Word of the day

Meraki – doing something with creativity, love, passion or soul; doing something you love so much you leave something of yourself in it.

Rural round-up

Govt: Lighter rules insulating dairy shock – Suze Metherell:

Light regulation in the New Zealand dairy industry has insulated the wider economy from the sharp decline in prices for the country’s largest export commodity, according to Finance Minister Bill English.

Prices for whole milk powder, the country’s key commodity export, have plunged this year and dropped an unexpectedly large 10.7 percent in in the GlobalDairyTrade auction last week, sending the kiwi dollar to six-year-lows.

Dairy prices are now expected to remain lower for longer than previously forecast, amid higher global supplies, weak demand in China and an import ban in Russia on European dairy products, which are being sold into other market. . .

Vets to cut down on antibiotics:

The Veterinary Association has set an ambitious target to reduce the use of antibiotics to control disease in animals.

Its goal is to have New Zealand no longer having to rely on using antibiotics for animals by 2030.

President Steve Merchant said the country was well suited to the challenge because of its size, and the fact that it was already the world’s third lowest user of antibiotics on animals. . .

Changes to Health and Safety Reform Bill are sensible:

Federated Farmers believe the two month delay in the Select Committee reporting back the Health and Safety Reform Bill to Parliament has led to improvements for the farming industry.

The Bill has been reported back today.

Federated Farmers health and safety spokesperson Katie Milne says the Bill overall will make farms safer places.

Specifically she says the Bill has gone some way to recognising that farms are different to urban industrial workplaces. . .

 

New Māori aquaculture agreements signed:

New regional agreements for Māori commercial aquaculture have been signed by Government Ministers today, including Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy.

Three regional agreements have been signed with iwi from the Auckland, Tasman, and Marlborough regions following successful negotiations between the Crown and regional Iwi aquaculture organisations.

The agreements are the result of the Māori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004, which requires the Crown to provide Iwi aquaculture organisations with 20% of new commercial aquaculture space consented since October 2011, or anticipated to occur into the future. . .

Australian consortium said to be in no hurry to up their bid for A2 Milk – Fiona Rotherham:

(BusinessDesk) – Australian-based Freedom Foods and US-based Dean Foods are said to be in no hurry to up their bid for A2 Milk Co after the milk marketer this week told its suitors to try again after an initial offer wasn’t compelling and drew out as yet unnamed rival bidders.

A source close to the bidding consortium said they were underwhelmed by a trading update A2 Milk released at the same time as rejecting the offer and request for due diligence, saying it contained “nothing that would shift their view on valuation”.

Given Freedom Foods, the company’s previous joint venture partner in Australia, has a 19.1 percent blocking stake in A2 Milk, any rival bidders may struggle to get an offer across the line. . .

 

Wool market buoyant:

New Zealand Wool Services International Limited’s General Manager, Mr John Dawson reports that today’s sale of 6,617 bales saw increases of 1 to 2 percent overall. A good result, considering offering of 52 percent Coarse Crossbred Early Shorn and Second Shear types.

There was good demand for shorter Second Shear types 2 to 3 inch 32 to 35 micron as buyers bid to cover Chinese orders.

The trade weighted indicator was little changed from the last wool sale on 16th July. . .

 

 

Saturday’s smiles

Two nuns, Sister Mary and Sister Agnes, were travelling through Europe in their car.

In Transylvania and are stopped at a traffic light when suddenly, out of nowhere, Dracula jumped onto the hood of the car and hissed through the window at them.

“Oh no! Sister Mary cried, “What will we do?

 “Turn the window wipers on. That will get rid of the abomination,”  Sister Agnes replied.

Sister Mary switched on the wipers which knocked Dracula about, but he clung on and continued hissing at the nuns.

 “Oh, Lord, what will I do now?” Sister Mary cried.

 “Switch on the window washer. I filled it up with Holy Water in the Vatican,” Sister Agnes said.

Sister Mary turned on the window washer. Dracula screamed as the water burned his skin, but he clung on and continued hissing at the nuns. 

“Now what?” cried Sister Mary.

“Show him your cross,” Sister Agnes said.

 “Now you’re talking,” Sister Mary said.

She opened the window and shouted, “Get off our beeping car you ugly bleep”

Saturday soapbox

Saturday’s soapbox is yours to use as you will – within the bounds of decency and absence of defamation. You’re welcome to look back or forward, discuss issues of the moment, to pontificate, ponder or point us to something of interest, to educate, elucidate or entertain, amuse, bemuse or simply muse, but not abuse.

Foolishness – knowing the truth, seeing the truth but believing the lies.

July 25 in history

285 Diocletian appointed Maximian as Caesar, co-ruler.

306 Constantine I was proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.

864 The Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald ordered defensive measures against the Vikings.

1139  Battle of Ourique: The independence of Portugal from the Kingdom of León declared after the Almoravids, led by Ali ibn Yusuf, were defeated by Prince Afonso Henriques.

1261  The city of Constantinople was recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.

1536  Sebastián de Belalcázar on his search for El Dorado founded the city of Santiago de Cali.

1547 Henry II of France was crowned.

1567 Don Diego de Losada founds the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela.

1593  Henry IV of France publicly converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.

1603 James VI of Scotland was crowned bringing the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into personal union.

1722 The Three Years War began along the Maine and Massachusetts border.

1755  British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council ordered the deportation of the Acadians.

1758 Seven Years’ War: the island battery at Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia was silenced and all French warships destroyed or taken.

1788 Wolfgang Mozart completed his Symphony number 40 in g minor (K550).

1792 The Brunswick Manifesto was issued to the population of Paris promising vengeance if the French Royal Famiy was harmed.

1795 The first stone of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was laid.

1797 Horatio Nelson lost more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife.

1799 David Douglas, Scottish botanist, was born (d. 1834).

1799 At Aboukir in Egypt, Napoleon I of France defeats 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha.

1814 War of 1812: Battle of Lundy’s Lane.

1837 The first commercial use of an electric telegraph was successfully demonstrated by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone on 25 July 1837 between Euston and Camden Town.

1853 Joaquin Murietta, the Californio bandit known as “Robin Hood of El Dorado”, was killed.

1861 American Civil War: the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution was passed by the U.S. Congress stating that the war was being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.

1866 The U.S. Congress passed legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army (commonly called “5-star general”). Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to be promoted to this rank.

1869 The Japanese daimyō began returning their land holdings to the emperor as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms.

1894 The First Sino-Japanese War began when the Japanese fired on a Chinese warship.

1898  The United States invasion of Puerto Rico began with U.S. troops led by General Nelson Miles landing at harbour of Guánica.

1907  Korea became a protectorate of Japan.

1908 Ajinomoto was founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovered that a key ingredient in Konbu soup stock was monosodium glutamate (MSG), and patented a process for manufacturing it.

1909  Louis Blériot made the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine, from Calais to Dover in 37 minutes.

1915  RFC Captain Lanoe Hawker became the first British military aviator to earn the Victoria Cross, for defeating three German two-seat observation aircraft in one day, over the Western Front.

1917 Sir Thomas Whyte introduced the first income tax in Canada as a “temporary” measure (lowest bracket 4% and highest 25%).

1920 Telecommunications: the first transatlantic two-way radio broadcast.

1925 Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) was established.

1930 Murray Chapple,  New Zealand cricketer, was born (d. 1985).

1934 Nazis assassinated Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.

1940  General Guisan ordered the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and makes surrender illegal.

1942  Bruce Woodley, Australian musician (The Seekers), was born.

1942 Norwegian Manifesto called for nonviolent resistance to the Nazis

1943  Jim McCarty, English musician (The Yardbirds), was born.

1943  Benito Mussolini was forced out of office by his own Italian Grand Council and replaced by Pietro Badoglio.

1944 Operation Spring – one of the bloodiest days for the First Canadian Army during WWII:  1,500 casualties, including 500 killed.

1946 Operation Crossroads: an atomic bomb was detonated underwater in the lagoon of Bikini atoll.

1946   Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis staged their first show as a comedy team.

1948  The Australian cricket team set a world record for the highest successful run-chase in Test cricket history in the Fourth Test against England.

1951 Verdine White, American musician (Earth, Wind & Fire), was born.

1953 Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, was born.

1956 Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collided with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sank the next day, killing 51.

1957  Republic of Tunisia proclaimed.

1958 The African Regroupment Party (PRA) held its first congress in Cotonou.

1959  SR-N1 hovercraft crossed  the English Channel from Calais to Dover in just over 2 hours.

1965  Bob Dylan went electric as he plug in at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major change in folk and rock music.

1969 Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon declared the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States expected its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense.

1973 Soviet Mars 5 space probe launched.

1978 The Cerro Maravilla incident – two young Puerto Rican pro-independence activists were killed in a police ambush.

1978  Louise Brown, the world’s first “test tube baby” was born.

1981 The invasion of  Hamilton’s Rugby Park by 350 anti-tour demonstrators forced the Springboks-Waikato match to be abandoned.

1983  Black July: 37 Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo were massacred by the fellow Sinhalese prisoners.

1984  Salyut 7 Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to perform a space walk.

1993  Israel launched a massive attack against terrorist forces in Lebanon.

1993 The St James Church massacre in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa.

1994  Israel and Jordan signed the Washington Declaration, which formally ends the state of war that had existed between the nations since 1948.

1995 A gas bottle exploded in Saint Michel station in Paris. Eight were killed and 80 wounded.

1996 In a military coup in Burundi, Pierre Buyoya deposed Sylvestre Ntibantunganya.

1997  K.R. Narayanan was sworn-in as India’s 10th president and the first Dalit— formerly called “untouchable”— to hold this office.

2000  Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde supersonic passenger jet, F-BTSC, crashed just after takeoff from Paris killing all 109 aboard and 4 on the ground.

2007  Pratibha Patil was sworn in as India’s first woman president.

2010 – Wikileaks published classified documents about the War in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history.

2012  – Pranab Mukherjee became the 13th president of India.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia