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To: TobagoJack who wrote (60445)	5/8/2006 7:29:51 AM
From: shades	Respond to of 110194

Hong Kong Shortens Civil Servants' Work Week To 5 Days (My air force friend said soon 40K civil servants will be laid off in the USA - they want you all to go home and make more coconuts) HONG KONG (AP)--Hong Kong will switch to a five-day work week in July for 59,000 civil servants so that they can relax during the weekend and spend time with their families, officials said Monday. But the government has no plans to make private businesses adopt a five-day work week for their employees, said Denise Yue, secretary for civil service. She said companies face different demands and should be free to set their own work schedules. The new policy will begin July 1 for 59,000 civil servants - mostly people doing administrative work, the government said. The policy will be phased in over one year and eventually a total of 92,500 workers will be on a five-day schedule, the government said. "The aim is to relieve the work pressure on staff and to enhance the quality of their family life. This measure will not impact on the efficiency of government service," Yue said. However, the schedule won't change for police or workers providing emergency services, Yue said. She said there are more than 160,000 government workers. (END) Dow Jones Newswires May 08, 2006 04:38 ET (08:38 GMT) Copyright (c) 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.- - 04 38 AM EDT 05-08-06

To: TobagoJack who wrote (60445)	5/8/2006 7:30:34 AM
From: shades	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

South Korea's Birth Rate Falls To A Record Low In 2005 (they better make some babies or androids fast!) SEOUL (AP)--South Korea's birth rate fell to a record low last year as women married older and had babies later, government statistics showed Monday. The country's total fertility rate - the average number of children born to a woman over her life time - fell to 1.08 in 2005, compared with 1.16 the previous year, the National Statistical Office said in a report. The figure is the lowest since South Korea began tallying its birth rate in 1970, when women had an average of 4.53 children. "It looks like women tend to have babies when they are older," the report said, noting that they were also becoming more involved in the work force, getting better education and marrying later. Some 438,000 babies were born last year, down from 476,052 in 2004, the report said. More women in their 30s gave birth in 2005 than any other age group, accounting for 50.3% of all women who had babies. That compares with 2004, when more women were giving birth in their 20s. The average age at which women had their first marriage last year was 27.7, compared with 26.5 in 2000 and 25.4 in 1995, according to the report. (END) Dow Jones Newswires May 08, 2006 06:29 ET (10:29 GMT) Copyright (c) 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.- - 06 29 AM EDT 05-08-06

To: TobagoJack who wrote (60445)	5/8/2006 8:12:25 AM
From: sciAticA errAticA	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

ot -- The US's geopolitical nightmare atimes.com <snip> "... The chance was to deliver on the US strategic goal of control of petroleum resources globally, to ensure the US role as first among equals over the next decade and beyond. Not only have they failed to "deliver" that goal of US strategic dominance, they have also threatened the very basis of continued US hegemony, or as the Rumsfeld Pentagon likes to term it, "Full Spectrum Dominance..." <snap>