Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) — Smelling gas one morning, a southern Pennsylvania farmer almost passed out when he went outside to check on his bellowing cows.

One of the animals did keel over, kicking its feet in spasms. A couple of days later, a calf was fighting for its life, the farmer said. It died.

Something awful is happening over the Marcellus Shale, the vast geological formation in eastern North America where energy companies are looking for natural gas.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process for extracting gas by injecting high volumes of water and chemicals into deep wells, has sparked complaints about ruined landscapes and fouled groundwater. Increasingly there is evidence, mostly anecdotal, that animals are suffering.

A new study by veterinarian Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald, a professor of veterinary medicine at Cornell University, chronicles case studies of dozens of farmers and pet owners in six states over the Marcellus Shale.

Their findings, published in New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy, are a harrowing account of sudden deaths of cattle, as well as reproductive and neurological problems in horses, cats, dogs and other animals.

The Pennsylvania farmers I spoke with have lost cows, calves, a horse, a couple dozen chickens. Many of the animals succumb in the same way: seizure-like symptoms, gasping for breath and a quick wasting away. A Rottweiler and a Dalmatian also fell ill and died.

Crops Lost

These farmers are getting out of the beef business, in part over concern that their animals will become delivery systems for contaminants.

An organic farmer from southeast Ohio told me he has abandoned his cash crop, ginseng, for now, concerned that contaminants would enter his product. He began noticing changes around his 20-acre property in 2007, when a fracking operation began dumping wastewater nearby. He lost quite a few deer that were drawn to the brine and antifreeze in the fluid.

Energy representatives dismiss the veterinarians study. They say that health indicators have actually improved in areas with shale development.

The paper is little more than a collection of personal testimonials that cannot be independently assessed or verified, says Steve Everley, a spokesman for industry group Energy in Depth. The paper is full of bold assertions about oil and gas development, but empty of any facts or scientific evidence to support those opinions.

Causal Link

Establishing a causal link between fracking and specific health threats is tricky. Energy companies are not required to disclose the composition of fracking fluids for proprietary reasons, so they dont.

Like a lot of people who live near fracking operations, many of the farmers I interviewed are in litigation with an energy company and wish to remain anonymous.

We dont know what the chemicals are in a lot of these cases, says Bamberger. It gets very frustrating when you start saying: What was in the tissue? What killed these animals exactly?

In 2010, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture quarantined 28 head of cattle after they drank wastewater from a fracking site in Tioga County. The fear was that a radioactive contaminant in the water, strontium, would end up in beef.

In December 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency linked water pollution to fracking for the first time, after examining contaminated water in central Wyoming.

Note to New York

Last month the federal agency announced it would test water in dozens of homes around Dimock, Pennsylvania, a hotbed of fracking activity. It also told New York it would need to improve safeguards for drinking water before tapping into the Marcellus Shale.

New York placed a moratorium on fracking in 2010 so it could revise the rules governing the practice. Bamberger and Oswald are among those who contributed to the tens of thousands of public comments on the draft regulations, which were closed last month.

Bamberger submitted the published study; Oswald contributed 15 pages of his own to denounce the inadequacy of the proposed rules.

There are so many flaws in the document, he says. It is unlikely to be able to protect us from the industrialization of our landscape and hydraulic fracturing.

Now, New Yorks Department of Environmental Conservation will review comments and revise regulations as necessary. It seems inevitable that the state will be fracking eventually, so the question is whether the industry can proceed safely — for humans and animals.

New Yorkers should listen to the stories of farmers, hunters and vets before making the same fracking mistakes that are being made elsewhere.

(Mike Di Paola writes on preservation and the environment for Muse, the arts and culture section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

–Editors: Jeffrey Burke, Lili Rosboch.

To contact the writer of this column: Mike Di Paola at mdipaola@nyc.rr.com.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff in New York at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.

John Megrue, CEO of Apax Partners US, will chair a business group that includes bankers and consulting experts and will help coordinate work being done by several governments and other international donors, as well as filling in gaps in the funding.

Women need to receive antiretroviral drugs to prevent the virus being passed to their unborn babies.

There are no technological issues around it. There are no medical issues around it. It does not exist in the wealthy part of the world, Megrue said. But there are still almost 400,000 children a year born primarily in sub-Saharan Africa with HIV.

Ambassador Eric Goosby, a top US AIDS official, said that although the group set a goal of zero transmission by 2015, in reality about 13 percent of babies born to HIV-positive mothers will unavoidably be born with the virus.

Randi Zuckerberg, who founded RtoZ Studios after leaving the Facebook company that her brother Mark started, will lend the power of social media to increase awareness about the issue, by pulling in 1,000 influential Twitter and Facebook users in an expansion of an earlier social media effort to raise $200 million to fight malaria.

Im calling this a social good broadcast experiment, she said. The long-term vision is for this to be a group of thousands or millions of people who can all broadcast in a coordinated manner where there is a global crisis.

Other business leaders involved in the project include Dominic Barton, managing director of consulting firm McKinsey Co., and Cynthia Carroll, CEO of the mining company Anglo American PLC.

AIDS, Carroll said, should not be a disease of children.

CINCINNATI, Feb. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ –
Phillips Edison’s Strategic Investment Fund I announced today that it has closed two CMBS loans totaling $94.5 million. The new 10-year fixed-rate loans are secured by Bridgewater Falls Shopping Center and Fort Smith Pavilion.

Bridgewater Falls, purchased in 2009, is a 600,000-square-foot regional shopping center in Cincinnati, Ohio, anchored by Target, JCPenney and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Fort Smith Pavilion, purchased in 2010, is a 400,000-square-foot regional shopping center in Fort Smith, Arkansas, anchored by Target and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Although the assets were purchased in the throes of the most recent real estate downturn, both properties have experienced significant leasing and remerchandising since acquisition, achieving greater than 95% occupancy.

“In this challenging economic environment, these centers attracted national and regional tenants looking to open new locations,” noted David Birdsall, senior vice president of Phillips Edison’s Strategic Investment Funds. “This is a testament to the fundamentals offered by each center, further evidenced by the strong interest we received in financing these assets on a permanent basis. The loan proceeds allowed Strategic Investment Fund I to return 100% of the investors’ capital less than two years following the fund’s final capital call. Fund I also owns three additional assets with upside potential in various stages of maturity.”

Phillips Edison & Company formed Strategic Investment Fund I in 2007 to capitalize on retail real estate opportunities created by the credit crunch and real estate market downturn. In 2011, having fully invested the $65 million in Fund I, the company formed Strategic Investment Fund II with $57 million which it is currently investing.

Phillips Edison & Company specializes in the acquisition, redevelopment, leasing, and management of grocery-anchored neighborhood and community shopping centers. The company’s portfolio includes more than 220 properties, totaling over 25 million square feet in 35 states. The privately owned, fully integrated real estate company has corporate offices in Cincinnati and Salt Lake City, as well as regional offices across the country.

SOURCE Phillips Edison & Company

Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

Because of limited infrastructural facilities for rehearsal and practice, the cultural bodies at the university often show apathy to hold programmes marking different significant days. As a result, the number of cultural programmes on the campus is reducing, campus sources said.

There are at least 12 cultural organisations at the university, including Udichi Shilpi Goshthi, Charon Sangskritik Kendra, Biggan Andolon Mancha, Abritty Mancha, Angon, Sangskritik Union, Oikotan, Nandi Theatre and Shyamageet.

These organisations carry out their activities on the campus on their own with inadequate logistic support, they said.

The only space available for the cultural organisations to hold rehearsals is the building of CU Central Students Union (CUCSU). But lack of sufficient rooms in the CUCSU building is forcing cultural activists to hold rehearsals outside the campus, said the cultural activists.

Sources said the central auditorium of the university has remained unused since 1980s due to infrastructural imperfections in it. But the university authorities are yet to repair it, they added.

For lack of central auditorium, cultural bodies as well as the university authorities organise programmes in the auditoriums of social science faculty and business administration faculty.

The leaders of the cultural organisations said they show apathy to hold any programmes as rent of the two auditoriums are too high for them to bear.

Yusuf Hasan Bappi, general secretary of Angon, said the cultural bodies working on the campus are not getting proper facilities, including rooms in the CUCSU building and lack of proper rehearsal spaces.

Bappi urged the university authorities to construct a central auditorium for the cultural activities on the campus.

Prosun Chowdhury, organising secretary of Udichi Shilpi Goshthi, said due to lack of infrastructural facilities they have to rehearse under the open sky most of the time. As there are no sufficient facilities in CUCSU building for the cultural organisations, they can not preserve their necessary equipment and instruments on the campus, he said, adding that as a result cultural activists have to keep their necessary logistics of cultural programmes in their respective residents that are very much bothersome.

Prosun said a central auditorium is very necessary on the campus for carrying out cultural actvities. He demanded of the university authorities to construct a Teacher Student Centre (TSC) on the campus.

Admitting the limited space for cultural activities in the CUCSU building, Vice Chancellor Prof Md Anwarul Azim Arif said they can not provide many facilities due to financial constraints.

Prof Arif, however, said he has a plan to build up a Teacher Student Centre on the campus to make the green campus of the university more vibrant.

The Uptown Square building at 170 Broadway will be demolished to make way for an expansion of Lambeth House.

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Located on the high schools campus on Skyline Drive in Worcester, the clinic will pair fourth-year veterinary students in the Cummings School’s Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program with students in the veterinary assistant program at WTHS. This is believed to be the first time a veterinary school has chosen a high school clinic venue to facilitate an educational and outreach partnership.

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Work has begun on the clinic space, and an opening is anticipated in late spring.

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“This collaboration represents a different way of looking at service to the community, care for needy animals, and educating compassionate, knowledgeable veterinary professionals,” said Deborah T. Kochevar, DVM, PhD, dean of the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine., in a prepared statement.

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“Animals and their owners, and students from both schools, win with this model, she said.

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The veterinary school’s involvement in the Greater Worcester area has increased since 2009, when students and faculty began to offer an annual free vaccination and wellness clinic at Worcester Housing Authority residences. That effort has since grown to serve 200 pets each year at six WHA sites.

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“By pairing veterinary assistant students alongside professional DVM students, we will be able to do more than just treat the critically underserved pets among the neediest communities in the area,” added WTHS Principal Sheila Harrity in a prepared statement. “We will demonstrate to our students the career possibilities beyond high school while giving them hands-on education.”

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By requiring proof, for example, of government assistance or residency within a residence at the Worcester Housing Authority, the clinic will focus exclusively on individuals who do not have the means to bring their pets to another clinic in the area.

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Once approved, pet owners will have access to vaccinations, well-being visits and simple surgeries at significantly reduced fees that are just enough to cover the clinic’s costs.

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In addition to providing hands-on experience for both groups of students and pet owners from disadvantaged backgrounds, the clinic is likely to create a public health benefit by increasing the number of pets who are vaccinated against communicable diseases like rabies, as well as providing surveillance data on outbreaks of animal disease that otherwise might go undetected.

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The idea of the clinic grew over time from both sides of the collaboration, but spearheading the concept were two faculty members in the Cummings School’s Department of Clinical Sciences. Associate Professor Elizabeth A. Rozanski, DVM, and Professor John E. Rush, DVM, first conceptualized a clinic to give veterinary students more primary care clinical experience while serving needy animals.

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Students in the technical high school’s veterinary assistant program will take increasingly larger roles as they progress through the four-year curriculum, learning safety and hygiene protocols, scheduling appointments, handling transactions, helping to take histories and steady animals during exams and supervise the younger students in the program.

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By working alongside veterinary students under the supervision of WTHS and Cummings School personnel, veterinary assistant students learn valuable skills, Harrity said, and may also aspire to become veterinary technicians or veterinarians themselves.

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Offecct’s earlier collaboration with Dutch designer Ineke Hans resulted in the very successful acoustic panel SOUNDWAVE Geo, which was awarded the prestigious Red Dot Design Award.

For 2012 Offecct asked Ineke Hans to design a sofa along the lines of last year’s successful O2ASIS initiative. O2ASIS is a collection of design products which together with flowers and plants increases and adds value to interiors.

The result is SMALLROOM, a sofa that can be used together in different modules or standing alone.

The design of SMALLROOM is characterized by a “box” on the side which can be used for placing plants, as a working surface or for storage.

- The construction contains only a few elements, but provides for many different possibilities and variations, says Ineke Hans.

The back of the sofa can be compared to a high wall functioning as a sort of protection when one is seated, and creates the impression of a smaller room. However, the height of the back is not compromising with the volume of the surrounding room.

- The cooperation with Ineke Hans has been very rewarding, and after the success with SOUNDWAVE Geo we are happy that SMALLROOM fits so well into our O2ASIS product line, says Kurt Tingdal, CEO, Offecct.

SMALLROOM is offered with different back and side heights, which provide the architect a possibility to create environments that evoke interest, through the help of different dimensions. In contemporary office environments one often talk about active areas; where different kinds of work, conversations and meetings can take place. SMALLROOM is developed in accordance with this and invites individually or group activities at work.

About Ineke Hans

Ineke Hans has a degree from Royal College of Art in London and founded her own design agency INEKEHANS/ARNHEM in the Netherlands at the end of the 1990s. Ineke Hans works with a great number of different projects like furniture, product design and jewelry.

While new technology and new materials are important in Ineke Hans’s design, there is often a stroke of poetry in her designs. Ineke Hans has received a great number of awards, among others the Red Dot Awards and Design Plus Awards.

About OFFECCT

Offecct was founded in 1990 by CEO Kurt Tingdal and Design Manager Anders Englund, and is situated in Tibro, Sweden. Offecct has 42 people employed with sales of SEK 115 million. More than 50% of the sales are made up of exports to 55 countries.

Offecct has grown rapidly to become a major furniture manufacturer with high design ambitions, which is particularly evident in the many international design awards that Offecct has received over the years. Offecct believes that qualitative, innovative and sustainable design creates interiors that have a positive impact on people – in meetings, at home and at work. Offecct works closely with some of the worlds most renowned designers.

Offecct also believes that Corporate Social Sustainability (CSR) is as important as quality and design, which is evident in the choice of materials, energy, transportation and logistics. Many of Offeccts products have been approved by the Nordic ecolabel, and Offecct is also certified in accordance with ISO 9001 (quality) as well as ISO 14001 (environmental).

Several public spaces all over the world have been furnished with objects from Offecct. A few examples are the offices of Skype and the Swedish Association of Architects as well as Nobis Hotel in Stockholm; MoMA and the MTV studio in New York, Microsoft in Hong Kong, Philips in Istanbul, MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art) in New York; Schiphol in Holland, Statoil in Norway, and BMW in Belgium.

Contact Information

For further information and high resolution images, please contact:

Ulrika Darheden, Marketing Assistant, OFFECCT AB, phone: +46 504 415 00

Kurt Tingdal, CEO OFFECCT AB, phone: +46 504 415 00

High resolution images can be downloaded from http://www.offecct.se

Web: http://www.offecct.se

Blog: blog.offecct.se

Facebook: facebook.com/OFFECCT

Twitter: twitter.com/offecct

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