James Caan urges regulation reform LONDON – 11th April 2012 – Government must stop piling unnecessary and often silly rules and regulations on top of small businesses if the economy is to grow, said noted businessman and entrepreneur James Caan.

“It’s not the government’s role to create jobs, that’s the role of small business and entrepreneurs. Government needs to get out of the way and let us do what we do best,” Caan said. Caan supports the Federation of Small Businesses and the European Small Business Alliance’s recently tabled declaration in the European Parliament urging a halt to excessive rules and regulations affecting small firms.

“Chancellor Osborne has declared that red tape reform has saved businesses £3.3 billion but think about that.

That means those rules and regulations, prior to their repeal, were costing businesses £3.3 billion. I could put a lot of people to work with £3.3 billion,” said Caan, CEO of the venture capital and investment firm Hamilton Bradshaw.

Caan also noted a British Chambers of Commerce survey where 1,200 small and medium-sized businesses said they felt “choked” by government regulations. He said the BCC has estimated allowing employees to request flexible working hours will cost businesses £4.8 million a year.

The “working time directive,” which gives employees extra time off if they become ill on holiday, could cost small businesses an estimated £102.9 million a year, Caan added. Caan said experts have estimated EU regulations alone have drained £124 billion from the UK economy since 1998. Caan’s latest book, “Start Your Business In 7 Days” (www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780670920648.html) literally is flying off the shelves of UK bookstores following its March 1 release. [photo chron.com]

Caan said he took the time to write a book that takes people through the entrepreneur’s journey and helps them understand the difference between a hobby, a lifestyle and a real business. Reviewer John Vincent, co-founder of “Leon Management Today,” said of the book, “Caan shows a real desire to help the reader.

His insights have substance. I like the balance between theory, deep practicality and psychology.”

 A new study provides an approach for estimating the risk of antibiotic contamination associated with different soils and different antimicrobial products.

The researchers estimated and mapped soil contamination risk across Europe and suggest that their methods could be used to inform antibiotic resistance monitoring or policies designed to reduce contamination. Previous studies have found that releasing antibiotics into the environment contributes to the development of antibiotic resistance.

A major source of antibiotics entering the environment is through agricultural use, in the prevention and treatment of livestock diseases. The drugs are transferred to soils when manure from the animals is spread on farmland. Under Directive EC 92/18/EC, all drugs used in veterinary medicine are subject to ecotoxicological assessment of their environmental risks, but after a product is marketed, there is no requirement to monitor build up in the environment, or resistance.

The characteristics of different antibiotics and soils affect how the drugs accumulate in the environment. In environmental risk assessment, the contamination risk associated with an antibiotic depends on its behaviour in the environment, including how quickly it breaks down and how well it sticks to particles in the soil. Soil factors, such as organic matter content, as well as the chemical nature of the drug itself, can influence this behaviour.

This study estimated the effects of different soil types and farming practices on soil contamination by antibiotics. The results were mapped to reveal how the risk of contamination varies across Europe.

Contamination risk was estimated using a measure the researchers called ‘soil vulnerability’, focusing on 12 common antibiotics used in pig and cattle feed. They calculated soil vulnerability based on livestock densities (determining the amount of antibiotic released), soil and antibiotic type, and land use. According to their assessment, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany and the UK face the highest risk of contamination, while Bulgaria, Greece and Sweden face a much lower risk.

The antibiotic enrofloxacin, which previous studies have found in soil fertilized with poultry and cattle manure, was associated with the highest risk of soil contamination in this study of soils fertilized with cattle and pig manure.

Tetracycline antibiotics, tylosin and sulfodiazine were also high risk, while chlorpyridazine, florfenicol and sulfamethazine were low risk. Tetracyclines are the most heavily used antibiotics in agriculture, and have been found previously in soils fertilized with manure from pigs, cattle and poultry.

But the high risks associated with tetracyclines and enrofloxacin are also related to values describing their ability to stick to and remain in the soil – compared to some of the lower risk antibiotics they stick tightly and take a long time to break down. The researchers say their study, based purely on data analysis and mapping of vulnerability, provides a framework for evaluating antibiotic contamination risk over large areas.

Using grids with 10km-wide squares, they were also able to illustrate risk at smaller scales, for instance, they could pinpoint contamination hotspots in the southwest of England and the north-western tip of France.

Approaches that rank different regions and antimicrobial products according to contamination risk may be useful in decision-making about antibiotic use and in prioritising monitoring of antibiotic resistance.

However, in the current study, estimates were produced without detailed national data, requiring assumptions and oversimplifications that may leave the results open to some inaccuracy. It would be preferable to use data accurate to the level of individual farms or even individual animals.

Environmental risk data for antibiotics were also limited because companies are not required to release such information publicly. The researchers say open access to this data would help improve future contamination risk assessments.

 On March 14th the European Parliament will vote on a proposal to allow transnational lists in the European elections.

At present the European citizens can only vote on national lists: EU citizens vote for candidates in the countries that they are resident in. The proposal calls for EU citizens to have a second vote: for a transnational list of 25 MEPs elected across the Union.

The transnational lists would be composed of candidates from at least one third of member states, to ensure that the list is genuinely transnational. It is increasingly clear to many people in Europe that the crucial decisions about our future are being taken at a European level, and at the same time the European level of decision-making seems to many ever more remote, unresponsive and unconcerned with the views and welfare of citizens of Europe.

The moment is opportune, as well as urgent, therefore, to make a decisive change in the way in which we are represented at a European level. For the moment, national political parties have total dominion over the electoral process for the European elections: they select the candidates, they run the campaigns, and they finance the campaigns.

It is unsurprising that the campaigns for the European elections thereby remain highly national affairs, and the candidates selected are selected largely on national issues.

The ongoing debt-crisis in the EU has shown more than ever the inextricable interrelations between the countries of Europe, and that resolving our common problems relies on seeing our common interests. Institutions build on national constituencies are proving largely incapable of giving citizens a say over these common interests, as they remain beholden to short-term national interests.

As such the national institutions and national political parties are currently disenfranchising EU citizens. The election of transnational representatives would be an important step forwards in building democratic institutions which allow citizens to express their will at this common transnational level, to give to the citizens of Europe the democratic choice over their common future.

The resolution of the debt-crisis may be the most visible of the European political problems needing greater democratisation at the moment, but in reality there is almost no domain of political decision-making in Europe which does not have some transnational dimension: whether in economy, environmental policy, cross-border transport, communications, migration, welfare and the social model.

At the moment decision making in these areas remains largely a process of consensus building amongst different national interests, whilst there is a much greater common interest of European citizens which is unrepresented in the process.

The parliament has the right to take initiative in reforming European elections, but it does not have the last say. If it adopts the resolution next week, it will need to call a European Convention to redraft the European treaties to make transnational lists possible. That would also be an occasion to call for further measures to democratise decision making in the EU.

It is by no means sure that the enough MEPs will support the resolution next week, under pressure from their national parties to keep EU-politics under their control.

For that reason citizens from throughout the Union need to pressure their MEPs directly to promote the development of a more democratic system.

Migration stories on show in the heart of Westminster The regal surroundings of the London’s Royal Horseguards in Whitehall, was a fitting venue for Accademia Apulia’s prestigious Migration, Stories of a Journey award ceremony.

At the event, held on 10th February 2012, the respected Mayor of Westminster, Susie Burbridge, greeted the finalists and presented prizes to the worthy winners of this photography contest. Through events such as these, the non-profit organisation Accademia Apulia has successfully used art as a medium to publicise the global challenges that our cultural landscape faces in a rapidly changing world. Focusing on migration as the theme, artists from across the globe submitted breath-taking, creative works that highlighted the plights of various international communities.

Paolo Patrizi of Rome was this year’s winner and took home the € 1000 prize for his poignant, photographic portrayal of the exploitation of Nigerian women forced into prostitution by international traffickers. Patrizi’s presentation of the squalor lived in by the young girls made to sell their bodies, forms part of a wider collection which is partly exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery of London. Second and third prizes were awarded to Turkey’s Erhan Ucar and Uzbekistan’s Alexandra Polina.

Ucar’s work depicted the nomad tribes of Anatolia whose lifestyle has fallen under threat by the Uzbeck central government. Polina’s display, “house inside-out”, presents her family in a street adorned with her furniture and personal effects to demonstrate how the indoor and outdoor world of migrants often clash.

Amongst the many authorities who attended the ceremony were the Mayors of Wandsworth, Hounslow, Camden, Brent, Ealing, Lambeth, Merton, Redbridge, Richmond and Southwark. Also in attendance was the former British Minister of Migration Barbara Roche, the Italian Consul General Uberto Vanni d’Archirafi, the Director of the Italian Culture Institute Carlo Presenti and writer Naomi Grym. Tim Hancock, Director of Amnesty International Campaign, was also present as well as Clarissa Azkoul, Head of mission for the International Organisation for Migration.