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After the horsemeat scandal..........

Chinese donkey meat product recalled at Wal-Mart after it is found to contain fox


The US company has apologised and said it would reimburse shoppers in China who bought the "Five Spice" donkey product, which tests showed contained the DNA of other animals.

According to local news reports, the problem was first brought to the attention of food standards officials when a customer, identified only by his surname Wang, found the so-called donkey meat looked, smelled and tasted strange.

He sent the product to a testing institute, and the Shandong Food and Drug Administration later announced that it contained fox meat.

Wal-Mart said it has launched an investigation into the incident, adding that the manager at a supplier's factory had already been detained.

"We are deeply sorry for this whole affair," said Wal-Mart's China president and CEO, Greg Foran. "It is a deep lesson that we need to continue to increase investment in supplier management."

Shaun Rein, the Shanghai-based managing director of China Market Research (CMR) Group, said: "This is another hit on Wal-Mart's brand, meaning wealthy shoppers will start to lose the trust they had before."

Donkey meat is popular in China, though makes up a tiny proportion of all meat products consumed. Fox meat, on the other hand, is cheap because of its distinctive smell and the fact that eating it could pose serious health risks, a breeder told the Yangcheng Evening News.

Limerick money laundering:


Police recover 1m euros in tumble drier



Two men were arrested after they were caught tumble drying money in a container in a field in Limerick.

Gardaí (Irish police) observed the men, in their 40s and 50s, using a digger to dig up the cash in the Montpelier area on Saturday.

More than 1m euros in cash was recovered at the scene, which police believe was from the proceeds of crime.

The seizure followed a five-month investigation into organised crime in the Limerick area.

Gardaí said the man in his 40s was released without charge on Sunday.

The man in his 50s remains in police custody.

2 seriously talented hurlers who have this week called it a day. I enjoyed both men who gave it all for their counties.

With the club season just having finished in the recent past for most, when will your club resume collective training sessions for the 2014 season ?

Leagues will probably start in most cases end of March, beginning of April so how big or how little of a rest are players getting ?.


Would there be any extremists out there who for whatever reason will start training before Christmas for next season ?.

["We can't be having headstones in the shape of Transit vans and all sorts]

New guidelines for graveyards in a new Ireland.


Mourners told: no packed lunches or tea in graveyard


A PARISH priest has warned mourners that they cannot eat packed lunches and drink flasks of tea while visiting their dead in local cemeteries.


Fr John Walsh also warned parishioners that he may remove large gaudy headstones, statues and trinkets from plots if they do not conform to strict new graveyard rules.

People in Buncrana, Co Donegal, were yesterday informed that 25-year-old rules governing local cemeteries have been revised to account for ever-decreasing capacity and new minimalist American-style lawn graves.

They were also told to respect the sanctity of the cemetery by not eating or drinking or talking loudly within the grounds.

"Visitors must observe that the cemeteries are sacred places and act accordingly, avoiding any loud or boisterous talking, loitering on the grounds, or in any of the buildings, bringing refreshments into the cemeteries or consuming them on the grounds," said Fr Walsh yesterday.

Parishioners were also advised not to close any deal with monument sculptors without first obtaining prior approval for their chosen memorial.

"We can't be having headstones in the shape of Transit vans and all sorts. People should check before they spend thousands on the wrong one. It will be a saving for them in the long run," Fr Walsh said.

The maximum height of headstones at the parish's two cemeteries has now been set at 4ft (1.22 metres) with an exception for Celtic crosses that can rise to 8ft (2.44 metres). Double-width graves are banned in favour of single (8ft x 4ft) graves with a maximum depth for two interment – except where more are requested.

"The parish reserves the right to prohibit the erection of any monument, considered as inappropriate either in material, workmanship or location, or which might interfere with the general effect, or obstruct any principal view of the cemeteries," he said.

The Sunday bulletin yesterday advised people to consult the lengthy new rules at the parish office or website.

The town's largest graveyard – St Mary's, Cockhill – is a sprawling cemetery with headstones of every shape and size dating back 150 years. The parish has favoured lawn-covered plots since 1989, to allow for ease of maintenance and upkeep. Local residents do not have to pay for a plot.

Meanwhile, parishioners have been informed that they can no longer erect kerbstones, kneel-stones, surrounds, fences or scatter gravel on plots. Any new memorial or other item that does not conform may be removed without notice, but any existing headstones will not be removed, Fr Walsh confirmed. He said untidy graves would not be tolerated.

"Vases, flowers, plants, trees, ornaments of any description, gravel and kerbstones are not permitted outside the area of the headstone. Any item which obstructs mowing will be removed, including items placed on the headstone plinth that project beyond the plinth."

Vending and advertising are also banned

Big Packie has hung them up.

He won many's a match for Tyrone with blinding saves. The one that "sticks" out for me was the 2008 final when he stuck out his big toe and Kerry were denied a certain goal and the game turned on that one save near the end.


Enjoy your retirment big fella.

http://www.gaa.ie/medical-and-player-welfare/news/1911131251-gaa-medical-scientific-and-welfare-committee-updates-/

A new study of over 2,500 inter-county GAA players has found that two out of every three players on a team will get injured in one season.

The research carried out by the GAA and University College Dublin also found that a third of players will have multiple injuries,
while a quarter of injuries will be a recurrence of an old complaint.

The research found that lower limb injuries were the most common among players, followed by upper limb injuries.

The majority of injuries happen in the second half of a game.

Only a small number of injuries have been to the head with less than one per cent of injuries being diagnosed as concussion.

However, the GAA has said it is very much aware of the seriousness of concussion.

It has published new updated guidelines for teams and management which state that a player with diagnosed concussion should never be allowed to return to play on the day of injury.

The Association has also issued a 'return to play' protocol following a concussion injury.

A new 15-minute training warm up focusing on preventing lower limb injuries is also being introduced from January 2014.

President of the GAA Liam O'Neill said the organisation is not waiting for things to happen, it is actively trying to be proactive. The priority is to put athletes first by trying to reduce the risk of injury to the players.

National Statistics Office:

Belfast people most anxious in UK

The beautiful Fermanagh lakelands are home to the happiest people in the United Kingdom, according to the National Statistics Office.

Belfast people are claimed to be the most anxious


The people of County Fermanagh are the happiest in the United Kingdom.

That is according to data gathered by the Office for National Statistics to measure different elements of life satisfaction.

The figures also show that people in Belfast are more anxious than anywhere else in the UK.

For the first time, the Office for National Statistics has given a geographical breakdown of its happiness surveys.

It shows that more people in Northern Ireland rated their life satisfaction as very high than in any other party of the UK.

Within Northern Ireland, Londonderry has the lowest score for happiness - well below the UK average, while Fermanagh tops the list followed by Moyle, Lisburn and Limavady.

When it comes to anxiety levels, lots of places in Northern Ireland are above the UK average, but it is Belfast that tops the list as the most anxious place in the United Kingdom.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-24636367

Paul Galvin will be delighted to hear he's gone,not to mention all the others out there who have had the pleasure of being marked by Noel O'Leary.

A tough, uncompromising player who wore his heart on his sleeve and gave nothing less than 100% each and every time he took to the pitch.

http://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/football/2013/1017/480922-rebel-oleary-calls-time-on-cork-career/

https://twitter.com/Armagh_GAA

Armagh making a big announcement.


Can you guess what it is yet ?

Deiseach - happy with DJ ?


Kilkenny legend DJ Carey has allowed his name to go forward for the vacant Waterford job.



By John Fogarty

The Irish Examiner understands the 42-year-old will be nominated for the position at tonight's county board meeting.

Carey faces opposition in the form of outgoing manager Michael Ryan, former selector under Davy Fitzgerald Paraic Fanning and De La Salle's Derek McGrath.

They are all likely to be supported for the role at the meeting.

Providing they are still interested, they will then be interviewed by the selection committee over the coming weeks.

That six-man group is made up by chairman Tom Cunningham, secretary Timmy O'Keeffe, vice-chairman John O'Leary, treasurer Joe Cleary and former players James Murray and Stephen Frampton.

To help mark and celebrate Cork's achievement in getting to the AI hurling final despite the best efforts of Frank Murphy, it's caption time. Hopefully this will be enough to attract Reiller's back to the board. Prize for the winner is 2 tickets to the final sponsored by Reillers.

Get the ice cube bags ready - you'll need them if you die and want to come back again.

BRINGING the dead back to life may soon be a medical reality, with claims people may be able to be resuscitated up to 24 hours after their death.


Critical care physician Sam Parnia makes the claim in his book Erasing Death, saying resuscitation research is on the cusp of a major breakthrough within the next 20 years.

"With today's medicine, we can bring people back to life up to one, maybe two hours, sometimes even longer, after their heart stopped beating and they have thus died by circulatory failure. In the future, we will likely get better at reversing death," he told Germany's Spiegel magazine. "It is possible that in 20 years, we may be able to restore people to life 12 hours or maybe even 24 hours after they have died. You could call that resurrection, if you will. But I still call it resuscitation science."

Currently the average resuscitation rates for cardiac arrest patients in the US is 18 per cent, while in the UK it is 16 per cent. But at Dr Parnia's research base in New York that rate is between 33 per cent and 38 per cent.

"Most, but not all of our patients, get discharged with no neurological damage whatsoever," he said.

Dr Parnia said it is a "widely-held misconception, even among doctors", that the brain suffers massive oxygen-deprived damage after three to five minutes after the heart stops.

But he said that research is rooted in the past and that brain cells can live on for hours after 'death.'

"My basic message: The death we commonly perceive today in 2013 is a death that can be reversed," he said.



Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/dead-could-be-revived-a-day-later-dr-sam-parnia-claims/story-fn5fsgyc-1226688472691#ixzz2aec9Memn




There's more here -



http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/04/consciousness-after-death/all/

What about saving us all a lot of time,money, good diesel and hassle and play a series of 3 matches involving Dublin and Donegal ?

Best out of 3 wins the all Ireland.

Forget about the rest.

I was listening to the news in the car yesterday and Joe Duffy came on.

A father came on and I decided to listen - and I listened to the man telling his story.


It was tragic.

Basically this man's daughter was on holiday in Bali 4 years ago and she drank some of the local's potions. Improted brand name alcoholic drinks are so expensive to import over there, the locals mix their own local Arrag wine into the bottles in order to make money from them. The local stuff is methanol.

Methanol is lethal and causes death. It loks and sounds like there have been hundreds of victims.


So please be careful - if you've sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends in Australia, let them know about this. Yeterday's programme was the first I heard about this issue.



Here's the link.


http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A20207870%3A53%3A30%2D05%2D2013%3A


And here's the facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/ADrinkToDieFrom

News report - http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0602/118018-craigr/

Whilst trying to defend the CCC from criticism yesterday, Liam O'Neill threw the journos a story.


The Laois official also revealed that the GAA are exploring the possibility of replacing the minor grade with an U-17 competition.


Weren't they looking before at scrapping both minors and under 21s and bringing in an under 19 competition ?.

There's a bit of a theme in a lot of the commentary coming out in relation to the lack of real action about a shared future on both sides. Basically they're saying it's all very well talking the talk but the main parties here aren't walking the wallk and that the US and UK governments want to see more evidence of both sides engaging positively.




US urges Northern Ireland to 'consolidate peace gains'
Northern Ireland must "consolidate the gains" of peace, says the US secretary of state, ahead of the 15th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

John Kerry, who replaced Hillary Clinton, said progress was "significant and inspiring" but the promise envisaged by the deal was "incomplete".

He said Friday was a "call to action".

The 10 April 1998 agreement ended 30 years of conflict and enshrined a peaceful framework for tackling religious and political divisions.

In a statement, Mr Kerry congratulated the people of Northern Ireland.



The "courage, conviction, and hard work of leaders and communities over the past 15 years... have led to a more peaceful and vibrant Northern Ireland", he said.

He went on: "The progress that has been made is significant and inspiring, but the promise envisioned by the agreement is incomplete. The 15th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement is a call to action to consolidate the gains of the last 15 years.


"This is an appropriate moment for all parties to rededicate themselves to achieving a shared future and to healing the divisions of the past."

He said the US remained committed to working with all parties to secure a "stable, peaceful, and prosperous future".

The break-up of Ireland in 1921, in which the south became a separate state known as the Republic of Ireland, led to decades of unrest and violence in Northern Ireland, which remained part of the UK.

Nationalists believe the north should join a united, independent Ireland, while unionists or loyalists, think Northern Ireland should stay as part of the UK.

The period known as the Troubles began in the late 1960s and lasted for nearly 30 years, with thousands on both sides killed.

The Good Friday Agreement was seen as a major step forward in the peace process.

The 65-page document, signed in Belfast in 1998, led to the Northern Ireland assembly and executive being set up, new cross-border institutions involving the Irish Republic and a body linking devolved assemblies across the UK with Westminster and Dublin.

The Irish Republic also dropped its constitutional claim to the six counties which form Northern Ireland.

Several spates of violence in Northern Ireland this year have prompted warnings by leading politicians that dissident extremists will not be allowed to disturb the hard-won peace.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-21972720

Why do we continually have to ape other sports ?


GAA on collision course with managers over proposal to announce teams early

Martin Breheny– 21 March 2013

GAA managers could be headed for a showdown with Croke Park over a proposal that all championship teams be named a minimum of four days before the game.

Central Council are backing the plan from the Rules Advisory Committee (RAC), which will be discussed at Congress in Derry on Saturday. If passed, managers will be forced to announce teams on a Tuesday or Wednesday depending on whether the game is on Saturday or Sunday. Failure to do so would carry a €500 fine per offence for county boards.

"We felt that earlier announcements would help to increase the amount of publicity that's available in the media for news on teams, comment and analysis of selections, etc," said RAC chairman, Frank Murphy.

There has been a growing trend towards announcing championship teams late in the week over recent seasons.

Some counties don't issue teams for Sunday games until Friday night, while there have been several instances – especially for All-Ireland qualifier games – of teams not being announced until just before throw-in.

Under current rules, there is no requirement on counties to announce teams at any stage before games, except for All-Ireland semi-finals and finals when they must be submitted to Croke Park no later than the previous Tuesday. However, that's for match-programme purposes only and it's often much later in the week when the teams are publicly announced.

Now, the RAC are trying to regularise earlier announcements for all championship games. "The object is to give the media the teams as early as possible to allow comment and analysis, which helps promote our games and generate publicity," said Murphy.

The fact that RAC and Central Council are submitting the motion will put pressure on counties to support the move, but, even if passed, it remains to be seen how team managers react.

The stipulation that a team must be announced four days before games could lead to dummy selections being released, creating public scepticism and media anger. That, in turn, would switch the focus back on county boards and their responsibility to uphold a rule which has the promotion of the GAA as its sole objective.

Two physically strong teams.

Ballymun for me.

[40,000 euros]

Somebody would need a good kicking over this.

Irish prisoners get through 40,000 euros worth of footballs each year.

Razor wire security is to blame for the average 40,000 euros a year being spent on footballs for Irish prisoners.

The information was in government documents supplied to the Irish Examiner newspaper, under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Irish Prison Service has spent almost 130,000 euros replacing footballs for prisoners over the last three years.

Independent TD Denis Naughten called it "an astronomical sum".

He raised the issue in a parliamentary question last year, saying there were "serious questions to be asked".

Cloverhill, Cork and Limerick prisons are among the biggest football buyers.

Irish Justice Minister Alan Shatter said in July that a total of 35,851 euros had been spent on footballs in 2010 with Cloverhill Prison in west Dublin accounting for more than a third of the spend at 12,431 euros.

The FoI documents said there were five exercise yards in Cloverhill and the "position of razor wire leads to a couple of balls being destroyed in each yard per day".

A spokesman for the Irish Prison Service said that exercise was "incredibly important" for prisoners and that the footballs were for use by more than 4,000 prisoners using 60 prison yards across the Republic of Ireland.

"The costs seem high but there are a number of reasons for that," he said.

"The footballs are light to minimise potential injuries to staff and prisoners. This means they do tend to get destroyed.

"The bottom line is that we cannot put netting underneath the wire. Also netting a yard has significant cost implications.

"It costs about 175,000 euros and that is without support structures - the price could go up to 250,000 euros."

The spokesman said razor wire had to be in place around prison yards.