Part of your preparation should include thinking about the language you're going to use, says business psychologist and author of Life-Changing Conversations, Sarah Rozenthuler.

If you've got a figure in mind of what you think you should be earning, base it on some kind of evidence compared with your competitors.

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's 2011 survey on Employee Attitudes to Pay, the proportion of employees receiving a pay rise has fallen from 67% in 2008 to 45% in 2011.

By sector, 51% of workers in the private sector had a pay rise in 2011, compared with 45% in the voluntary sector and 24% in the public sector. Hardly surprising, given the wage freezes in the public sector.

Nevertheless, more than half of the 3,000 working adults surveyed still expected their pay to go up this year.

But if your request for a pay rise is turned down, what should you do?

Don't give up altogether, says Sarah Rozenthuler. She suggests that you attempt to keep the door open for one in the future.

Ask about what you can do in order to get a raise, and ask when you can talk about it again. Keep a record of the conversation, and then follow it up after the appropriate time.

Corinne Mills adds that there may be other things you can ask for instead to help develop your career – such as training or a secondment to a different department.

"Look for other opportunities in which you can enhance your employability," she advises.

At the end of the day, says Ms Rozenthuler, when you ask for a pay rise you have to weigh up the potential benefits against the risks of staying silent – if you carry on not getting what you think you're worth, you can start feeling resentful and that can affect your health and well-being.

"It might make you feel a bit awkward or a bit uncomfortable, but if you really think you deserve a pay rise and you've carefully thought about how to approach your boss, you've got nothing to lose," she says.

"Even if you don't get it, you'll feel better for at least having a go. You might even gain some self respect."

And after all, if you don't ask you don't get.

The answers will have a major impact on Syria’s neighbors and the Middle East.

It’s a complicated web of affairs, laced with deep historical, political and religious ties. There are several factors to consider: Syria’s relationships with Iran and Hezbollah; its presence in neighboring Lebanon, a country struggling to maintain a delicate balance among its religious and ethnic sects; and the roles of Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

We asked four people to share their thoughts on the connection between Syria and the current state of affairs in the region, posing the question: “What kind of impact do the events in Syria have on the rest of the Middle East?”

Leverett: War could draw in other countries

Hillary Mann Leverett teaches foreign policy at American University in Washington. A former White House official who worked on Middle East issues, she held various roles with the State Department, the National Security Council and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. She is also co-author of the blog RaceForIran.com.

The civil war in Syria is likely to prove a watershed for the Middle East’s balance of power. It has the potential to become a full-blown regional war that could spill over into other countries and bring those countries into conflict, through proxies and perhaps even directly.

On top of that, the temptation to arm and fund Syrian rebels could spark a great power confrontation over Syria. Russia and China have made it clear that that they oppose foreign military intervention in Syria, especially by the United States. And in Russia’s case, it has made it clear that it will protect Syria, its beachhead in the Mediterranean. Russia has a longtime relationship with the country, and it has drawn a red line against U.S. intervention. Russia has sent naval assets, weapons and radar to Syria, and it could even send Russian personnel to protect it. Russia and China’s approach to the Syrian conflict is very different from the posture they took toward the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Western military intervention in Libya.

If you watch the Western or Gulf states’ media, you would have the impression that everyone in Syria opposes and is fighting the government. This is not true. In Syria, a significant portion of the population is disaffected, but the majority still supports the regime. A series of public polls, for example, show that the al-Assad government still retains a majority of the support of the population. The reason? The basic majority, about 55% of the population, is terrified at the prospect of the other 45% forming a Sunni Islamist tyranny over the country. The 55% have held together — as they have for decades — to essentially hold Syria together as an independent, secular political order.

There are now several countries, principally Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, France and the U.S., that have aligned themselves with the angry minority. The strategic problem for these countries is that even if rebels are militarily successful and force al-Assad from power, the new government would be one that roughly 55% of the population does not want and/or fears. This means that without a negotiated way forward, we know that the outcome of arming or supporting the rebels means — at a minimum — only sustained violence and instability in Syria and for the region.

Tabler: ‘Cold war’ between Shiites, Sunnis

Andrew J. Tabler is the Next Generation fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is also the author of “In the Lion’s Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington’s Battle with Syria.”

The events in Syria impact the general struggle between Iran and the Sunni-Arab alliance in the region. The minority Shiite Alawite-dominated regime in Syria is backed by Iran, and the majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims.

There is sort of a cold war taking place between the two sides. I think you can see that playing out in terms of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Turkey clearly on the side of the opposition in Syria, while the Iranians are strongly backing the regime. What’s at stake is larger than what’s within Syria’s borders.

Syria is a keystone of the Iranian alliance. It allows Iran to protect its power on the shores of the Mediterranean and its border with Israel, particularly its support of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

And the more this violence continues, especially with the regime using brutal force, the more it enrages people in the Sunni Arab countries. Although other governments have been holding back in their support of the opposition until recently, there are many individuals in the region who will help sponsor the opposition within Syria.

A lot of this is about the future of the Arab world and what the basis of these governments will be. For so long, it has been based on narrow regimes and, in the case of Syria, a narrow minority regime. Whatever comes next is likely to be a majoritarian system that has a larger base.

Haddad: Interference would change the dynamics

Bassam Haddad is the director of Middle East studies at George Mason University. He is also the homepage editor of Jadaliyya, an independent online Arab affairs magazine produced by the Arab Studies Institute. Haddad wrote “Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience.”

The Syrian situation is complex like any other uprising, but the situation has added complexity because it is at the juncture of several conflicts in the region. Those struggles involve local, regional and international power plays that make the situation a lot more charged.

For instance, we have Syria at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Syria is part of an axis, so to speak, with Iran and Hezbollah, confronting imperialism in various forms from inside and outside the region, particularly in relation to U.S. domination and Israel’s occupations and belligerence.

There is also resistance to the conservative Arab camp that includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other conservative countries that are usually allies with the United States.

Also, Syria is, in many ways, the guarantor of stability in Lebanon. Syria’s presence in Lebanon has guaranteed some stability despite many violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty by Syria.

For all these reasons, Syria’s position in the region is pivotal. This is not simply another uprising against a dictator. It is also being transformed by other players into an effort to redraw the political map of the region and curtail further protests elsewhere.

A lot of the anti-regime actors and analysts are placed in an odd position. They do not support the regime or the turn that the uprising has taken since fall of last year. So perhaps the task is to build an independent opposition away from the dictates of Saudi Arabia, Qatar or the United States.

Military intervention in Syria will bring in Iran and Hezbollah, and that will change the dynamic of the conflict. Most people in the region are opposed to the Syrian regime’s domestic behavior during the past decades, but they are not opposed to its regional role. The problem is the Syrian regime’s internal repression, not its external policies.

If there is no interference from the outside, the uprisings will be seen as legitimate. If it becomes regional and you bring in the U.S. and Israel in a fight against the Syrian regime, it changes the strategic dynamics of the conflict — and not just the players involved.

Dunne: Democracy takes time

Michele Dunne is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East in Washington. Previously, she was a Middle East affairs specialist at the State Department and the White House. She also served as a diplomat in Cairo and Jerusalem.

When I travel to the Middle East, it is striking how in the eastern part of the Arab world, sectarian issues are right on the surface of public discourse and shape the way people look at the uprisings.

For example, the same person might support the uprising in Syria but not the one in Bahrain, or vice versa, depending on whether that person is Sunni or Shiite Muslim.

There are many reasons for this, including the rise of Iran and the unleashing of sectarian sentiments in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was deposed. Sectarian feeling is less pronounced in the western part of the Arab world, which is largely populated by Sunnis.

Last summer, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states abandoned al-Assad and withdrew their ambassadors from Syria. Perhaps they did this partly because they saw how strong the popular uprising in Syria was and assessed that al-Assad might not be able to outlast it. Perhaps they also saw a chance of getting a Sunni majority government into power in Syria, which would make the Gulf states more comfortable. Probably, their desire to change the regional sectarian and political power balance has largely dictated their policies toward Syria.

Certainly, Syria has been a key cog in the machine of Iran’s influence in the Levant. Syria has provided the avenue through which Iran could project political influence into Lebanon and Palestine through Hezbollah and Hamas.

The Hamas link with Syria has already been broken. Hamas has turned against al-Assad, partly out of support for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and partly because Damascus is no longer a safe haven for them. Hamas is now working on closer relations with Egypt, where the Brotherhood controls close to half of the parliament, is running a candidate for president and is likely to have a strong presence in the new Cabinet.

We are not going to see in any of the Arab countries a neat transition to a democracy in a year or two. Countries do not make that shift — from authoritarianism to democracy — so rapidly. Achieving a well-functioning democracy could happen in perhaps 10 to 15 years. There will be setbacks, bloodshed and disappointments along the way. But we have to stay with this for a while, develop sustainable strategies to help these countries, and not abandon them a year or two into their transitions.

The opportunity to establish functioning democracies in the Arab world is a tremendous and historic one for the Middle East, and the risks if these transitions fail — with all that could bring in terms of instability, safe havens for terrorists, etc. — are also enormous.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors.

On-Air Challenge: You’ll be given classic advertising slogans and catch phrases in which the letters of the last word are scrambled. First, unscramble the word. Then name the product or company that is the advertiser. For example, given “Get a piece of the cork,” the answer would be “Get a piece of the rock,” which is a slogan of the Prudential Insurance Company.

Last Week’s Challenge: Name a famous novel in two words. The first word has five letters, and the second word has 11. If you have the right novel, the initial letters of the novel’s title, reversed, are the initials of its author. What’s the novel, and who is the author?

Answer: David Copperfield is the novel, and Charles Dickens is the author.

Winner: Don Lemke from Sparta, Mich.

Next Week’s Challenge from listener Jim Waters of Bellingham, Wash.: Think of a common man’s name in four letters, one syllable. Move each letter exactly halfway around the alphabet. For example, A would become N, N would become A, and B would become O. The result will be a common woman’s name in two syllables. What names are these?

Submit Your Answer

If you know the answer to next week’s challenge, submit it here. Listeners who submit correct answers win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: Include a phone number where we can reach you Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern.

Doctors often overlook taking a child’s blood pressure during routine visits.

There have been hints that the obesity epidemic’s rise has slowed a bit among certain populations, but for the most part, it continues to dominate American health. One third of children and teenagers are now overweight or obese. And researchers forecast as many as half of our nation’s population could be obese — not overweight but obese — by 2030.

With obesity comes a host of health-related problems: diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and even certain cancers. Perhaps most worrisome of all, pediatricians report seeing the beginning of these diseases — previously considered problems among adults only — in children as young as 3.

And this is why the American Academy of Pediatrics and federal health officials recommend that doctors routinely screen children for high blood pressure. But diagnosing hypertension in children is more complicated than it is among adults.

“In adults, anything over 140 over 90 is considered abnormal,” says family physician Dr. Margaret Riley with the University of Michigan Medical School. Not so for kids.

Normal blood pressure values for children and adolescents are based on age, sex and height. This means doctors need to not only measure a child’s blood pressure but also compare it to standardized charts that indicate what’s normal for children based on age, sex and height.

“A normal blood pressure for [a 15-year-old boy] is different from that of an 8-year-old girl,” Riley says.

She recently published a review of available data in the journal American Family Physician to remind doctors about the importance of not only taking children’s blood pressure but also comparing it to standardized tables.

Earlier data show doctors often overlook taking a child’s blood pressure during routine visits. Among children eventually diagnosed with high blood pressure, only 26 percent of them had it written in their medical records.

“A physician often will put the blood pressure value in their notes, but they won’t address it as high because they won’t have recognized it as an abnormal value for that specific child,” Riley says, adding, “I think clinicians are used to seeing a number like 100 over 60, and that looks good at first glance, but if you actually look at that for a specific child’s age and height, then it may be high for them.”

Dr. Reginald Washington, a pediatric cardiologist at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children, says not diagnosing high blood pressure early can set off a dangerous chain reaction.

“The problem is the body doesn’t forgive this; so, if you have high blood pressure or cholesterol as a child, you’re setting yourself up for premature problems,” says Washington, adding that patients can have strokes in their 20s or 30s if they have high blood pressure that’s untreated.

According to one estimate, about 2,000 children and teens suffer strokes every year as a result of hypertension. But the good news, says Washington, is that medication is generally not needed for this age group. Simple lifestyle changes can do the trick. Cutting down on high-fat foods and high-sugar drinks, along with active family outings, can make a big difference, he says. And, because they have higher metabolism, kids have an easier time shedding pounds than adults.

Washington adds that families are often more motivated when their child’s health is at stake. Parents should model healthy lifestyles, too, says Riley, by exercising regularly and eating as few processed foods as possible.

A Spanish government statement said it was "hardly appropriate" for Queen Sofia, 73, to attend a lunch on Friday.

The UK and Spain have been in dispute over fishing rights off Gibraltar, a UK territory which Spain also claims.

Spain has also protested over a visit to Gibraltar by Queen Elizabeth's son Prince Edward and his wife Sophie.

The prince and the Countess of Wessex are to visit Gibraltar on 11-13 June as part of the celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen's reign.

Spain continues to claim sovereignty over Gibraltar, which has been ruled by Britain since 1713 under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht.

Queen Sofia's husband, King Juan Carlos, had already declined his invitation to the lunch at Windsor Castle on Friday.

He is recovering from surgery last month after he fell and broke his hip while hunting elephants in Botswana.

In 1981, the Spanish royal couple declined an invitation to Prince Charles's wedding to Diana, Princess of Wales because they planned to visit Gibraltar as part of their honeymoon.

And a visit by Princess Anne to Gibraltar in 2009 sparked an official complaint from the Spanish government.

An additional cause of unhappiness for the Spanish royal household is the fact that the British regimental band of Gibraltar will be performing at the Diamond Jubilee, reports the Spanish news agency Efe.

A spokesman for the UK Foreign Office told the AFP news agency: "The visit was a private commitment and we don't comment on private visits."

Officials at Buckingham Palace have refused to confirm which monarchs are attending the lunch on Friday, but the BBC's royal correspondent Peter Hunt said Prince Albert of Monaco and the Emperor of Japan would be at Windsor Castle.

Emperor Akihito, who is 78, underwent heart surgery in February and only returned to full official duties in April.

Swaziland's King Mswati III, who critics accuse of leading a "lavish lifestyle" while his people starve, is among those attending.

Protests were held outside the Savoy hotel in London on Wednesday by Swazis living in the UK, who claim two-thirds of people in Swaziland are living in extreme poverty.

Our correspondent said the King of Bahrain, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, could also attend, despite public unrest in the country and accusations of human rights abuses.

The lunch will be followed by an evening banquet at Buckingham Palace, hosted by the Prince of Wales.

(Boston, Mass. – April 12, 2012) – EPA has issued a final Clean Air Act permit to the Pioneer Valley Energy Center for the construction and operation of a new 431 MW/hr combined cycle gas turbine in Westfield, Mass.  The permit is designed to prevent the significant deterioration of air quality resulting from the plant’s operation.
The federal Clean Air Act requires new major sources of air pollutants in areas which currently meet air quality standards to obtain a “Prevention of Significant Deterioration” (PSD) air permit prior to construction.  There are three main components of a PSD permit:
-  The new source must install best available control technology to reduce all air pollutants which it will emit in significant amounts;
-  The new source must demonstrate, using air dispersion modeling, its emissions will not cause or contribute to a violation of any national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), which are designed to protect public health and the environment; and
-  The facility may not cause the existing air quality in the area to deteriorate beyond specific levels that the Clean Air Act allows to protect air that is already cleaner than the NAAQS.
The permit for Pioneer Valley meets all three criteria.  Pioneer Valley will install post combustion controls to minimize emissions of nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide.  In addition, the facility will use natural gas and ultra low sulfur diesel fuel to minimize emissions of fine particulate matter and sulfuric acid mist.  Pioneer Valley is also minimizing greenhouse gas emissions through the application of energy efficient equipment.
EPA carefully reviewed Pioneer Valley’s air dispersion modeling analysis and has determined the allowable air emissions from this project are in compliance with the Clean Air Act. The final permit for the Pioneer Valley plant contains several more stringent permit conditions that EPA added after considering public comments.
There was a formal public review and comment period on the draft Pioneer Valley PSD permit from Dec. 5, 2011 – Jan. 24, 2012.  EPA also held an informational meeting and a public hearing in Westfield on Jan. 12, 2012.  EPA received 49 written comments and heard testimony from 28 commenters during the public hearing. EPA carefully considered all comments received on the draft air permit during the public comment period, and the final air permit is accompanied by a detailed “Response to Comments” document.  EPA also carefully considered assertions that this power plant would cause a disproportionate burden on historically-disadvantaged Environmental Justice communities in the vicinity of the facility.  EPA’s analysis indicated that emissions would not adversely affect low-income or minority populations and that the impacts of those emissions did not disproportionately affect these communities.
More information:  The final Pioneer Valley PSD permit and other documents (http://www.epa.gov/region1/topics/air/airpermitting.html)
#   #  #
 
Learn More about the Latest EPA News & Events in New England (http://www.epa.gov/region1/newsevents/index.html)
Follow EPA New England on Twitter (http://twitter.com/epanewengland)
More info on EPA’s Environmental Results in New England (http://www.epa.gov/region1/results/index.html)

Receive our News Releases Automatically by Email

Search this collection of releases | or search all news releases

Get email when we issue news releases

View selected historical press releases from 1970 to 1998 in the EPA History website.

Hailing the move, UAERA chief executive Ian Bremner said: "This is a great opportunity to develop the game. Such efforts will allow us to find more Emirati players."

As part of the partnership, the UAERA and VEDC will work towards imparting training in rugby to the boys studying at the centre.

"In this centre we have an advantage to focus more on the boys and to spend additional time since they have flexible timings," he added.

Article continues below