Impact of State Aid on Aer Lingus Essay Example for Free

Impact of State Aid on Aer Lingus Essay Aer Lingus is an airline in the republic of Ireland with a rich history that spans for a period exceeding 66 years. It’s an airline that is thought to hold a very special place in the hearts of most Irish people. In recent times, the airline has experienced difficulties. For example, there were agricultural problems both in England and in Ireland due to the emergence of BSE and Foot and Mouth disease. These are problems that caused the numbers of passengers traveling to various countries to go down. In 2001, workers were in strike due to salary issues and this adversely affected the operations of the Aer Lingus. Global economic crisis emanating from the most powerful economy in the world, the United States together with the September 11 terrorist attacks made many holidaymakers and seasoned passengers to panic and they thus feared traveling. Moreover, lack of funds has been another major problem and this is something that made Sabena and Swissair to close down because of insufficient funds. In fact, this is a problem that was so dangerous to many organizations that even Sabena had gone bankrupt. Due to such events, the major debate has been whether to provide state aid to Aer Lingus or not. The EU has been in the frontline to state that there is no need for the airline to be provided with state aid. On the other hand, some believe that since the government is a shareholder in Aer Lingus it should then use some of the tax payers’ money to inject more cash into the company to save it (Mulcahy, 2002). Since this is a state owned airline, its dependence on aid to raise capital has creates several problems for it. The financial performance of the airline has been undermined for quite a long period of time due to this dependence. However, in comparison to the private sector, state aid in most cases involves writing off the debts to financial institutions like banks. If it were the private sector on this issue, they would not have taken the consideration that such debts may be written off. The idea to use state aid for Aer Lingus may be seen as a bad option. This is so because if it was a private investor at Aer Lingus and they encountered huge debts, such an investor would have considered liquidating the airline and starting all over again using the available assets. But this has not been possible for Aer Lingus since its dependence is on the state to provide it with aid (Doganis, 2001). In 1994, the European Commission sought to approve the guidelines on evaluation proposals relating to state aid for airlines. Approving of the aforementioned proposals would see several conditions being imposed. For example, by relying on state aid, Aer Lingus is going to face the condition that it mustn’t expect additional aid in the coming future. Moreover, state aid according to the commission is not supposed to be used in any way to increase Aer Lingus capacity that may be to the detriment of EU competitors. Moreover, if Aer Lingus obtains this aid, the offer it has in the EU market is not supposed to increase faster compared to overall traffic growth. Aer Lingus is also not supposed to use the state aid to increase its direct competition against other airlines (Doganis, 2006). The impacts of state aid on Aer Lingus did not come with negative effects alone as aforementioned. There has been a success story to tell after state aid that was approved by the EU in mid 1990s. Even though reconstruction success at Aer Lingus took longer compared to Iberia and Air France, cost-cutting was achieved in years 2002 and 2004. State aid that Aer Lingus had received a decade ago had enabled it to survive most crises of that time. Up to early 2005, Aer Lingus still had not been privatized despite the crisis. Early 90s posed problems for Aer Lingus that are still similar to the current problems. The company lost profits amounting to 7% and talks embarked to seek a merger with Ryainar but this did not bear fruits. The management team came up with a recovery plan but the profits realized were still down. This is a problem that continued in 1992 but the appointment of Bernie Cahill as the board chairman saw the government provide more investment in the airline. After the proposal was accepted by the EU, some assets like the computer company and hotels were sold. By 1995, the company realized some profits. These shows the impacts of the state aid on Aer Lingus have been both positive and negative. But for Aer Lingus to survive in the market state aid is required since today, it estimated that the company is losing $2m in a single day. Moreover, the bookings have gone down by a staggering 80% (Barrington and Sweeny, 2001).

Views on Colonialism in Donnes Elegy XIX and Wroths Sonnet 22 Essay

Views on Colonialism in Donne's Elegy XIX and Wroth's Sonnet 22 Introduction In the midst of Lady Mary Wroth's sonnet cycle, a sudden reference to the colonialist discoveries of dark skinned natives appears. Bringing to mind her participation in Jonson's "Masque of Blackness," she depicts dark-skinned Indians worshipping the sun as their god. In the midst of her ruminations on love and her preoccupations with her unfaithful lover, Amphilanthus, this sonnet touches on issues close to her personal life as well as some of the preoccupations of her era on the nature of colonialism. In particular the role of religion in England's colonialist efforts was of prime importance. An examination of John Donne's Elegy XIX, "To His Mistris Going to Bed" may give some insight into how Wroth's Sonnet 22, "Like to the Indians Scorched with the Sun" deals with the controversies surrounding imperialism. Historical Concerns Both authors had close personal ties to England's colonialist efforts in the New World. Lady Mary Wroth's uncle, Sir Philip Sydney, was an investor in Raleigh's attempted colony at Roanoke. This venture ultimately failed, however, and would later be followed under King James with the Virginia Company. John Donne was closely tied with the efforts following Raleigh's failed attempt. In 1608, after two failed attempts at securing a secretarial post, first in London and then in Ireland, "the report circulated that he sought to be made secretary of the colony, a position given instead to his friend William Strachey" (Johnson 127). If he had been awarded the position, he would have sailed with the new governor, Sir Thomas Gates. This was the ship that was shipwrecked in Bermuda and that winter the Jamestown colon... ...onne, John. "A Sermon vpon the VIII. Verse of the I. Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles" Greene, Thomas M. "The Poetics of Discovery: A Reading of Donne's Elegy 19." Yale Journal of Criticism. 2 (2) (1989): 129-143. Hester, M. Thomas. "Donne's (Re)Annunciation of the Virgin(ia Colony) in Elegy XIX." South Central Review: 49-63. Johnson, Stanley. "John Donne and the Virginia Company." ELH. 14 (2) (1947): 127-138. Raman, Shankar. "Can't Buy Me Love: Money Gender, and Colonialism in Donne's Erotic Verse." Criticism. 43 (2) (2001): 135-168. Roberts, Jospephine A. The Poems of Mary Wroth. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983. Young, R. V. "'O my America, my new-found-land': Pornography and Imperial Politics in Donne's Elegies." Souch Central Review: 35-48. Warnke, Frank J. John Donne Poetry and Prose. New York: Random House, 1967.

Increasing human population Essay

It can transfer genes across species boundaries; more importantly, across huge taxonomic divides. It can also enable the incorporation of laboratory synthesised nucleic acids for designer purposes. GM foods can be divided into those that contain tissues and nucleic acids from the GM source organism (e. g. tomato puree) and those that contain purified derivatives that may be chemically indistinguishable from the same ingredients isolated from non-GMO`s (e. g. the phospholipid, lecithin and other specified oils and proteins from Soya). Provided these purified ingredients are chemically identical to those from non-GMO sources, they should not alter existing health risks. Unfortunately, complete purity is unachievable. Foods that contain original GMO tissue may contain unexpected components and alien nucleotide sequences. The Questions arise: can alien nucleotide sequences be transferred to the gut micro-organisms or be absorbed by human tissues, perhaps through phagocytosis or the agency of viral transduction?. If they can, what are the risks to human health generated as a consequence?. The Biochemist P32 October 1999 ? 1999 The Biochemical Society The technology will allow us to create in major crop plants materials we formerly had to obtain from other sources – such as industrial feed stocks or medicines. Pepper. G. Crop Sciences Dept University of Illinois Crops that resist drought and disease promise to transform the lives of poor farmers -if only they could afford them Five million Brazilians faced starvation this year. This time it was a drought related to El Nii o that halved grain crops in the northeast of the country, but next year it will be something else. Famine is perennial in Brazil. In September Monsanto, the world’s largest supplier of genetically modified seeds, announced it would invest $550 million in Brazil to build a factory producing its herbicide Roundup. Shortly afterwards the Brazilian government made Monsanto’s Roundup-resistant Soya beans the country’s first legally approved, genetically engineered crop. The Soya beans will boost profits for the big landowners who grow them to feed beef cattle for export. But most rural Brazilians are subsistence farmers who do not grow Soya. No help will trickle down from Monsanto’s beans to the starving millions. The story exemplifies the limited contribution genetically modified crops have made so far to eradicating world hunger. It is not that biotech companies are uninterested in the developing world. Far from it: Brazil and other newly industrialising countries are in fact prime targets, with their growing demand for agricultural products, little opposition to biotechnology, and farmers who have risen above hard graft subsistence, but have not yet become customers of the world’s seed and agrochemicals conglomerates. Crops that thrive despite drought and salty soils could also let farmers expand production into marginal lands. And the nutritional content of staples could be improved. If maize, for example, can be made to produce more of the amino acids it naturally lacks, the 80 million people who live almost exclusively on maize would get more protein. Ganesh Kishore, head of nutrition at Monsanto, says: â€Å"We can make it into a complete balanced meal. † Arber. W. (Article: The Bio industry Association 1999 http://www. bioindustry. org/) Genetically modified crops are no more dangerous to the environment than traditional crops and could boost corn, rice and other food yields by as much as 25 percent in developing countries http://www.freep. com/news/health/qdiet141. htm Foods can also be genetically modified to ensure that they last longer by removing or adding certain genes. This process gives them a greater shelf life and means they are less prone to bruising when in transit. They are also less likely to lose their colour and more importantly, retain more of their nutrients. This ultimately gives consumers a better product and reduces the amount of waste for the producers and retailers. Proteins vital to our diets can be added to foods which don’t ordinarily contain them, which is important for people lacking them. In time, this will also be true of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. http://www. futuradesign. co. uk/gm/ With respect to the information I have studied herein I conclude that genetic modification of foods is not without some induced risk as totally alien genes are being inserted into organisms from unrelated species. This has been shown to possibly alter the new organism’s `properties` as a food substrate either beneficially or adversely. I believe that GM foods have great potential in providing food for an ever increasing population where more traditional agricultural techniques may struggle to cope or fail. However, efficient regulation of the market is necessary and the proactive techniques which have developed to meet this demand may have played a significant part in public rejectance of GM techniques in some countries. 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All About the Speed of Light and What It Measures

Light moves through the universe at the fastest speed astronomers can measure. In fact, the speed of light is a cosmic speed limit, and nothing is known to move faster. How fast does light move? This limit can be measured and it also helps define our understanding of the universes size and age. What Is Light: Wave or Particle? Light travels fast, at a velocity of 299, 792, 458 meters per second. How can it do this? To understand that, its helpful to know what light actually is and thats largely a 20th-century discovery. The nature of light was a great mystery for centuries. Scientists had trouble grasping the concept of its wave and particle nature.  If it was a wave what did it propagate through? Why did it appear to travel at the same speed in all directions? And, what can the speed of light tell us about the cosmos?  It wasnt until Albert Einstein described this theory of special relativity in 1905 it all came into focus. Einstein argued that space and time were relative and that the speed of light was the constant that connected the two. What Is the Speed of Light? It is often stated that the speed of light is constant and that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. This isnt entirely accurate. The value of 299,792,458 meters per second (186,282 miles per second) is the speed of light in a vacuum.  However, light actually slows down as it passes through different media. For instance, when it moves through glass, it slows down to about two-thirds of its speed in a vacuum.  Even in air, which is nearly a vacuum, light slows down slightly. As it moves through space, it encounters clouds of gas and dust, as well as gravitational fields, and those can change the speed a tiny bit. The clouds of gas and dust also absorb some of the light as it passes through. This phenomenon has to do with the nature of light, which is an electromagnetic wave. As it propagates through a material its electric and magnetic fields disturb the charged particles that it comes in contact with. These disturbances then cause the particles to radiate light at the same frequency, but with a phase shift. The sum of all these waves produced by the disturbances will lead to an electromagnetic wave with the same frequency as the original light, but with a shorter wavelength and, hence a slower speed. Interesting, as fast as light moves, its path can be bent as it passes by regions in space with intense gravitational fields. This is fairly easily seen in galaxy clusters, which contain a lot of matter (including dark matter), which warps the path of light from more distant objects, such as quasars. Gravitational lensing and how it works. Light from a distant object passes by a closer object with a strong gravitational pull. The light is bent and distorted and that creates images of the more distant object.   NASA Lightspeed and Gravitational Waves Current theories of physics predict that gravitational waves also travel at the speed of light, but this is still being confirmed as scientists study the phenomenon of gravitational waves from colliding black holes and neutron stars. Otherwise, there are no other objects that travel that fast. Theoretically, they can get close to the speed of light, but not faster. One exception to this may be space-time itself. It appears that distant galaxies are moving away from us faster than the speed of light. This is a problem that scientists are still trying to understand. However, one interesting consequence of this is that a travel system based on the idea of a warp drive. In such a technology, a spacecraft is at rest relative to space and its actually space that moves, like a surfer riding a wave on the ocean. Theoretically, this might allow for superluminal travel. Of course, there are other practical and technological limitations that stand in the way, but its an interesting science-fiction idea that is getting some scientific interest.   Travel Times for Light One of the questions that astronomers get from members of the public is: how long would it take light to go from object X to Object Y? Light gives them a very accurate way to measure the size of the universe by defining distances. Here are a few of the common ones distance measurements: The Earth to the Moon: 1.255 secondsThe Sun to Earth: 8.3 minutesOur Sun to the next closest star: 4.24 yearsAcross our Milky Way  galaxy: 100,000 yearsTo the closest  spiral galaxy (Andromeda): 2.5 million yearsLimit of the observable universe to Earth: 13.8 billion years Interestingly, there are objects that are beyond our ability to see simply because the universe IS expanding, and some are over the horizon beyond which we cannot see. They will never come into our view, no matter how fast their light travels. This is one of the fascinating effects of living in an expanding universe.   Edited by Carolyn Collins Petersen