Veel chronisch zieken en gehandicapten met een laag tot modaal inkomen gaan komend jaar fors in inkomen achteruit door de beperking van de aftrek van ziektekosten.
Gehandicapten en zieken die in AWBZ-instellingen verblijven, leveren 8 tot 9 procent in, chronische zieken of gehandicapten met een uitkering of een inkomen onder modaal vaak 2 tot 9 procent.
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In de Tweede Kamer ontstond opschudding toen bleek dat deze tussenpausen in de jeugdzorg soms wel 20.000 tot 30.000 euro per maand opstrijken. In antwoord op Kamervragen stelt Rouvoet dat interim-managers in de jeugdzorg niet per se taboe zijn.
Maximumloon
Voor het vaste personeel bij Bureau Jeugdzorg moet de Balkenende-norm (170.000 euro) gaan gelden als maximumloon, maar dit geldt niet voor interim-managers.
De Kamer wilde ook opheldering over afkoopsommen die het Bureau Jeugdzorg Amsterdam de laatste jaren zou hebben betaald. Rouvoet antwoordt dat de afgelopen negen jaar negen mensen in totaal 825.000 euro hebben ontvangen bij hun vertrek.
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Het salaris is vastgesteld door de Raad van Toezicht en is gebaseerd op de salarissen van besturen bij academische en grote algemene ziekenhuizen in Nederland.
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De Energieraad wil dat het kabinet consumenten gaat dwingen energie te besparen. Dat schrijft het adviesorgaan voor de regering en het parlement in zijn dinsdag gepubliceerde jaarverslag. ‘Het kabinet moet nu welbewust harde instrumenten inzetten (normen, verplichtingen, belastingen)’, aldus de raad in zijn verslag.
Zelfs het verbieden van energieverspillende producten wil de raad niet uitsluiten. Volgens de raad moet het kabinet in zijn beleid sterk rekening houden met een nieuwe oliecrisis binnen vijf tot tien jaar. ‘Ik vrees dat er nu te weinig gebeurt om de doelstellingen te kunnen realiseren’, aldus Energieraad-voorzitter Peter Vogtländer in een toelichting.
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De Nederlandse fanschare reageerde zaterdagavond verslagen na de onverwachte uitschakeling van Oranje in het EK Voetbal. Alleen in Delft en Basel leidden de frustraties van het Oranjelegioen tot rellen.
ANP2
Maar in de rest van Nederland keerden de bedroefde fans stilletjes huiswaarts na de zege van Rusland.
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The European Union has launched a study into whether a large-scale expansion of genetically modified crops would curb soaring global food prices.
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Werkgevers moeten een personeelslid dat ze kwijt willen, helpen bij het vinden van een andere baan. Ze moeten de werknemer intussen nog een half jaar in dienst houden.
Dat staat volgens ingewijden in het rapport dat de commissie-Bakker maandag in Rotterdam presenteert. De commissie moet het kabinet adviseren over hoe honderdduizenden mensen extra aan de slag geholpen kunnen worden.
De duur van de WW wil de commissie drastisch beperken tot maximaal een jaar. Nu is dat nog maximaal 38 maanden. Werknemers zijn verplicht mee te werken aan scholing. Ze moeten zelf bijdragen aan een potje waaruit die wordt bekostigd.
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Zaken als huiswerkbegeleiding, het begeleiden van oudere mensen en steun aan jongeren met een lichte verstandelijke handicap verdwijnen grotendeels uit de AWBZ.
Het kabinet heeft vrijdag besloten de aanspraken op deze voorziening voor langdurig, onverzekerbare zorg in te perken.
Dat betekent dat hulpverlening alleen nog maar uit de AWBZ betaald wordt voor mensen die zich anders niet meer zelf kunnen redden. AWBZ-hulp voor deelname aan de samenleving zit er niet meer in.
(knip)
Voor bijvoorbeeld een boodschappendienst moeten mensen zelf oplossingen verzinnen of aankloppen bij gemeentelijk welzijnswerk.
De inperking van de Algemene wet bijzondere ziektekosten moet een besparing opleveren van 800 miljoen euro in 2010. Het kabinet had al geld uitgetrokken voor groei van de AWBZ, oplopend tot 2,5 miljard in 2011.
De stijgende uitgaven voor de AWBZ komen voor een groot deel voor rekening van jongeren die steeds vaker een rugzakje met geld, het zogeheten persoonsgebonden budget, krijgen toegewezen waarmee ze zorg kunnen inkopen.
Veel van die jongeren zijn autistisch of hebben ADHD. bron
Mr Barroso said Europe's governments would now have to decide what to do next but he called on other members states to ratify the treaty.
"I believe the treaty is alive and we should now try to find a solution," he told reporters in Brussels.
He said he had spoken to Irish prime minister Brian Cowen this afternoon, who had insisted that the no vote should not be seen as a vote against the EU.
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A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.
The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.
But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.
The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain, who has claimed the United States is on the verge of victory in Iraq – a victory that he says Mr Obama would throw away by a premature military withdrawal.
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The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.
US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.
Iraq's foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq's funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn. The US is able to threaten Iraq with the loss of 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves because Iraq's independence is still limited by the legacy of UN sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the 1990s. This means that Iraq is still considered a threat to international security and stability under Chapter Seven of the UN charter. The US negotiators say the price of Iraq escaping Chapter Seven is to sign up to a new "strategic alliance" with the United States.
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De politie heeft woensdag in Den Bosch een 47-jarige man aangehouden voor belediging van de politie. Dit heeft de politie bekendgemaakt.
De man was in de buurt van het politiebureau van Den Bosch aan het werk en droeg daarbij een T-shirt met de opdruk 'corrupt'. In de letter 'O' was het logo van de politie verwerkt. De man negeerde een waarschuwing van de politie om het logo te bedekken en werd daarop aangehouden.
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On May 15, a tanker ship from Marseilles will pull into a specially equipped dock in Barcelona's busy port, connect to a new pipeline, and discharge a liquid cargo essential to the running of the city. The ship will not, however, be carrying oil or petroleum. It is the first of many shipments of drinking water that form part of a program to slake the thirst of this drought-plagued city. Other proposals, such as a controversial plan to divert water from the Ebro river, have pitted the Catalan capital against farmers and other cities, in a mild foretaste of the water-wars that some have darkly predicted will afflict major regions of the planet in the coming years.
Spain is in the grip of its worst drought in a century as a result of climate change — this year's total rainfall, for example, has been 40% lower than average for the equivalent period, and the country's reservoirs are, on average, only 30% full. The reservoirs serving Barcelona are only 20% full, and without significant rainfall, supplies of drinking water will likely run dry by October. "We're in crisis," says Joan Armengol, professor of ecology at the University of Barcelona. "And you can't leave 5.5 million people in crisis. The government has to take the bull by the horns."
Emergency measures being taken by local authorities range from turning off Barcelona's beach showers to building a desalination plant that will be completed in 2009. Shipping in water is a stopgap measure to fend off the pressure on the city's supplies of this summer's thirst. The Catalan water agency has contracted 10 vessels for the next six months to ferry water from the French port of Marseilles and from the Spanish regions of Tarragona and Andalusia. The boats are expected to deliver some 92 million cubic feet of water each month, at a total cost of $68 million.
But channeling water from elsewhere in Spain to Barcelona raises political tensions in an increasingly thirsty country. The supply ferried by boat from Tarragona, for example, will come from newly dug wells that risk salinating local aquifers, provoking concern among that region's farmers. Members of the Peasants' Union, an agricultural syndicate, protested on Sunday against the deliveries by parking about 100 tractors in the center of the region beneath a banner reading, "The fields of Tarragona don't have a drop to spare." Even the farmers to the north of the city are suffering from the city's all-consuming thirst. "Already, some farmers in the Ter area are prohibited from irrigating because the water is needed for Barcelona," says Peasants' Union spokesman Felip Domenech. "This diversion could cause entire harvests to fail."
Ground Zero of Spain's new water wars, however, may be Barcelona's planned diversion of the Ebro, Spain's largest river, which is expected to be completed in October. The Socialist government of recently reelected Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero plans to build a pipeline alongside the highway to transport diverted Ebro water north to Barcelona. But when he was first elected in 2004, Zapatero's government overturned a similar plan, hatched by the conservative Popular Party (PP), to divert water south to Valencia. The fact that Barcelona's government is Socialist, while Valencia is ruled by the PP, has fed suspicions of political favoritism. "The government has humiliated us," said Francisco Camps, president of the Valencia region and a PP member.
Murcia, another conservative-governed coastal region that would have benefited from the original diversion, is also outraged. "Barcelona is a major metropolis, and their economy depends on a steady water supply, so it is completely logical and necessary that they have this diversion," says Antonio Cerda, city councilman for agriculture and water. "But Murcia is one of the most important agricultural regions of Spain. We need the water diversion for our economy. It's only fair that we have one too."
So heated is the debate that the Zapatero government has refused to even describe the Ebro pipeline to Barcelona as a diversion, calling it instead a "temporary solution," or, if pressed, a "mini-diversion".
"It's totally political, and could have been avoided," says Professor Armengol. "Instead, it's become a war between territories."
The Barcelona-bound boatloads of very expensive water are a means to ease that tension a bit. "It's a provisional solution," admits Barcelona mayor Jordi Hereu. "But it makes me calmer about our chances for avoiding an emergency." Maybe so. But it also points out how much more money and political energy will have to be expended to manage the distribution of an increasingly scarce resource. And the difficulties keeping the population hydrated in a politically tranquil Mediterranean democracy like Spain augur poorly for the drier and more desperate regions of the world.
* Find this article at:
* http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1739621,00.html
This is a playlist with some of my favourite music
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