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The world's richest people are facing a crisis of unprecedented proportions: a chronic shortage of butlers. English butlers are sought after for their 'calmness in the face of adversity' The demand for a new generation of Jeeves and Hudsons - from London to Dubai and, especially, from the Hamptons to Malibu - is so high that it is being counted in the tens of thousands. "If we doubled the number of butlers, they wouldn't be without work," said Charles MacPherson, vice-chairman of the International Guild of Professional Butlers. Robert Watson, managing director of the Guild of Professional English Butlers, agreed....

WASHINGTON - Severe farmworker shortages that have left tons of fruits and vegetables unplanted or unpicked would get a fix under an immigration reform deal reached by senators Thursday. The immigration agreement includes a pilot legalization program for agriculture workers, said Scott Gerber, spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. Farmers say that as immigration enforcement has tightened in recent years, worker shortages have ranged from 10 percent to 30 percent across the labor-intensive produce industry and have also struck dairy farms and nurseries. In some cases crops have gone unharvested. In others, farmers have chosen not...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration and Kansas' governor started Tuesday pointing fingers at each other over the response to last week's devastating tornado. By lunchtime, both sides had backed down. With President Bush set to travel to now-razed Greensburg, Kan., on Wednesday to view the destruction wrought by Friday's 205 mph twister, Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said she planned to talk with him about her contention that National Guard deployments to Iraq hampered the disaster response. "I don't think there is any question if you are missing trucks, Humvees and helicopters that the response is going to be slower," she...

...Mexico is undergoing a demographic transition. According to the Mexican census bureau, long gone are the days of families with six, seven or 10 kids. Instead, Mexican women now average 2.2 births — only slightly above the average 2.1 births that occur in the United States and that are considered the "replacement rate," the level needed to maintain a stable population over time. Life expectancy in Mexico has increased to 75 years, compared to 77 in the United States. With fewer births and longer lives, by 2050, Mexico will become as old as the United States. In short, Mexico is...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is heading toward a major shortage of cancer doctors by 2020 as the population ages and the medical profession struggles to replace retiring oncologists, researchers said on Tuesday. The study predicted a shortfall of 2,550 to 4,080 oncologists by 2020. The overall U.S. population and, most significantly, the proportion of older people are growing, along with the number of people who have survived a bout with cancer, the researchers noted. The number of oncologists is growing at a slower rate. There were 10,400 in 2005, and the study projected a total of about 12,500...

Down To Business: Talent Shortage ? Employers Must Take Some Of The Rap Many tech pros are demoralized, thanks to knee-jerk offshore outsourcing and the post-bubble malaise. Employers must move beyond the "you should be happy you have a job" mentality. By Rob Preston InformationWeek March 3, 2007 12:00 AM (From the March 5, 2007 issue) Ask a dozen CIOs and tech vendor CEOs to identify their single most pressing challenge, and you'll likely get at least 10 different answers, right? Not exactly. In fact, they all come back to one overarching concern: finding, grooming, and retaining tomorrow's leaders. I...

Alaska faces skilled-worker shortage The state's pay premium, which drew outsiders in the 1970s, has dwindled to almost nothing. ANCHORAGE, ALASKA Union apprentices training to build their carpentry skills in this part of Alaska have a nickname for more seasoned co-workers they meet on job sites. "We call them the 'Geriatric Crew,' " says Clint Meyer, one of the 20- and 30-somethings working out of a union- operated training center in south Anchorage. It's an apt description. While Alaska's economy has grown – and its construction business has blossomed – over the last two decades, the pool of skilled construction...

China affected by power grid problems Junichi Miura / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer China's electricity output has been rising more than 10 percent every year since 2000, almost perfectly parallel to its macroeconomic growth rate. But China's power grid is threatening to become a serious Achilles' heel for its economy. The installation of new power transmission lines in China has been lagging badly behind the fast increase in power generation. The grid has been improving at only a single-digit pace per year--as low as about 2 percent--over the same period. As a result, China's coastal areas, the heart of its...

Market forces can be very powerful indeed. ... When the Government created its supermarket network Mercal, it was supposed to be a way of delivering cheaper goods to the poor. Mercal ... paid no custom duty, received all the currency it wanted at the official rate of exchange, was handled by military at all levels so it only had to pay labor for a reduced non-military workforce. Finally, it ... would pay no taxes. ... The Government established price controls for certain foodstuffs and they applied to ... products sold by Mercal. As inflation drove prices up, the Government allowed...

One in three people is enduring one form or another of water scarcity, according to new findings released by the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture at World Water Week in Stockholm. These alarming findings totally overrun predictions that this situation would come to pass in 2025. "Worrisome predictions in 2000 had forecast that one third of the world population would be affected by water scarcity by 2025. our findings from the just-concluded research show the situation to be even worse," says Frank Rijsberman, Director General of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). "Already in 2005, more than a...

Snap, crackle, boom: Rice poised to double By Jeff Wilson and Saijel Kishan Bloomberg News Published: August 15, 2006 CHICAGO The world may soon pay more than ever for its most abundant food: rice. A record crop this year in a market that anticipates rising production costs will do little to slow demand for the staple food of three billion people. As China, the No. 1 consumer, and Vietnam, among the biggest exporters, continue to plow under their paddies, rice will double within two years to almost $20 per 100 pounds from $9.90 now, according to Stephan Wrobel, chief executive...

The biggest long-term threat to oil and natural-gas production in the Gulf of Mexico isn't hurricanes. It is the dwindling supply of drilling equipment. Jack-up and deep-water rigs, the massive platforms and ships that drill for oil and gas in the ocean, are leaving the Gulf of Mexico for more lucrative jobs elsewhere. This is expected to accelerate production declines in the Gulf, putting upward pressure on domestic energy prices. The rig exodus is squeezing what was an already tight market for drilling equipment. In 2001, about 148 rigs were in the Gulf. Now, about 90 remain, and more are...

Sakhalin Island is a remote and sparsely populated area in the farthest east section of Russia. It sits to the north of Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido. Its ports freeze over part of each year because, well, it is so dang cold. But Sakhalin is where the future may lie -- at least for Russia's big oil. The island is about 600 miles long -- about the length of California but about one/fourth the size -- and there are an estimated 45 billion barrels of oil equivalent that lie beneath its seas. California probably has that much, too, but the...

NEW DELHI — Some husbands in western India are renting out their wives to other men, cashing in on a shortage of single women available for marriage, according to a news report Monday. Atta Prajapati, a farm worker who lives in Gujarat state, leases out his wife Laxmi to a wealthy landowner for $175 US a month, the Times of India reported, citing unidentified police officials. A farm worker earns a monthly minimum wage of around $22. Laxmi is expected to live with the man, look after him and his house, and have sex with him, the report said. The...

/begin my translationN. Korea: Huge Train Crash in Last April due to Communication Failure A N. Korean railroad source, "270 soldiers, 400 civilians dead" [2006-06-05 17:46] The crash site in a red circle above. The light brown region is Gowon County. It is revealed that the huge train crash in last April at Gowon, S. Hamkyong Province, killing hundreds of N. Korean soldiers, was caused by endemic problems of N. Korean railroad system such as communication failure and shortage of electricity. We were told that 270 soldiers and 400 civilians were killed by this accident. A source from the Locomotive Unit...

"America has no shortage of oil... Washington, DC has a shortage of the political will required to let American workers go get it." -- Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) With oil prices reaching record levels, the left is up to its old tricks, blaming the President and calling for lots of expensive big government “solutions”. As part of this push, they argue that we're running out of oil. But clearly, this argument is not new -- and it's dead wrong. In 1874, Pennsylvania's state geologist fretted that America had only a four-year supply of oil left. He was wrong. In 1914,...

"The problem is not whether you have money or not, the problem is we have a shortage of specialists," says Dr. Dominic Dizon at the University of California at San Francisco's medical education program in Fresno.

SACRAMENTO – A chronic shortage of guards at the state's 33 prisons is expected to increase after Jan. 1 when an earlier retirement age negotiated in a controversial labor contract four years ago triggers a wave of retirees. The shortage of 2,000 guards is likely to double next fiscal year because of retirements and other factors, the state Department of Finance estimates. The Schwarzenegger administration is scrambling to open a second training facility for correctional officers and is projecting that 2,600 new guards will be trained this fiscal year, an increase from the 1,920 originally planned. The governor is expected...

AAMJIWNAANG FIRST NATION, Canada (Dec. 18) - Growing up with smokestacks on the horizon, Ada Lockridge never thought much about the pollution that came out of them. She never worried about the oil slicks in Talfourd Creek, the acrid odors that wafted in on the shifting winds or even the air-raid siren behind her house whose shrill wail meant "go inside and shut the windows." Now Lockridge worries all the time. A budding environmental activist, she recently made a simple but shocking discovery: There are two girls born in her small community for every boy. A sex ratio so out...

IBM User Group President Warns Of IT Personnel Shortage The public sector will be particularly hard-hit, he says. One increasingly popular solution, he suggests, is for ITers to retire and then return as consultants to new posts that are more interesting and less stressful. By W. David Gardner, TechWeb.com Oct. 7, 2005 Alarmed at the loss of key FEMA personnel and the looming wholesale retirement of IT specialists at other federal agencies, a federal CIO manager who heads an important IT user group is stepping up a campaign to retain and recruit specialists in the IT field. Robert Rosen, president...

SACRAMENTO - Hamstrung by funding and staff shortages, California's political watchdog agency is dropping about 225 cases and instead is sending warning or advisory letters to some candidates or officials accused of violating election or ethics laws. "We have to prioritize cases," John Appelbaum, head of the Fair Political Practices Commission's enforcement division, said Tuesday. "If we don't have the resources, they may get closed." The enforcement division currently has 23 members, down from a high of nearly 33 in 1997. Overall, the FPPC has lost about 30 staff positions - a third of its work force - since 1991....

SEOUL (Reuters) - People in North Korea are foraging for nuts and leaves to counter a serious food shortage but there is no danger of widespread famine or starvation, the head of the U.N. World Food Programme said on Tuesday. James Morris, the WFP's executive director said commodity prices have gone up in the impoverished state, food stocks have dwindled, and nascent economic reforms have only made it more difficult for North Korea's poor and urban dwellers to buy food. "Our sense is that the food situation in North Korea is particularly serious right now," Morris told reporters in Seoul....

N. Korea: 'Straw' Safety Helmets At the construction site of Pyongyang Music Academy along Tae-dong River, soldiers as construction workers are wearing 'straw' safety helmets instead of plastic ones, working on indoor plastering. [Yonhap News]

Updated: 12:59 a.m. ET June 25, 2005 AUSTIN, Texas - "Lottery officials admitted Friday they knew ticket sales would not cover an advertised $8 million Lotto Texas jackpot this month, meaning a winner would not have collected the full amount. The Texas Lottery Commission used the inflated number for the June 8 drawing to generate interest and get more people to play even though staff reports estimated sales could only cover $6.5 million, manager Robert Tirloni told commissioners. Tirloni said jackpots had fallen short of the advertised amounts twice before — once last October and again in February. Each involved...

The Great Engine of China Is Low on Fuel By KEITH BRADSHER Published: April 19, 2005 Nelson Ching for The New York TimesThe Sinopec service station nearest the Canton Trade Fair had signs on all its diesel pumps last Friday saying they were sold out of fuel, though the gasoline pumps were still flowing. UANGZHOU, China, April 15 - Service stations across China are starting to run short on diesel this spring, while electricity blackouts here in southeastern China are growing worse as power stations cut back on purchases of fuel oil.For truckers and factory owners, the diesel and electricity...

Running out of places to care for patients, London's busiest hospital emergency room shut its doors to all but the most severe injuries from outside the city for the first time in its history last week. Two trauma patients had to be diverted during the shutdown, with one patient sent to a hospital in Toronto and the other to Hamilton. The situation hit amid recent reports some London patients have had to wait as long as three days for a hospital bed to become available. "We were in a crisis situation," said Dr. Gary Joubert, chief of emergency medicine for...

KAMPALA (Reuters) - AIDS (news - web sites)-aware Ugandans, who use about 250,000 condoms a day, face a shortage of the product after the government introduced new condom tests likely to cut supply over the festive season, the Health Ministry on Friday. The Ministry withdrew Engabu, a local popular brand that was emitting a bad smell, after the World Health Organization (news - web sites) found its quality deteriorated. "We are going to face six months of limited supply," said Vastha Kibirige, a condom coordinator with the Health Ministry. "We fear that in the meantime some people might have unprotected...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Counterterrorism agencies are shopping for talent at job fairs, dangling generous scholarships and luring staff from each other in a race to overcome a shortage of analysts that may only get worse in the new intelligence overhaul. The problem existed even before Congress and the White House approved an intelligence restructuring this month that creates positions for people whose skills already are in high demand. There is no consensus across the nation's 15 intelligence agencies on where staffing needs are the most acute. But few dispute that many more analysts are needed, particularly in the departments and...

One reason for the Iraq armor shortage: The military is too thorough.A few weeks ago Rep. Duncan Hunter handed me a reason that has largely escaped media attention on why our troops in Iraq don't have all the armor protection they need. It was a piece of ballistic glass, roughly the size of a small dinner plate. But as it was four sheets of glass glued together, it was also very thick and extremely heavy. But I peered through it, and it was as transparent as a normal windshield. In Iraq, this glass is saving lives because it can stop...

Rather than give Immigration Minister Judy Sgro a hard time about whether or not she greased the pole, as it were, to fast-track the process to allow a Romanian stripper to stay in Canada, we need to be taking a look at the bigger issue: Why is Canada unable to meet the demand for exotic dancers on its own? What is lacking in our national character that we cannot turn out enough people who can figure out how to take off their clothes? Are we so lacking in skills that we do not know how to pull down a zipper,...

Fried Green  Cucumbers It's been a rough few months for tomatoes. They've been swirled in California floods. They've been smashed by Florida hurricanes. They've been picked at by Mexican bugs. The result has been a national tomato shortage that has sent prices climbing like a vine seeking light. With costs up and quality down, some national restaurant chains are reconsidering their marketing strategies to keep the thought of juicy, tender tomatoes off customers' minds, or switching recipes to make up for the absence of certain hard-to-find varieties. The popular Juice Joint Cafe in Northwest Washington, meanwhile, has at least...

Public health officials say Americans should roll up their sleeves for a dose of reality: For most of us, getting a flu shot is not a life-or-death matter. The flu vaccine will not necessarily prevent you from experiencing the flu's miserable symptoms, like fever, hacking cough, runny nose and "hit-by-a-truck" body aches. Studies show the shot generally works well, but its effectiveness can range from 52 to 90 percent depending on the strain of virus and a person's age. If you are elderly or chronically ill, the vaccine can help jump-start your body's weakened defenses and perhaps prevent the worst...

Everyone knows America's vaccine industry is in serious trouble, with an ever dwindling number of producers and recent severe vaccine shortages. What everyone also should know is that the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine has now pinned much of the blame on the government vaccine-buying program promoted by former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to the Wall Street Journal. The panel of doctors and economists issuing a report on vaccines last week identified as a fundamental cause of the problem the fact that the government purchases 55 percent of the childhood vaccine market at forced discount prices....

I may be paranoid, but how was the contamination of flu vaccine discovered only three weeks before the November, 2004 Election? One would assume that the vaccine would be tested during the entire production period, not just before 50 million vaccines were about to be shipped. Based on the stories I've read about the circumstances surrounding discovery of contaminated flu vaccines it appears that the manufacturer spent millions of Pounds (England remember) to produce most all of the vaccines and was ready to ship them in time for flu season. Then the health authorities tested and found them contaminated at...

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said Monday that enough flu vaccine will be available for most people who need it and told seniors to stop standing in long lines to get a shot. "We want people to relax," Thompson said at a news conference. "The flu season is not here." Seniors around the country have been standing in lines at shopping plazas to get flu shot since news of a shortage surfaced this month. British regulators shut down shipments from Chiron Corp. (CHIR), which had made millions of flu shots earmarked for the...

Do you remember something called the Clinton Government Vaccine Buying Program? It was sold to us as a way to get prices down and get more children vaccinated and, of course, to keep the evil drug companies from making a profit. The Wall Street Journal says today, "Companies that decided to run these regulatory traps also know that they'll be doing so for very little reward. Before her big health care reform crashed and burned in '94, Hillary Rodham Rodham managed to get Congress to pass a government vaccine buying program for children. Her sales pitch was free vaccines for...

The wisdom mothers have been dispensing for ages - wash your hands, eat your vegetables, go to bed earlier - turns out to be great advice for avoiding the flu. Doctors and nutritionists say careful hygiene, a balanced diet and plenty of rest and fluids can go a long way toward keeping people healthy during the influenza season, especially considering this year's vaccine shortage. "Taking care of yourself from a health standpoint is probably the best thing you can do," said Dr. R. Michael Gallagher, a family physician and dean of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's...

In the May 2003 issue of Mass of Ages I published an article, ‘What Has Happened to the Sacristy?’ It was intended to provoke us to look at the question of how we behave in the sacristy and how we prepare for Mass and hand on our love of the Mass to our young people, and especially our altar servers. Since then another important question has caught my attention and we must find the courage to look at some possible answers. The question I mean is – ‘What is happening to the priesthood?’ I’m sure many of us look back...

The gas shortage we here in Florida are expericening is another example of unintended consiquesces due to the State of Florida. The State of Florida gave the citizens an $0.08 per gallon break on gas during the entire month of August. Gas station ownwers purchased storage tanks full of gas at the decreased prices, and did not order gas as usual trying to get the most of the $0.08 per gallon windfall during the first few days of September. Just another example of unintended conciquesces.

Massive coal-fired power plant to come up in Anhui It will produce more electricity than Three Gorges Dam BEIJING - China, grappling with a widening power crunch, is planning a giant coal-fired power project that will generate more electricity than even the massive Three Gorges Dam, an industry official said. Huaneng Group, the parent of Huaneng Power International, aims to build the giant thermal plant with China Power Investment Corp and Huainan Mining Group, said Mr Pu Hongjiu, vice-director of the China National Coal Association. The project, to be built in the eastern province of Anhui, is expected to have...

The New York Times of July 11 contains a story on how Ireland "once an exporter of priests, now has too few." After forty years of the "renewal of Vatican II," ladies and gentlemen, Ireland — the very cradle of the Catholic priesthood in the Western world — is suffering a priest shortage. As the Times reports, in all of Ireland a grand total of eight seminarians are to be ordained in 2004, compared with 193 ordinations in 1990. The Diocese of Dublin, Ireland’s largest, plans no ordinations for next year. In 1970, there were 750 candidates seeking to enter...

China Restricts Electricity in 20 Provinces By Wang Fang and Wang Zhen Translated from the Chinese edition Jun 15, 2004 Severe electricity shortages have forced China to impose usage restrictions in 23 regions, affecting about 20 provinces and cities. Several foreign-owned businesses have had to limit operations as a result. The Chinese National Electric Watch Committee estimates that China will have electricity shortages of more than 20 million kilowatts in 2004. The country’s populace is getting itchy, as the electricity supply is even worse than in 2003. The problem continues to linger and more regions are facing restrictions. The areas...

Zimbabwe faces record food shortage By Peta Thornycroft in Harare (Filed: 03/06/2004) Despite official claims that Zimbabwe can feed itself, the country grew less food this season than in any in modern times and needs more than a million tonnes of grain to keep the population alive. Statistics released yesterday by the United Nations show that Zimbabwe's shortfall will be more than last year, when donors had to provide food for up to 5.5 million people, nearly half the population. Robert Mugabe may use food shortages to his political advantage In his first interview with British journalists for four years,...

S P E C I A L R E P O R T : T H E C H A N G I N G C H U R C H Imagine no priests to celebrate MassCatholics have worried for years about the vanishing ranks of priests – and now, the impact is here. A severe priest shortage here is causing parishes to close and lay people to conduct more weddings, baptisms and funerals. By decade’s end, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati expects only 100 priests to serve more than a half million Catholics, a projection that’s spurring more change than...

There are a lot of folks who can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage here in America. Well, there's a very simple answer. Nobody bothered to check the oil. We just didn't know we were getting low. The reason for that is purely geographical. All our oil is in Alaska, Texas, California, and Oklahoma. All our dipsticks are in Washington, DC.

On February 8, the Chinese government announced an emergency appropriation, increasing its agricultural budget by 25 percent, or roughly $3 billion. The additional funds primarily will be used to raise support prices for wheat and rice, the principal food staples, and to improve irrigation infrastructure. For the State Council to approve such an increase outside of the normal budget-making process indicates the government's mounting concern about food security. After a remarkable expansion of grain output from 90 million tons in 1950 to 392 million tons in 1998, China's grain harvest has fallen in four of the last five years --...

A critical shortage of blood is forcing some hospitals to postpone surgeries and compelling the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center to sound the alarm. The blood bank put out an urgent call for donations Thursday — its second this week — and announced plans to extend office hours at its central location and at donation rooms in San Antonio. "We have heard from the hospitals we serve, and they are postponing and delaying some surgeries," spokeswoman Carmen Davila said. The blood bank collected 700 units of blood Wednesday, a day after it issued its first appeal, and expected to...

While Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and President Bush discussed Taiwan, currency rates and North Korea on December 9, a more important and far-reaching development in U.S.-China relations was going on far from the White House. Under the North China Plain, which produces half of China's wheat and a third of its corn, water tables are falling by 3 to 10 feet per year. Along with rising temperatures and the loss of cropland to non-farm uses, this trend is shrinking the Chinese grain harvest, which has fallen in four of the past five years. To get an idea of the magnitude,...

<p>Thirty years ago today, a group of oil ministers gathered in Kuwait City and made a decision that shook world politics and ignited the energy crisis of the 1970s. It continues to shape the way we see energy issues today, when tight oil and gas markets and high prices are a key factor in our economy -- and when the strategic significance of oil is once again evident.</p>

Troops shortage may force US to quit Balkans By Toby Harnden in Washington (Filed: 18/09/2003) The United States is considering withdrawing its forces from the Balkans or reducing them in the latest sign that it is suffering a worldwide troop shortage as a result of the occupation of Iraq. Reducing the numbers of American troops deployed in the former Yugoslavia would help alleviate "the kind of stress that we've put on them lately", said Gen Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He emphasised that America would not withdraw "unilaterally" from Bosnia or Kosovo, but his remarks...