Airbus Gears Up For A330neo Airspace Cabin Delivery.

Hamburg – Airbus is preparing for introduction of the Airspace cabin on the A330neo and is refining the design on the A320neo, both variants of the cabin being touted as continuing the A350's passenger experience.

The first two A330neos for TAP Air Portugal, fitted with the Airspace cabin, are “painted and in the final assembly line,” says Ingo Wuggetzer, Airbus' vice-president for cabin marketing. They are scheduled to enter into service in the middle of the year, he said, speaking at the Aircraft Interiors 2018 show in Hamburg. With the new layout, Airbus believes its widebody family is offering a “consistent experience.”

It will also be brought to the single-aisle family – a feature deemed especially relevant on the long-haul A321LR.

The first Airspace attribute will not enter into service on an A320neo family aircraft until mid-2019, however. That is when American Airlines will receive Airspace XL overhead baggage bins on its new and retrofitted aircraft. The latter will be classic A321s.

The new bins, manufactured by Austria's FACC, are only slightly bulkier externally than their predecessors. But they make a major difference. Eight pieces of luggage – of the largest authorized size for carry-on bags – can be accommodated, whereas the current design can only take five. The trick is an additional 3.5 in. depth, which involved rearranging some piping and wiring between the fuselage and the interior sidewall. As a result, a typical roller suitcase can be placed on its side, as opposed to laid horizontally.

An additive manufacturing process is used to produce a spacer that is part of the design. Airbus describes it as the first 3D-printed part a passenger can see.

The Airspace overhead bin layout resembles Zodiac's Ecos design, which already flies on Delta Airlines aircraft. Airbus claims the new design is lighter.

A total of 750 aircraft have been ordered with the XL bins or the entire Airspace interior, according to Wuggetzer. Another component of the Airspace suite is the upgraded lavatory. Touchless controls bring more hygiene. The internal volume of the lavatory compartment has been increased by 70 liters, Airbus claims.

Entry into service of an A320neo with a complete Airspace cabin interior is slated for mid-2020.

http://aviationweek.com/aircraft-interiors/airbus-gears-a330neo-airspace-cabin-delivery 

Save the Children faces formal investigation over staff misconduct.

Move follows complaints about employees’ behaviour and exit of senior staff members.

The inquiry will examine the charity over allegations that surfaced between 2012 and 2015. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

Save the Children, the global charity mired in allegations that it failed to investigate sexual abuse and inappropriate behaviour by staff, is to be formally investigated by the Charity Commission.

In a statement announcing a statutory inquiry, the commission said it had been prompted by “concerns about the charity’s handling, reporting and response to serious allegations of misconduct and harassment against senior staff members in 2012 and 2015”.

The commission describes a statutory inquiry as its “most serious form of engagement” with a charity.

The news, announced on Tuesday night, will be another blow for the charity two months after it emerged that both Justin Forsyth, its former chief executive, and Brendan Cox, the former policy director and widower of the MP Jo Cox, left the charity in 2015 following allegations of misconduct. The two men knew each other from their years working for Gordon Brown and the Labour party.

After he left Save the Children, Forsyth went on to a senior role at Unicef. He resigned in February after the reports of inappropriate behaviour emerged. Cox also resigned from the charities More in Common and the Jo Cox Foundation, set up in the aftermath of his wife’s murder.

The commission, which itself has been criticised for failing to follow up allegations involving the charities it polices, has been working with Save the Children since the facts about Forsyth and Cox emerged in the wake of the scandal involving Oxfam workers in Haiti.

Save the Children is already reviewing its workplace culture and the implementation of recommendations made by a previous review.

But the Charity Commission said its recent work with it, and new information from other sources that has recently come into the regulator’s possession, meant that the commission wanted to make further inquiries.

It says it is concerned about how the 2015 allegations were reported to the commission, and how other complaints were handled and reviewed. It also questions “the charity’s decision-making since February 2018 on its public position regarding these allegations”.

In wording that suggests that new witnesses may have come forward, the statement says the investigation will look at the frankness of the charity’s disclosure to the commission of “serious incidents relating to staffing matters”.

However, the investigation is only into the management of the charity itself, not its charitable work.

It will take place in private, hearing evidence from staff, past and present and any other witnesses, and examining documentation. It will be conducted by the commission’s investigations and enforcement unit, headed by Michelle Russell.

But charity law is intended to ensure that charities serve their beneficiaries, and although the report will be published, the commission has no power of sanction. A spokesman emphasised that the decision to open a statutory investigation did not mean it had established any evidence of wrongdoing. It carried out more than 100 such inquiries last year.

In February, Save the Children’s current chief executive, Kevin Watkins, announced a “root and branch review” of the charity’s organisational culture, including measures to preserve staff safety and “any behavioural challenges among senior leadership”.

The charity said the review would commence by the end of this week and that it would report its findings in June. The final report will be “published, shared with the Charity Commission and made available to government and every single member of staff”.

In evidence to a House of Commons committee at the time, Watkins said Save the Children dealt with 193 child protection and 35 sexual harassment cases involving allegations against its staff around the world last year.

He told the international development select committee that the misconduct cases in 120 countries led to 30 dismissals.

A Save the Children spokesman said: “We apologise for any pain these matters have caused and sincerely hope that the complainants feel able to help us with the review in the coming weeks.

“This is so that we can better support our skilled and highly valued staff as they help change the lives of millions of children around the world every day.”

As the scandal threatened the vital work of numerous charities, the heads of 22 aid organisations took the unprecedented step of apologising for the sector’s failure to tackle sexual abuse. They vowed to toughen safeguards against misconduct.

The letter, signed by the heads of ActionAid UK, Christian Aid, Cafod, Care International UK, as well as Oxfam, Save the Children and others, said: “We are truly sorry.”

The scandal has been blamed for last month’s Sport Relief event raising a third less than expected on the night.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/11/save-the-children-inquiry-staff-misconduct-brendan-cox?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=270898&subid=19413045&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

The wedding in Cana is often used as a case in point story in order to dismiss as unbiblical the view according to which believers in Yeshua should abstain from alcohol. Indeed, if Yeshua did transform water into an alcoholic beverage, was he not condoning the use of alcohol for his followers?

The comment accompanying this picture does not attempt to be a complete study on this topic, especially with regard to the wedding in Cana, but it aims rather to point out several archaeological, scientific and biblical facts about the subject of alcohol and whether believers in Yeshua should abstain from it.

1) ARCHEOLOGICAL.
The following quotes gives insight as to what wine was in biblical times.

a. “As we can see from many literary sources, bread was the staple food in that region and period. Wine was a weak, diluted, and often unfermented grape wine, similar to modern grape juice.” Lawrence H. Shiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia: Jewish Society Publication, 1994), p. 328.

ARGUMENT: Wine does not necessarily mean alcoholic beverage in biblical times.

b. The “simple wines of antiquity were incomparably less deadly than the stupefying and ardent beverages of our western nations. The wines of antiquity were more like sirups; many of them were not intoxicant; many more intoxicant in a small degree; and all of them, as a rule, taken only when largely diluted with water. They contained, even undiluted, but 4 or 5 per cent. of alcohol.” William Smith, Smith’s Bible Dictionary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1986), 747.

ARGUMENT: For those who want to drink “biblically”, it is a known fact that modern alcoholic wines have a much higher alcoholic content today than they ever did during biblical times.

2) SCIENTIFIC.
What about alcohol and health?

a. Regarding alcohol consumption and a future mother: “A second highly vulnerable period occurs after fertilization but before implantation, when the embryo is undergoing rapid developmental changes and is preparing for implantation.” Edward A. Mead and Dipak K. Sarkar, “Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and their transmission through genetic and epigenetic mechanisms” (Frontiers in Genetics, 2014, 5:154.), p.4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/…/PMC40…/pdf/fgene-05-00154.pdf

ARGUMENT: In such a context, it would have been highly inappropriate for Yeshua, the Messiah and the Son of God, to provide alcoholic wine to a wedding party, knowing that even a small amount of alcohol can cause mental and physical defects in a newly formed embryo. Why then would Yeshua have served and encouraged the use of alcoholic beverages at a wedding, which would include a young bride and potentially soon mother-to-be? [See 1.a. for “wine” as non-alcoholic beverage]

3. BIBLICAL.
Should believers, kings and priests in the Kingdom to come, drink alcohol, notwithstanding the usage by commoners in biblical times?

a. The Church of God ought to be a royal priesthood (see 1 Pet. 2:5–12). The Messiah Yeshua “hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father” (Rev. 1:6), and we ought to “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God” (Rom. 12:1).

ARGUMENT: In Leviticus 10:9, we learn of the Levitical priesthood. Priests could not enter the tabernacle, where the holy spirit dwelt at the time, under the influence of alcohol. “Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations.” Where do dwell the holy spirit according the apostolic writings? “Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own.” (1 Cor. 6:19)

b. “It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink: Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.” (Prov. 31:4–5)

ARGUMENT: The Church will judge humankind during the Millennium. “In the Messianic Age, when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne, you who have followed Me will also sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel.” (Matt. 19:28). If believers want to be apt kings and judges during the Millennium, and even rightly judge of their fellow human beings today, they ought to refrain from drinking alcohol.

These facts are something to consider for anyone who wonders about alcohol consumption for believers in Yeshua. In our Church of God Study Guide, we expand on this topic in our article titled Alcohol, Recreational Drugs, and Tobacco (pp. 311-327). http://www.churchofgodstudyguide.com/