker Eternit AG to 16 years in prison for negligence leading to more than 2,000 asbestos-related deaths. Billions of dollars have been spent stripping asbestos from buildings in the U.S. and Europe.

Arun Saraf, the Indian asbestos association's chairman, said India has learned from the West's mistakes.

He said the lobby's 15 member companies maintain the strictest safety standards in their factories. That includes limiting airborne dust, properly disposing of waste and insisting employees wear safety masks, gloves and protective clothing.

The vast majority of asbestos used in India is mixed with cement and poured into molds for corrugated roof sheets, wall panels or pipes. Fibers can be released when the sheets are sawed or hammered, and when wear and weather break them down. Scientists say those released fibers are just as dangerous as the raw mineral.

AP journalists who visited a working factory and a shuttered one in Bihar found both had dumped broken sheets and raw material in fields or uncovered pits within the factory premises. Workers without any safety gear were seen handling the broken sheets at both factories. The working factory was operated by Ramco Industries Ltd., while the other owned by Nibhi Industries Pvt. Ltd. was supplying materials to UAL Industries Ltd.

Saraf, who is also UAL's managing director, said the materials left strewn across the factory grounds were meant to be pulverized and recycled into new roofing sheets, and were no more dangerous than the final product as the asbestos had already been mixed with cement.

He said Nibhi was not an association member, but "I have been informed that Nibhi workers are provided with all the personal protective equipment."

Some employees of Ramco's working factory said they were satisfied that asbestos was safe, and were delighted by the benefits of steady work. But several former employees of both factories said they were given masks only on inspection days, and rarely if ever had medical checkups. None was aware that going home with asbestos fibers on their clothing or hair could put their families at risk.

Ramco CEO Prem Shanker said all employees working in areas where asbestos was kept unmixed were given safety equipment and regular medical checkups that were reviewed by government authorities. "Ramco has consistently gone the extra mile to ensure a safe working environment," he said. AP was not given permission to visit these indoor areas.

Indian customers like the asbestos sheets because they're sturdy, heat resistant and quieter in the rain than tin or fiberglass. But most of all, they're cheap.

Umesh Kumar, a roadside vendor in Bihar's capital of Patna, sells precut 3-by-1 meter (10-by-3 foot) asbestos cement sheets for 600 rupees ($10) each. A tin or a fiberglass sheet of similar strength costs 800 rupees.

"I've known it's a health hazard for about 10 years, but what can we do? This is a country of poor people, and for less money they can have a roof over their heads," Kumar said.

"These people are not aware" of the health risks, he said. But as sellers of asbestos sheets wanting to stay in business, "we're not able to tell them much."

___

The two-day asbestos conference in December was billed as scientific. But organizers said they had no new research.

One could say they've gone back in time to defend their products.

The Indian asbestos lobby's website refers to 1998 WHO guidelines for controlled use of chrysotile, but skips updated WHO advice from 2007 suggesting that all asbestos be banned. The lobby also ignores the ILO's 2006 recommendation to ban asbestos, and refers only to its 1996 suggestion of strict regulations.

When asked why the association ignored the most recent advice, its executive director, John Nicodemus, waved his hand dismissively. "The WHO is scaremongering," he said.

Many of the speakers are regulars at asbestos conferences around the world, including in Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia, Ukraine and Indonesia.

American Robert Nolan, who heads a New York-based organization called Environmental Studies International, told the Indian delegates that "a ban is a little like a taboo in a primitive society," and that those who ban asbestos are "not looking at the facts."

David Bernstein, an American-born toxicologist based in Geneva, said that although chrysotile can cause disease if inhaled in large quantities or for prolonged periods, so could any tiny particle. He has published dozens of chrysotile-friendly studies and consulted for the Quebec-based Chrysotile Institute, which lost its Canadian government funding and shut down in 2012.

When asked by an audience member about funding for his research, he said some has come from chrysotile interests without elaborating on how much. A short-term study generally costs about $500,000, he said, and a long-term research project can cost up to about $4 million.

He presented an animated video demonstrating how one special kind of human blood cell called a macrophage can engulf a squiggly white asbestos fiber, dissolve it in acid and carry it out of the lungs. He said his research concludes that smaller doses for shorter periods "produce no fibrosis."

"We have defense mechanisms. Our lungs are remarkable," Bernstein said. To suffer any health problems, "you have to live long enough."

Other researchers have drawn different conclusions. Their studies indicate that most chrysotile isn't eliminated but ends up in the membrane lining the lungs, where the rare malignancy mesothelioma develops and chews through the chest wall, leading to excruciating death.

Research such as Bernstein's frustrates retired U.S. Assistant Surgeon General Dr. Richard Lemen, who has studied asbestos since 1970 and first advocated a chrysotile ban in 1976.

"His presentation is pretty slick, and when he puts it on animation mode, people think: 'Wow, he must know what he's talking about,'" Lemen said by telephone from Atlanta. But Bernstein or Nolan "would get shot down if they stood up and talked about their research" at a legitimate scientific conference, he said.

Debate has ended for richer countries, but that has not stopped asbestos use in poorer ones, Lemen said.

"I've been saying the same thing over and over for 40 years. You feel like Sisyphus rolling the stone up the hill, and it comes back down."

___

Research conducted around the world has not convinced some Indian officials, who say there is not enough evidence to prove a link between chrysotile and disease in India.

Gopal Krishna, an activist with the Ban Asbestos India, calls this argument "ridiculous."

"Are they saying Indian people's lungs are different than people's in the West?"

The permit for the asbestos plant in Vaishali was canceled by Bihar's chief minister last year after prolonged agitation, but some in his government still rejected that the mineral is hazardous.

"From the scientific information I have received, there is no direct health hazard with asbestos production," said Dipak Kumar Singh, who until recently was Bihar's environment secretary and oversaw industrial zones at the same time. He's now in charge of water management.

The state health secretary, Deepak Kumar, disagreed.

"It's not safe," he said. "Of course it can affect the health system, create a burden for us all and especially the poor."

India in 1986 placed a moratorium on licensing any new asbestos mining, but has never banned use of the mineral despite two Supreme Court rulings ordering lawmakers to bring the law in line with ILO standards.

Last year, an Indian delegation traveled to Geneva to join Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Zimbabwe and Vietnam in opposing the listing of chrysotile as a hazardous chemical under the international Rotterdam Convention, which governs the labeling and trade of dangerous chemicals. Without unanimous support among the convention's 154 members, the effort to list chrysotile failed again.

An Indian Labor Ministry advisory committee set up in 2012 to give a recommendation on asbestos has yet to release a report. The Health Ministry has said asbestos is harmful, but that it has no power to do anything about it. The Environment Ministry continues to approve new factories even as it says asbestos may be phased out.

The position of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new government is unclear, but during 12 years as chief minister of Gujarat state, Modi oversaw a boom in asbestos manufacturing and in the asbestos-laden ship-breaking industry.

Meanwhile, village-level resistance continues. Vaishali sparked other protests, including in the nearby district of Bhojpur.

"We'll start a people's revolution if we have to," said blacksmith Dharmatma Sharma, founder of a local environmental group.

"Many people are not aware of the effects, especially the illiterate," said Madan Prasad Gupta, a village leader in Bhojpur, sipping tea with other villagers at the roadside tea shop he built decades ago when he had no idea what asbestos was.

Over his head: a broken, crumbling asbestos cement roof.

___

Follow Katy Daigle on Twitter at http://twitter.com/katydaigle


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City eases zoning appeals for changes to small properties

Boston is trying to make it easier for small businesses and homeowners to make changes to their properties, the latest in what the city says is a series of improvements to the zoning process.

A new Zoning Board of Appeals subcommittee will hear requests for variances from zoning rules exclusively from small businesses and 1-2 family owner-occupied homes — a move that will "streamline" the process for minor changes, according to Mayor Martin J. Walsh.

"This change will allow one- and two-family homeowners and small business to request zoning relief without having to take time out of the weekday schedule to do so," said William Christopher, commissioner of Inspectional Services.

Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the Back Bay Association, said the zoning appeals process — formally asking for an exception to the zoning code — needs to be fixed.

"Without a question, something should be done and must be done," Mainzer-Cohen said. "It's part of what has contributed to Boston's reputation for being hard for small businesses."

Still, some said the changes don't go far enough.

"The limit to the one-two family owner-occupied is a really tight definition of what small is," said Skip Schloming, executive director of the Small Property Owners Association.

Kate Norton, a spokeswoman for Walsh, said the subcommittee guidelines are based on the state building code, which defines a building with more than two units as commercial.

Last month, Walsh announced extended hours for ZBA hearings and that they would be televised.

"This is one part of a bigger initiative we've been rolling out over time and will continue to roll out," Norton said. "Everything we're doing around ZBA is designed around making it a more user-friendly experience."


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Expert: Market Basket threat may be illegal

Market Basket issued letters to hundreds of protesting employees yesterday giving them until Friday to return to work or lose their jobs — a move that legally will be difficult to enforce, a labor expert told the Herald.

"An employer in this situation has to be very careful because no matter how this has been labeled, the rank and file employees are on strike, and strikers have certain rights, including the right not to be terminated for engaging in a strike," said Keith H. McCown, a top labor lawyer at Morgan, Brown & Joy, LLP. "Even though there's no union in the picture, these employees are withholding their services collectively and that is a strike."

Strikers can technically be replaced, but even then retain certain protections. McCown told the Herald that, under the law, supervisors do not have a similarly protected right to strike.

Workers launched the protests and walkouts July 18 calling for the reinstatement of Arthur T. Demoulas, who was fired as CEO in June by the company's board, which is controlled by rival cousin Arthur S. Demoulas.

Market Basket said yesterday it had issued the letters to about 200 "associates" — both at the supervisor level and in administrative support — working at headquarters and distribution centers who have stopped showing up.

The protesting workers estimated as many as 700 letters went out.

"Should you choose to ignore either of these directives, the company will consider you to have abandoned your job, thereby ending your employment with the company," Market Basket wrote in the letter, according to the web site WeAreMarketBasket.com.

Mike Meuse, a Market Basket operations supervisor and safety manager, told the Herald he was "shocked" when he received the letter yesterday, but vowed not to cave.

"If they release me on Friday, I guess they release me on Friday," said Meuse. "They can call it job abandonment, but I look at it as them terminating me."

Now that Market Basket has given workers an ultimatum, it has to follow through to preserve its credibility in the ongoing mess, said supermarket analyst David Livingston of DJL Research in Milwaukee.

"They'll have to let people go because if they don't, no one's going to believe anything they say," said Livingston. "I think these employees are prepared for that. I think they've got a cult-like following of Arthur T., and they're prepared to lose their jobs for this man."


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Amazon debuts mobile payment app and card reader

NEW YORK — Amazon is taking direct aim at mobile payment systems such as Square by introducing the Amazon Local Register, a credit-card processing device and mobile app designed to help small business owners accept payments through their smartphones and tablets.

The move places the largest U.S. e-commerce retailer in competition with Square and other established mobile payment processing systems such as PayPal Here and Intuit's GoPayment.

Amazon's technology includes a card reader that attaches to a smartphone, Kindle or tablet. The reader processes credit or debit card payments via a secure Amazon network, the same one that processes Amazon.com purchases. The service is designed to serve on-the-go small business owners who might otherwise only accept cash or checks, including massage therapists, food truck operators and artists who sell their work at outdoor fairs.

Small businesses can start using Local Register by creating an account on http://localregister.amazon.com . Businesses must buy Amazon's card reader for $10, and download the free mobile app from the Amazon app store, the Apple app store or Google Play. The app works on most smartphones and tablets, including the Kindle Fire.

Similar to Amazon's strategy in many of its businesses, the company aims to compete on price in the mobile payment arena. For customers who sign up for the service by Oct. 31, Amazon will take as its fee 1.75 percent of each payment processed, or each "swipe" of the card, a special rate that will last until Jan. 1, 2016. For people who sign up after Oct. 31, Amazon will take a service fee of 2.5 percent of each payment processed.

The first $10 in transaction fees will be credited back to the customer, essentially paying for the card reader.

That's below most of its competitors' rates. Square takes a fee of 2.75 percent of each transaction. PayPal Here takes 2.7 percent of each transaction and Intuit's GoPayment rates start at 1.75 percent per transaction if businesses pay a $19.95 monthly rate or 2.4 percent of each transaction without a monthly payment.

"I've actually heard some business owners say the only thing that would make them change (point of sale) systems is cost savings," said Matt Swann, vice president of local commerce for Amazon.

"Payments are hard and that's one of the things that gets in the way of serving customers, especially for small businesses," Swann said. "Payment tools need to be inexpensive, simple and trusted to get the job done."

Local Register is part of a slew of new products and services that Seattle-based Amazon has introduced this year. The company's Fire smartphone debuted this month. In April, it began selling the Fire TV, a media streaming device. Meanwhile, Amazon is expanding its same-day delivery service and offering grocery delivery and video and music streaming for its Prime loyalty club members.

Investors have largely given Amazon a pass on profit as it focuses on spending the money it makes to grow and expand into new areas. But there are some signs patience may be waning. The company's most recent quarterly report in July showed a deeper-than-expected second quarter loss despite surging revenue. Since then, the company's stock has fallen about 11 percent.

Amazon has been expanding into the payment space with other products: Amazon payments, which lets users with stored credit card or banking information on the Amazon site use their Amazon login to pay at sites other than Amazon. And Amazon Wallet, a beta app that lets users store gift cards, loyalty and rewards cards and membership cards and redeem them in store or online.


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Market Basket’s board calls on parties to end impasse

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 12 Agustus 2014 | 18.38

The three self-described "independent" directors of Market Basket's seven-member board yesterday repeated their demand for an end to the "standoff" by store employees supporting ousted CEO Arthur T. Demoulas, while an industry expert says he doubts the company can hold out much longer in its current state of impasse.

"We have a series of difficult business decisions to work out," the directors said in a statement. "However, there is no reason to continue to hold the 25,000 associates, 2 million shoppers and our local economies hostage to an ongoing business negotiation between shareholders.

"We must end this zero sum game and act in the best interests of our associates, customers — and in the end, our company," they added. "We are ready to meet. It's time."

A spokeswoman for Arthur T. had no immediate comment.

The three directors — Keith O. Cowan, Eric Gebaide and Ronald G. Weiner — last week called on him to return in run the company in a non-CEO capacity while he continued to pursue his stated intent to buy the half of the supermarket chain controlled by his rival cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas, and his allies.

Arthur T., who was fired in June by a board majority headed by Arthur S., rejected the proposal, dismissing it as "games" and "windowdressing."

Kevin Griffin of The Griffin Report of Food Marketing, a Duxbury-based trade publication for the food industry, said he doubts the standoff, which has left store shelves empty and driven away customers, can go on much longer.

"Every day that goes by, the company is losing its value, its market share and its reputation," Griffin said. "It's become a public spectacle, and the appetite for this is waning. This is a crisis situation. You have a company in free fall. I would encourage them to think about all the people who make their livelihood from this chain, and I would encourage them to get the deal done."

Last Thursday, thousands of part-time employees were told they would not be working this week because there is so little business at the chain's 71 stores.

Ann Dufresne of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, yesterday said she could not say whether any employees have filed for unemployment insurance.


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Developer set to launch $210M Seaport cargo project

Groundbreaking on the $210 million Boston Cargo Terminal project in the Seaport will take place in a matter of weeks, a project official told the Herald yesterday.

The nearly 30-acre property is expected to include three commercial warehouse buildings, a 120,000-square-foot building with a lufa farm, 160 parking spaces, and a Harborwalk path.

The complicated deal involves land owned by the Boston Redevelopment Authority and leased by Massport. The developer is Cargo Ventures.

Two previous groundbreakings had been scheduled with Gov. Deval Patrick and Mayor Martin J. Walsh, but were postponed, said City Hall spokeswoman Kate Norton.

The project official said the developer was in talks with the New England Teamsters & Trucking Industry Pension Fund to help finance the project, but that nothing had been finalized.

That official said the Teamsters pension fund was already helping finance another project by Cargo Ventures — the One Harbor Street property in the Marine Industrial Park, whose current tenants include Vertex.

Officials at the Teamsters pension fund did not return messages for comment yesterday.

It's been a long road for the project, which was originally proposed in 2007 before the economic downturn delayed the development. The BRA approved a revised plan in April.


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Asbestos pushed in Asia as product for the poor

VAISHALI, India — The executives mingled over tea and sugar cookies, and the chatter was upbeat. Their industry, they said at the conference in the Indian capital, saves lives and brings roofs, walls and pipes to some of the world's poorest people.

The industry's wonder product, though, is one whose very name evokes the opposite: asbestos. A largely outlawed scourge to the developed world, it is still going strong in the developing one, and killing tens of thousands of people each year.

"We're here not only to run our businesses, but to also serve the nation," said Abhaya Shankar, a director of India's Asbestos Cement Products Manufacturers Association.

In India, the world's biggest asbestos importer, it's a $2 billion industry with double-digit annual growth, at least 100 manufacturing plants and some 300,000 jobs.

The International Labor Organization, World Health Organization, the wider medical community and more than 50 countries say the mineral should be banned. Asbestos fibers lodge in the lungs and cause many diseases. The ILO estimates 100,000 people die every year from workplace exposure, and experts believe thousands more die from exposure outside the workplace.

The asbestos executives who gathered in the ballroom of a luxury New Delhi hotel wanted to knock down those concerns. The risks are overblown, many said, and scientists and officials from rich Western nations who cite copious research showing it causes cancer are distorting the facts.

More than two-thirds of India's 1.2 billion people live in poverty on less than $1.25 a day, including hundreds of millions still in makeshift rural dwellings that offer little protection from insects, harsh weather and roaming predators such as tigers and leopards.

"These are huge numbers. We're talking about millions of people," Shankar said. "So there is a lot of latent demand."

Yet there are some poor Indians trying to keep asbestos out of their communities, even as the government supports the industry by lowering import duties and using asbestos in construction of subsidized housing.

"People outside of India, they must be wondering what kind of fools we are," said Ajit Kumar Singh from the Indian Red Cross Society. "They don't use it. They must wonder why we would."

___

In the ancient farming village of Vaishali, in impoverished Bihar state, the first word about the dangers of asbestos came from chemistry and biology textbooks that a boy in a neighboring town brought home from school, according to villagers interviewed by The Associated Press.

A company was proposing an asbestos plant in the village of 1,500 people located about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) east of New Delhi.

The villagers worried that asbestos fibers could blow from the factory across their wheat, rice and potato fields and into their tiny mud-and-thatch homes. Their children, they said, could contract lung diseases most Indian doctors would never test for, let alone treat. Neither India nor any of its 29 states keep statistics on how many people might be affected by asbestos.

The people of Vaishali began protesting in January 2011. They objected that the structure would be closer to their homes than the legal limit of 500 meters (1,640 feet). Still, bricks were laid, temporary management offices were built and a hulking skeleton of steel beams went up across the tree-studded landscape.

The villagers circulated a petition demanding the factory be halted. But in December 2012, its permit was renewed, inciting more than 6,000 people from the region to rally on a main road, blocking traffic for 11 hours. They gave speeches and chanted "Asbestos causes cancer."

Amid the chaos, a few dozen villagers took matters into their own hands, pulling down the partially built factory, brick by brick.

"It was a moment of desperation. No one was listening to us," said a villager involved in the demolition, a teacher who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the company. "There was no other way for us to express our outrage."

Within four hours, the factory and offices were demolished: bricks, beams, pipes and asbestos roofing, all torn down. The steel frame was the only remnant left standing.

"Still, we did not feel triumphant," the teacher said. "We knew it wasn't over."

They were right. The company filed lawsuits, still pending, against several villagers, alleging vandalism and theft.

___

Durable and heat-resistant, asbestos was long a favorite insulation material in the West, but has also been used in everything from shoes and dental fillings to fireproofing sprays, brake linings and ceiling tiles.

Scientists and medical experts overwhelmingly agree that inhaling any form of asbestos can lead to deadly diseases including mesothelioma, lung cancer and asbestosis, or the scarring of the lungs. Exposure may also lead to other debilitating ailments, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

About 125 million people worldwide are exposed to asbestos at work each year, the WHO says. Because the disease typically takes 20 to 40 years to manifest, workers can go through their careers without realizing they are getting sick.

Dozens of countries including Japan, South Korea, Argentina, Saudi Arabia and all European Union nations have banned asbestos entirely. Others including the United States have severely curtailed its use.

Most asbestos on the world market today comes from Russia. Brazil, Kazakhstan and China also export, though some have been reviewing their positions.

Canada's Quebec province was the world's biggest asbestos producer for much of the 20th century. It got out of the business in 2012, after a new provincial government questioned why it was mining and exporting a material its own citizens shunned.

Asia is the biggest market. India last year imported $235 million worth of the stuff, or about half of the global trade.

The global asbestos lobby says the mineral has been unfairly maligned by Western nations that used it irresponsibly. It also says one of the six forms of asbestos is safe: chrysotile, or white asbestos, which accounts for more than 95 percent of all asbestos used since 1900, and all of what's used today.

"Chrysotile you can eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner!" said Kanat Kapbayel of Kazakhstan's United Minerals and a board member of the International Chrysotile Association.

Chrysotile is a serpentine mineral, meaning its fibers are curly and more flexible than the other more jagged and sharp forms called amphiboles. The lobby and its supporters say this distinction makes all the difference.

A vast majority of experts in science and medicine reject this.

"A rigorous review of the epidemiological evidence confirms that all types of asbestos fiber are causally implicated in the development of various diseases and premature death," the Joint Policy Committee of the Societies of Epidemiology said in a 2012 position statement.

Squeezed out of the industrialized world, the asbestos industry is trying to build up new markets and has created lobbying organizations to help it sell asbestos to poor countries, particularly in Asia, it said.

___

Developed nations are still reckoning with health and economic consequences from past asbestos use.

American businesses have paid out at least $1.3 billion in the largest and longest-running collection of personal injury lawsuits in U.S. legal history, according to a 2012 report by the California-based Rand research corporation. Two years ago, an Italian court sentenced two businessmen from Swiss building material maker Eternit AG to 16 years in prison for negligence leading to more than 2,000 asbestos-related deaths. Billions of dollars have been spent stripping asbestos from buildings in the U.S. and Europe.

Arun Saraf, the Indian asbestos association's chairman, said India has learned from the West's mistakes.

He said the lobby's 15 member companies maintain the strictest safety standards in their factories. That includes limiting airborne dust, properly disposing of waste and insisting employees wear safety masks, gloves and protective clothing.

The vast majority of asbestos used in India is mixed with cement and poured into molds for corrugated roof sheets, wall panels or pipes. Fibers can be released when the sheets are sawed or hammered, and when wear and weather break them down. Scientists say those released fibers are just as dangerous as the raw mineral.

AP journalists who visited a working factory and a shuttered one in Bihar found both had dumped broken sheets and raw material in fields or uncovered pits within the factory premises. Workers without any safety gear were seen handling the broken sheets at both factories. The working factory was operated by Ramco Industries Ltd., while the other owned by Nibhi Industries Pvt. Ltd. was supplying materials to UAL Industries Ltd.

Saraf, who is also UAL's managing director, said the materials left strewn across the factory grounds were meant to be pulverized and recycled into new roofing sheets, and were no more dangerous than the final product as the asbestos had already been mixed with cement.

He said Nibhi was not an association member, but "I have been informed that Nibhi workers are provided with all the personal protective equipment."

Some employees of Ramco's working factory said they were satisfied that asbestos was safe, and were delighted by the benefits of steady work. But several former employees of both factories said they were given masks only on inspection days, and rarely if ever had medical checkups. None was aware that going home with asbestos fibers on their clothing or hair could put their families at risk.

Ramco CEO Prem Shanker said all employees working in areas where asbestos was kept unmixed were given safety equipment and regular medical checkups that were reviewed by government authorities. "Ramco has consistently gone the extra mile to ensure a safe working environment," he said. AP was not given permission to visit these indoor areas.

Indian customers like the asbestos sheets because they're sturdy, heat resistant and quieter in the rain than tin or fiberglass. But most of all, they're cheap.

Umesh Kumar, a roadside vendor in Bihar's capital of Patna, sells precut 3-by-1 meter (10-by-3 foot) asbestos cement sheets for 600 rupees ($10) each. A tin or a fiberglass sheet of similar strength costs 800 rupees.

"I've known it's a health hazard for about 10 years, but what can we do? This is a country of poor people, and for less money they can have a roof over their heads," Kumar said.

"These people are not aware" of the health risks, he said. But as sellers of asbestos sheets wanting to stay in business, "we're not able to tell them much."

___

The two-day asbestos conference in December was billed as scientific. But organizers said they had no new research.

One could say they've gone back in time to defend their products.

The Indian asbestos lobby's website refers to 1998 WHO guidelines for controlled use of chrysotile, but skips updated WHO advice from 2007 suggesting that all asbestos be banned. The lobby also ignores the ILO's 2006 recommendation to ban asbestos, and refers only to its 1996 suggestion of strict regulations.

When asked why the association ignored the most recent advice, its executive director, John Nicodemus, waved his hand dismissively. "The WHO is scaremongering," he said.

Many of the speakers are regulars at asbestos conferences around the world, including in Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia, Ukraine and Indonesia.

American Robert Nolan, who heads a New York-based organization called Environmental Studies International, told the Indian delegates that "a ban is a little like a taboo in a primitive society," and that those who ban asbestos are "not looking at the facts."

David Bernstein, an American-born toxicologist based in Geneva, said that although chrysotile can cause disease if inhaled in large quantities or for prolonged periods, so could any tiny particle. He has published dozens of chrysotile-friendly studies and consulted for the Quebec-based Chrysotile Institute, which lost its Canadian government funding and shut down in 2012.

When asked by an audience member about funding for his research, he said some has come from chrysotile interests without elaborating on how much. A short-term study generally costs about $500,000, he said, and a long-term research project can cost up to about $4 million.

He presented an animated video demonstrating how one special kind of human blood cell called a macrophage can engulf a squiggly white asbestos fiber, dissolve it in acid and carry it out of the lungs. He said his research concludes that smaller doses for shorter periods "produce no fibrosis."

"We have defense mechanisms. Our lungs are remarkable," Bernstein said. To suffer any health problems, "you have to live long enough."

Other researchers have drawn different conclusions. Their studies indicate that most chrysotile isn't eliminated but ends up in the membrane lining the lungs, where the rare malignancy mesothelioma develops and chews through the chest wall, leading to excruciating death.

Research such as Bernstein's frustrates retired U.S. Assistant Surgeon General Dr. Richard Lemen, who has studied asbestos since 1970 and first advocated a chrysotile ban in 1976.

"His presentation is pretty slick, and when he puts it on animation mode, people think: 'Wow, he must know what he's talking about,'" Lemen said by telephone from Atlanta. But Bernstein or Nolan "would get shot down if they stood up and talked about their research" at a legitimate scientific conference, he said.

Debate has ended for richer countries, but that has not stopped asbestos use in poorer ones, Lemen said.

"I've been saying the same thing over and over for 40 years. You feel like Sisyphus rolling the stone up the hill, and it comes back down."

___

Research conducted around the world has not convinced some Indian officials, who say there is not enough evidence to prove a link between chrysotile and disease in India.

Gopal Krishna, an activist with the Ban Asbestos India, calls this argument "ridiculous."

"Are they saying Indian people's lungs are different than people's in the West?"

The permit for the asbestos plant in Vaishali was canceled by Bihar's chief minister last year after prolonged agitation, but some in his government still rejected that the mineral is hazardous.

"From the scientific information I have received, there is no direct health hazard with asbestos production," said Dipak Kumar Singh, who until recently was Bihar's environment secretary and oversaw industrial zones at the same time. He's now in charge of water management.

The state health secretary, Deepak Kumar, disagreed.

"It's not safe," he said. "Of course it can affect the health system, create a burden for us all and especially the poor."

India in 1986 placed a moratorium on licensing any new asbestos mining, but has never banned use of the mineral despite two Supreme Court rulings ordering lawmakers to bring the law in line with ILO standards.

Last year, an Indian delegation traveled to Geneva to join Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Zimbabwe and Vietnam in opposing the listing of chrysotile as a hazardous chemical under the international Rotterdam Convention, which governs the labeling and trade of dangerous chemicals. Without unanimous support among the convention's 154 members, the effort to list chrysotile failed again.

An Indian Labor Ministry advisory committee set up in 2012 to give a recommendation on asbestos has yet to release a report. The Health Ministry has said asbestos is harmful, but that it has no power to do anything about it. The Environment Ministry continues to approve new factories even as it says asbestos may be phased out.

The position of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new government is unclear, but during 12 years as chief minister of Gujarat state, Modi oversaw a boom in asbestos manufacturing and in the asbestos-laden ship-breaking industry.

Meanwhile, village-level resistance continues. Vaishali sparked other protests, including in the nearby district of Bhojpur.

"We'll start a people's revolution if we have to," said blacksmith Dharmatma Sharma, founder of a local environmental group.

"Many people are not aware of the effects, especially the illiterate," said Madan Prasad Gupta, a village leader in Bhojpur, while sipping tea with other villagers at the roadside tea shop he built decades ago when he had no idea what asbestos was.

Over his head: a broken, crumbling asbestos cement roof.

___

Follow Katy Daigle on Twitter at http://twitter.com/katydaigle


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DEA improperly paid $854,460 for passenger lists

WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration paid an Amtrak employee hundreds of thousands of dollars over two decades to obtain confidential information it could have gotten for free, according to internal investigators at the railroad.

According to a report released Monday by Amtrak's inspector general, the DEA paid an Amtrak secretary $854,460 to be an informant. The employee was not publicly identified except as a "secretary to a train and engine crew."

Amtrak's own police agency is already in a joint drug enforcement task force that includes the DEA. According to the inspector general, that task force can obtain Amtrak confidential passenger reservation information at no cost.

The office of Amtrak Inspector General Tom Howard declined to identify the secretary or say why it took so long to uncover the payments. Howard's report on the incident suggested policy changes and "other measures to address control weaknesses that Amtrak management is considering." DEA spokeswoman Dawn Dearden declined to comment.

Amtrak is officially known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp. and is not a government agency, although it has received tens of billions of dollars in federal subsidies and is subject to the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

Passenger name reservation information is collected by airlines, rail carriers and others and generally includes a passenger's name, the names of other passengers traveling with them, the dates of the ticket and travel, frequent flier or rider information, credit card numbers, emergency contact information, travel itinerary, baggage information, passport number, date of birth, gender and seat number.

Amtrak's inspector general said the secretary provided the passenger information without seeking approval from Amtrak management or police, but Amtrak's own corporate privacy policy expressly allows it to sell or share personal information about its customers and passengers with contractors or a category of others it describes as "certain trustworthy business partners."

It was not immediately clear whether the DEA has rules against soliciting corporate insiders to provide confidential customer information in exchange for money when providing that information would cause the employee to violate a company's or organization's own rules or policies. The DEA does not publish on its website its staff manuals or instructions for employees.

The report said the secretary was allowed to retire, rather than face administrative discipline, after the discovery that the employee had "regularly" sold private passenger information since 1995 without Amtrak's approval, said the IG's summary.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the $854,460 an unnecessary expense and asked for further information about the incident in a letter he released Monday to DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart. Grassley said the incident "raises some serious questions about the DEA's practices and damages its credibility to cooperate with other law enforcement agencies."

It's not unprecedented for law enforcement to have professional people who are informants employed in transportation and other industries, said a federal law enforcement official who is familiar with the incident involving Amtrak. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak on the record.

The official said that years ago during the investigation of drug lord Pablo Escobar, an informant at a U.S. chemical company provided a major assist to law enforcement by informing authorities that thousands of gallons of acetone were being shipped to Colombia. Acetone is used to manufacture cocaine.


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Boston-based robot is meant to aid families

Written By Unknown on Senin, 11 Agustus 2014 | 18.38

The world's first social robot for the family, "Jibo," is being made right here in Boston by a leading roboticist who believes that in a few years, the platform could be as ubiquitous as the iPad.

"Jibo's role is to be your personal helper," said famed MIT roboticist Cynthia Breazeal, creator of the bot. "To help families and extended families do the wide range of things they need to do."

Available in black or white, Jibo is six pounds and 11 inches of digital personality. Its job is to act like a personal assistant, or a coordinator of family chaos. It connects to devices via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It comes with its own storage cloud and the ability to send and receive reminders, take pictures, tell stories and even facilitate video conferencing.

I recently sat down with Breazeal as she demonstrated Jibo. The simplicity of the robot is striking: It's a base that sits at attention and props up a hemisphere-shaped "head." The form factor is a triumph in subtlety, with the smallest movements and expressions giving Jibo the ability to appear to dance, laugh and emote.

A promotional video for Jibo shows the robot reading "The Three Little Pigs" to a child, just as a parent might — playfully and under a makeshift fort.

"Jibo brings all kinds of content to life with engagement and expressivity," said Breazeal. "Jibo isn't an e-reader. It's a storyteller that makes eye contact with you."

It's with that in mind that Boston Children's Hospital has agreed to begin piloting Jibo next year. Already, about 50 robots have been donated to the hospital through a successful crowdfunding campaign.

Breazeal envisions Jibo could serve to make certain people less isolated. Children undergoing treatment are one example, and senior citizens are another.

For instance, she imagines a third-party developer creating an Uber app for Jibo that makes transportation easier for the elderly.

Jibo's ultimate success will depend on generating interest among developers to design apps that extend and expand upon core functions.

For Breazeal, the success of Jibo's crowdfunding campaign was validation that "people are in fact ready to have a social robot in their life." The campaign has raised over $1.5 million in under four weeks. Already, more than 3,000 devices have been pre-
ordered and are scheduled to ship around the end of next year. A home edition costs $499, and it's $599 for the developer edition.

Team Jibo includes leading engineers in Silicon Valley and Boston, speech recognition experts, serial entrepreneurs and even Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca, an early backer of the project.

Of course, this technology faces its share of challenges. Any device that relies this heavily on the evolving science of speech recognition will face hurdles, as evidenced by the litany of complaints from owners of Microsoft's Xbox One interactive console.

But Breazeal believes Jibo will survive and thrive because it's a device that encourages human interaction — as opposed to tablets and smartphones that often hog our attention and isolate us.

Said Breazeal, "I think we need to create technologies that bring the family together."


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Medtech industry on life support

More than a year and a half after the implementation of a controversial medical device tax, the industry is still struggling in Massachusetts, experts say.

"I can't tell you how many of my former associates are unemployed," said Ronald Adams, who was laid off from Hologic.

Adams was the senior director for research and development for Hologic, but since he was laid off, he has been taking no salary while he tries to get his startup off the ground.

He said there are some jobs out there, but not many.

"What's out there are not ones that are particularly enticing," he said. "There's not that growth in the industry anymore which is creating good opportunities."

Tom Sommer, head of the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council, said medtech companies are still trying to figure out the best way to operate under 
Obamacare.

"I think that companies are grappling not only with the medical device excise tax ... they're also dealing with a new health care environment," he said. "I haven't seen job growth at all in the last year or so."

Still, a report released last week said that most of the 15 biggest medical device companies in the world continued to hire. The problem, Adams said, is the small- and medium-sized companies are not seeing the same growth.

Implemented to help pay for part of the Affordable Care Act, that 2.3-percent excise tax on most medical devices has been controversial and was opposed by many before it went into effect. According to some reports, medical device companies have paid $1.4 billion to the IRS.

Companies are also becoming more conscious of cost, because providers often do not want to pay for the newest — often more expensive — treatments and equipment.

Sommer called it "a new cost-conscious environment."

Because of changes like these, the funding for new medical device startups has fallen dramatically.

A report by the Evaluate Group found that venture funding for medtech companies in 2013 was the lowest in five years.

"When I moved here (in 1995), I could give you a list of 30 medical device startups. Now you could count them on one hand," Adams said. "With all the changes that have happened, the venture community doesn't invest in medical device startups anymore."


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Arthur T. Demoulas says bid met asking price for Market Basket

For the first time yesterday, former Market Basket CEO Arthur T. Demoulas characterized his offer to buy the beleaguered local grocery chain at the "pre-crisis" value — a undisclosed figure that experts are pegging at about 
$1.5 billion, an offer they say is difficult for rival shareholders to decline.

In a statement released yesterday, Demoulas said he met the "pre-crisis" asking price for the company, but his offers have been rejected "with counterproposals that have been laden with onerous terms that are far beyond comparable transactions."

"It was Arthur T. Demoulas' hope and intent that this matter not be negotiated in the press. He does not believe that a war of press releases and statements is helpful to this very serious situation," said the statement.

Employees loyal to Arthur T. refused to work until he is brought back as CEO, and customers have stayed away.

Shareholders aligned with Arthur S. Demoulas released a statement Saturday night that they repeatedly offered to sell to Arthur T., and accused the former CEO of acting in bad faith and said they were left with no choice but to look for other sale options.

"I see no other way out of this for the shareholders other than to sell to Arthur T.," said Kevin Griffin of The Griffin Report of Food Marketing, a Duxbury-based trade publication for the food industry. "You have a company that every day is losing money and it's hard to put a price on it. The damage to the brand, the damage to the equity is getting exponentially worse every day."

If the majority shareholders sell to someone other than Arthur T. at a lower price, then the former CEO would have grounds to sue, said supermarket analyst David Livingston of DJL Research in Milwaukee.

"Arthur T. could bring a lawsuit against them for not accepting the highest price," Livingston said. "But we have people who have their emotion and feelings so worked up that the valuation doesn't matter. It's a long way from being over and whatever happens won't have anything to do with common sense."

Griffin estimates the company was worth $3 billion before the effective shutdown of the stores —which suggests Arthur T. may have offered $1.5 billion to buy out his rival family members, he said.

Griffin said the two sides have likely already come to an agreement on the price but are still squabbling over details of the deal, such as closing dates and payment structures.

"I think that these press releases are a lot of posturing," Griffin said. "If I were to try to read the tea leaves, I would say there's a deal coming, but I think it's coming reluctantly because every day that goes by, I think Arthur S. and his side realizes that there's only one deal to be had."


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Auction on New England's tallest lighthouse to end

YORK, Maine — The federal government is set to close out an auction on a Maine lighthouse that is the tallest in New England.

The Boon Island Light Station, off the coast of York, is up for auction until 10 a.m. on Tuesday. Seven people have bid on the lighthouse so far, with the top bid coming in at $19,001.

Boon Island Light Station dates to 1855 and includes a 133-foot tower on a small island about six miles off the southern Maine coast. It is the tallest lighthouse in New England, but not the highest above sea level.

The bidding could possibly be extended.


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App lets musicians practice with a virtual orchestra

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 10 Agustus 2014 | 18.38

Many people learning to play an instrument practice by themselves and eventually give up out of sheer boredom. But a new app developed by a MassChallenge finalist gives both amateur and professional musicians the chance to play, virtually, at Carnegie Hall.

"Most music is meant to be played with other people," said Ann Chao, a pianist and flutist who founded Sonation last summer with cellist Paul Smith. "Cadenza helps you learn music in context by playing your instrument with a full orchestra so that you get to be the star."

The technology behind Cadenza came out of National Science Foundation-funded research that enables the app to predict with astonishing accuracy what you will do next, based upon your playing pattern, and synchronize the pre-recorded orchestra to your tempo accordingly, said Chao, 27.

When the piece is over, Cadenza incorporates what it has learned about your style into future sessions so that the next time you play the same piece, the orchestra will fit your playing even more precisely, even if you don't play exactly the same way again, she said.

The app allows for mistakes and wrong notes as a natural part of music practice, Chao said. The accompaniment will stop only if you do or if you've made significant errors, such as missing every note for several measures, she said.

Usually, you can just pick up where you left off, and Cadenza will figure out where you are in the piece, Chao said.

"I tried it out and was actually blown away by how well it connects and works with the input it gets from my playing," said Johannes Moser, a cellist who'll be playing his debut in January with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. "I think it's a great way of introducing younger players and amateurs to the sonic experience of performing with an orchestra."

Beginning this fall, people who play any of nine instruments — violin, viola, cello, flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, trumpet or French horn — will be able to download the iPad app for free and pay for the music they want to play, just like iTunes.

Based at the Harvard Innovation Lab, Sonation has added more than 150 tracks of classical music to Cadenza and will continue to expand its library, Chao said.

The company also will create apps to serve other types of musicians, as well, she said.

Letitia Jap, a New England Conservatory student, is using a prototype version that Sonation made available to her violin professor, Nicholas Kitchen.

"I thought it was a fascinating invention," Jap said in an email. "It looked like a karaoke version for instruments. It has taught me how to be more articulate with my playing, as well as how to cue/lead better. ... You become more aware of harmony changes, as well as orchestra line. You learn to respond to them."


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Market Basket: Arthur S. blasts Arthur T.

In a blistering statement late last night, Market Basket shareholders aligned with majority owner Arthur S. Demoulas said they had repeatedly offered to sell the embattled grocery chain to Arthur T. Demoulas and accused the ousted CEO of acting in bad faith and sabotaging the company, adding that they were left with no choice but to explore other options for a sale.

"Arthur T. Demoulas' conduct to date, including his most recent public statement, continues to undermine Market Basket and the Class B shareholders (led by Arthur T.) have not indicated a willingness to engage in good-faith discussions for a sale," the Class A shareholders said in the statement. "The Class B shareholders have given us no choice at this time but to consider all available options to sell our equity."

It was the latest salvo in an escalating war of words between the rival factions in what experts say is a win-at-all-costs strategy that puts the 71-store chain at risk of suffering irreparable damage.

"It's almost like they have this scorched-earth policy where they'll just let the company fall to pieces," said supermarket analyst David Livingston of DJL Research in Milwaukee. "It's almost like going through a divorce. There became a point where I didn't care how much money I gave my ex-wife, I just wanted to get her out of my life."

Arthur S.'s side of the family controls 50.5 percent of Market Basket, while Arthur T.'s side controls the rest. Market Basket's board of directors has said it is evaluating several offers for the company. The Boston Globe has reported that Hannaford is a potential suitor, but the company has yet to confirm that.

The Class A shareholders, who have been silent until now, said they are still willing to sell to Arthur T. for the price he proposed and have also offered to provide financing.

"Our proposal would permit Arthur T. Demoulas to return to work immediately to work corroboratively to stabilize the business on terms proposed by the independent directors of the Market Basket Board," they said. "Our proposal, made last week and reiterated throughout this week, has not been accepted."

The directors on Friday offered to have Arthur T. return, but not as CEO, prompting his spokeswoman to accuse the board of trying to "stabilize the company, while they consider selling it to another bidder." Yesterday, the three directors issued a statement accusing Arthur T. Demoulas of holding customers and employees hostage.

"Business negotiations should not prevent our associates from earning a living or our customers from buying groceries," the directors said. "It is wrong to hold everyone hostage to gain a negotiation advantage."

Arthur T.'s spokeswoman declined to comment on the latest statement from the board and did not respond to an email on the shareholders' statement.

Livingston said the feuding Demoulas cousins may care more about beating the other than making the right decisions for the company.

"I think they're just trying to one-up each other," Livingston said. "Winning becomes more important than the money and winning becomes more important than customers and employees."

Market Basket store shelves have been empty and customers have gone elsewhere since workers launched protests and walkouts July 18 calling for the return of Arthur T., who was ousted by the board — led by Arthur S. Demoulas — in June. Some estimates have put business at the chain down as much as 90 percent.

"The value of the company is going down every day for an outside buyer," said Emily Porschitz, a management professor and expert on family owned businesses at Keene State University in New Hampshire. "Neither side seems to be giving an inch."

The latest statement from the directors did not sit well with employees.

"It's almost like they're calling us pawns," said Scott Ivers, manager of a store in Lowell.

John Savastis, manager of a store in Fitchburg, agreed.

"To make that kind of statement, that employees are being held hostage by Arthur T. Demoulas, it's ludicrous, it's ridiculous, it's disingenuous," Savastis said. "I don't see anyone having power over me, or having power over customers not shopping here."

Porschitz said the battle between cousins is the biggest obstacle to a resolution.

"The feud is so large and deep and long that they really can't have any kind of civil discussion," she said. "They're certainly not sitting down and having any productive communications."


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Judge denies GM motion to dismiss ignition suit

NEW YORK — A Georgia judge has denied a motion by General Motors to dismiss a wrongful death case against the automaker and set a trial date for April 2016.

The family of Brooke Melton, a 29-year-old nurse who died in a 2010 car crash near Atlanta, sued GM, alleging that a faulty ignition switch in her 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt unexpectedly shut off the engine, causing her to lose control of the car.

They settled last year with GM for $5 million, but the case exposed how GM let millions of cars stay on the road even after discovering ignition switch flaws linked to at least 13 deaths. The case led to GM recalling 2.6 million older small cars to replace faulty switches.

The Meltons filed a new complaint in May that GM fraudulently concealed evidence during the first case.

Meanwhile, GM had filed for dismissal of the case because they said it had already been settled, but that was denied on Saturday.

"We continue to believe that the parties reached a good faith settlement last year and that the court's prior order dismissing all claims against GM with prejudice after that settlement prevents plaintiffs from pursuing the same claims a second time," GM said in a statement. "GM will review the court's order once it is entered and will evaluate its options."

Lance Cooper, an attorney for the Meltons, said a judge gave GM two weeks to respond to a document request from the Meltons attorneys. He added it will be up to the jury to decide if the Meltons need to return the $5 million they were awarded in the settlement. They had offered to return it in an effort to reopen the case.

The Melton case touched off a recall crisis at GM that has resulted in 54 recalls involving 29 million vehicles this year. And it brought federal investigations, cover-up allegations and a $35 million fine from federal regulators for delays in reporting safety problems.


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Ashton Kutcher's A+ viral site accused of plagiarism

Ashton Kutcher probably wishes he was being Punk'd right about now.

The actor's viral content site Aplus.com (stylized as A+) is being accused of plagiarizing articles from the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed and Cracked, among other outlets, the Daily Dot reports.

The online venture, which was started in 2011 and relaunched in 2013, aggregates web content, primarily listicles and popular videos and photos, to "leverage viral social storytelling to create positive change in the world."

Kutcher, an A+ co-founder and an investor, heavily promotes the site's content on his personal Twitter and Facebook accounts, according to the Daily Dot. The actor-turned-tech-investor also has financial ties to Skype, Flipboard and Foursquare.

The Daily Dot cites a slew of articles (screengrabbed before being removed by A+) that were either copied word for word, lifted with minor changes or reproduced without proper attribution.

The posts in question include a human interest piece titled "This Girl Was Sent Home in Tears Because Her Dress Was Too Short So Her Mom Did The Most Awesome Thing Ever," which is comparable to a BuzzFeed article by Ryan Broderick. BuzzFeed recently fired its own political editor Benny Johnson over plagiarism charges.

Another example is the listicle "50 Awesome Tattoos Inspired By Books You Grew Up With As A Kid," which bears a striking resemblance to Buzzfeed's "50 Incredible Tattoos Inspired By Books From Childhood."

"We take these allegations seriously and are looking into them," Evan Beard of A+ told the Daily Dot in a statement. "The content that was removed was taken down as a precautionary measure. Respecting the intellectual property of others is extremely important to us."

This includes the removal of all articles dated before July, as well as tweets from before August 6 and Facebook posts from before August 4.

(C) 2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC


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