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April 27 demonstrations
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The April 27 demonstrations were massive student protest marches throughout major cities in China during the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989. The students were protesting in response to the April 26 Editorial published by the People's Daily the previous day. The editorial asserted that the student movement was anti-party and contributed to a sense of chaos and destabilization. [1] The content of the editorial incited the largest student protest of the movement thus far in Beijing: 50,000–200,000 students marched through the streets of Beijing before finally breaking through police lines into Tiananmen Square. After the editorial was published, the students at Peking University in Beijing met during the night to discuss their plans for a march on April 27. [2][3] Some of the authorities in the school tried to coax the students into calling it off; they gave hints that if the students did not protest, then the school officials would use their government connections to begin dialogues. [4][5] But the students were too upset to stand down, and their enthusiasm to march could not be quelled. They compromised: they would only march part of the way, up to the Third Ring Road, but not all the way to Tiananmen Square itself. One scholar observed that the students thought it would show that they "rejected the April 26 editorial but would not constitute a major provocation," because the students were still scared of the government using retaliatory force. [6]
Although students had demonstrated before, the April 27 demonstrations were particularly significant, in part because their scale was the largest instance of defying the state since 1949. [7] Students were protesting across China: "not only in cities where demonstrations had already taken place, such as Shanghai, Tianjin, Changchun, Xi'an, Wuhan, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Hefei, Changsha, Chengdu, and Chongqing, but also in cities where demonstrations now broke out for the first time: Shenyang, Dalian, Shijiazhuang, Nanning, Kunming, Shenzhen, Yinchuan, and Guilin. "[8]
The Beijing demonstration was the largest, with one conservative estimate at 30,000 students marching, but most sources claim between 150,000-200,000 were present. [9] It is difficult to ascertain the exact number of student protesters, however, because there were so many citizens from Beijing cheering them on and supporting them in solidarity[citation needed]. In the words of economist Chu-yuan Cheng, it was the first time that a "pro-democracy student protest campaign drew enthusiastic support from the masses. "[10] According to two Canadian journalists, the April 26 editorial had also "struck a raw nerve within the general populace" and the focus on themes like corruption and inflation stirred the people's sympathy. [11] Many of students were carrying signs or banners, not advocating for overthrowing the CPC, which the April 26 editorial had accused them of, but rather focused on democracy and cracking down on corruption. [12] According to Chai Ling, a student protester who would later become a leader of the Hunger Strike Group, the Beijing Students' Autonomous Federation had planned to stage a demonstration in the Square on April 27 even "before the government verdict appeared in the People's Daily. "[13]
Many officials were worried about the size and support of the demonstrations: Yang Shangkun, with Deng Xiaoping's permission, had five hundred troops of Beijing Military Region's Thirty-Eighth Army enter Beijing in case the demonstrations got out of hand. [14] This was in addition to all the available Beijing police, which included students from the police academy. [15] But thousands of workers surrounded the soldiers and cut them off from the students; some of the workers even cleared aside police barricades to let the students march onward. The students, marching for fourteen hours, gained more support as they went on, and Canadian journalist Scott Simmie estimated that half a million citizens participated in the demonstration. [16]
Despite the presence of police and military, there was little-to-no violence or altercations between them and the students. [17] Both sides were self-disciplined, and according to a few observing citizens, some of the students even shook officers' hands and chanted "the people's police love the people. "[18] The police did not resort to violence either; they temporarily slowed down the marchers before ultimately stepping aside and letting them pass. [19] There was also little-to-no vandalism or trouble from the students in general: one Chinese bystander remarked that "even the vagabonds and thieves were on their good behaviour this time. No one wanted to stir up trouble. "[20] This only served to buoy the students' feelings of elation, and instead of abandoning the march at the Third Ring Road, as planned, their enthusiasm compelled them to continue all the way to Tiananmen Square. [21]
From the students' perspective, the April 27 demonstrations were a milestone in the student movement: they realized that they had the potential to make a difference. [22] For the first time, the students were speaking for the people and workers; they did not focus solely on the interests of students and intellectuals. [23] In one scholar's interpretation, the people were unable to protest and demonstrate, so the student demonstrations took on the "silent frustrations of the population. "[24] It was also the first case of when the students faced official resistance, such as police lines and a military presence, whom they interacted with peacefully. The government became more placatory and held dialogues with the students afterwards, which encouraged them to continue protesting. [25] It served to revitalize the movement and inspired the students by showing that their actions had serious consequences. One big-character poster was put up on the next day at People's University, explaining the attitude of the students in the aftermath: "those of us who went through the experience agree: the march was a great victory in the process of democratization in China. "[26] This was the immediate sensation of many of the students involved, but their elation was short-lived. The talks with the government would not go well, and the threat of violence would loom over the dialogues. Some observers even claim that these protests were not free from violence. A foreign medical student saw that "three or four students were brought into intensive care that evening, badly beaten, one allegedly with a broken back. "[27] After news of this, another student said that "'blood will be shed…'where this would happen, or how soon it might come, he could not say, but he felt that it was coming. "[28] While violence may not have been inevitable, the events after the April 27 demonstrations did not reflect the students' triumphant attitude at the time.
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Protest_Online Condemnation
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Trump Abandons US-Russian Nuclear Treaty, Claiming Russia Has "Not Honored It"
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Donald Trump announced this weekend that the United States will withdraw from the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (or INF for short) because Russia has "not honored" it. At his rally in Nevada, he offered up a word salad of an explanation, which may please both his supporters and his Russian allies, but not those who care about our foreign policy: “Russia has violated the agreement. They’ve been violating it for many years. And I don’t know why Pres. Obama didn’t negotiate or pull out. And we’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons and we’re not allowed to. We’re the ones that have stayed in the agreement and we’ve honored the agreement. But Russia has not, unfortunately, honored the agreement. So we’re going to terminate the agreement. We’re gonna pull out.” So why pull out of this treaty now, and what are the ramifications for doing so? Introduced by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, the INF called for both the U.S. and Russia to cease manufacturing ballistic cruise missiles with 3,000-mile ranges. Prior to Gorbachev's term as general secretary, Reagan had negotiated with his predecessors to reduce Soviet arms with agreements like START. However, these treaties were viewed as unfair to the Soviets, because they forced them to make greater concessions in dismantling their weapons than the US. Even with the dismantling required by START, the U.S.'s Pershing II cruise missile system was more technologically advanced than anything the Soviets had come up with. It also didn't help matters that around this time, Reagan made his proposal for the Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as "Project Star Wars" for its deployment of weapons in space, but this proved to be both costly and technologically unfeasible. Gorbachev, a full generation removed from his deceased predecessors, held different views regarding the Soviet Union's evolution from Communism to greater economic and personal freedom, and his policies of glasnost and perestroika were instrumental in bringing an end to the Cold War. When he met with Reagan at Reykjavik in 1986, both sides agreed to make a deal that abolished their nuclear weapons. The particulars were worked out in INF, which they signed the following December. The INF successfully led to the destruction of thousands of nuclear weapons, but under Putin's leadership, Russia violated it. In 2014, President Obama accused Russia of violating the INF when it was discovered that they had tested a new cruise missile, the SSC-8, which had been in development since 2008. Russia denied the existence of the missile for years, ignoring Obama's 2014 compliance report accusing them to the contrary. The SSC-8 has a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) and could easily target NATO members and major European cities like London and Paris. Its easy transportability and undetectability are also alarming. With a divided Europe and a bellicose United States, NATO and EU member states would not be able to ask the U.S. for help in case Russia ramps up its arsenal, the way they did in the 1980s when they agreed to host Pershing II missiles in their countries in case of counterstrikes. "If we pull out," says Rear Adm. John Kirby, "we really do need to think about how we are going to, right now because we don't have the same capability as the Russians have with this particular missile. How are we going to try and counter that? How are we going to try and help deter use of it on the continent of Europe?" There is also the problem of the Chinese, who have invested billions of dollars in building nuclear weapons since 1987. Having never been part of the treaty, they are not bound by its rules, and a neutered or defunct INF would allow them free rein to keep developing weapons, many of them aimed at Japan, one of our closest allies. Some have argued that without the treaty keeping them in place, the U.S. may deploy weapons to the Japanese despite their justifiable history of being anti-nuke. This would further denigrate the postwar order that has governed world affairs since 1945. Trump and the Republicans appear to be making China a scapegoat to get out of the treaty. Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas released a statement this weekend calling the INF "a remarkable achievement," but with Russia "openly cheating, and the Chinese....stockpiling missiles because they're not bound by it at all....the U.S. [should] consider whether this treaty still serves our national interest." Bills from the current Congress have argued that the best way forward is to kill the treaty and start over. Kirby posits another solution to the China problem, which is for the US to counter it by relying on their advantage in sea-based cruise missiles. This makes one wonder if the Republicans in power have actually read through the treaty, or possess a thorough understanding of post-Cold War policies. Kirby believes the decision to withdraw stems from National Security Advisor John Bolton, who is in Moscow this week to meet with senior Kremlin officials, and possibly Putin as well. Bolton has long been an opponent of arms treaties, including the INF. In 2011, he co-wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal arguing for the US to withdraw from it because Iran's nuclear program violated its rules. As National Security Advisor, he has taken the lead in setting our nuclear policy over Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and brought in another hardliner on arms control, Tim Morrison, to assist him. Also interesting, as Kirby points out, is the fact that it wasn't the Pentagon or the State Department who introduced this change in policy, but John Bolton and the NSC. This is just another example of how Bolton has consolidated his power in the administration, and is using his new position as a launchpad for his radical views. We are fortunate not to live in the same society our parents did, having to practice "duck and cover" routines in schoolrooms in case of nuclear emergencies. But dismantling this key treaty gives Russia and China the lead in developing weapons, since they both outpace us right now in this department. Either way, the dismantling of the INF is a firm reminder that nothing is ever permanent, and that the arc of history, which some declared to have ended after the Cold War, is never truly over.
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Withdraw from an Organization
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Gas company Inpex fined $12,600 for evaporating water containing PFAS over Darwin Harbour
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A Victorian man who flew from Brisbane to Hobart on flight VA702 today has tested positive to COVID-19 and has not been allowed to board a flight to Melbourne
A Watch & Act warning is in place for a fire in the northern parts of Mokine, in WA's Northam Shire. Keep up to date with ABC Emergency
Gas company Inpex has been fined after it was found to have released PFAS from its new $37 billion LNG processing plant site on Darwin Harbour.
A Federal Environment and Energy Department investigation found the release of the PFAS in September last year put wildlife, including dolphins, and dugongs at risk.
Under its approved environmental management plan, Inpex was required to store water containing PFAS (per-fluoroalkyl and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) from firefighting exercises held on the site, and then transport the water interstate for treatment at a licensed facility.
Instead, the Department found that "in September 2018 Inpex boiled wastewater from firefighting tests that contained PFAS".
The activity, the Department said, "is likely to have released PFAS into the air and therefore may have placed the immediate environment, including Darwin Harbour, at risk of heightened PFAS levels." The Department concluded that posed a threat to the harbour's wildlife.
"Darwin Harbour is habitat for EPBC Act listed threatened and migratory species including dugongs, multiple cetacean species, two sawfish species, saltwater crocodiles and multiple sea turtle species," it said.
It fined Inpex $12,600 in April.
Inpex said that when it tested its firefighting systems a large amount of wastewater, containing a small amount of PFAS, was generated.
Inpex said that a process called "enhanced evaporation", designed to minimise the load of wastewater it would be required to truck interstate, was then used.
"Enhanced evaporation was used to reduce the amount of wastewater needing to be transported," it said.
The company said that it paid the fine even though it believed it had complied with its environment management plan.
"At no stage in this process did wastewater leak into the external environment," it said.
"Inpex considers this process was done in accordance with all approvals but nevertheless made the requested payment when a notice was subsequently received."
The findings of the Federal Environment Department's investigation were revealed through a Freedom of Information by the Australian Conservation Foundation.
"It's good that the Federal Environment Department is cracking down on toxic pollution spills, which are a threat to precious wildlife, but a $12,600 fine clearly does not send an adequate signal to business," the foundation's nature program manager Jess Abrahams said.
The Department said the fine issued to Inpex was "proportional enforcement relative to the offence and (Inpex's) compliance history".
It noted that news of the PFAS release would be controversial in a city where there is already PFAS contamination from the use of fighting foam on defence bases, saying "communities affected by PFAS contamination … are highly sensitised to the issue".
Former Larrakia Indigenous ranger Donna Jackson co-authored the PFAS assessment report on which the Northern Territory Government based its advice to limit shellfish intake from Darwin Harbour creeks to three times a week.
"I don't understand why Inpex would think that in 2018, when there is so much knowledge about PFAS, that they would make this decision, and what action is going to be taken over this?" Ms Jackson said.
The Northern Territory Environment Protection Authority has told the ABC it hasn't finished its investigation into the PFAS release by Inpex.
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Organization Fine
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Sandalwood Fire
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The Sandalwood Fire was a wildfire that burned in the city of Calimesa in Riverside County, California. The fire started on October 10 in the afternoon, killed two people[2] and destroyed 74 structures. [3]
The fire, named after a street near where the fire started, ignited when a garbage truck dumped its smoldering load next to a canyon of dry scrub. [4]
Reported during a Santa Ana wind event that was anticipated for the area at around 1:58 pm Thursday, October 10, the Sandalwood fire broke out along Calimesa Boulevard and Sandalwood Drive immediately raced into nearby brush burning in a southwesterly direction due to the strong winds. [5] Within the first hour of the fire, the conflagration was already heavily impacting the Villa Calimesa mobile home park where most of the damage from the fire would occur. The fire continued to spread rapidly as was reportedly over by 4 pm that afternoon and also threatening the nearby railway, power grid, and a second mobile home park in the area. [5] Throughout the day, the fire would destroy most of the Villa Calimesa mobile home park and ultimately cause the death of two civilians in the area.
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Fire
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Northrop Grumman to launch new satellite-servicing robot aimed at commercial and government market
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Northrop Grumman today has two Mission Extension Vehicles in orbit providing station-keeping services for two Intelsat geostationary satellites that were running low on fuel. The company meanwhile is preparing to launch a new servicing vehicle equipped with a robotic arm that will install propulsion jet packs on dying satellites. Six still-undisclosed customers have signed up to get their satellites serviced by the Mission Robotic Vehicle, projected to launch in 2024, Joe Anderson, vice president of operations and business development at Space Logistics, told SpaceNews. The MRV is the second generation servicing vehicle from Space Logistics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman. It combines the company’s Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) that is performing commercial operations with a robotic payload developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA is sharing its robotic arm with Space Logistics under a partnership that allows the company to use the technology for commercial and government satellite servicing in the geostationary belt. “We will be demonstrating some robotic capability for government through the performance of our commercial missions,” Anderson said. The primary commercial mission of the MRV is to install small propulsion devices known as mission extension pods. One of these units is inserted in the back of a client satellite propulsion system, adding six years of life to most geostationary satellites, he said. The six customers have signed term sheets for seven mission extension pods, Anderson said. Once contracts are firmed up the company will be able to disclose their names. The first MRV launch in 2024 will carry three pods. “With these six customers, the MRV manifest is currently filled through mid-2026,” he said. The MRV is expected to have a 10-year service life. Space Logistics is projecting to install five to six mission extension pods per year, Anderson added. “We are planning to launch the second set of MEPs in early 2025.” The installation of MEPs or other devices is likely to become the primary purpose of the MRV. But Northrop Grumman also is looking for opportunities to perform other services like detailed inspections, relocations of client vehicles or simple repairs such as releasing a solar array that is stuck or an antenna that doesn’t deploy properly. Anderson noted that the commercial MEVs can perform more than just docked station keeping like what they are now doing for Intelsat. They can also dock with satellites in inclined orbit and reduce their inclination, relocate satellites to other orbits or perform remote inspections using light detection and ranging (LIDAR) sensors. DARPA and Space Logistics recently completed a preliminary design review of the MRV and this week are reviewing the mission extension pod at the company’s assembly facility in Dulles, Virginia. Because the robotic arm was developed with Defense Department funding, DARPA expects Space Logistics to show the “potential benefit of having a persistent servicing capability in GEO orbit that can serve the needs of the U.S. government through commercial contracts with us,” said Anderson. He said Space Logistics already has booked a launch vehicle for the first MRV mission but the contract has not yet been announced. The company’s MEV-1 launched in October 2019 on an International Launch Services Proton rocket. The MEV-2 launched in August 2020 on Arianespace’s Ariane-5. The MRV which carries a U.S. government-designed payload has to launch on a U.S. rocket. Servicing satellites in low Earth orbit Northrop Grumman is focused on geostationary satellite servicing but sees a future market in low Earth orbit. Orbit Fab, a startup that developed an orbital propellant tanker and a fueling port for satellites, announced Sept. 7 that both Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are investing in the company. “The LEO market is quite a bit more diverse than the geosynchronous,” said Anderson. Satellites in LEO are smaller and cheaper so servicing or refueling might not be economical, he said. But for higher value assets, extending the service life would be worth considering. NASA and Maxar Technologies are developing the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1 (OSAM-1) to robotically refuel the Landsat 7 imaging satellite. Not all low-flying satellites are disposable, Anderson said. The U.S. government will be launching expensive satellites that will benefit from servicing, he said. Beyond the MRV, Space Logistics is eyeing a third-generation system focused on refueling, said Anderson. That market will grow as more satellites are designed and built with refueling and docking ports. “The satellites we are servicing today were launched 20 years ago and were not designed to be refueled. So looking forward into the future we see refueling as a very good market. There is great demand and interest from our customers, especially on the military side. The want to add refueling interfaces on spacecraft. And so that’s why we invested in Orbit Fab.” Both Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are actively working to shape the standard refueling interface that would help create a market for gas stations in space. Anderson said the U.S. Space Force and the Defense Innovation Unit are funding programs to add fueling ports to satellites. “So there’s definitely interest from the U.S. government in those capabilities.” Rick Ambrose, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Space, told SpaceNews that the company is motivated to invest in servicing technologies like Orbit Fab’s because customers are pushing the industry in that direction. Setting standards for docking and refueling ports will be critical, he said. Once the industry agrees on a common standard, the market will boom. Space should be like the internet, Ambrose said. “If you don’t comply, you don’t get to play.”
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New achievements in aerospace
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Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history
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The Covid-19 pandemic has become the deadliest disease event in American history, with a death toll surpassing that of the 1918 Spanish flu. The Spanish flu was previously the disease event that caused the biggest loss of life in the United States; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 675,000 Americans died during the 1918 pandemic, in waves of illness that stretched out over roughly two years in this country. According to STAT’s Covid-19 Tracker, Covid deaths stand at more than 675,400. “In terms of raw numbers of deaths, that’s a high number,” said Howard Markel, director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. “And it’s higher still than it should have been, frankly.” U.S. deaths make up roughly 14% of the nearly 4.7 million fatalities that have been reported worldwide in this pandemic to date, even though the country’s population comprises only about 4.2% of the global population. advertisement “In the U.S., we are among the worst affected in our class of countries — rich countries with an aging population. But other countries in Europe did poorly as well,” said Cécile Viboud, an infectious diseases epidemiologist who has done a lot of research into deaths from the 1918 flu. A roundup of STAT's top stories of the day. Whether the Covid pandemic will qualify as the deadliest event in U.S. history is perhaps a question for Civil War historians. The long-accepted toll of the War Between the States was 620,000, which this pandemic has already surpassed. But in 2011, David Hacker, a historian at Binghamton University in New York State, published an article in the journal Civil War History arguing the true number of deaths in the Civil War was more likely around 750,000. The heavy toll the pandemic has taken in the U.S. is due to the country’s inadequate response early on, said Markel. David Morens, a medical historian at the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, agreed. “I think it’s generally known around the world that America didn’t do a very good job in the early stages of controlling the pandemic,” said Morens, who has also written extensively on the 1918 flu pandemic. Comparing events that happened more than a century apart has its perils. For instance, the population of the United States in 1918 was a third of what it is now. So as a percentage of the national population, the Spanish flu deaths still has the lead on Covid-19. Likewise, the mean age of the people who died in 1918 was 28, whereas with Covid, deaths are occurring mainly in the elderly, said Viboud, who works at the National Institutes of Health’s Fogerty International Center. In terms of cumulative years of life lost, the Spanish flu’s impact thus remains greater. But modern medicine is far more advanced than what was available in 1918. Now people whose lungs are under attack from Covid can be put on ventilators or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation — ECMO — machines, which pump oxygen into blood when a person’s heart and lungs are no longer up to the job. These were not options in 1918. And for months now, the country has had vaccines that are highly effective at lowering the risk of dying from Covid. Still the fatalities pile up, though at a slower rate than earlier in the pandemic. “We have no idea what would have been the impact of Covid-19 without interventions,” Viboud acknowledged. The deaths will continue to climb for some time still, Morens noted. “Remember, we’re still counting,” he said. “In 1918, the pandemic became not so deadly within two years. We have no idea — I don’t and I don’t trust anybody who says they do — where this Covid-19 will go.” The global Covid death figure is without doubt an underestimate, but then again, the American tally likely is as well. “The true deaths from Covid-19 in the United States are probably higher than the actual numbers. But how much higher is a matter of speculation,” Morens said. There is some work that suggests what a truer figure might be, Viboud said, pointing to a research paper published in the journal eLife in June. The study, by Ariel Karlinsky, an economist and statistician at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Dmitry Kobak, of the Institute for Ophthalmic Research at the University of Tübingen in Germany, actually attempted to estimate a more accurate picture of Covid deaths in 103 countries. Their calculations were based on looking at what is known as excess mortality, the differences between the number of deaths reported since the start of the pandemic and the annual average mortality figures for the years 2015 through 2019 in each of the countries studied. Some countries have actually had fewer deaths — negative excess mortality — during the pandemic. One such country is New Zealand, which has managed in the main to keep Covid from spreading by using stringent border controls. New Zealand reported 1,900 fewer deaths than normal during the pandemic, the Karlinsky and Kobak paper reported, attributing the lower number of deaths to the fact that viruses like influenza haven’t circulated to normal degrees during the pandemic. Their work estimated that the true Covid death toll in the United States is probably 10% higher than the declared number of lives lost to the disease in the country. That would place the Covid deaths in America in the ballpark of 741,000. In rivaling the Spanish flu, the Covid-19 pandemic has given medical historians a new lesson to teach, said Markel, who wrote about that fact last month in The Atlantic. “The truth is we have no historical precedent for the moment we’re in now,” he wrote. “We need to stop thinking back to 1918 as a guide for how to act in the present and to start thinking forward from 2021 as a guide to how to act in the future.” In his interview with STAT, Markel recalled that during a briefing he gave to former President Barack Obama about the 1918 pandemic — he was president during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic — Obama noted that 1918 was a long time ago. That’s the problem with disease outbreaks that are 100-year events; they are so rare that the lessons one can take from them may seem out of date when they are next needed. “We finally now have a modern pandemic,” said Markel. “In modern times with modern vaccines and so on. So to me, this is the one I’m going to be teaching my medical students and public health students.”
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Disease Outbreaks
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License CRISPR patents for free to share gene editing globally
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The library at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands. The university is providing free access to CRISPR patents for non-commercial use.Credit: Frans Sellies/Moment/Getty This week, Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands announced that it will allow non-profit organizations to use its CRISPR–Cas9 gene-editing technology for free, for non-commercial applications in food and agriculture. It’s an important development, and another step towards making a technology with untapped potential more accessible — especially for researchers in low- and middle-income countries. Wageningen is one of a clutch of research institutions globally that hold patents on CRISPR, a technique that enables precise changes to be made to genomes, at specific locations. Other institutions — including the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the University of California, Berkeley, which have some of the largest portfolios of patents on the subject — also provide CRISPR tools and some intellectual property (IP) for free for non-profit use. But universities could do better to facilitate access to CRISPR technologies for research. The field is snowballing. The US Patent and Trademark Office alone has around 6,000 CRISPR patents or patent applications, with 200 being added every month, mostly from China and the United States. Worldwide CRISPR patent landscape shows strong geographical biases But unusually, universities and publicly funded research organizations dominate the CRISPR patenting landscape. As of 2017, only one-third of CRISPR patents came from the private sector, according to an analysis by Agnès Ricroch, a plant geneticist at the institute AgroParisTech, and her colleagues (J. Martin-Laffon et al. Nature Biotechnol. 37, 613–620; 2019). That means universities are in a strong position to influence change. And change begins with the licensing agreement — which is needed even when an organization is using IP for research. Licensing agreements should be transparent, so that institutions offering access can be held accountable for the promises they make. But few publish these agreements, out of concern that it would give their competitors an advantage. However, if universities all agreed not to charge for IP used in research, they would no longer be in competition, and could collaborate to create model agreements. Licensing agreements should also limit ‘reach-through clauses’. These allow patent holders to claim rights on commercialization of discoveries and inventions based on their IP, many years into the future. It’s a method of prolonging income, but has been likened to authors paying royalties to Google or Microsoft if they write a book on the companies’ word-processing software. For centuries, patents have helped to protect inventors’ IP from competitors who would otherwise be able to copy and profit from someone else’s idea. Patents also incentivize the investment needed to develop or commercialize an idea, because they reassure investors that a technology cannot easily be copied. A patent waiver on COVID vaccines is right and fair But companies have been known to use patents to hinder competition. Moreover, when inappropriately applied, patents can be harmful. During a pandemic, for example, patents on vaccines could slow or reduce vaccine availability. That is why more than 100 countries, and many organizations (including Nature) are calling on members of the World Trade Organization to temporarily waive IP protection on COVID-19 vaccines. Equitable access is crucial. Nearly two decades ago, international donors created the African Agricultural Technology Foundation in Nairobi as a platform to share know-how, tools and technology. Ecologist Gordon Conway, then president of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City, promised it would “unjam the logjam” of IP in agricultural technology. In practice, concerns over genetic modification put the brakes on such technologies in low- and middle-income countries. But CRISPR is changing that, and universities that benefit from patents could help to establish an organization to facilitate access. Two years ago, the Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres proposed ten principles for “socially responsible licensing”. High on the list is that academic institutions should ensure that their research benefits societies, including allowing findings to be used freely for research or education. It is fitting that a Dutch university is among those applying these principles for a technology that has world-changing potential. The time has come for all universities that hold CRISPR patents, along with public funders and international institutions such as the World Intellectual Property Organization, to consider how they might join forces so that IP on CRISPR can be more easily accessed free of charge for research, under clear and transparent rules.
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Organization Established
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UK miners' strike (1974)
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The Three-Day Week was one of several measures introduced in the United Kingdom by the Conservative government at the time to conserve electricity, the generation of which was severely restricted owing to industrial action by coal miners. From 1 January 1974, commercial users of electricity were limited to three specified consecutive days' consumption each week and prohibited from working longer hours on those days. Services deemed essential (e.g. hospitals, supermarkets and newspaper printing presses) were exempt. [1] Television companies were required to cease broadcasting at 10.30 pm during the crisis to conserve electricity,[2][3] although this restriction was dropped after a general election was called. The Three-Day Week restrictions were lifted on 7 March 1974. Throughout the 1970s the British economy was troubled by high rates of inflation. To tackle this, the government capped public sector pay rises and publicly promoted a clear capped level to the private sector. This caused unrest amongst trade unions as wages did not keep pace with price increases. This extended to most industries, including coal mining, which provided the majority of the country's fuel and had a powerful trade union. By the middle of 1973, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) – drawn from a workforce who almost wholly worked for the National Coal Board – were becoming more militant with the election of Mick McGahey as vice-president. The national conference passed resolutions for a 35% wage increase, regardless of any government guidelines, and for the election of a Labour government committed to "true socialist policy" including nationalisation of land and all key monopolies. [4]
As inflation increased, miners' wages fell in real terms and, by October 1973, average wages were 2.3% lower than recommended by the Wilberforce Inquiry, which reported on miners' pay in 1972. In November 1973, the national executive committee of the NUM rejected the pay offer from the NCB and held a national ballot on a strike. The vote was rejected by 143,006 to 82,631. However, an overtime ban was implemented with the aim of halving production. This action hurt the coal industry and was unpopular amongst the British media, although the Trades Union Congress supported the NUM's actions. [4]
In the 1970s, most of the UK's electricity was produced by coal-burning power stations. [5] To reduce electricity consumption, and thus conserve coal stocks, the Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath, announced a number of measures on 13 December 1973, including the Three-Day Work Order, which came into force at midnight on 31 December. Commercial consumption of electricity would be limited to three consecutive days each week. [1] Heath's objectives were business continuity and survival and to avoid further inflation and a currency crisis. Rather than risk a total shutdown, working time was reduced to prolong the life of available fuel stocks. Television broadcasts were to shut down at 22:30 each evening, and most pubs were closed; due to the power surges generated at 22:30, the Central Electricity Generating Board argued for a staggered shutdown on BBC and ITV, alternating nightly, and this was eventually introduced. [4] The television broadcasting restrictions were introduced on 17 December 1973, suspended for the Christmas and New Year period, and lifted on 8 February 1974. [6]
On 24 January 1974, 81% of NUM members voted to strike, having rejected the offer of a 16.5% pay rise. [7] In contrast to the regional divisions of other strikes, every region of the NUM voted by a majority in favour of strike action. The only area that did not was the Colliery Officials and Staff Association (COSA) section. Some administrative staff had joined another union, APEX, to distance themselves from the increasing militancy of the NUM. APEX members did not strike, which led to resentment amongst NUM members. [4]
In the aftermath of the vote, there was speculation that the army would be used to transport coal and man the power stations. McGahey called in a speech for the army to disobey orders, and either stay in the barracks or join picket lines, if they were asked to break the strike. In response, 111 Labour MPs signed a statement to condemn McGahey. He responded "You can't dig coal with bayonets. "[4]
Taken from Douglass, David John (2005). Strike, not the end of the story. Overton, Yorkshire, UK: National Coal Mining Museum for England. p. 24. The strike began officially on 5 February and, two days later, Heath called the February 1974 general election while the Three-Day Week was in force. His government emphasised the pay dispute with the miners and used the slogan "Who governs Britain?". Heath believed that the public sided with the Conservatives on the issues of strikes and union power. [4]
On 21 February 1974, the government's Pay Board reported that the NUM's pay claim was within the Phase 3 system for claims and would return miners' wages to the levels recommended by the Wilberforce Enquiry in 1972. [4][8]
There had been some violence on miners' picket lines during the unofficial strike of 1969 and the official strike of 1972. [4] Aware of the damage that could be done to the Labour Party's electoral prospects by media coverage of picket-line violence, the NUM instituted strict controls over pickets. [4] Pickets had to wear armbands saying "official picket" and had to be authorised by areas. [4] Unlike in 1972, students were discouraged from joining miners' picket lines. [4] Every picket line had to be authorised by the local NUM area with a chief picket to ensure that no violence took place. [4]
Most of the media were strongly opposed to the NUM strike. An exception was the Daily Mirror, which ran an emotive campaign to support the NUM. Its edition on election day in 1974 showed hundreds of crosses on its front page to represent the miners who had died since nationalisation in 1947, accompanied by the message, "Before you use your cross, remember these crosses". [4]
The election resulted in a hung parliament: the Conservative Party took the largest share of the vote, but lost its majority, with Labour having the most seats in the House of Commons.
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Strike
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Chinese property developer’s debt struggle rattles investors
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Backers of Libya’s factions meet in Paris today to affirm their support for what is likely to become a messy election period. The secretary of state’s visit follows a spate of military coups in four African countries. Capital punishment was a tool of white supremacy designed to instill terror and cement foreign domination. African governments should abolish it. New Delhi must rely on regional actors to exert influence in Taliban-led Kabul. Feature: Fuzzynomics and 12 Other Attempts to Name Our New Era Fuzzynomics and 12 Other Attempts to Name O... Leading Economists and Thinkers Join FP columnist Adam Tooze and deputy editor Cameron Abadi as they explain the week's biggest economic news, from debt ceiling negotiations to why the fortunes of China's property market matter to the world. In hindsight, our new economic era probably began in 2008, when a handful of bankers—and the policymakers who write the rules—broke the system. Not only did they set off a terrifying financial meltdown, but the resulting deep recession also exposed a crisis in economic policymaking. The emergency measures that kept the developed economies going, such as near-zero interest rates and massive asset buying by the central banks, are still with us today and have produced, at best, mediocre results. Governments, it seems, are fumbling in the dark. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, these policies have only ballooned. Rich countries have spent previously unimaginable sums to order vaccines, support workers, and shower corporations with cash as the lockdowns froze the economy. Even as the pandemic (hopefully) winds down, there are few signs that the urge to spend and stimulate is going away. Many cheer this as the return of the robust state. Others fret about fiscal irresponsibility. Join FP columnist Adam Tooze and deputy editor Cameron Abadi as they explain the week's biggest economic news, from debt ceiling negotiations to why the fortunes of China's property market matter to the world. In hindsight, our new economic era probably began in 2008, when a handful of bankers—and the policymakers who write the rules—broke the system. Not only did they set off a terrifying financial meltdown, but the resulting deep recession also exposed a crisis in economic policymaking. The emergency measures that kept the developed economies going, such as near-zero interest rates and massive asset buying by the central banks, are still with us today and have produced, at best, mediocre results. Governments, it seems, are fumbling in the dark. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, these policies have only ballooned. Rich countries have spent previously unimaginable sums to order vaccines, support workers, and shower corporations with cash as the lockdowns froze the economy. Even as the pandemic (hopefully) winds down, there are few signs that the urge to spend and stimulate is going away. Many cheer this as the return of the robust state. Others fret about fiscal irresponsibility. Decades of economic orthodoxy are being thrown out as the world sorts itself out anew. Governments used to care about debt and central banks about their balance sheets—no longer. The consensus was that endless money printing would unleash galloping inflation—whether that happens remains to be seen. During the depths of last year’s economic deepfreeze, stocks were soaring to new all-time highs. By some measures, U.S. asset valuations are now more extreme than they were before the crash in 1929. So are we in the Roaring ’20s—or on the cusp of another meltdown? Out goes the rulebook for an international liberal order based on free markets and trade, replaced by a new dogma of intervention as the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and other governments seek to secure jobs, green their economies, and reorganize supply chains whose fragility the pandemic exposed. Nations are putting the brakes on globalization as they realign their economies in the emerging strategic competition between Washington and Beijing. Poor countries—the ones that can’t afford all this spending—risk falling further behind. The new age is rife with ironies and unintended consequences. Trillions of dollars spent by central banks were supposed to trickle down to companies and their workers. Instead, they fed perhaps the biggest asset boom in history, making the rich even richer and helping to raise inequality in the United States to levels not seen since the Great Depression. The old global order lifted billions of people out of poverty in the developing world; now the walls may be going back up as seamless globalization turns into an economic cold war. Green policies designed to save the planet are one of the reasons why demand for steel, coal, and many other environmentally dubious commodities is soaring as investors anticipate a golden age for industrial manufacturing to produce all those wind turbines, new transmission infrastructure, and electric car batteries. Instead of celebrating the transition to a digital service economy, we’re talking about supply chains again. To help us think about what comes next, Foreign Policy asked 13 prominent economists and thinkers to both describe the new, post-pandemic economic era and propose the name by which it should be known. You can read their entries on the following pages—from Mohamed A. El-Erian’s Government Unbound to Jayati Ghosh’s Age of Deadly Disparities. To us, the epithet for this moment that stuck was Fuzzynomics. Coined for this issue of our magazine by the investor, author, and FP advisor Antoine van Agtmael (who in the 1980s invented the term “emerging markets”), Fuzzynomics encapsulates a world where the old rules no longer apply and the new ones aren’t yet clear. Where governments and central banks—at least in rich countries—can throw around money by the trillions and make up the rules as they go along. Where things feel artificial, inflated, uncertain—and where the experiment could go either wonderfully right or terribly wrong. Perhaps Fuzzynomics will stick. Even if it doesn’t, we’re convinced that these 13 thought leaders have, in aggregate, sketched the contours of our age. But read on, and decide for yourself.—Stefan Theil, deputy editor JUMP TO LEADING ECONOMIST OR THINKER By Stephanie Kelton, professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University We have all become policy experimentalists in the new era ushered in by the 2008-09 global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas central banks were once considered uniquely well-equipped to restart the economic engine after a recession or tame inflationary pressures in a boom, fiscal policy is increasingly seen as a powerful and fast-acting way to reverse a downward spiral. When fiscal policy did too little—after the global financial crisis, for example—central bankers tried to compensate, experimenting with forward guidance and large-scale bond-buying programs known as quantitative easing. While the U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates to zero, a handful of other central banks experimented with negative rates. All of them hoped that the combination of asset purchases and near-zero interest rates would induce enough borrowing and spending to restore output and employment. The results were underwhelming. The policy response improved in the wake of the pandemic. Technocrats at the world’s major central banks urged governments to deploy a robust fiscal response. To prevent a repeat of the 2010 government debt crisis that nearly unraveled the euro, the European Central Bank experimented with targeted bond buying. In the United States, Congress experimented with pandemic unemployment assistance to channel income support to those not eligible for regular unemployment compensation. It also experimented with payroll protection programs and intermittent cash payments that put money directly into the hands of most Americans. Some lawmakers wanted to experiment with large recurring payments that would go to every person in the United States until the crisis was over. Some wanted to experiment with triggers that would automatically extend unemployment benefits instead of waiting for an act of Congress each time those benefits ran out. For its part, the Fed is experimenting with a new policy framework known as average inflation targeting, a shift that has some economists worried that the central bank could fall behind the curve if inflation runs hot for an extended period of time. That’s not my baseline prediction, but one thing seems clear: Should inflation break out, policymakers won’t put all their eggs in the rate-hike basket. They will experiment with new ways to contain the pressures driving up prices. And should the recovery stall or fail to produce enough jobs for all, we might even see some governments around the world try yet other experiments—such as a public job guarantee. By Mohamed A. El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz and president of Queens’ College at the University of Cambridge COVID-19 has turbocharged an economic, social, and political phenomenon that was partly visible going into the pandemic but, until now, lacked sufficient roots and momentum. Current events and history suggest that this phenomenon will be with us for a while, can deliver important gains for society, but also risks overshooting. After almost four decades of deregulation and liberalization, governments in many advanced countries have reversed course and are reinserting themselves into their citizens’ daily lives. The catalyst is a pandemic that has inflicted tremendous human suffering, dislocated lives, worsened the inequality trifecta (of wealth, income, and, especially, opportunity), exploited economic and social vulnerabilities, exposed glaring fragilities in our systems and institutions, and simultaneously eroded social cohesion and individual resilience. Most people can agree that governments had no choice but to step in and stop a calamity from becoming a multigenerational disaster. Setting aside all known limits on government budgets, states provided unprecedented direct income support to citizens while also protecting many businesses from bankruptcies. They funded vaccine innovation and deployment on a previously unknown scale. Some are pressing forward with massive infrastructure programs. And the list goes on. While the scale and scope of these interventions have been unexpected, historic, and truly stunning, the direction of travel is not new. Going into the pandemic, the public sector had already been expanding and intervening after too many years of low and insufficiently inclusive growth. Responding to intense feelings of alienation and marginalization in parts of society, both sides of the political spectrum were busy crafting new approaches. This was seen not just as an economic and social necessity but as politically attractive as well. Reacting to widespread grassroots pressure to address massive failures in the provision of critical public goods—such as protecting the planet, anchoring corporate social responsibility, and enhancing governance—governments got interested in launching multiyear responses that engaged many segments of society. Meanwhile, led by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank—the world’s two most systemically important monetary institutions with powerful printing presses in their basements and an appetite to run those presses at turbo speed—central banks had been maintaining and intensifying their post-2008 market interventions in ways that were previously unthinkable. They, too, have started being pulled into supporting a broader set of public goods, including climate policy and combating inequality. While all this was notable pre-pandemic, it pales in comparison with today’s realities on the ground—as well as what lies ahead. COVID-19 also accelerated the process of corporate concentration and power, particularly in Big Tech. With pressure fueled by many increasingly visible mishaps in the private sector—involving national security, data leaks, fake news, platform surveillance, behavioral manipulation, and other issues—governments are also taking a wider and more serious look at enlarging and modernizing their regulatory and tax purview over the economy. Judging from history, this swing of the pendulum will likely be long in duration and big in scope. If the return of government is well designed, it offers us the opportunity to address long-standing challenges, implement midcourse corrections to avoid future ones, adjust to new realities, and emerge stronger and wiser from a terrible pandemic. But this will need a degree of self-discipline that governments—and even central banks—have often struggled to impose in the past: that of avoiding market failures being compounded by failures of public sector institutions and governance. Already there are concerns about civil liberties, resource misallocations, and inflation. Coming out of the 2008 global financial crisis, many policymakers declared “mission accomplished” in winning the war against what could have been a global, multiyear depression. In their haste, they inadvertently lost sight of the importance of also securing a lasting, durable, and comprehensive economic peace. Today, vaccines and continued vigilance against infections and new virus variants offer us encouraging prospects to win this new war—this time, against a pandemic. Whether we can also win the peace will depend, to a large extent, on how governments navigate their much greater involvement in our lives. By Dambisa Moyo, economist and author of How Boards Work and Edge of Chaos An emerging economic culture will reframe how global corporations trade, invest, and behave. As we move from the preeminence of financial shareholders to a broader stakeholder capitalism, corporations are switching to new metrics to assess success beyond profits. The new environmental, social, and governance (ESG) agenda is complex, involving a long list of issues for companies to consider—including climate change, worker empowerment, gender and racial diversity, pay equity, human rights, the provenance of goods and services, and, in the United States, even voter rights. Policymakers, companies, and financial institutions are under intense pressure on these matters from vocal ESG activists. However, this new cultural frontier entails considerable trade-offs for leaders to navigate. For example, calls to defund energy companies to combat climate change ignore the fact that such an approach would risk fuel shortages and price spikes, adding to grinding poverty among the 1.5 billion people who still lack access to affordable and reliable energy. The shift to social goals has Western workers advocating for a better work-life balance, notably in the technology sector. But their Chinese competitors are still working 9-9-6: from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. Political and business leaders must weigh up the risks of Chinese practices being rejected by employees and customers in the West and vice versa. Left unchecked, an aggressive ESG agenda could do more harm than good. In the new ESG era, leaders must approach the changing global landscape in a way that is transparent, consistent, flexible, innovative, sustainable, and sensitive to cultural differences. They must focus not only on risk mitigation but also on opportunities to create the upside leverage needed to support human progress in the future. Dambisa Moyo sits on the boards of 3M and Chevron. By Mariana Mazzucato, professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London Business is talking about stakeholder capitalism. Governments are talking about the need to confront challenges such as climate change. The new era requires walking the talk—and putting common purpose at the center of how the public and private sectors interact. For too long, the relationship between government and corporations has been parasitic, not symbiotic. In areas like health, we have governments putting billions of dollars into drug innovation, yet taxpayers often cannot afford them. Government invented the internet but didn’t bother making sure that technology corporations wouldn’t abuse our privacy. A new social contract is required to make sure that stakeholder value and policies defined by the challenges they must solve go to the center of how business and the state interact—that is, in how they co-create value. This should affect how intellectual property rights are governed: to foster collective intelligence rather than rent-seeking. It should influence how internet algorithms are designed, which conditions on workers’ rights or emissions are attached to government subsidies and bailouts, and especially how profits are shared among different actors in the economy. Building back better, as U.S. President Joe Biden says he wants to do, cannot happen without this. By Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media The economic shockwaves created by the pandemic were extraordinary in many respects. As impressive as the recovery has been in much of the (vaccinated) world, it is staggeringly uneven both within and across countries. Developing countries, in particular, risk being left behind—with unsustainable debt levels, fragmented labor markets, polarized politics, and weakened governments at a time when the world has virtually no global leadership. How best to grapple with the uncertainty of this new era?
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Financial Crisis
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More young women are being diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer
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Susan G. Komen says that prognosis tends to be worse in women under 40 than in older women.
Author: Jennifer Hoff (KARE 11)
Published: 9:09 PM CDT October 20, 2021
Updated: 1:19 AM CDT October 21, 2021
RICHFIELD, Minn. — October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and with it comes a concerning new trend researchers say they're studying closely.
Doctors say more younger women are being diagnosed with late stage breast cancer.
At just 34 years old, Arianna Gavzy was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in 2018.
Despite no family history, she still had a genetic predisposition for the disease.
"I knew going into my diagnosis that I was a carrier for the BRCA gene, which means you're more likely to have a more aggressive form of cancer and to get it earlier," said Gavzy.
She endured chemotherapy, radiation and then a double mastectomy.
"It was a very intense year," said Gavzy. "My primary goal in this process is to never have cancer again."
Doctors say breast cancer is the most common cancer among women 15 to 39. A new study in the journal "Radiology" found stage four cancer in women under 40 jumped 20% over a five year period.
Researchers are calling that "significant."
RELATED: Breast cancer survivor's business helps others find ways to show support
"There's a shift in the general population towards certain cancer types happening at younger ages," says Allina Health's Shanda Phippen, who's a genetic counselor. "It's just there's something going on in the world and we don't quite know what it is."
Some doctors point to environmental factors, alcohol consumption and having fewer children later in life. What's more is that mammograms aren't usually recommended for women under 40, and the cancer could be larger than in those people getting regularly screened.
A local survivor shares her story during #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth .
Diagnosed with stage 3 at just 34, she's part of a concerning trend - more young women are getting more aggressive cancer.
And they face more unique issues. We're digging deeper into this on @kare11 at 10p. pic.twitter.com/JVIkAZgLZN
— Jennifer Hoff (@JennHoffReports) October 21, 2021
"Other than going into their doctor once a year, who's probably doing an exam as well, no one's looking for it," said Gavzy.
In Gavzy's case, the cancer was the size of an egg she found during a self exam. Finding it early can increase your chances of survival – all the more reason doctors say to speak up.
"Trust your gut, trust your history and be an advocate for yourself," says Phippen.
Gavzy is now cancer free. But for patients like her, that comes with making life-altering decisions about treatment that impacts fertility, menopause and even job security.
The Susan G. Komen Breast Care Helpline can help. If you or a loved one needs more information, call 1-877 GO KOMEN (1-877-465-6636) or email helpline@komen.org .
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Famous Person - Sick
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Woman Dead From Suspected Carbon Monoxide Poisoning in Flushing
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The FDNY and EMS responded to a 911 call just after 8 p.m. and came across an unconscious woman on the floor of her apartment inside 34-45 Leavitt St., the FDNY said.
The 52-year-old was transferred to Flushing Hospital where she was later pronounced dead, the FDNY said.
The 911 caller initially reported the woman as being in cardiac arrest but when firefighters arrived they detected an elevated level of carbon monoxide, according to the FDNY.
The FDNY evacuated the building and ventilated the gas until it was safe for the residents to return. A carbon monoxide alarm was present in the victim’s apartment but was not working, the FDNY said.
The FDNY has yet to determine the source of the carbon monoxide, the FDNY said.
Following the incident, the FDNY tweeted a reminder about the importance of having both a functional carbon dioxide alarm and a fire alarm inside residencies.
The tweet said that carbon monoxide is a “silent killer” and is undetectable by human senses.
If inhaled, the odorless and colorless gas can displace oxygen in the blood and deprive the heart, brain and other vital organs of oxygen.
FDNY members responded to a medical emergency in Queens yesterday evening. While performing patient care, members received alerts on their CO detectors that read 200 parts per million (PPM). Read more: https://t.co/gYoKXsMSfM pic.twitter.com/AObqTZNihM
— FDNY (@FDNY) January 27, 2021
Carbon monoxide is a silent killer, undetectable by human senses. Have both a smoke alarm and a CO alarm (or a combination smoke/CO alarm) installed where you sleep and on every level of your home, including basements. See more #FDNYSmart tips at https://t.co/NpwdRdlElY
— FDNY (@FDNY) January 27, 2021
One Comment
ALL NYC residences are supposed to have smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detectors! Whenever there is a fire in any of the boroughs, you never hear anybody say “I heard the smoke alarm”. Does anybody know who the heads of NYCHA and DOB are who are getting paid for obviously doing nothing? They must have gone to the Chirlane Mac school of do nothing and get paid lots of money.
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Mass Poisoning
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Houston doctors warn of hypothermia, carbon monoxide poisoning amid plunging temperatures in Texas
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Eithan Colindres, left, wears a winter coat inside as he tries to stay warm with Brian Colindres, Tamilin Colindres, Sofia Morazan and Brihana Colindres after their apartment in the Greenspoint area lost power following an overnight snowfall Monday, Feb. 15, 2021 in Houston. Temperatures plunged into the teens Monday with light snow and freezing rain.Brett Coomer/Staff photographer
As Houstonians brace for another night of bitterly cold temperatures, one Houston doctor is warning of the very real dangers of hypothermia.
Hypothermia can set in when people are exposed to cold temps for extended periods of time. It can actually be triggered in a short time span—within 30 minutes of exposure to cold temps. If exposed to the cold, your body will lose heat faster that it can generate.
In an interview with Chron, Memorial Hermann’s Dr. Chris Langan urged Houstonians to be vigilant to body temperature changes and bundle up, especially since more than 1.3 million in our area are without power.
“Hypothermia is whenever your body drops below 95 degrees. When you get to lower temperatures at about 89 degrees F, you actually have some confusion. That’s when it becomes quite dangerous. The elderly are more susceptible to hypothermia.”
Of significant note, hypothermia can actually set in while you are inside the home, Dr Langan said.
“Many of the homes in Houston are dropping below the 40 degree range, so if people are not bundling up properly—they can definitely have hypothermia within the house,” Langan said.
One of the most serious concerns is carbon monoxide poisoning during this winter blast , Langan said. There have been more than 200 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning in Harris County due to power outages from this storm.
“Very dangerous if people are using anything unconventional to heat their homes, such as propane, using gas powered generators within their house,” Langan said.
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Mass Poisoning
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Joe Biden kicks off Europe visit with warning for Russia
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"The United States will respond in a robust and meaningful way, when the Russian government engages in harmful activities," said US President Joe Biden as he kicked off his first overseas tour as president on Wednesday. "We've already demonstrated that. I'm going to communicate that there are consequences for violating the sovereignty of democracies, in the United States, in Europe, and elsewhere," the US leader told US service personnel at Royal Air Force base Mildenhall in eastern England. Biden's packed itinerary takes in a G7 leaders' meeting and a NATO summit before ending with a face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva on June 16. About Putin, he said on Wednesday he will "let him know what I want him to know." "We're not seeking conflict with Russia, we want a stable, predictable relationship," Biden added. Biden hopes to leave behind the rancour and isolation of the Trump era on his first visit to Europe. "At every point along the way, we're going to make it clear that the United States is back and democracies of the world are standing together to tackle the toughest challenges and the issues that matter most to our future," the US President said. Biden is due to meet UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday in Cornwall to discuss a new "Atlantic Charter," modelled on the historic agreement signed by Winston Churchill et Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. Yet tensions may simmer beneath the surface of Biden's meeting with Johnson. The US president opposed the Brexit movement that Johnson championed, and has expressed great concern with the future of Northern Ireland. Biden even once called the British leader a “physical and emotional clone” of Trump. The British government has stressed Johnson’s common ground with Biden on issues such as climate change and his support for international institutions. But Johnson has been frustrated by the lack of a new trade deal with the US. By Giulia Paravicini and Michelle Nichols ADDISABABA/NEWYORK -More than 350,000 people in Ethiopia’s Tigray are suffering famine conditions, with millions more at risk, according to an analysis by United Nations agencies and aid groups that blamed conflict for the worst catastrophic food crisis in a decade. “There is famine now in Tigray,” U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock said on Thursday after the release of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, which the IPC noted has not been endorsed by the Ethiopian government. “The number of people in famine conditions … is higher than anywhere in the world, at any moment since a quarter million Somalis lost their lives in 2011,” Lowcock said. Most of the 5.5 million people in Tigray need food aid. Fighting broke out in the region in November between government troops and the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Troops from neighboring Eritrea also entered the conflict to support the Ethiopian government. The violence has killed thousands of civilians and forced more than 2 million from their homes in the mountainous region. The most extreme warning by the IPC – a scale used by U.N. agencies, regional bodies and aid groups to determine food insecurity – is phase 5, which starts with a catastrophe warning and rises to a declaration of famine in a region. The IPC said more than 350,000 people in Tigray are in phase 5 catastrophe. That means households are experiencing famine conditions, but less than 20% of the population is affected and deaths and malnutrition have not reached famine thresholds. “This severe crisis results from the cascading effects of conflict, including population displacements, movement restrictions, limited humanitarian access, loss of harvest and livelihood assets, and dysfunctional or non-existent markets,” the IPC analysis found. The Ethiopian government disputed the IPC analysis, saying food shortages are not severe and aid is being delivered. Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti told a news conference on Thursday that the government was providing food aid and help to farmers in Tigray. “They (diplomats) are comparing it with the 1984, 1985 famine in Ethiopia,” he said. “That is not going to happen.” The United States and the European Union, in a joint statement, called for an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of Eritrean troops, and humanitarian access to Tigray. It warned that the crisis threatened to destabilize the broader Horn of Africa region. ‘HAVE TO ACTNOW‘ For famine to be declared, at least 20% of the population must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or from malnutrition and disease. Famine has been declared twice in the past decade: in Somalia in 2011 and in parts of South Sudan in 2017. “If the conflict further escalates or, for any other reason, humanitarian assistance is hampered, most areas of Tigray will be at risk of famine,” according to the IPC, which added that even if aid deliveries are stepped up, the situation is expected to worsen through September. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said a humanitarian nightmare was unfolding. “This is not the kind of disaster that can be reversed,” she told a U.S. and EU event on Tigray on Thursday. Referring to a previous famine in Ethiopia that killed more than 1 million people, she said: “We cannot make the same mistake twice. We cannot let Ethiopia starve. We have to act now.” World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley said that to stop hunger from killing millions of people in Tigray, there needed to be a ceasefire, unimpeded aid access and more money to expand aid operations. According to notes of a meeting of U.N. agencies on Monday, seen by Reuters, the IPC analysis could be worse as “they did not include those in Amhara-controlled areas” in western Tigray. Mitiku Kassa, head of Ethiopia’s National Disaster Risk Management Commission, said on Wednesday: “We don’t have any food shortage.”
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Famine
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Lava flow slows on Spanish island after volcanic eruption
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TODOQUE, Canary Islands (AP) — The advance of lava from a volcanic eruption on one of Spain’s Canary Islands has slowed significantly, raising fears Thursday that the molten rock might fan out further in coming days and wreak more destruction instead of just flowing out into the sea. One giant river of lava 600 meters (2,000 feet) wide slowed to four meters (13 feet) per hour after reaching a plain on Wednesday, officials said. On Monday, a day after the eruption on La Palma, it was moving at 700 meters (2,300 feet) per hour. A second stream of lava has virtually ground to a halt, the head of the National Geographic Institute in the Canary Islands, María José Blanco, told a news conference. It won’t reach the Atlantic Ocean before the weekend, she said, with some scientists saying it might never reach the sea. Blanco said seismic activity on La Palma island was now “low” but molten rock is still being thrown out of the volcano — 26 million cubic meters so far. Stavros Meletlidis, a volcanologist at Spain’s National Geographic Institute, said the dynamics of any eruption were in constant flux. “The lava is advancing very slowly because it cools in contact with the atmosphere, through friction with the ground and building materials and, above all, because its front edge is widening out,” he told Radio Televisión Canaria. As it slowed, the lava grew thicker. In places, it rose up to 15 meters (50 feet) high, authorities said. It now covers 166 hectares (410 acres) and has swallowed up around 350 homes. The uncertainty left many residents on the western side of the island of 85,000 people in limbo. Scientists say the lava flows could last for weeks or months. Joel Francisco, 38, said he and his elderly parents had to evacuate the area around the village of Todoque in a rush, taking only a few belongings and important documents. Now that the flow seems to have slowed, he hopes to go back and retrieve some more things in case the house is entombed in lava — if police let him. “We don’t know how long we have to wait until we can return to our homes because the roads are closed,” he told The Associated Press. “Some people have it worse off, their houses are gone.” Like many on the island, Francisco works on a banana plantation, and his livelihood is also at risk of being ruined by lava or damaged by volcanic ash. “We are waiting to see if we can go out to work or not,” he said. “This changed our life.” Spain’s King Felipe VI, who visited the homeless Thursday along with Queen Letizia and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, vowed to help the island’s needy. “Suddenly, you have had almost everything taken from you, in one fell swoop. No home, no equipment, no clothes, no food, no resources, no work,” the monarch told reporters. “We have to do everything we can to help these families.” The eruption occurred along the island’s Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge. The Canary Islands are a volcanic archipelago. La Palma witnessed its last eruption in 1971. As lava, ash and smoke continued to pour from the volcano, shooting up to 4,200 meters (nearly 14,000 feet) high, there were concerns about whether airspace above the island should remain open. ENAIRE, which manages Spain’s airspace, said two areas above the affected area are being declared no-fly zones to allow emergency services to operate freely. Many flights to and from La Palma were delayed early Thursday. Volcanic ash can be dangerous for aircraft. It can also cause respiratory problems, as well as potentially being an irritant for the eyes and skin. The Emergency Military Unit deployed on the island said the readings it has taken of the air found no threat to health. Authorities haven't reported any casualties from the eruption. Scientists had been monitoring the volcanic activity and had warned of a possible eruption, allowing almost 7,000 people to be evacuated in time. Officials had initially expressed fears about what would happen when the lava reached the Atlantic. The molten rock, whose temperature exceeds 1,000 C (more than 1,800 F), could cause explosions, trigger landslides and produce toxic gas when it hits the water, experts say. Life on the rest of La Palma, which is roughly 35 kilometers (22 miles) long and 20 kilometers (12 miles) wide at its broadest point, has been largely unaffected, with undeterred tourists landing for previously scheduled vacations.
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Volcano Eruption
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Mount Merapi, the most active volcano in Indonesia, erupted again on Friday.
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JAKARTA (XINHUA) - Mount Merapi, the most active volcano in Indonesia, erupted again on Friday (April 10), spewing a column of ashes by up to 3,000 metres high, the Indonesian Volcanology Agency said. The 2,930-m volcano which is located on Indonesia's main Java island, has spewed ashes for 13 times since September, indicating that the intrusion of new magma has been occurring, the agency said. Residents living around the slopes were asked to take precautionary measures for possible rains of ashes, the agency said in a statement. A no-go zone has been declared at a 3-km radius from the crater, it said. The agency issued a volcano observatory notice for aviation (VONA) with the level of the second highest, orange code, meaning that the eruption endangers aviation, and planes are required to avoid airspace around the hot clouds. The volcano erupted on April 2 with a column of ashes spread by up to 3 km to the sky. Mount Merapi, one of Indonesia's 129 active volcanoes, has regularly erupted since 1548. During its eruptions from October to November 2010, a total of 353 people were killed and about 350,000 others were displaced. Indonesia, a vast archipelagic nation, is prone to volcanic activities and earthquakes as it lies along the "Pacific Ring of Fire" .
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Volcano Eruption
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Bad banks: LVB’s collapse marks 5th financial institution’s failure in less than 3 years
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India’s bad bank problem has aggravated over the past few years and the economic slowdown triggered by the pandemic could make matters worse, with defaults on the rise. The recent collapse of Chennai-based Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) marks the failure of the fifth financial institution in less than three years. The 94-year-old private lender, headquartered in Chennai, saw its asset quality deteriorate rapidly over the past three years, said the RBI as it imposed a 30-day moratorium on the bank on November 16. “In absence of any viable strategic plan, declining advances and mounting non-performing assets (NPAs), the losses are expected to continue. The bank has not been able to raise adequate capital to address issues around its negative net-worth and continuing losses,” the RBI said. It is the latest financial institution which faced restrictions due to a sharp deterioration in asset quality after it was placed under Prompt Corrective Action last year. The bank tried desperately to raise additional capital to sustain itself but failed to do so. Now, the RBI has come out with a draft proposal for its amalgamation with DBS Bank India. While the central bank’s proposed plan is likely to help LVB climb out of the mess, the frequency at which financial institutions are failing in the country is alarming. It could severely slow down the country’s growth after the pandemic-induced economic crisis. IL&FS, Diwan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL), Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC) and Yes Bank are four other banks and financial institutions that have collapsed since 2018. IDBI is another bank which was on the brink of a collapse before it was rescued by LIC through capital infusion. The scars left behind by the Yes Bank fiasco and PMC fraud are still fresh as both episodes happened in the past 15 months. While SBI guided Yes Bank out of the mess, not solution to resolve the PMC crisis has emerged yet. Both the banks saw a sharp deterioration in asset quality due to fraudulent activity, involving sanction of unethical loans. As these loans turned sour, the banks faced severe liquidity issues and restrictions were imposed on them. The two banks had failed due to similar issues — ballooning non-performing assets (NPAs), unethical lending, scams and poor corporate governance. The crisis at LVB, too, stems from burgeoning bad loans, some that were rather big for its appetite. One such example of a loan turning sour is the Rs 720 crore LVB sanctioned to the investment arm of former Ranbaxy promoters, Malvinder and Shivinder Singh. Many experts have urged the RBI to ramp up its supervision process in order to identify these bad banks before the problem blows out of proportion. IL&FS & DHFL episodes Much has been written about the IL&FS crisis of 2018, effects of which are still visible in the country’s vast non-banking financial company (NBFC) or shadow banking sector. The NBFC faced an acute shortage of cash and defaulted on several payment obligations, leading to its collapse two years ago. The IL&FS collapse resulted in a sharp liquidity crisis as several banks had exposure to the company. Its failure to repay loans to the tune of Rs 91,000 crore took a serious toll on the entire shadow banking sector. The IL&FS crisis did not even spare the stock and debt market, pulling down both benchmark indexes Sensex and Nifty. Borrowing became tougher for NBFCs which meant it became tougher for MSMEs to secure loans. The liquidity crisis spiralled into major economic hurdle as many NBFCs shut down operations following the IL&FS fiasco. Many experts say that lack of supervision of the activities at IL&FS resulted in the liquidity meltdown of 2018. As the situation stands, IL&FS is still working towards clearing its huge pile of debt. The Covid-19 situation has made the shadow bank’s job much harder. The failure of Diwan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL) is another notable episode where lack of supervision resulted in fraudulent activities to the tune of thousands of crores. Its promoters, Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, are in jail for their involvement in the Yes Bank scam. Earlier reports indicated that the Wadhawans had siphoned off money DHFL had collected using a network of shell companies and then re-routed it back into their accounts. When DHFL’s books were audited by the Grant Thornton, it found that the shadow lender created 2.60 lakh “fake and fictitious” home loan accounts. All of them were created in the non-existent Bandra branch between 2007-2019. The auditors also found out that around 91 entities were granted housing loans by DHFL without any collateral or security. The RBI initiated insolvency proceedings against DHFL last year. It became the first NBFC to undergo insolvency proceedings under IBC. All of these failures have severely impacted India’s banking and financial sector as bad loans bulge. However, what’s worse is that they have dented the relation shared between banks and customers. Be it the crises at banks or the NBFCs, customers have been at the receiving end of it. Consumer confidence is a key aspect of financial activity and such frauds have systematically weakened the banking sector in India. For instance, in the case of PMC, the bank’s depositors continue to face restrictions on withdrawals — all because of a major loan that the bank covered up after it turned sour. While Yes Bank had a narrow escape, its customers also panicked at one point of time when the bank was put under a moratorium. There are many other smaller banks in India which face a higher risk of a collapse due to rising bad loans in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Experts have made it clear that India cannot afford another major banking crisis as it would dash all hopes of a prudent recovery after the Covid-19 shock. In such a scenario, the RBI needs to stay vigilant and identify such bad banks much before the situation gets out of control.
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Financial Crisis
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Reynolds High School closed for two days before full week of “short-term” distance learning
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Due to COVID-19 exposures, the 2,680 students at Reynolds High School in Troutdale will revert to distance learning until Sept. 27. There will be no school Sept. 16 and 17 to give educators time to transition to distance learning. “Community spread of the COVID-19 virus continues and while the number of students or staff who have tested positive are small, these cases have required large numbers of students to quarantine due to possible exposure in the last few days,” said district officials in a message shared Wednesday. A flash alert message from the district wasn’t sent until Thursday at 5:35 a.m. According to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard, there are eight positive cases among students and staff, districtwide, with 1,112 students and staff in quarantine. Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Ore. Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB All Reynolds High students have been in school since Sept. 8. Since Sept. 6, the district reports 875 high school students and staff members have had to quarantine, with four people testing positive for COVID-19. Among the high school’s other measures, administrators are asking families to voluntarily provide vaccination status for their students, and there are no spectators allowed at sporting events “until further notice.” Only players, coaches, and support staff will be allowed. Officials also said they will be implementing “reinforced seating charts” for classrooms and buses. Schools all over the state have delayed the start to the school year, or closed individual schools due to COVID-19 associated problems, like staffing shortages. Districts are not required to have any metrics or threshold of COVID-19 cases or exposures to go back to distance learning. The Oregon Department of Education and Oregon Health Authority have said its up to school districts and local public health departments to determine when to return to remote learning. School is back in session, but the pandemic isn't over. Vaccines and the delta variant have changed everything.
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Organization Closed
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Soure train crash
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The Soure train crash occurred on 31 July 2020 when a high-speed passenger train collided with a track maintenance vehicle at Soure, Portugal. Two people were killed and 43 were injured, three seriously. During the day of the accident (31 July 2020), the maintenance vehicle (Portuguese: Veículo de Conservação de Catenária - VCC) No. 105, belonging to Infraestruturas de Portugal, was circulating between Entroncamento and Mangualde with two crew members on board and while not doing any maintenance job. [2] Around 15:12, it stopped on a Soure station siding, while waiting for the Alfa Pendular train 4005 to pass. [3] The AP train was travelling from Lisbon to Braga, calling at Coimbra and Oporto. [4]
For unknown reasons, despite the sign on the siding being red, the maintenance vehicle resumed its course at 15:25, entering track I, which would soon be occupied by train 4005. [2] As the track became occupied by the maintenance vehicle, the track I sign changed to red and Alfa Pendular's brakes were activated but, due to the short distance between the two vehicles, this was not sufficient to avoid collision, which happened around 15:26, about 20 seconds after the maintenance vehicle entered the line. [2]
Due to the violence of the collision, the first two carriages were derailed and the maintenance vehicle was dragged for some 500 meters, where both vehicles came to a halt. [2][5] The passenger train was travelling at 190 kilometres per hour (120 mph) at the time of the collision. [4]
The alert was given some short minutes after the crash, and fire brigades from surrounding cities responded. The rescue operations were backed by 225 first responders and 85 emergency vehicles, as well as 2 helicopters. [6]
Two people were killed and 43 were injured, three seriously. [7] The two casualties were the crew members aboard the maintenance vehicle. [8] The Alfa Pendular train was severely damaged and VCC No. 105 was destroyed. [9] Two rescue helicopters and 163 rescue personnel were sent to the scene,[4] where a field hospital was established. [9] That section of the Linha do Norte was suspended and Comboios de Portugal organized a rail replacement bus during the time the track was closed. [10] Circulation on the southbound track resumed at 01:45 on the 2nd of August, 2020 for the South direction, with heavy speed restrictions, and at 09:00 of the same day for the northbound direction. [11]
The Gabinete de Prevenção e Investição de Accidentes com Aeronaves e de Accidentes Ferriviários (GPIAAF) opened an investigation into the accident. Early indications are that the maintenance vehicle passed a signal at danger and was run into by the passenger train. [7]
In the wake of this accident, the absence of automatic train protection (ATP) in maintenance vehicles was scrutinized. [8] It came to light that, in 2018, after several events where such vehicles passed signals at danger, GPIAAF recommended that IP reassess the possibility of equipping these vehicles with ATP and act to ensure train driving qualifications of their maintenance staff. [12] IP agreed to install ATP, but this was met with difficulties in sourcing CONVEL-compatible equipment from Bombardier. [12][13]
While the suspected cause would be human error — the driver passing the signal at danger —, ATP would have prevented this accident by braking the maintenance vehicle. [1] Its incursion into the reserved block was, however, detected by the track circuit and signals were updated accordingly, but the passenger train had already passed the previous signal and balise, and proceeded at top speed expecting a clear track ahead. [7]
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Train collisions
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US$45 million allocated for drought-affected people
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(New York, 5 June 2019): Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock today allocated US$45 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to immediately scale up food and nutrition assistance, safe water provision, livelihoods protection, and other urgent humanitarian support to drought-affected people across parts of Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya who are facing acute food problems following another season of failed rains. The CERF allocation will complement the three governments’ efforts through targeted assistance to men, women, girls and boys, especially those with disabilities. The bulk of the funds, $30 million, will go to Somalia where 2.2 million people are projected to face acute food insecurity by September, over 40 per cent more than in January this year. A further 3.2 million people are expected to struggle just to meet minimum food requirements over the same period. “CERF’s rapid response allocation will allow humanitarian organizations to quickly scale up assistance to save lives, especially in Somalia, where drought has intensified faster than has been seen over the last decade, leading to a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation,” said Mr. Lowcock. “What was forecast to be an average rainy season in Somalia is now one of the driest on record in over 35 years.” The failed April to June rainy season follows below-average performance of the short rains, which fall between October and December. “Communities that were already vulnerable due to past droughts are again facing severe hunger and water scarcity and are at risk from deadly communicable diseases. Aid agencies in Somalia are also overstretched and grappling with a severe lack of funding,” said Mr. Lowcock. On 20 May, aid agencies launched a drought response plan seeking $710 million to urgently help 4.5 million people. Somalia’s overall Humanitarian Response Plan for 2019, requiring $1.08 billion, is only 22 per cent funded. The Somalia Humanitarian Fund is currently depleted. Meanwhile, the neighbouring Somali region of Ethiopia is experiencing a second consecutive drought season while still reeling from the effects of the prolonged drought in 2016 and 2017. Announcing CERF’s contribution of $10 million, Mr. Lowcock urged donors to increase their support for drought response, in addition to critical assistance to the ongoing nationwide response to internal displacement. In Kenya, CERF’s allocation of $5 million will complement the government’s hunger safety net programme. Parts of the arid and semi-arid regions of Kenya are hard hit by drought following a delayed start to the March to May rains. Droughts remain a recurrent weather phenomenon across the Horn of Africa region and Mr. Lowcock has been calling for more systematic early action, including the release of funds, based on early warnings, to help mitigate expected humanitarian consequences through a range of activities carried out before the onset of a crisis. “We need to move to a system where we act much earlier on the warning signs of drought and hunger so that we can cut response times and costs and reduce deaths and human suffering,” he said. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and humanitarian partners are laying the ground work for a CERF-supported anticipatory action pilot in Somalia to prevent famine from taking hold. Funding would be released when a pre-agreed threshold based on forecasting information and early warning data is reached and would be tied to a pre-agreed early action plan. Mr. Lowcock highlighted the need to address other underlying causes of perennial food insecurity. Nearly half of all the people facing acute food insecurity or worse in Somalia are internally displaced and those living on the margins.
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Famine
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Lancashire gas explosion that killed two-year-old caused by cut gas pipe
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Police inquiry into incident in which George Arthur Hinds died is being classed as a criminal investigation
Last modified on Tue 25 May 2021 05.11 BST
A gas explosion that killed a two-year-old boy was caused by a cut gas pipe inside a neighbouring house, police have said.
George Arthur Hinds died in the blast in Heysham, Lancashire, on 16 May. The police inquiry into the incident is ongoing but a Lancashire constabulary spokesperson confirmed it was now being classed as a criminal investigation.
George’s parents, Vicky Studholme and Stephen Hinds, were also injured, but not seriously, and a 44-year-old man and 50-year-old woman remain in hospital with critical injuries.
The spokesperson said detectives, working with gas experts, had conducted a fingertip search of the scene in Mallowdale Avenue and identified the cause of the explosion as a gas pipe that had been cut inside the neighbouring property to the one where George lived with his parents.
In the blast, which happened at 2am, two houses collapsed and a third was seriously damaged, causing debris to cover nearby streets and fields. Residents described it as sounding “like a bomb going off”.
DCI Jane Webb said: “My thoughts first and foremost remain with George’s family and loved ones at this time, as well as those others affected by this incident. An incredible amount of work has been done at the scene in a relatively short space of time, and as well as identifying the source of the explosion we have also managed to recover some items of George’s, which I know means a lot to his parents.
“Our focus now is on trying to establish how and why the pipe inside No 20 came to be cut and those inquiries are complex and lengthy.
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Gas explosion
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Marden rail crash
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The Marden rail crash occurred on 4 January 1969 near Marden, Kent, United Kingdom, when a passenger train ran into the rear of a parcels train, having passed two signals at danger. Four people were killed and 11 were injured. One person was awarded the British Empire Medal for his part in the aftermath of the collision. On the evening of 4 January 1969, the weather in the Paddock Wood and Marden area was foggy, with visibility as low as 25 yards (23 m) in places. There were three trains involved in the sequence of events leading up to the accident. Another factor in the accident was the failure of a track circuit in the Marden area. [1]
The first train was a special rail train comprising five "salmon" wagons loaded with 300-foot (91 m) lengths of continuous welded rail, two brake vans and a seven-wagon fitted head (a rake of wagons fitted with vacuum brakes), which had departed from Paddock Wood Down Siding West at 20:12. This was some two hours later than scheduled because the driver had had to collect the fitted head from Tonbridge. The train was restricted to a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour (40 km/h). The second train was the 19:18 London Bridge to Dover Priory parcels train, hauled by Class 33/0 diesel-electric locomotive D6558 and comprising a 4-wheel refrigerated van, two 4-wheel parcels vans, four bogie parcels vans and a 4-wheel Covered Carriage Truck. This train was running eight minutes behind the rail train. It was scheduled to pass Paddock Wood 20 minutes before the third train, and arrive at Ashford 18+1⁄2 minutes before the third train. The third train was the 20:00 Charing Cross to Ramsgate passenger train, comprising two 4CEP electric multiple units, Nos. 7181 and 7117. [1]
Shortly after 19:00, track circuit FJ, on the down line at Marden, failed due to a broken stretcher bar on a set of catch points near Marden station. The effect of the failure was that it caused automatic signal A370 to display a danger aspect. The driver of the first train to reach signal A370 contacted Ashford signal box by telephone. He was informed that the track circuit had failed, and authorised to pass the signal at danger in order to inspect the line as far as the next signal, A372. On reaching that signal, he was again to report by telephone to Ashford signalbox. When he reported from signal A372, the driver was told to continue as normal, obeying whatever aspects the signals were showing. [1]
Six more trains also passed along the line during the period that the track circuit had failed, each passing signal A370 at danger under the authority of the Ashford signalman. At 20:28, the driver of the rail train telephoned the signalman at Ashford and was given the same authority to pass it at danger. The parcels train was then held at signal A324, which was showing a danger aspect as the rail train was still occupying the track circuit ahead of the signal. The secondman of the parcels train was told to wait until the signal cleared as the rail train was ahead of them. He was also told of the track circuit failure, and that he was to report again from signal A370. At about this time (between 20:30 and 20:40), the track circuit fault was fixed, and signal A370 was showing a proceed aspect when the parcels train reached it. The driver stopped and the secondman reported to the Ashford signalman by telephone as previously instructed. He was told to proceed normally, obeying the aspects shown by the signals. [1]
The passenger train passed Paddock Wood at 20:38+1⁄2, which was 3+1⁄2 minutes ahead of schedule. At that time, the parcels train was occupying track circuit FH. Signal PE129 was showing line clear. The passenger train cleared track circuits FF and FG, and entered track circuit FH which was still occupied by the parcels train. The signalman at Ashford sent the "obstruction danger" signal to Tonbridge signal box at 20:42. The parcels train had reached a maximum speed of 15 miles per hour (24 km/h) when it was hit from the rear by the passenger train at a closing speed of between 75 miles per hour (121 km/h) and 80 miles per hour (130 km/h), having passed signal A322 at caution and signal A324 at danger. Signal A370 was still showing proceed as the parcels train had not reached track circuit FH, which controlled that signal. [1]
The leading carriage of the passenger train was derailed to the left, and rolled down the embankment ending up upside down at a point some 115 yards (105 m) beyond the point of the collision. The second carriage ended up on its left side between the wreckage of the first carriage and the railway, and slightly ahead of it. The third carriage jack-knifed, with its leading end down the embankment and its trailing end on the railway. The remaining five carriages were all derailed towards the up line, with only the rear bogie of the rear carriage remaining on the rails. [1]
The rear three vans of the parcels train were destroyed; the remains of the rear van ended up on the up line, ahead of the van in front of it, and roughly parallel with the third coach of the passenger train. the seventh van went down the embankment on the up side, ending up roughly parallel with the seventh coach of the passenger train. The sixth van derailed across the up line with one end 15 feet (4.6 m) in the air and at right angles across the rear van. The rear end of the fifth van was burst open, and the van was buffer locked with the fourth van. This van was slightly damaged. Both the fourth and fifth vans remained on the rails, but were too badly damaged to run. The parcels train itself was propelled forwards by the force of the collision. Wreckage from the collision short-circuited the conductor rails, tripping the power supply off. Although wreckage was fouling the up line, it did not short-circuit the track circuits of the up line, allowing Signal A321 to display a proceed aspect. Had a train been on the up line at the time of the collision, there is a strong chance that a second collision would have occurred. Fortunately, the nearest train had not reached Headcorn at the time.
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Train collisions
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45 million people threatened by famine in Southern Africa
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45 million people are threatened by famine in Southern Africa due to drought, floods and economic hardship in their countries, the United Nations warned on Thursday. “This hunger crisis is reaching unprecedented proportions, and our field observations show that it will still get worse,” says Lola Castro from the World Food Program. For five years now, the entire Southern tip of Africa suffers from a significant lack of rain, aggravated by repeated episodes of the climatic anomaly known as El Nino, which affect agricultural crops in sixteen countries, mostly very poor. Global warming temperatures are also causing increasingly violent storms and hurricanes. Last year, the tropical cyclone Idai caused catastrophic floods in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, killing more than a thousand people, creating significant damage and leaving several million people in despair. This year, World Food Program plans to assist 8.3 million people who are facing food insecurity in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Madagascar, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini and Malawi. The UN agency reiterated on Thursday its urgent appeal to the international community and donors, saying it has only received 205 millions dollars so far out of the 489 millions needed to fund its emergency aid projects.
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Famine
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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has visited Dagestan the day after it was hit by suicide attacks, and promised "tough, severe" anti-terror tactics
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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has visited Dagestan the day after it was hit by suicide attacks, and promised "tough, severe" anti-terror tactics.
He flew to the North Caucasus republic for talks with regional leaders, after 12 people were killed on Wednesday. Meanwhile, funerals were held in Moscow for most of the 39 people killed on Monday when two suicide bombers blew themselves up on the city's Metro. A rebel Chechen leader, Doku Umarov, has said he ordered the Moscow attack. In a video message posted on a rebel website, he warned Russians to prepare for more attacks. Investigators had already said they believed the women who blew themselves up in Moscow were linked to North Caucasus militants. 'Dagger blows'
Accompanied by top security officials, Mr Medvedev flew to Makhachkala on Thursday to hold emergency talks with the leaders of Russia's troubled North Caucasus republics, including Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia. "We must deal sharp dagger blows to the terrorists; destroy them and their lairs," Mr Medvedev said.
"The list of measures to fight terrorism must be widened. They must not only be effective but tough, severe and preventative. We need to punish." His visit comes a day after 12 people, nine of them police officers, were killed in two suicide bombings in the Dagestan town of Kizlyar, not far from the border with Chechnya. In the first blast, a man detonated about 200kg of explosives when police tried to stop his car near the offices of the local interior ministry and the domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB). As police, emergency services and residents gathered at the scene, another man wearing a police uniform approached and blew himself up, killing among others the town's chief of police. Mr Medvedev told security officials that the bombings in Kizlyar and Moscow were "links of the same chain". "This is the manifestation of the same terrorist activity which has lately begun to make itself felt in the Caucasus, which we are all fighting against and which we will continue to fight," he said. The attacks came almost a year after Mr Medvedev declared an end to Russia's "counter-terrorism operations" in Chechnya in a bid to "further normalise the situation" after 15 years of conflict that claimed more than 100,000 lives and left it in ruins. Despite this, the mainly Muslim republic continues to be plagued by violence, and over the past two years Islamist militants have stepped up attacks in neighbouring Ingushetia and Dagestan. 'Not the last'
In the video published on the rebel Kavkaz Center website, Doku Umarov said his group was responsible for the two suicide bombings that struck Moscow's Metro. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Doku Umarov: 'I promise you that the war will come to your streets'
"On 29 March, two special operations to eliminate infidels and to greet the FSB were carried out in Moscow. Both these operations were carried out at my order. They will not be the last, God willing." He said the attacks were an act of revenge for the killings of Chechen and Ingush civilians by the Russian security forces near the town of Arshty on 11 February. The rebel, who styles himself as the Emir of the Caucasus Emirate, said attacks on Russian soil would continue. The BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow says more attacks are exactly what many people had feared after the bombings. He says the bombings showed how vulnerable the capital is, and that the intelligence agencies lack the information they need to protect the city.
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Diplomatic Visit
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Lessons from Brazil’s São Paulo droughts (commentary)
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The year 2021 is a La Niña year, and La Niña events typically lead to droughts in southeastern Brazil where São Paulo, the world’s fourth largest city, is located. La Niña events result from a cooling of surface water in the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean (Figure 1). On a decadal scale, the driest decades in this region correspond to those with a combination of cold water in the Pacific, indicated by negative values of the Pacific Oscillation Index (POI), and warmer water in the South Atlantic, indicated by positive values of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) index. This is the case in 2021, and in April the POI dropped dramatically to even more negative values. This year southeastern Brazil has been hit with a major drought affecting hydropower generation, agriculture and urban water supplies. The primary factor is a large variation in rainfall linked to global climate change, with the effect of the gradual increase in Amazonian deforestation being a smaller effect added onto this variation. However, over time, the advance of deforestation will indeed lead to more drought in southeastern Brazil, especially if the “Trans-Purus” region in the western part of the Brazilian Amazon between the Purus River and the border with Peru is deforested. It is possible that deforestation in the Amazon is already having some effect on the average rainfall in southeastern Brazil, as climate models comparing the Brazilian Amazon with the original vegetation versus the vegetation that was present in 2007 indicated that in rainfall in the southern part of the Amazon region was already being impacted. The fact that the southern portion of the Amazon region is located in the path of the South American low-level jet (SALLJ) winds, known as the “flying rivers,” implies that Brazil’s Southeast Region, which is further along the path of these winds, would also be affected. However, this refers to average rainfall rather than the variation that dominates in explaining the current drought. In addition to the reduction in water-vapor inputs to the “flying rivers,” the winds themselves are changing. Over the last three decades there has been an intensification of the northern Andes branch of the SALLJ, which carries water vapor to Bolivia, Paraguay and northwestern Argentina, while the central Andes branch has weakened, reducing flow to southeastern Brazil. The frequency of major droughts in southeastern Brazil is increasing significantly. The 2014 drought in this region was remarkable, and the “water crisis” that year resulted from a combination of causes. There had been below-normal rain since the previous year, the temperature was unusually high, and a high pressure system parked over the São Paulo area for 51 days, creating a barrier in the lower atmosphere, blocking the entry of moisture from the Atlantic and inhibiting rain. At the same time, a displacement of the South Atlantic convergence zone (SACZ) prevented the arrival of water vapor from the Amazon via the “flying rivers,” this displacement being the same one that contributed to the Madeira River’s record flood that year. The wind system that diverted the “flying rivers” was linked to a teleconnection (a causal link at a distance) with the Walker circulation cell in the Pacific, which, in turn, was altered by an abnormal heat source near Australia. The surface water of the Atlantic near the coast of southeastern Brazil was warm, and this condition is associated with droughts in the region. The trend towards warmer water in this portion of the South Atlantic is in part due to the Agulhas leakage, which is linked to global warming. The Agulhas current in the Indian Ocean carries warm-water down the coast of Africa from Mozambique to the Cape of Good Hope, where it turns sharply to the east under the influence of the westerly winds and the Antarctic circumpolar current (the “ACC,” also known as the “west-wind drift”) (Figure 2). However, with global warming the westerly winds that drive the ACC are displaced to the south, leaving room for “leakage” from the Agulhas current into the South Atlantic. Major leakages are occurring with greater frequency, and the warm water can spread in different directions, including to the coast off São Paulo. São Paulo’s drying reservoirs The volume of water in the reservoirs supplying greater São Paulo in 2014 fell to only 5% of their total capacity. With the “dead volume” of the reservoirs being pumped out and almost exhausted, the city of São Paulo came within a few days of running out of water even for drinking. Mitigation measures were implemented in subsequent years, but, even so, experts on São Paulo’s water system warned that “The assumption that water problems will finally be resolved by building more infrastructure may fail due to growing human needs and climate change.” The 2014 drought likely resulted from anthropogenic climate change, but the drought was not directly linked to deforestation in the Amazon. The 2021 drought (Figure 3) is similarly a variation augmented by climate change. The problem is that if the effect of more deforestation in the Amazon is added to this variation, the sum could be catastrophic not only for the country’s large urban centers, but also for agribusiness (see here, here and here). The Paraná/La Plata river basin depends on the Amazon for 70% of its water. Deforestation continues gradually, each year increasing a little the loss of the forest’s environmental services. The forest recycles an enormous amount of water every year, greater than the flow of the Amazon River, and if the region is turned into cattle pasture this recycling will no longer happen. The water that is now recycled is transported forward by winds known as “flying rivers,” thus providing water vapor to generate rain, including in São Paulo (see here, here, here, here and here). If not recycled, water that enters the Amazon after evaporating from the Atlantic Ocean will fall only once as rain and then return to the ocean via the Amazon River. The dependence of Brazil’s Southeast, South and Center-West Regions on Amazon water alone makes it strongly in the country’s national interest to stop all deforestation in the Amazon. It is not enough just to stop “illegal” deforestation, which is the government’s announced objective. Stopping deforestation is possible because practically all deforestation is for pasture and soy, the clearing for subsistence crops for the local population being minimal.
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Droughts
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Even if famine isn’t declared, Yemen has a massive hunger problem
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‘You go to work and you make money, and this money is worthless. It cannot even secure food on the table.’ Middle East Editor In the coming weeks and months, a group of experts will decide if Yemen, a country the UN has deemed the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis”, is in the midst of, or at risk of, a famine. Despite a recent stream of statements from aid officials – including last week’s warning from UN Secretary-General António Guterres that “Yemen is now in imminent danger of the worst famine the world has seen for decades” – such a declaration is not a foregone conclusion. That’s because, although it’s an emotionally weighted and frequently used word, famine actually has a highly complex technical definition that is hard to meet and requires a level of quality data that doesn’t always exist in Yemen, which has been at war since early 2015. For example, the threshold was not met in late 2018, and that was despite similar cries of alarm, despite the fact that some children were clearly starving to death, and despite the finding that nearly 16 million people were expected to be above “crisis” levels of food insecurity. Two years later, and after more than five and a half years of war – Houthi rebels in the north are fighting an internationally recognised (but mostly exiled) government and its allies in the south, backed by a Saudi Arabia-led coalition – it seems to many Yemenis that almost everything that could possibly go wrong in one country has done so. More than 128,000 people have been killed by bombs, guns, and mines, according to the nonprofit ACLED, which collects data on conflict zones. Over 164,000 people have been forced to flee for their lives in 2020 alone, and even when the fighting has occasionally come to a stalemate, there have been cholera outbreaks, water shortages, flash floods, and COVID-19 to worry about. The economy has collapsed for all but the few who have managed to profit from the war, and the currency has crashed too. Many of those who had savings will by now have exhausted them, meaning more and more of Yemen’s 30 million people are forced to make incredibly difficult choices, such as which family member won’t get to eat on any given day. That still doesn’t necessarily mean Yemen, or parts of it, are in a capital “F” famine. But it is clearly in the midst of a devastating crisis, one that is damaging for its survivors and will likely impact the country for generations to come. As one expert on food insecurity put it: “I kind of wish we would stop hyperventilating about [the word] famine.” Even if you don’t quite breach the thresholds required for a declaration, they said, “it doesn’t mean that people aren’t dying, and kids aren’t malnourished. It just means it is not happening at quite the same pace.” For Muhammad Mughni, a 43-year-old heavy-set man with a big smile, Yemen’s collapse has meant going from a stable career that provided a comfortable life for his wife and kids in the capital city of Sana’a, to doing odd jobs, skipping meals, and worrying what will become of his family now they have no money left. Mughni holds a degree in business administration and used to be known as “the money guy” at the English-language Yemen Observer newspaper, where he handled the day-to-day administrative and financial tasks. His salary was cut in half in 2016, the publication shut down in February 2019, and his wife is now out of work too. Since losing his job, he has made some money assisting a dealer of qat – the mild stimulant leaves many Yemenis chew when they socialise. That gig brought him $3 a day plus a bag of qat for personal use, but the work dried up a few months ago when the weather turned cool, meaning less qat is grown and sold. Now he does other odd jobs, mostly fixing friends’ cars. The money Mughni brings in isn’t nearly enough to cover the $100-a-month rent for his apartment in a three-storey mudbrick Sana’a neighbourhood, on top of the school fees for his sons. That’s not to mention food, which has become an increasing concern in the Mughni home of late. He and his wife have used up all of their $1,000 in savings, sold a third of her jewellery, and cut back on just about everything, including what they eat. The family has changed their eating patterns: Rice and potatoes make up more of their diet than they used to, and gone are the canned beans they had with morning and evening meals. They try to make it up with locally grown beans, which are cheaper but take longer to prepare. Many items have been axed from their shopping list, including fruit, cheese, tuna, and fish. As for meat, Mughni said, “it’s a rare commodity we can only dream of.” On some days, breakfast and dinner consist of just tea and kaak, a Yemeni biscuit. To make sure they can pay rent and keep their kids in school, Mughni and his wife sometimes go without meals. “When worse comes to worst, we prioritise food for the kids,” he said. “See how much weight I’ve lost,” he chuckled, grabbing what was left of his belly with both hands. While Mughni jokes about his weight loss – he’s down 20 kilograms since he lost his job – switching to less preferred food options, reducing portion sizes, and skipping meals are all classic “coping strategies” that people resort to when they can’t get enough food. There’s even a “Coping Strategy Index”, one of many tools used to measure food insecurity. Coping mechanisms like these vary in both frequency and severity, and can include extreme measures like families marrying off young daughters because they are unable to provide for them, a practice that has become a growing concern over the past few years in Yemen. A UNICEF spokesperson told The New Humanitarian that “the conflict in Yemen has exhausted many families and is pushing them into destitution.” The agency said it had heard “stories of skipping meals, selling household items and many families going into debts, [which are] likely on the increase in a bid to make ends meet.” Amal Nasser, non-resident economist at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, a think tank focused on Yemen, points out that even before the war only six percent of Yemenis held bank accounts, which offers some perspective on the options most people have when they are forced to draw down on savings. “It’s a very cash-based economy,” Nasser explained, adding that “savings are not just money in accounts – you can have accumulated capital, houses, jewellery; gold is often seen as security for women and families.” But “whoever had savings has spent them” by now, she said, adding that many Yemenis are now relying on friends, family, and neighbours to get by. “In Yemeni society, people show solidarity with one another,” she said. “But you show solidarity until you run out of it; you cannot just give when you don’t have anything left.” Mughni has benefited from some of this solidarity, with people giving him money when they can. But he is still not comfortable approaching his many friends or family members for assistance. “People who helped me did so voluntarily,” he said. “I’d rather die than ask for help. That would render me a mere beggar while I’m still young.” He’s also probably not yet eligible for humanitarian assistance of the sort given out by UN agencies and NGOs, although Mughni said the family did get some food aid three months ago because his wife had volunteered at a government-run school. In October, the last month for which numbers are available, the World Food Programme said it gave aid to 8.7 million Yemenis, including food, cash, and vouchers. It has had to slash rations because the UN-led response is underfunded, which has led to cuts in other aid programmes too. An estimated 47 percent of Yemenis lived under the poverty line in 2014, a number that reached a projected 75 percent by the end of 2019, according to the UN Development Programme. Nasser said it is worrisome that people like Mughni, who are not on what we might think of as society’s bottom rung, are struggling to buy food. “We are not talking about people who don’t have incomes or are listed on humanitarian aid lists since the beginning [of Yemen’s war]; we are talking about the potential for food insecurity in households where people are actually still going to work. That’s very dark. You go to work and you make money, and this money is worthless. It cannot even secure food on the table.” Mughni doesn’t get a steady salary, just income from the work he can get, so Nasser’s comment applies even more aptly to Abdul Qadir Muhammad Banafi’, a 61-year-old father of seven who has long held a government job, and who has plenty of space for his large family in a house tucked on a hill in the southern Shabwah province. He is still employed at the provincial health authority, although like more than a million public employees in Yemen – doctors, teachers, nurses, and local government workers – his salary has not been regular since 2016. Banafi’ is actually paid most of the time, but he said the $300 a month he gets has lost two thirds of its value since the war began, meaning he’s had to pull his two oldest, now 22 and 24, out of schooling so they can work, stopped buying luxuries that many might consider basics (like soap), and halved the food they buy. “As war kicked in, the cutdown started,” he said. “In 2020, everything seems to have collapsed.” The reasons behind the collapse of Yemen’s economy and its currency are many and varied, but recently include a large drop in money sent home from abroad, as expatriate Yemenis suffer the impacts of COVID-19. The Yemeni rial has been on the decline since mid-2016, when commentators began to warn that Yemen’s Central Bank – then seen as a bastion of stability in a fractious conflict – was running dangerously low on foreign currency reserves. Now, there are two separate central banks, one allied with the Houthis in the north and one with the government in the south. The southern bank was propped up by an injection of cash from Saudi Arabia in late 2018 – an intervention Nasser and others say would be of clear humanitarian benefit if repeated now – but is running low on reserves again. The Houthi authorities have banned the use of newer bank notes printed by the southern bank, resulting not only in separate monetary policies but also in divergent exchange rates between the regions. In short, money is worth less in the south, where Banafi’ lives, than in the north, where Mughni lives. And food prices are up. When there isn’t enough food to go around, the family makes sure Banafi’, who has hypertension and diabetes, and one of his sons, who has a developmental disorder, eat first. The Banafi’ family is actually fairly well off in their village, where he is sure some people are barely eating at all. “It’s getting more expensive by the day,” he said. Banafi’ said the family has received grains from various NGOs, but described the handouts as barely fit for human consumption. Now, when aid groups tell him it’s time to come and collect his rations, he doesn’t show up. “When you see crowds queuing for aid, it feels humiliating for the whole population, like it’s done intentionally.” That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have help. Family members – mainly expatriates living in neighbouring Saudi Arabia – have sent money. And like Mughni, he won’t reach out for that help, even if he needs it. “They know that I won’t ask for help no matter what, so they offer help without me having to ask,” he said. A range of factors – from conflict and displacement to job loss, inflation, price rises, and aid cuts – are forcing Yemenis like the Mughnis and the Banafi’s to eat less nutritious foods, or to skip meals altogether. That can easily tip a person, or a population, into various degrees of malnourishment. This hits the most vulnerable in society first. As the UNICEF spokesperson put it: “Although famine has not been declared in Yemen, severe acute [short-term] malnutrition remains a major concern… Children suffering from acute malnutrition are susceptible to other diseases and conditions, including anaemia, cholera, and other diseases which increase their risk of death. That’s why urgent treatment is key, and for millions of children our work is thus the difference between life and death.” There’s also an impact of malnutrition that is difficult to talk about or quantify, but there is evidence that foetal and neonatal malnourishment can impact brain development, and possibly lead to mental health problems. That possibility has Nasser concerned. “What worries me the most are the long-term effects of food insecurity,” she said. “They could go on for generations. Maybe people won’t die [of hunger], but babies that were born in the past six years are at risk of growing up with various issues. It’s not just about having able bodies, it’s about mental capacities, and of course this will affect Yemeni society in the future… maybe for another 20 or 30 years.” According to analysis on a limited part of south Yemen released in late October under the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which the UN and its associates use to make its decisions on famine, over 40 percent of children under five (over 580,000), and more than 240,000 pregnant and breast-feeding women, are estimated to be suffering from malnutrition at present. The IPC classifies food security in five “Phases”. In most cases, for it to determine that a country – or part of a country – is in or likely to be in Phase 5 (catastrophe/famine), at least 20 percent of households have to face extreme food shortages, more than 30 percent of children younger than five have to suffer from acute malnutrition (measured by weight and height); and at least two out of every 10,000 people have to be dying each day. The latest data from the north has not been released and collated with that from the south (although sources expect that to happen shortly), so it is hard to say anything for certain about what call will be made. When Yemen was last said to be on the brink of famine, in late 2018, 15.9 million people – that’s 53 percent of the population – were expected to be above Phase 3 (crisis) in the next year – and that was assuming that humanitarian assistance continued. And no famine was declared. More attention is certainly paid to mass hunger when the word “famine” comes into play. But Nicholas Haan, one of the creators of the IPC system (which he still plays a key role in), told TNH that the process is actually intended to draw early attention to crises in order to prevent them ever reaching famine status – triggering “strategic [aid] response implications” when populations are highly food insecure but not in Phase 5. Ideally the media would make a fuss, and donors would kick in money well before the catastrophic Phase 5 arrives, especially because famine declarations tend to come late, after all the sufficient data is compiled. “We constantly face this challenge… how to get people to react to particularly Phase 3 and 4, before we get to 5,” said Haan, part of the faculty at Singularity University, which aims to expand the use of technology to solve problems. “That's where we try to draw attention to get people to respond.” Aid bosses are well aware of the classification system and may hope their famine warnings will bring in more money to stop things getting worse, or even help jumpstart peace negotiations. In the relatively stable province of Shabwa, Banafi’ saw a gloomy future. He has little faith in international aid agencies, and none in the warring parties, which he described as “drenched in treason”. Nonetheless, his belief in God and in his fellow Yemeni people led him to think his country would not starve en masse. “Where else on Earth can you find a nation that has gone through what has happened in Yemen, where there is no president, no order, no electricity, no salaries, and somehow still managed to survive?” he said. “Ask anyone, and he will raise a finger to the sky and say, ‘God will provide.’” But with no guarantee where his next meal will come from, Banafi’ remains anxious: “I’m worried about all my family members and, on a broader level, I’m worried about the nation as a whole.” With additional reporting from Shuaib Almosawa in Sana’a.
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Famine
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1990 Bishop's Castle earthquake
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The 1990 Bishop's Castle earthquake occurred near the town of Bishop's Castle, Shropshire, England on 2 April. On 2 April 1990, a powerful earth tremor was felt across much of England and Wales at 13:46 34.2s GMT. Early news reports in the immediate aftermath speculatively attributed the epicentre to places as far apart as Nottingham and a valley in the east of Wales and then settled on Wrexham,[1] before geologists finally concluded that it had in fact been in the vicinity of the small town of Clun near the town of Bishop's Castle, Shropshire. [2]
Bishops Castle lies atop an ancient geological fault line – the Pontesford-Linley fault. A sudden movement in the fault sent shock waves through the rock. [3] The local rocks are predominantly Jurassic Middle Lias. [4]
The magnitude of the earthquake was originally measured as being between 4.9 and 5.4 on the Richter scale. [1][5][6] Its final estimated magnitude was 5.1,[7] which meant that it was the strongest earthquake to have struck the UK since the 1984 Llŷn Peninsula earthquake. The earthquake was felt by people as far away as the east of the Republic of Ireland to the west, the city of Newcastle upon Tyne to the north-east, the county of Kent to the south-east, and the county of Cornwall to the south-west. In Shrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire, which lies approximately 20 miles to the north-east of Bishop's Castle, there was damage to masonry, with a number of chimney stacks being broken off from roofs and collapsing partially or completely into gardens and streets. Some others were knocked askew. Several of the worst affected buildings, including shops, were evacuated. Police cordons were put up around houses at risk of chimney-collapse until they had been made safe, with at least fifty properties in the town reported as requiring emergency attention within the twenty-four hours immediately following the event, while others requiring less urgent treatment were tended to on subsequent days. [8]
There was also damage to ornamental features such as crosses and gargoyles built into the masonry of some of Shrewsbury's medieval churches, and to Clun Castle. Electrical power was lost from areas served by some substations situated approximately thirty kilometres (seventeen miles) from the epicentre after the earthquake caused transformers at the substations to trip offline. [8]
Residents of the worst affected areas, including parts of Shrewsbury, reported lateral shaking and swaying to the walls of their houses at the height of the tremor, which was preceded and then accompanied by a rumbling noise that gained strength over a period of 15 to 30 seconds before reaching and sustaining peak intensity during the most severe shaking. Finally, the movement and accompanying sound tailed off much more rapidly than it had first built up, stopping altogether within just a few seconds from the peak activity. [9][10]
Damage to buildings was also reported in Wrexham, and some minor damage as far north as Liverpool and Manchester. [11]
No serious injuries were reported. An engineering consultant, using the 1990 Bishop's Castle earthquake specifications as a model, has estimated that the slightly weaker 2002 Dudley earthquake measuring 4.8 on the Richter scale would have caused structural damage of an order costing less than 5% of the cost of the complete reconstruction of an entire property to repair, to 1% of buildings situated in towns in the vicinity of the epicentre. [12] While some indication of the typical percentage of homes damaged to a similarly minor extent by a slightly stronger earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale may be extrapolated from this estimation, a representative of the British Geological Survey has stated that 'numerous' but fewer than 20% of properties in Shrewsbury suffered the partial or total loss of their chimneys or damage of equivalent gravity (see below). Reliable, exact figures of the percentage of buildings damaged close to the epicentre of the 1990 Bishop's Castle earthquake are not readily available, but the aforesaid sources taken together appear clearly to indicate that between 1% and 20% of properties in towns near the epicentre suffered damage of European Macroseismic Scale Grade 7 severity. The Welsh Borders suffer frequent earthquakes by British standards. Over the last century, there have been sizeable shocks near Hereford in 1896 and 1924, near Shrewsbury in 1932, and near Ludlow in 1926. [13]
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Earthquakes
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American Caeleb Dressel sets world record in 2nd individual win at Olympics
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Two days after setting an American record in the 100-meter freestyle, Dressel one-upped himself with a world record in winning gold in the 100-meter butterfly.
Dressel broke his own world record by swimming 49.45 seconds in the final for his second individual gold of the games, and his Olympic career. He had set a record of 49.5 seconds in July 2019. Dressel actually set a new Olympic record, now smashed, in the semifinals.
The Florida-based swimmer won the 100-meter freestyle on Wednesday, in which he won in 47.02 seconds.
Dressel was visibly emotional at the conclusion of the 100-meter race, telling NBC in an interview immediately after getting out of the pool, "It's a really tough year, just really hard, so to have the results show up, I mean, it really came together, so I'm happy."
In addition to setting the Olympic record, Dressel finished with the gold medal. Australian Kyle Chalmers was close behind, finishing in 47.08, and Kliment Kolesnikov, an athlete from Russia, won the bronze in 47.44.
Dressel went into the race already having won one medal in Tokyo as part of the U.S. 4x100-meter freestyle relay team.
He had a successful Olympic debut in 2016, earning a gold medal along with a team medal in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay, in which Dressel handed off to swimming legend Michael Phelps.
But Dressel really made a name for himself in 2019, when he smashed a world record previously held by Phelps, who retired after the games in Rio, in the 100-meter butterfly.
The 24-year-old has faced many comparisons to Phelps as he emerges as a powerhouse in the swim world, although Dressel specializes in sprints -- shorter, faster races.
Dressel came to Tokyo having qualified for three individual events, the 50-meter freestyle, the 100-meter freestyle and the 100-meter butterfly, in addition to relay team possibilities.
During the Olympic trials in June to secure his individual spots, he set a record for the fastest 100-meter butterfly swum on American soil.
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Break historical records
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Undrinkable tap-water and a leaking roof, K-Block's list of defects goes on
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Almost five months after the Tasmanian Government announced it would take possession of the newly built K-Block building at the Royal Hobart Hospital, the facility still does not have drinkable water running through many of its taps.
Staff have been forced to cart bottled water around the 10-storey building, and the Health and Community Services Union is questioning when the problem will be solved.
Union state secretary Tim Jacobson said the situation was unacceptable, and that staff had still not been told when drinking water was expected to flow freely. "It's meant that, in pretty well every case now, to get drinking water to the wards it has to be moved around in containers so that patients, staff and visitors have drinkable water," Mr Jacobson said. "There have been issues raised in relation to safety, but it's an additional task that people are now being asked to perform on top of obviously the massive workloads that they've got right now.
"Staff are of the view that this is likely to go on forever, and the hospital needs to put in place better systems and processes to ensure that staff and patients and visitors have access to drinking water on a regular basis, and that isn't something on top of the already-burdensome workload staff are being asked to perform."
The State Government took possession of K-Block in March to ensure it would be operational in light of the coronavirus pandemic. The Government was aware of lead contamination in the water supply at the time, saying flushing and testing of the water system would continue during operational commissioning, with alternative drinking water supplied to operational commissioning staff and contractors until then.
At the end of last month, the Mental Health Inpatient Unit moved into K-Block, which the Government said marked the occupation of all 10 floors.
Labor health spokeswoman Sarah Lovell said the water issues raised questions over safety, as well as who would pay to fix them.
"It's very concerning that they've taken over a hospital that is not fit for purpose," she said. "If the drinking water is not up to standard, they can't argue that the drinking water is fit for purpose."
Health Minister Sarah Courtney said a defect list was still being worked through with the managing contractor. "Much of the drinking water issues have been resolved, however where drinking water is still undergoing testing, there is clear signage on those taps and we're also ensuring we have bottled water available," she said.
"It's my very clear expectation that we make sure we have safe water for our staff and our patients."
K-Block has also faced water issues of a different kind.
The reception area has been leaking after incidents of heavy rainfall, including after last week's heavy downpours.
"It has to be an embarrassment to the Government and to the hospital that the new front entrance has buckets and towels down soaking up a significant amount of water when we get a deluge like we've had over the past week or so," Mr Jacobson said.
"The reality is here we've got a case of water everywhere, but not a drop to drink."
Ms Courtney said the reception area leak was also on the defect list.
"My expectation is it will be fixed as quickly as possible," she said. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation branch secretary Emily Shepherd said there were also communication issues in K-Block.
"There are mobile blackspot issues in some areas, we understand that a permanent fix is being worked on," she said.
The Government said the builder was responsible for fixing any issues in a timely manner and at its own expense.
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Environment Pollution
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Grenfell Tower fire
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On 14 June 2017, a fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST; 72 people perished, including two who later died in hospital. More than 70 others were injured and 223 people escaped. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster and the worst UK residential fire since World War II. The fire was started by a malfunctioning fridge-freezer on the fourth floor. [note 1] It spread rapidly up the building's exterior, bringing fire and smoke to all the residential floors. This was due to the building's cladding, the external insulation and the air gap between which enabled the stack effect. The fire burned for about 60 hours before finally being extinguished. More than 250 London Fire Brigade firefighters and 70 fire engines were involved from stations across London in efforts to control the fire, and rescue residents. More than 100 London Ambulance Service crews on at least 20 ambulances attended, joined by specialist paramedics from the Ambulance Service's Hazardous Area Response Team. The Metropolitan Police and London's Air Ambulance also assisted the rescue effort. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry began on 14 September 2017 to investigate the causes of the fire and other related issues. Findings from the first report of the inquiry were released in October 2019 and addressed the events of the night. It affirmed that the building's exterior did not comply with regulations and was the central reason why the fire spread, and that the fire service were too late in advising residents to evacuate. A second phase to investigate the broader causes began on the third anniversary in 2020. As of June 2020,[update] the fire is currently being investigated by the police, a public inquiry, and coroner's inquests. Among the issues being investigated are the management of the building by the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council and Kensington and Chelsea TMO (or KCTMO, which was responsible for the borough's council housing) and the responses of the Fire Brigade, the council and other government agencies. In the aftermath of the fire, the council's leader, deputy leader and chief executive resigned, and the council took direct control of council housing from the KCTMO. The national government commissioned an independent review of building regulations and fire safety, which published a report in May 2018. Across the UK and in some other countries, local governments have investigated other tower blocks to find those that have similar cladding. Efforts to replace the cladding on these buildings are ongoing. Grenfell Tower was part of the Lancaster West Estate, a council housing complex in North Kensington. The 24-storey tower block was designed in 1967 in the Brutalist style of the era by Clifford Wearden and Associates, and the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council approved its construction in 1970. [3][4][5][6] The building was constructed by contractors A E Symes of Leyton from 1972–74. [7]
The 220-foot-10-inch (67.30 m) tall building contained 120 one- and two-bedroom flats. [8] The upper 20 of 24 storeys were residential floors, with each having a communal lobby and six dwellings, with ten bedrooms between them. [8] The lower four storeys were originally used for non-residential purposes. [note 2] Later, two lower floors were converted to residential use, bringing the total to 129 apartments, housing up to 600 people. [9] The original lead architect for the building, Nigel Whitbread, said in 2016 that the tower had been designed with attention to strength following the 1968 Ronan Point disaster and "from what I can see could last another hundred years. "[11]
Like many other tower blocks in the UK, Grenfell Tower was designed to be operated under a "stay put policy" in the event of fire. The idea was that if a fire broke out in one flat, thick walls and fire doors would contain the fire long enough for the fire service to bring it under control. [12] Only those in the affected dwelling would be expected to evacuate. [13] The building was designed under the assumption that a full evacuation would never be necessary. There was no centrally activated fire alarm and only a single central staircase. [14][15] Unlike in many other countries, UK regulations do not require a second. [15] In 2010, a fire broke out in a lobby and was quickly extinguished. [16]
Until 1996, Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council managed its council housing directly. In 1996, the council created Kensington and Chelsea TMO (KCTMO), a tenant management organisation which would manage its council housing stock. [17] KCTMO had a board comprising eight residents (tenants or leaseholders), four council-appointed members and three independent members. [18] The tower was built as council housing, but fourteen of the flats had been bought under the Right to Buy policy. These were occupied by leaseholders, or were privately rented out by them on the open market. [19]
Grenfell Tower underwent a major renovation, announced in 2012 and conducted over 2015–16. [9][20] The tower received new windows, a water-based heating system for individual flats and new aluminium composite rainscreen cladding. [21][22][23] According to the application, the purpose of the cladding was to improve heating and energy efficiency, and external appearance. Mark Harris, of Harley Facades, said, "from a selfish point of view", his company's preference was to use (cheaper) aluminium composite material. [24][20]
Two types of cladding were used: Arconic's Reynobond PE, which consists of two coil-coated aluminium sheets that are fusion bonded to both sides of a polyethylene core; and Reynolux aluminium sheets. Beneath these, and fixed to the outside of the walls of the flats, was Celotex RS5000 PIR thermal insulation. [25][26][27] An alternative cladding with better fire resistance was refused due to cost. [28]
The original contractor, Leadbitter, had been dropped by KCTMO because their price of £11.278 million was £1.6 million higher than the proposed budget. The contract was put out to competitive tender and won by Rydon, whose bid was £2.5 million less than Leadbitter's. [29] Rydon carried out the refurbishment for £8.7 million, with Artelia on contract administration and Max Fordham as specialist mechanical and electrical consultants.
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Fire
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1947 BOAC Douglas C-47 crash
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The 1947 BOAC Douglas C-47 Crash occurred on 11 January 1947 when Douglas C-47A G-AGJX of British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) crashed into a hill at Stowting, Kent, in southeast England, killing five people outright, with a further three dying from injuries received. The aircraft had been operating a scheduled international flight to West Africa via France. Poor weather caused the aircraft to attempt to divert. After attempts to land at a number of French airports, the pilot decided to return to the United Kingdom as he was running short of fuel. The aircraft crashed while attempting to land at Lympne Airport. The accident aircraft was Douglas C-47A G-AGJX, c/n 12014. The aircraft was built in 1942 and served with the United States Army Air Forces as 42-92236. It was later transferred to the Royal Air Force as FL604. On 7 July 1944, it was sold to BOAC and registered G-AGJX. [1] At the time of the accident, the aircraft had flown for 3,898 hours. [2] It had been overhauled the previous month,[3] and a new certificate of airworthiness had been issued on 31 December 1946. [2]
The aircraft was operating a scheduled international flight from London Heathrow to West Africa,[4] with a stopover at Bordeaux. [5] Both captain and first officer were operating their first operational flight since the previous summer. [6]
The aircraft took off from Heathrow at 09:48 GMT. At 12:09, the aircraft was 4th in line to land at Bordeaux. At 12:28, a weather report for Bordeaux was transmitted to the aircraft. This stated "Visibility 1500 metres, 10/10 60–100 metres, WSW 20 km, Q.F.E. 1007.6". The direction of landing was given as 235°. By 12:30, the aircraft was next in line to land. At 1240,[2] priority was given to a Royal Air Force Avro York, which was flying on only three engines. [7] The aircraft was ordered to fly a circuit of the airfield while the York landed. [8] At 1254, the York landed, but had to backtrack along the runway because the perimeter track was unserviceable. At 12:58, the captain asked for the weather at Toulouse. At 12:59, the weather at Toulouse was sent to the aircraft. This stated "Ceiling 300 metres, visibility 2 km, wind E 10 km". With this report, the captain was informed that he was next in line to land at Bordeaux. [2] The captain then told air traffic control that he was diverting because the weather was below the minimum conditions permissible and asked for the weather at Toulouse. [7] In evidence given to the enquiry, this was corroborated by the crew of British European Airways Dakota G-AGZX, which confirmed that the Toulouse weather was asked for. However, the radio operator recorded in his logbook "1300 hrs, set course for London". [2] The aircraft turned on a heading back to England but then changed course for Paris. [8] At 13:08, the weather at Bordeaux had deteriorated and the Q.G.O. message was sent to the aircraft, indicating that it was now prohibited from landing at Bordeaux. [2]
The listed alternates for Bordeaux were Toulouse and Marignane,[9] although the aircraft was not carrying airfield information for either. At 13:13, a message was sent by radio to Air Traffic Control (ATC) at Gloucester that the aircraft was returning to London. Pieces of paper found in the wreckage of the aircraft stated "E.T.A. London 15:18" and "E.T.A. Le Bourget 14:43". At 13:30, the aircraft changed course for Le Bourget. The captain then contacted Le Bourget and asked for the weather report. Gloucester were not informed of the change in plan until 14:06 when a message was sent that the aircraft was diverting to Le Bourged as the fuel reserve was inadequate to reach London. Some time between 14:10 and 14:15, the captain reported to Gloucester that his endurance was 1 hour 20 minutes and his position was WikiMiniAtlas47°25′N 1°20′E / 47.417°N 1.333°E / 47.417; 1.333. E.T.A.at Le Bourget was 14:45. At 14:14, Gloucester contacted ATC at Uxbridge and reported that the aircraft was diverting to Le Bourget short of fuel, and requested that the message was passed on to Orly Airport. Orly contacted Le Bourget and requested that the aircraft be given priority for landing. [2]
At 14:34, the captain called Le Bourget and gave his E.T.A. as 14:40, with an endurance of only 45 minutes. At 14:45, Le Bourget suggested that the aircraft land at Cormeilles. [2] Le Bourget had a thunderstorm at the time. [6] The aircraft was not carrying any information about Cormeilles, although BOAC had been informed of the airfield's suitability as an alternative landing site in the Paris area in a translation of a French notice to airmen dated 21 October 1946.
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Air crash
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Remains of Nazi V2 terror rocket dug up at St Mary's Platt
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A team of expert archaeologists have successfully uncovered the remnants of a German V2 terror rocket 77 years after it detonated in a Kent field at speeds of up to 3,300 mph. Colin and Sean Welch, who run Research Resource Archaeology, began digging on Monday at St Mary's Platt and uncovered the first remnants on Tuesday after excavating a 9.5m hole. Colin Welch of Research Resource Archaeology explains the finds This is the sixth V2 site the team have worked on, but Colin Welch explained that every dig was different. He said: "The rockets would enter the earth at an angle, in this case about 45 degrees. We usually expect to find the most remains at the side of the crater furthest from the entry point, but when we dug there this time there was nothing." Instead the team found that a bed of ragstone had stopped the rocket's travel underground, so that it was closer to the impact point. On Tuesday afternoon, the excavator loaned to them by HE Services unearthed the first major find - part of the rocket's combustion chamber. It was the powerhouse that mixed liquid oxygen with alcohol and produced enough power to send the rockets travelling at a speed of up to 3,300 miles per hour. Sean Welch explained: "Their rockets were travelling so fast. If they hit you, would never have known anything about it." All the remnants are covered with rust and grime, and it's only after the dig ends that the real work begins. Each item will be meticulously cleaned and treated with rust solvent chemicals to restore it to as pristine condition as possible, a process that might take 18 months. Eventually, if the brothers are successful in securing grant funding, the parts recovered from St Mary's Platt will be displayed in an online museum with 3-D photography along with those recovered from other V2 digs at Marden, Lynsted, Cliffe Woods, Ham Street and Horton Kirby. In any case, a report on the findings will be prepared and filed with the county' historical records officer. What they hope to discover is some of the Nazis' secret source codes, stamped as three letters on various components of the rocket. Since the war, the meaning of the codes has been discovered, which will mean each item could be linked to the factory where it was made. Sean Welch said that some parts of the V2 were manufactured in Czechoslovakia, but the rockets' turbo pumps were manufactured at a single factory in Austria. Mr Welch said: "If only we had known that at the time, we could have bombed that factory and solved the threat of the V2s." The St Mary's Platt V2 took just minutes to reach England from its launch site in Holland. It exploded at midnight on February 14, 1944. Fortunately, it landed in an open field and there were no casualties. However, it left a crater that the wartime authorities recorded as measuring around 38ft wide, 32ft long, and 14ft deep. As in previous sites, the remnants recovered from St Mary's Platt were at a deeper level than the initial crater. The excavation team has been making live broadcasts, three times a day, from the dig to children at three interested primary schools. Sean Welch said: "They've been very successful. The children have been looking forward excitedly to each broadcast" Sean Welch talking about the dig He said: "Education is what we are all about." The schools involved are Platt Primary School, Borough Green Primary and Balgowan Primary School in Beckenham. Throughout the dig, the brothers are being helped by a team of ex-Royal Engineers now working for Pearson TQ, the construction skills training company based at Swanley. So were the Nazi terror rockets - the V1 and V2 - a success for the Germans? A total of around 3,000 V2 rockets were launched, causing an estimated 9,000 fatalities in the UK. But each rocket took 30 tonnes of potatoes to produce the alcohol needed for one launch, at a time when the country was suffering extreme food shortages, as well as requiring extensive engineering resources that had to be diverted from other war production. Sean Welch said: "Their value was probably more psychological, giving the Germans hope after the tide of war had turned against them." Research Resource Archaeology won the 2018 award for Outstanding Archaeological Endeavour from the Council for Kentish Archaeology, for their work on the V2 impact site at Lynsted, near Sittingbourne.
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New archeological discoveries
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Chinese astronauts land after historic 3-month mission to new space station
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A spacecraft carrying Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo touched down safely in the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia today (Sept. 17) at 1:34 a.m. EDT (0534 GMT; 1:34 p.m. Beijing time) today, bringing the historic Shenzhou 12 mission to an end. Shenzhou 12 launched on June 16 and arrived seven hours later at Tianhe ("Harmony of the Heavens"), the core module of China's Earth-orbiting space station. The Shenzhou 12 crew, commanded by Nie, spent 90 days aboard Tianhe, staying aloft about three times longer than any previous Chinese crewed spaceflight. Shenzhou 12's return to Earth was a multiday affair. The spacecraft detached from Tianhe Wednesday (Sept. 15) at 8:56 p.m. EDT (0056 GMT on Sept. 16), according to a statement released by the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO). Shenzhou 12 then performed a rendezvous test with Tianhe, which was complete by 1:38 a.m. EDT (0538 GMT) Thursday (Sept. 16), CMSEO officials said in another update . The three-person crew of Shenzhou 12 - Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo - are seen after exiting their Shenzhou capsule after landing in n the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia on Sept. 17, 2021 to end a 90-day mission to China's Tianhe module, the first piece of the Tiangong space station. During their time in orbit, the Shenzhou 12 astronauts snapped some amazing photos of Earth and carried out a variety of scientific experiments. They also performed two spacewalks designed to help get the 54-foot-long (16.6 meters) Tianhe fully up and running and ready for future visits, which will be frequent over the coming months. For example, China is expected to send the robotic Tianzhou 3 cargo spacecraft toward Tianhe around Sept. 20 . And the next crewed mission to the module, the six-month-long Shenzhou 13, is apparently scheduled to launch in mid-October. (Exact target dates are hard to come by with Chinese missions, because the nation tends not to announce many details of its spaceflight plans in advance.) China also plans to launch two more modules to orbit, which will link up with Tianhe to form a three-piece space station called Tiangong ("Heavenly Palace") that's about 20% as massive as the International Space Station (ISS). Assembly of this orbital outpost is expected to be completed next year. "Tiangong" should sound familiar to space fans, because China launched two pathfinder space labs with that name in the last decade. Tiangong 1 reached Earth orbit in September 2011 and hosted two crewed missions, Shenzhou 9 in June 2012 and Shenzhou 10 in June 2013. Tiangong 2 went up in September 2016 and welcomed the Shenzhou 11 astronauts aboard for a 30-day mission the next month. Both of those Tiangongs are long gone. Tiangong 1 made an uncontrolled reentry to Earth's atmosphere in April 2018, burning up over the Pacific Ocean . Tiangong 2 was steered to a planned demise, also over the Pacific, in July 2019. Shenzhou 12's landing comes just one day before another highly anticipated return — that of SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission, the first-ever all-civilian trip to Earth orbit. Inspiration4 launched on Wednesday night (Sept. 15), sending four people on a three-day journey around our planet. It's scheduled to splash down on Saturday (Sept. 18). Shenzhou 12, Inspiration4 and the International Space Station were all aloft at the same time for a few days this week, setting a new record for the most people in space simultaneously (14). The ISS, of course, is an orbital fixture, having hosted rotating astronaut crews continuously since November 2000.
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New achievements in aerospace
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1973 Thai popular uprising
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The popular uprising of 14 October 1973 (Thai: เหตุการณ์ 14 ตุลา, RTGS: Hetkan Sip-Si Tula, "October 14 Event"; or Thai: วันมหาวิปโยค, RTGS: Wan Maha Wippayok, "Day of Great Sorrow"[1]) was a watershed event in Thailand's history. The uprising resulted in the end of the ruling military dictatorship of anti-communist Thanom Kittikachorn and altered the Thai political system. Notably, it highlighted the growing influence of Thai university students in politics. Student activism in Thailand grew during the 1950s, as many students became inspired by leftist ideology to mobilize and organize demonstrations and rallies against the pro-American policies of the ruling government. The rise of university students as a political force was also due to the increase in absolute numbers of university students. From 1961 to 1972, the number of university students increased from 15,000 to 150,000, while the number of universities increased from five to seventeen. [2] Prior to 1968, student activity was confined to demonstrations of loyalty rather than demands for change or criticism of the political system. The death of Sarit Thanarat in December 1963 changed things as the government under Thanom was more tolerant of students and intellectuals. The publication of the Social Science Review in the 1960s was credited as being responsible for restarting intellectual thinking and debate in Thai politics. Discussion groups sprang up at major universities which developed into organized and important independent groups, e.g., the "Sapha Na Dome" and "Sethatham" and the "SOTUS" group. These independent groups in turn produced their own writings and the Social Science Review began to publish articles from them. Some of the writings were critical of the government. These groups also started to hold clandestine political seminars which encouraged students to be analytical and critical. [3]
The student discussion groups were in many important ways different from the student unions already present on campus. They were radical and looked for new ways of interpreting Thai society and politics, often with a leftist slant. They did not organize themselves the same way the official student unions were run, i.e., on a hierarchical and politically conservative basis. These groups from different universities were able to transcend inter-university rivalry and build up contacts among themselves. [3]:10 Development programs, based on those of the United States Peace Corps, took students from various campuses to work in rural areas during their vacations and forced them to recognize the problems in the countryside. The programs also served to show the students how inadequate their university training had been, as they were not able to use any of their knowledge to improve the conditions which the majority of the rural population faced. [4]:5–6
As a consequence of the increasing collegial contact between students, the National Student Center of Thailand (NSCT) was founded in 1968. Its purpose was to represent and coordinate student action. The NSCT was to play a crucial role in the 1973 uprising. After several meetings between representatives from Thailand's universities, it was proposed that Thai students should have an inter-university organization, the NSCT. It was to include two members from each of eleven institutions: Chulalongkorn University, Thammasat University, Kasetsart University, Silpakorn University, Mahidol University, Chiang Mai University, Khon Kaen University, Prince of Songkla University, Prasanmit Teachers College (now Srinakharinwirot University), Bangsaen Teachers College (now Burapha University), and Patumwan Teachers College (now combined with Srinakharinwirot University). [5]:47–50
In its early years, the NSCT was not particularly active, and did not organize any political activities. For example, the NSCT was not involved during the demonstrations against internal corruption at Chulalongkorn University in September 1970. Instead, it concentrated on areas such as community services, counseling new students, and producing a television show which praised the King, Bhumibol Adulyadej. This conservative, royalist outlook can be traced to the organization of the NSCT and the manner in which people were elected officers. The NSCT consisted of three committees composed of the presidents of the student unions, who were responsible for formulating NSCT policy and selecting the leaders of the divisions in the secretariat committee. [6]:17–18 This made it difficult for members of the more politically conscious groups to control or even influence the NSCT, as they were still viewed with suspicion by most students. As a result, activists were unable to win election to the campus student unions and thus to the NSCT. Many discussion groups found the NSCT to be conservative and unprogressive. [4]:6–7
This changed in 1972 when Thirayuth Boonmee, an engineering student from Chulalongkorn University, became secretary-general of the NSCT. He began the political activism of the NSCT. He was prudent in choosing issues to campaign against, allowing the NSCT time to mobilize and maintain political momentum. [7]:245
Despite the apparent unity of the student movement, there were noticeable splits among the students. While they were united in their aim to remove Prime Minister Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn and his clique from office, once Thanom went into exile the student movement split into two main factions: the moderate university students and the radical vocational students. The vocational students were marked by their propensity for violence and their demands for the right to study for degrees. Likewise, the NSCT was divided between two personalities, Sombat Thamrongthanyawongse and Seksan Prasertkul. Some scholars link this conflict to the traditional Thai personal clique power competition typical of Thai bureaucracy. However, others cite the cooperation between Seksan and Sombat in protesting the construction of a second international airport for Bangkok as evidence that it was possible for them to cooperate. [8]:517–521
In November 1972, the NSCT began a campaign to boycott Japanese goods. This was a strategic move as it avoided a direct attack on the Thanom government, but served to show the public the students' intentions. As well as handing out leaflets in shopping centers, proclaiming an "Anti-Japanese Goods Week" and presenting a ten-point economic plan to Thanom, the NSCT also organized a protest march. [9]:137 It was difficult for the Thanom government to crack down on the NSCT despite the ban on other political parties as the NSCT played up nationalistic sentiment. [10]:144–145
With the success of the anti-Japanese goods campaign, the NSCT took a more obvious stance in December 1972 by responding to the government's National Executive Council Decree No. 299, which enabled the council to place the judiciary under direct bureaucratic control. This increased its powers vis-à-vis the judiciary. The NSCT organized an all-night sit-in at Thammasat University and a march from there to Chulalongkorn University. A protest rally was also held at Chiang Mai University.
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Protest_Online Condemnation
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NextGEN portal to maritime decarbonisation projects launched
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NextGEN (where "GEN" stands for "Green and Efficient Navigation") is an important initiative to support the maritime sector's push towards the "next generation" of low and zero-carbon fuels and technologies. The NextGEN web portal, an online collaborative global ecosystem of maritime transport decarbonisation initiatives, has been launched by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA). NextGEN - which can be found at NextGEN (imo.org) – brings stakeholders together to identify the gaps and opportunities for decarbonisation in the international shipping community. The portal has been developed to serve as a circle of collaboration and a single portal to bring different stakeholders involved in maritime decarbonisation projects. These include ports, governments, companies, research institutes, to share knowledge on low- and zero-carbon fuels. The NextGEN portal aims to encourage information-sharing, create critical networks and opportunities for collaboration, and facilitate capacity-building. By showcasing the universe of maritime decarbonisation projects on a single platform, the NextGEN portal will serve as a focal point and reference tool for public and private stakeholders. The NextGEN portal was launched during the IMO-United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) event held from 27th to 29th September. ( Read more here .) The three-day online global platform aims to champion innovation to accelerate the maritime sector's transition to a zero-and-low emission future. The forum is providing a platform for sharing and transferring knowledge associated with the shipping industry's transition to decarbonization. The focus for the forum is on developing countries, in order to include their shipping communities in this collective challenge. IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim said, "The single biggest challenge we face is the battle against global warming and climate change. We need more collaborative action to speed up research into emission-cutting technology in the maritime sector and into zero- and low-carbon marine fuels. Above all, we need to make sure we leave no one behind." Ms Quah Ley Hoon, Chief Executive, MPA, said, "We cannot tackle decarbonisation alone. We need to work together, across borders and value chain, to build capacity, share best practices and ensure a level playing field for all. By bringing ideas and stakeholders together, NextGEN builds on the key principle of inclusivity." NextGEN (where "GEN" stands for "Green and Efficient Navigation") is an important initiative to support the maritime sector's push towards the "next generation" of low and zero-carbon fuels and technologies. The Initial IMO GHG Strategy, adopted in 2018, has set key ambitions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from international shipping by at least 50% by 2050 compared to 2008. A revised strategy is set to be adopted by 2023. It is recognized that the maritime sector will face challenges reaching the ambitious decarbonisation targets, given the current levels of technological development in low and zero-carbon fuels. Information sharing and knowledge sharing are critical. The NextGEN portal already encompasses over 140 projects spanning over 500 partners, 13 fuel types. Regions covered include Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific Islands. NextGEN also spotlights global collaborative GHG projects led by IMO that include technical assistance, technology transfer and capacity-building. The inaugural NextGEN meeting was held in Singapore in April 2021, during the Future of Shipping Conference (23 April), jointly organized by IMO and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA). *** About the International Maritime Organization (IMO) IMO – the International Maritime Organization – is the United Nations specialized agency with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine and atmospheric pollution by ships. IMO's work supports the UN SDGs. IMO is contributing to the global fight against climate change. IMO has adopted mandatory measures to cut emissions. In 2018, IMO adopted an initial strategy on reduction of GHG emissions from ships. IMO projects promote innovation and support developing countries, especially small island developing States (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs). About the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) was established on 2 February 1996, with the mission to develop Singapore as a premier global hub port and International Maritime Centre (IMC), and to advance and safeguard Singapore's strategic maritime interests. MPA is the driving force behind Singapore's port and maritime development, taking on the roles of Port Authority, Port Regulator, Port Planner, IMC Champion, and National Maritime Representative. MPA partners the industry and other agencies to enhance safety, security and environmental protection in our port waters, facilitate port operations and growth, expand the cluster of maritime ancillary services, and promote maritime R&D and manpower development.
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Organization Established
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Former Assam Cricket Association official arrested over alleged funds misuse
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GUWAHATI, Dec 15: Police have arrested former Assam Cricket Association (ACA) secretary, Pradip Buragohain, over alleged financial irregularities during his tenure, based on an FIR lodged at Fatasil Ambari police station here.
“We found certain facts and information during our preliminary investigation to take former ACA secretary Pradip Buragohain to custody yesterday after an FIR was lodged by the ACA against him, alleging financial anomalies during 2016 to 2019 when he was serving as the secretary of the cricket association,” an Assam Police official said on Thursday.
A case has been registered at Fatasil Ambari police station and investigation is currently underway to ascertain more documentary evidence.
The police official however said that the amount of funds allegedly misappropriated would only be known once the investigation was over.
Sources however said that the amount of funds misused might run into crores.
ACA sources said that after taking note of possible financial anomalies, an accounts verification committee was constituted to scrutinise the financial transactions, including payments to contractors, made by the former ACA committee during June 12, 2016 to January 12, 2019.
“The verification committee submitted its report earlier this year after finding major anomalies, particularly in regard to purchase of air tickets, construction at (Barsapara) stadium and allied work and unauthorised expenditure during the two-and-half-year period,” ACA secretary Devajit Saikia told mediapersons here.
Based on the accounts verification committee’s report, the ACA subsequently sought an explanation from Buragohain and asked him to appear before the apex council.
Sources said that the apex council was not satisfied with Buragohain’s reply, following which the ACA asked him to pay back the amount.
But the former ACA secretary reportedly refused to comply with the directive following which the ACA took a resolution during its annual general meeting at Kaziranga in August this year to take legal action.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate
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Daughter of Penelope Jackson releases statement after Berrow murder judgement
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The daughter of Penelope and David Jackson has issued a statement following the high-profile murder case in Berrow. Penelope Jackson, 66, stabbed 78-year-old David Jackson with a kitchen knife at their home in Berrow’s Parsonage Road on February 13th. Penelope was sentenced to a minimum of 18 years in prison at Bristol Crown Court last Friday as reported here. Daughter Isabelle Potterton has released a statement, saying: “On 13th February my whole world fell away from my feet. From the moment when the police knocked on our door and told us what had happened, I had not only lost my dad but I had lost my mum too. My life was changed forever.” “I have dealt with the looks of pity and people contacting for the gossip. I have dealt with people asking the most inappropriate questions. I have done all of this because I have had to. I have to be strong for dad. I have to be strong for mum.” “I have lost the man that I looked up to and loved. I have lost the man that was always there for me no matter what. The man that came and fixed things in my house which I didn’t know even needed fixing. The man that could make me laugh.” “But I feel I have also lost my mum. I have lost the woman who always knew how to make me feel better. The woman who was my friend, my champion and my support. The woman who cared, cherished and loved me.” “Yes I know mum is here but she’s not the same person I knew. I don’t know what the future holds but I do know that the relationship I once cherished can never be built back to what it was.” “However, I love both of them. I always have and I always will. I would finally like to thank family and friends who have supported us over the past eight months, especially my husband who has been a rock to me.”
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release
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London Dock Strike of 1889
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The London dock strike was an industrial dispute involving dock workers in the Port of London. It broke out on 14 August 1889, and resulted in victory for the 100,000 strikers and established strong trade unions amongst London dockers, one of which became the nationally important Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers' Union. The strike is widely considered a milestone in the development of the British labour movement, symbolising the growth of the New Unions of casual, unskilled and poorly paid workers, in contrast to the craft unions already in existence. The strike helped to draw attention to the problem of poverty in Victorian Britain and the dockers' cause attracted considerable public sympathy. Sing a song of sixpence,
Dockers on the strike. Guinea pigs are hungry,
As the greedy pike. Till the docks are opened,
Burns for you will speak. Courage lads, and you'll win,
Well within the week. London dockworkers in 1889[1]
Colonel G. R. Birt, the general manager at the Millwall Docks, gave evidence to a Parliamentary committee, on the physical condition of the workers:
The poor fellows are miserably clad, scarcely with a boot on their foot, in a most miserable state ... These are men who come to work in our docks who come on without having a bit of food in their stomachs, perhaps since the previous day; they have worked for an hour and have earned 5d. ; their hunger will not allow them to continue: they take the 5d. in order that they may get food, perhaps the first food they have had for twenty-four hours. [2]
Prior to the strike, few dockers were organised, but once it began, the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers' Union recruited a substantial section of the London docks workforce. The principal demand of the agitation was for the dockers' tanner, meaning a rate of sixpence an hour. The strike was noted for large, peaceful processions which impressed middle class opinion and won sympathy for the strikers' cause from figures such as Cardinal Manning, who acted as meditator between the striking workers and the dock owners. He was seen as fair and impartial by both sides. Upon the resolution of the strike, the dock workers collected £160 for Manning in appreciation of his work, and Manning donated the money to a local hospital to provide a bed. Notable organisers who came to prominence during the strike include Ben Tillett, John Burns, Tom Mann, Ben Cooper, Will Thorne and the seamen's leader Joseph Havelock Wilson. The most notable politician to come to the fore during the strike was the Progressive Party London County Councillor John Benn. As an increasingly prominent local politician, he was invited to stand for Parliament as the Liberal Party candidate for St George Division of Tower Hamlets. He was subsequently elected in the 1892 general election, becoming the first of four generations of the Benn family to serve as MPs. The London Dock Strike was preceded by several other developments which marked the emergence of a new mood amongst the unskilled. The strike of match-girls at the Bryant and May match strike, and the successful organisation of London gasworkers by Will Thorne[3] were amongst these omens. The dockers' strike was more dramatic than these disputes however, because of the sheer number of workers involved, the poor reputation that dockers previously enjoyed, and various other aspects of the dispute. The dock strike began over a dispute about 'plus' money during the unloading of the Lady Armstrong in the West India Docks. 'Plus' money was a bonus paid for completing work quickly. The East and West India Docks Company's (E&WIDC), general manager Lieutenant Colonel John Lowther du Plat Taylor (of 49th Middlesex Rifle Volunteers) had cut their 'plus' rates to attract ships into their own docks rather than others. From the Catholic Church's point of view, Cardinal Manning's involvement in the strike, as a mediator trusted by both sides, could be seen as foreshadowing the encyclical Rerum novarum ('Of New Things') issued by Pope Leo XIII two years later, on 15 May 1891. Addressing "the condition of the working classes", the Church's policy set out in that encyclical explicitly supported the right of labour to form unions, but rejected socialism and affirmed private property rights. ("Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labour, nor labour without capital. Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good order, while perpetual conflict necessarily produces confusion and savage barbarity".) Robert Speaight, a biographer of Hilaire Belloc, noted that Cardinal Manning's involvement in the Dock Strike made a major impression on Belloc, 19 years old at the time, who was to become a major speaker for the Catholic Church during the early 20th century. As retrospectively told by Belloc himself in The Cruise of the Nona (1925), the example of Cardinal Manning influenced him to become a trenchant critic both of unbridled capitalism and of many aspects of socialism.
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Strike
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Horn of Africa pays the cost of interlinked disasters
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The large swarm of locusts which hit the Horn of Africa in the Spring of 2020, and cyclone Amphan, which struck the border region of India and Bangladesh in May of that year, might not seem to be connected at first glance. However, a report released on Wednesday by UN University - the academic and research branch of the UN - shows that there were connected underlying causes: greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, coupled with a lack of sufficient disaster risk management. Two of the people directly affected have shared their stories with the UN: Susan Mumbi Karanja, a farmer from Nyandarua County, Kenya, and Sudhansu Shekhar Maity, who sells stationery in the Indian city of Kolkata. News.un.org quoted one of the interviewees as saying: “When the locusts came in March 2020, we saw them coming from the hills. There were so many. They attacked all the food: the cabbages, carrots, potatoes, everything that was on the farm. When they came you could not even see the sun. It would get dark. You could not go to work, the cows could not even eat.”
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Insect Disaster
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Trade organizations for convenience stores and petroleum marketers announce merger
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The Ohio Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association and Ohio Association of Convenience Stores will merge into one organization. The merger, which takes effect in January, will create the Ohio Energy and Convenience Association (OECA). “We are thrilled the members of the Ohio Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association (OPMCA) endorsed the merger with the Ohio Association of Convenience Stores (OACS)," said Ryan Howard, chief operating officer for Truenorth gas stations and board chairman for OPMCA. "This monumental merger will allow the industry to speak with a single, unified voice about top priorities in a changing paradigm. Together, we will become a more forceful advocate for Ohio’s energy and convenience industry." Instead of one organization representing gas stations with convenience stores and another organization representing standalone convenience stores, the single organization will represent both types of entities. "We rolled up our sleeves and mapped out a modern organization to promote public policy initiatives that will accelerate long-term industry growth,” said Jeff Erb, general manager of Saneholtz-McKarns convenience stores, president of the OACS board of directors and member of the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants board of directors. The new organization will be an affiliate member of the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants. The council will manage the day-to-day operations of the association. "The energy and convenience industry is vital to our state’s economy and is essential for all Ohioans. The council is eager to serve this new, forward-looking group," said Gordon Gough, president and CEO, Ohio Council of Retail Merchants.
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Organization Merge
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1949 Strato-Freight Curtiss C-46A crash
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Coordinates: 18°28′08″N 66°12′14″W / 18.469°N 66.204°W / 18.469; -66.204
On 7 June 1949, a Strato-Freight Curtiss Wright C-46D, registered in the United States as NC92857, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean 10 km (6.4 mi) west of San Juan-Isla Grande Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico while en route to Miami, Florida. [1] Of the 81 passengers and crew on board, 53 were killed. [1]
On 4 June 1949 (three days prior to the accident), the Strato Freight C-46 arrived in San Juan from Newark, New Jersey. Regular maintenance included a new flap follow-up cable, along with a check of both engines. Due to misfiring of the right engine, 13 new spark plugs were also installed. [1][2]
On 7 June, the aircraft was in service for a flight to Miami. The plane taxied to the runway at 00:10, and was airborne at 00:21. Approximately one minute thereafter, the right engine began losing power. The aircrew declared an emergency; the plane subsequently crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, roughly 200 m (656 ft) off the coastline. [1] The aircraft remained afloat for six minutes, during which time 28 of the 81 passengers and crew were able to evacuate. [3] According to various sources, 53 or 54 passengers perished. This was, at the time, the largest death toll ever due to a plane crash. [4]
Since the right engine had backfired during the maintenance check in San Juan, 13 new spark plugs (AC-LS-87) had been installed. The AC-LS-87 spark plug accounted for 30 of the 36 required for the engine to run. This type of spark plug was not approved for use in the Curtiss C-46A by the engine manufacturer or the United States Air Forces (which specifically prohibited the use of this type of spark plug in the C-46A's Pratt and Whitney engines). [5] Furthermore, the rear right engine spark plugs suffered extreme heat damage. This was linked to the right engine ignition switch found in the left magneto position, only allowing the rear spark plugs to fire. Finally, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) determined "the spark plug terminals for this engine were found to be oily and dirty, and spark plug electrodes were found to have too much clearance. "[3]
Strato-Freight computed the total gross weight of NC92857 to be 44,500 lbs (20,185 kg), just under the maximum allowed 45,000 lbs (20,412 kg). The Civil Aeronautics Board calculated the total weight at 48,709 lbs (22,094 kg), 3,709 lbs (1,682 kg) over the maximum certified weight allowed. [6] The passengers on board were reportedly nervous prior to the crash due to the extra weight. [4]
Strato-Freight NC92857, with a manifest of 75 passengers, was configured with 65 passenger seats. Five passengers were infants carried in the arms of passengers, and 14 were between the age of 2 and 12. At least five passengers other than infants were sharing a seat with another passenger. [2]
The investigation concluded "the loss of power of the right engine before the aircraft attained the optimum single engine climb speed, together with the overloaded condition of the aircraft, resulted in it losing altitude and settling into the sea. "[7]
Strato-Freight's operating license was initially suspended,[8] and was finally revoked effective 8 November 1949. [9] The CAA concluded that the company "(did) not exercise the care required of the holder of an air carrier operating certificate, and by the pattern of its violations manifests an attitude of indifference for the safety of others and a disregard of the civil air regulations. "[10]
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Air crash
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Shirokiya Department Store fire
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Shirokiya Department Store fire (白木屋大火, Shirokiya Taika) was a fire at the Shirokiya Department Store, Tokyo, Japan, on December 16, 1932 which left 14 people dead and 67 people injured. [1] The Shirokiya Department store had eight stories and two underground floors. Floors 4 through 8 caught fire in the incident. It is thought in Japan that the Shirokiya Department Store fire was a catalyst for the change in fashion customs toward wearing Western-style panties, but there is no evidence to substantiate the belief. [2]
At the time, the Shirokiya Department Store was having a year-end Christmas theme sale, and the interior was extravagantly decorated. The fire started around 9:15am, shortly before it was to open for business, in the toy section. A clerk witnessed an electrical spark from a light bulb on a Christmas tree. The spark landed on some highly flammable celluloid toys, ignited them, and the fire quickly spread. The open staircase provided oxygen to fuel the flames and enabled the fire to spread to other floors. The staircase became a chimney for the smoke, which cut off the main escape route. As ladder trucks and hoses could not reach the 5th floor, the fire spread and people trapped inside had to find other ways to escape. Some of the saleswomen were forced to go up to the roof; from there they jumped into safety nets held by firemen. Many attempted to escape the building using ropes made from clothing or curtains. About 80 people climbed down from the 7th floor in this manner. Others could not hang on and fell to their deaths. It is believed that this fire changed fashion customs among Japanese women, who discarded the traditional kimono since kimono-clad women did not wear panties. News spread that, during the fire, saleswomen in kimono refused to jump from the roof into safety nets because they were ashamed to be seen from below, and as a result died. [3][4] This news attracted attention from as far away as Europe. It has been alleged that in the aftermath of the fire, department store management ordered saleswomen to wear panties or other short underwear under their kimono, and the trend spread. [3][4]
Contrary to this belief, Shoichi Inoue, a professor of Japanese customs and architecture at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, has denied the story of the ambivalent women with fatal modesty. According to Inoue, most people were saved by firemen, and the story of women who preferred to die with their modesty intact was fabricated for the benefit of Westerners. The story has been prevalent in many reference books, even some published by the Fire Fighting Agency. [2]
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Fire
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2018 New York City helicopter crash
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On March 11, 2018, a sightseeing helicopter crashed into the East River off the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, killing 5 people. Two passengers died at the scene, and three others were pronounced dead at the hospital. The pilot escaped the helicopter following the crash. The aircraft was operated by Liberty Helicopters for FlyNyon. Two people were from New York state; another two were from Dallas, Texas; and the fifth was from Argentina. The pilot is from Connecticut. The aircraft involved in the incident was a Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil, that had not been involved in any prior accidents. The tour company had had two other crashes in the preceding 11 years. [1] The helicopter flew with open doors, and passengers were required to wear both the helicopter's primary restraints (seatbelts) along with a supplemental harness (provided by NYONair), designed to keep them inside the helicopter; the supplemental harnesses underwent scrutiny as a potential cause of fatality due to the difficulty of releasing the harness. [2]
The helicopter was equipped with primary restraints for the pilot and each passenger provided by the manufacturer compliant with 14 CFR 27.785. Each passenger was also equipped with a supplemental harness system which allowed them to move within the cabin and sit in the door sill while airborne. [3] The center passengers in the four-abreast rear bench seat were allowed to remove their primary restraints, leave their seat, and sit on the sills; they were prevented from falling out of the helicopter by the supplemental harnesses. The passengers on the outboard ends of the rear seat and front passenger seat were allowed to rotate outboard, but their primary restraints were not intended to be released. [4]:2–3 The supplemental harness was an off-the-shelf nylon fall arrest device which anchored each passenger to the helicopter; ground crew were responsible for attaching and detaching a locking carabiner to the back of each passenger's supplemental harness at the start and end of each flight. Each carabiner was at the end of a tether attached in the helicopter's cabin. The supplemental harnesses were provided by FlyNYON, the vendor which had sold the passenger tickets. [3]
The flight was being conducted by the operator Liberty Helicopters under 14 CFR 91 rules as an air tour for aerial photography for FlyNYON under 14 CFR 136 rules. [5][6] According to a 2014 study, the crash rate of Part 91 air tours is 3.5 per 100,000 hours flown, "similar to the reported crash rates in categories considered to be 'high hazard' commercial aviation" such as medevac and off-shore drilling transport. [7] Liberty Helicopters spent $120,000 lobbying the mayor's office and the Economic Development Corporation in 2015, according to an article about the curtailment of tourist flights from the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in 2016. [8] Liberty and FlyNYON stated the flights met exemption criteria under 14 CFR 119.1(e)(4)(iii) for aerial photography. [4]:37–38
The flight originated from Helo Kearny Heliport (FAA LID: 65NJ) at approximately 1900 EDT on March 11, 2018. The pilot had been flying passengers for FlyNYON on flights lasting 15 to 30 minutes since 1100 that day, although he could not recall how many flights he had completed. [6] When the van carrying the passengers arrived, the pilot checked each passenger's harness and put their life vests on. After seating the passengers in the helicopter, he locked their harness tethers to the helicopter and provided safety instructions, including where the cutting tool was on their harness and how to use it. [6]
The pilot, following the passengers' requests for sights, flew toward the Statue of Liberty at an altitude ranging from 300–500 ft (91–152 m) above ground level (agl), then proceeded to the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park. [6] After contacting the tower at LaGuardia Airport to request entry into its controlled airspace, the pilot started to climb to approximately 2,000 ft (610 m) agl. [9] During the climb, he noticed the front passenger had removed his primary restraint, and reminded the passenger to keep the restraint fastened, as the passengers in the left front, left rear, and right rear seats were supposed to stay restrained while the inboard passengers in the center rear seats were allowed to unclip their primary restraints and sit on the floor with their feet on the skids. [6]
Onboard video reviewed after the crash showed the front passenger turned in his seat so he was facing outboard with his legs outside the helicopter. While taking several photographs between 19:00 and 19:05, he leaned backward and his supplemental harness tether hung down loosely near the helicopter's floor-mounted controls. At 19:05:51, when he sat up again, video showed the tail of the tether became taut, then suddenly released; this was followed two seconds later by decreased engine noises. [4]:4 Radar showed the helicopter began to descend at 19:06:11. [4]:5
According to several witnesses, the helicopter suddenly descended near the northern end of Roosevelt Island and then plummeted into the river. The helicopter was described to be autorotating at low altitudes immediately prior to its crash. [10] The pilot stated, in a post-crash interview with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), that a low rotor rpm alarm began to sound and warning lights came on, indicating low engine and fuel pressure. At that point, he believed the engine had failed and considered landing at Central Park, but thought there were too many people present to attempt a landing, and directed the helicopter towards the East River instead, starting the turn at 19:06:30. [6][4]:5 The pilot radioed a mayday call to LaGuardia at 19:06:58. [11][4]:5
During the descent, the pilot attempted to restart the engine at least twice, and then he confirmed the fuel flow control lever was still positioned for normal operation. After he was sure the helicopter could reach the river, the pilot activated the skid-mounted floats at 19:07:02, 800 ft (240 m) agl. [6][4]:5 When he reached to engage the emergency fuel shutoff lever in preparation for a hard landing, he realized it had already been activated, and that part of a passenger's fall protection tether was underneath the fuel shutoff lever. When he disengaged the fuel shutoff lever, he was able to restart the engine, but at that point, the helicopter had already descended past 300 ft (91 m) agl and the engine "wasn't spooling up fast enough" to avoid a crash landing. He put the helicopter in a nose-up flare before it hit the water. [6]
With the doors off, the cabin began to fill with water, first on the pilot's side (right side) of the cabin. The pilot stated he started to unlock the carabiner securing the front passenger's tether to the helicopter, but had gotten no more than two or three rotations before the helicopter began to sink, rolling past a 45° list. [6] Subsequent review of a video showing the descent (recorded by a witness using a cellphone) led aviation experts to believe the passengers would have survived had the helicopter not turned over and sunk. [12] The aircraft sank 11 seconds after touching down on the water,[4]:x;28 at approximately 19:07:26, when the onboard video camera's lens became submerged. [4]:26
The pilot, who was not attached to the aircraft by a supplemental harness, unbuckled his manufacturer-provided primary restraint after the helicopter was submerged and escaped. [4]:6 All five passengers drowned after the helicopter rolled over into the water as they were trapped by their supplemental harnesses. To leave the aircraft, a passenger would have had to either reach behind them and unscrew the locking carabiner (or assist another passenger with their carabiner), or use a cutting tool (provided by FlyNYON and attached to each harness) to sever the tether. [3] A passing tugboat heard the mayday call from the pilot and tied up to the helicopter to keep it from sinking further. [12] Rescue divers responded seven minutes after the first 911 call.
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Air crash
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1945 Anti-Jewish riots in Tripolitania
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The 1945 Anti-Jewish riots in Tripolitania was the most violent rioting against Jews in North Africa in modern times. From November 5 to November 7, 1945, more than 140 Jews were killed and many more injured in a pogrom in British-military-controlled Tripolitania. 38 Jews were killed in Tripoli from where the riots spread. 40 were killed in Amrus, 34 in Zanzur, 7 in Tajura, 13 in Zawia and 3 in Qusabat. [1]
The British Military Administration was heavily criticized for acting too slowly to stop the rioting. Major-General Duncan Cumming, the British Chief Civil Affairs Officer, noted that Arab nationalism had been provoked by reports about Council of Foreign Ministers proposals "to hand the country back to Italian tutelage or to some other country with suspected Colonial designs," and that "It would seem that reports of the situation in Palestine and of anti-Jewish disturbances in Egypt finally touched off the pent-up excitement in the direction of the virtually defenceless Jews rather than against Italians. Hooliganism and fanaticism have played an important part in the disturbances together with a general tendency to loot. "[2] Official British reports highlight background factors responsible for the general tension at the time, such as economic hardship and the uncertain political future of Tripolitania. The neighbouring British province was expect to become the independent Cyrenaica Emirate, whilst contemporary post-war proposals for Tripolitania included a return to Italian rule and a trusteeship under the Soviet Union. [3]
As a result of the slow British response, a widely held belief amongst Libyan Jews is that the riots were instigated by the British in order to show that the Libyans could not rule themselves, or as some kind of warning to Libyan Zionists relating to the ongoing Jewish insurgency in Palestine. [4][5] However, American diplomats believed that the British had been caught unaware and "were sincere in their desire to curb [the] outbreaks promptly". State Department observer John E. Utter "believed that blame for the initial troubles lay with both sides—Jews primed for provocative behavior by Zionist propaganda and Arabs stirred by anti-Jewish riots in Cairo. "[6]
Together with previous persecutions of Jews by the Axis in Libya during World War II, the Tripoli rioting became a turning point in the history of Libyan Jews, becoming a central factor in the 1949–51 emigration organized by the Jewish Agency. [7]
In the late 1930s, the Fascist Italian regime in Italian Libya began passing anti-Semitic laws. As a result of these laws, Jews were fired from government jobs, some were dismissed from government schools, and their citizenship papers were stamped with the words "Jewish race." Despite this repression, that was partially opposed by governor Italo Balbo, in 1941 some 25% of the population of Tripoli was still Jewish and 44 synagogues were maintained in the city. [8]
But in February 1942, German troops fighting the Allies in North Africa occupied the Jewish quarter of Benghazi, plundering shops and deporting more than 2,000 Jews across the desert. Sent to work in labor camps, more than one-fifth of this group of Jews perished. Despite liberation from Fascist Italian and Nazi German influence in 1943, North African Jews kept suffering innumerous attacks. Arab nationalists were incorporating effective propaganda efforts and on November 2, 1945, an anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, a widespread wave of anti-Jewish rioting hit the cities in Aleppo (Syria), Cairo (Egypt) and the most severe, in Tripoli (Libya). [9]
Some of the worst anti-Jewish violence occurred following the liberation of North Africa by Allied troops. From November 5 to November 7, 1945, more than 140 Jews (including 36 children) were killed and hundreds more injured in the Tripoli pogrom. The rioters looted nearly all of the city's synagogues and destroyed five of them, along with hundreds of homes and businesses. In the aftermath about 4,000 Jews were left homeless, and 2,400 were reduced to poverty. Five synagogues in Tripoli and four in provincial towns were destroyed, and over 1,000 Jewish residences and commercial buildings were plundered in Tripoli alone. [10][11]
As in the Iraqi case, the Tripoli massacre inaugurated a train of events that would demoralize and in a relatively short time dissolve the Libyan Jewish community. The event caused the beginning of the Libyan Jewish exodus. Thus, Jews began leaving Libya three years before the establishment of Israel and seven years before Libya gained independence. [12]
The situation of Libyan Jews further escalated with the eruption of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In June 1948, anti-Jewish rioters in Libya killed another 12 Jews and destroyed 280 Jewish homes. [13] This time, however, the Libyan Jewish community had prepared to defend itself. Jewish self-defense units fought back against the rioters, preventing dozens of more deaths. [10]
The insecurity which arose from these anti-Jewish attacks, as well as the founding of the state of Israel led many Jews to emigrate. From 1948 to 1951, and especially after immigration became legal in 1949, 30,972 Jews immigrated to Israel. [14]
During the next decade and a half, the remaining Jews in Libya were put under numerous restrictions, including laws which governed their ability to move around (generally outside the country), their legal status and identification cards and property issues; the Jews of Libya were discriminated against and oppressed through codified laws. More violence erupted after the Six-Day War, leaving 18 Jews dead and many more injured. Following this, the remaining Jewish community of Libya, numbering about 7,000 persons, was almost entirely evacuated to Italy, abandoning their property and homes. The last Jew in Libya, an old woman, was finally allowed to leave for Italy in 2003, after numerous tries by her adult son.
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Riot
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Best Places To See The Great American Total Solar Eclipse
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Are you planning to see the first total eclipse of the sun in the U.S. in 99 years, knowing that the next one here isn't until 2024? And do you want to find somewhere to see it worth the trip just for the festivities? On Monday, Aug. 21, astronomers and world-wide sky chasers will seek out a corridor from Oregon to South Carolina. PROMOTED For more details of this "eclipse of the century" -- arguably one of the world's greatest natural experiences -- do check out Space.com's complete guide, including where and when to see it, how long it lasts, what to expect, and how to plan ahead. Here are six interesting places where you can best view this rare solar phenomenon -- most venues offer lectures; great food; science, film art and music events as well. Whether you're an umbraphile (who loves total eclipses) or just someone who likes to be where the awesome action is, you'll find both celestial spectacle and true Americana: (EclipseCasper.com/media) The Wyoming Eclipse Festival, Casper Because the state's second-largest city has an altitude over 5k feet and usually clear skies, it holds Astrocon, the national convention of the Astronomical League, this year Aug. 16-19, preceding the eclipse. Events in and around Casper will focus on the sun event, but also other stars. Carhenge has been named the No. 2 wackiest attraction in America by TripAdvisor. (AP Photo/Nati... [+] Harnik) Carhenge, Alliance, Nebraska Think Stonehenge on England's Salisbury Plain -- except cars replace the stone slabs, and this folk-art replica is in western Nebraska. Thirty-nine vintage automobiles are placed in the same proportions as Stonehenge, with a 1962 Cadillac marking the heel stone. The Missouri River in St. Joseph, Missouri. (Tim Kiser, Wikimedia Commons) St. Joseph, Missouri A weekend of workshops and lectures in St. Joseph leads up to the eclipse, with a huge, free public viewing event at Rosecrans Memorial Airport, where the duration of totality will be 2 minutes and 39 seconds, one second less than the max possible for this eclipse. Plus, Missouri barbeque! Giant City State Park. (Kbh3rd, Wikimedia Commons) Southern Illinois University & Vineyard, Carbondale The eclipse track will last the longest — 2 minutes and 40.2 seconds — inside Giant City State Park in southern Illinois, next to the Blue Sky Vineyard in Makanda. So you can raise a glass or more of wine to the sun show. SIU is billing Carbondale as the "Eclipse Crossroads of America," because if you miss this year's total eclipse, you can wait for 2024 when Carbondale will be in the path of the next one to pass over the U.S. Hopkinsville, Kentucky. (AP Photo/Alex Sanz) Ground Zero (or Solar Zero), Hopkinsville, Kentucky Hopkinsville in western Kentucky is the ninth-largest city in the state and is the population center closest to where the axis of the moon's shadow passes closest to the center of Earth -- about 12 miles northwest of the city center. The city will offer certified viewing sites and science seminars, and a movie series. City organizers are also moving the now rebranded "Summer Salute" festival to coincide with the eclipse. Nashville. (Shutterstock) Planetarium, Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the largest city in the eclipse's path, and its Adventure Science Center will offer a public eclipse event. The Sudekum Planetarium, with a Goto Chiron optical star projector capable of projecting up to 6.5 million stars, will present "Eclipse: The Sun Revealed." And remember these safety tips: -- Never look directly at the sun, even when it's partially covered by the moon. This can causeserious eye damage or blindness. (You can however, look at the sun during the brief total eclipse.) -- Use proper eye protection. Find out how to view the eclipse safely. -- Consider protecting pets' eyes. Host of award-winning travel podcast Places I Remember with Lea Lane. Follow wherever you listen, or at my website, placesirememberlealane.com. Author of the award-winning... Read More Host of award-winning travel podcast Places I Remember with Lea Lane. Follow wherever you listen, or at my website, placesirememberlealane.com. Author of the award-winning
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New wonders in nature
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Gas explosion in Tartu kills one, seriously injures several others
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A gas explosion in a Tartu apartment building Thursday afternoon which killed one and injured several more, many of them seriously, may have been caused intentionally. Three of the seriously injured were first responders who had been called to the address, after residents reported a smell of gas. Two of them have suffered severe burns and are in a critical condition at the time of writing. A 46-year-old man, suspected to have been the individual who deliberately caused the explosion and who had a previous record, has subsequently died in hospital.
The gas leak reportedly emanating from an apartment whose occupant was under the influence of alcohol.
Rescuers arrived shortly before 2 p.m. Thursday at the apartment building on Jaama, in the east of Estonia's second city, with the explosion occurring minutes later.
Margo Klaos of the Recue Board's southern district said that the call-out had started off as a seemingly routine one.
Klaos said: "Since it was a gas leak, the door was not broken into, to avoid the risk of sparks."
"The first responders had no information that an individual could behave unpredictably. What was not known about the incident was that if may have been intentionally caused," Klaos went on, adding that the Rescue Board attends around 500 such incidents per year, meaning it was not initially considered out-of-the-ordinary.
Two rescuers had entered the apartment via a window and opened the front door from inside, which was precisely the point in time the explosion took place.
Two Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) officers and an ambulance crew member were in the corridor outside the apartment.
The two PPA officers and one ambulance driver attending the scene were seriously injured and have had to be hospitalized.
A 46-year-old man was taken to hospital, where he later succumbed to his injuries.
Two of the first responders, Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) officers aged 23 and 25, are reportedly in critical condition, having suffered serious burns, while two more rescuers were also hospitalized.
Veronika Reinhard, head of Tartu ambulance service, said that: "Five rescue workers were injured in the accident, three of whom were taken to Tallinn Hospital with burns."
An ambulance crew administered first aid to three local residents.
President Kersti Kaljulaid wrote on her social media account Thursday evening that: "Today's gas explosion in Tartu demonstrates how police, rescuers and doctors risk their lives and their health every day."
"I wish the injured police officers, first responders and ambulance workers and all local residents a speedy improvement and recovery," the president went on.
State prosecutor Kairi Kadoja says that the incident is subject to a criminal investigation.
She said that: "Based on the information gathered so far, we have reason to believe that the explosion may have been caused intentionally, and, as a result, we are investigating what happened under the section [of the penal code] under causes of an explosion. Right now the most important thing is that all those injured in the event get better, and I wish them a speedy recovery."
"We are investigating this as an intentional cause of the explosion, not an accident," Kaldoja subsequently said.
"Forensic scientists and experts have been at the scene. The work in ascertaining in which room and in what area the spark which caused the explosion is located is still ongoing," Kaldoja added, confirming that the deceased is a suspect in deliberately having caused the blast.
While the injured PPA officers, who had only recently joined the force, certainly had the necessary skills to deal with the situation, Koppel said, the information received on call-out was not sufficient to have given cause to expect the incident to escalate as it had, PPA southern prefecture chief Vallo Koppel said.
Koppel added that the man who had died had been of interest to the PPA before. This year alone, he had been involved in eight alcohol-related cases, including one for driving while intoxicated.
Windows in neighboring buildings were also blown out in the blast; the ensuing fire was under control by 2.30 p.m. and declared extinguished a little after 90 minutes later.
Rescue Board personnel inspected all buildings affected and no further danger was identified; a 200-meter stretch of road, between the intersections with Pärna and Raatuse streets, is still closed at the time of writing, and traffic subject to diversion.
Sixteen residents who have had to vacate their homes due to the explosion are being rehoused in a local college dorm.
This article was updated to include details on the fatality and the condition of the most seriously injured, and the president's comment on the incident, as well as further details on the PPA officers injured, comment from Vallo Koppel and additional comment from Kairi Kaldoja.
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Gas explosion
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Reconciliation Movement in 1990
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Reconciliation Movement in 1990 a.k.a. (Verrat e Lukes, allegiance, To you I forgave thee blood, Kosovo), was an Albanian all-national movement for blood pardon in Albania and Kosovo. It was organized in 1990 by students, professors and workers' unions in Kosovo. It is part of similar movements throughout Albanian regions since the 1960s. Gjakmarrja (literally "blood-taking" meaning "blood feud") or Hakmarrja ("revenge") refers to the social obligation to commit murder in order to salvage honour questioned by an earlier murder or moral humiliation. This practice is generally seen as in line with the social code in Albania known as Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit, or simply the Kanun (English: The Code of Lekë Dukagjini). [2]
In 1980, many Albanians were locked in their homes because of the feud, though the murders continued. In Kosovo, many organizations were established for reconciliation campaigning that they "should stop the killings, because Serbia is killing us". [3] Such killings are said to continue till today, especially in Albania and North Macedonia [citation needed]. In the course of the reconciliation campaign that ended blood feuds among Kosovo Albanians, the largest restorative justice conference took place at Verrat e Llukës on 1 May 1990, which was attended by between 100,000 and 500,000 participants. [4] The reconciliation campaign was led by Anton Çetta. Over a period of three years (1990-1992), approximately one third of the entire population of Kosovo was documented to be actively involved in restorative justice conferences to end the blood feuds. [4] By 1992, the reconciliation campaign ended at least 1,200 deadly blood feuds, and in 1993, not a single homicide occurred in Kosovo. [4]
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Protest_Online Condemnation
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Brazil dam disaster death toll rises to 99
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Decrease in stocks could heighten pressure on the Biden administration to release oil from emergency reserves to cap soaring petrol prices Wednesday, November 17 2021 President Cyril Ramaphosa signs off on deadline to hand in state capture findings Coalition talks between parties collapse but ANC can elect some mayors with simple majority Business Day TV talks to Graeme Franck from PSG Wealth Sandton Grayston Paper by the Centre for Development and Enterprise argues that government’s localisation drive will raise costs and reduce SA’s competitiveness We look at how player brands can boost clubs, and the new developments affecting copyright issues The agreement on 'strategic stability' was reached during virtual meeting this week And then we want to know why an African country has not won the World Cup, writes Mninawa Ntloko Reformulations of prized expressions are commonplace amid soaring prices for the originals Sao Paulo — The death toll from the Brumadinho tailings dam disaster in Brazil rose to 99 on Wednesday, with another 259 missing and feared dead, the country’s civil-defence authorities said. The dam, owned by Brazilian iron-ore giant Vale SA, burst on Friday, burying the company’s local offices, a busy lunchroom and a nearby village under a thick layer of reddish-brown mud. Rescue workers have said there is little chance any of the people still buried under the sea of sludge are alive and that the number of dead is expected to rise over coming days, as rescue efforts shifted to where the lunchroom swept away by a tide of mud probably settled. An official close to the case said the final death toll could be more than 300. Brazil’s government took further action on Wednesday to help people affected by the disaster, approving programmes to aid fishers and farmers in the region, while also developing a plan to inspect 3,386 dams around the country that pose a potential risk to human life. Financial markets reacted well on Wednesday to a plan announced on Tuesday evening by Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman to accelerate its programme to dismantle 10 dams similar to the one that collapsed in Brumadinho, while halting all mining activity near them. Vale shares closed 9% higher at 46.60 reais ($12.65). The company’s stock price had plummeted on Monday, losing almost one-quarter of its value, then rose nearly 1% on Tuesday. “We believe the decommissioning of these dams is a prudent move by Vale; reducing the risk of another dam collapse is well worth the $1.3bn Vale will spend to decommission these structures,” said Christopher LaFemina, an analyst at Jefferies, in a note. The plan will cost about 5-billion reais ($1.3bn), halt about 10% of Vale’s annual production and take one to three years to complete, Schvartsman said. The company also said it would increase output at other facilities to offset the loss of production. Local residents, though, said they want the company to finish more quickly. “They have to get rid of these dams right away, in less than three years,” said Silvio Campos, 70, a novelist who lives in the area near another mining dam. “I’m afraid. Everyone here is so sad, and there’s no hope. The development created by Vale usually doesn’t compensate for the risks it creates,” he added. The company had already stopped using the type of dam that collapsed on Friday in Brumadinho, known as an upstream dam, about three years ago after a similar dam burst about 130km away in a town called Mariana, killing 19 people and spewing a river of mining waste that contaminated hundreds of miles of river valleys. Upstream dams are cheaper to build than other types, but they are more prone to failure, according to experts. After the Mariana accident, Vale began the process of decommissioning, or dismantling, the 19 upstream dams it owned at the time, and had already decommissioned nine of them by the time of the Brumadinho disaster, according to Schvartsman. He said the company did not carry out the process more quickly because safety audits of the dams showed them to be in good condition.
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Mine Collapses
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1969 race riots of Singapore
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The 1969 race riots of Singapore were one of the two riots encountered in post-independence Singapore. The seven days of communal riots from 31 May to 6 June 1969, a result of the spillover of the 13 May Incident in Malaysia, resulted in a final toll of 4 dead and 80 wounded.
The precursor of the 1969 race riots can be traced to the 13 May Incident in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya in Malaysia. It was triggered by the results of the General Election, which were marked by Sino-Malay riots unprecedented in Malaysian history – 196 people were killed and over 350 injured between 13 May and 31 July. The real figures could be much higher than officially revealed. The Malaysian government declared a state of emergency and suspended Parliament until 1971.
The disturbances had nothing to do with Singapore but there was an inexorable spillover of the communal violence in Malaysia into Singapore. The 1969 riots occurred not long after the earlier communal riots in 1964. It was said that the 1964 racial disturbances in Singapore contributed towards the eventual separation of Singapore from Malaysia on 9 August 1965. The hysteria that United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) itself generated over its desire to assert Malay dominance (Ketuanan Melayu) in Singapore had its effect in heightening the suspicion between Malay and Chinese in Singapore.
The dissatisfaction of the Malays over their social and economic condition and the fear that the Malays regarded as indigenous (Bumiputra) ownership would be lost, led to the 13 May disturbances.
Rumours began to spread in Singapore about Malay atrocities against the Chinese in Malaysia. People also talked indignantly about the partiality of the Malaysian Armed Forces in dealing with those suspected of involvement in the rioting; Chinese that were caught were severely punished on the spot and these rumours aggravated tension in Singapore.
The Internal Security Department (Singapore) or ISD, together with the police, helped contain a volatile situation. Sino-Malay tensions surfaced again in Singapore in 1969 following the outbreak of the 1969 racial riots in Malaysia after the General Election. Many incidents of Sino-Malay clashes erupted and the situation was brought under control following security sweeps by the police and armed forces throughout Singapore. The vigilance of the security forces in Singapore and the persistent efforts of ISD officers in making island-wide coverage contributed to the return of normalcy in Singapore.
After 1971, when all had settled down, the Malaysian government was able to follow an affirmative action policy marked particularly by the New Economic Policy (NEP) favouring the Malays. To this day, there is still an unease about the potential of violence as the power struggles between groups continue. In Apr 1987, four silat (martial arts) experts were arrested by the ISD for actively spreading rumours of impending racial clashes on or around 13 May 1987 (on the 18th anniversary of the May 1969 race riots in Singapore and Malaysia).
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Riot
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Annastacia Palaszczuk asks Scott Morrison for more Great Barrier Reef funding as UNESCO considers 'in-danger' proposal
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Annastacia Palaszczuk asks Scott Morrison for more Great Barrier Reef funding as UNESCO considers 'in-danger' proposal
The Queensland Premier has asked the Prime Minister to match funding for renewable energy jobs and water quality projects ahead of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee's vote on whether to list the reef as "in danger" due to the impact of climate change.
Annastacia Palaszczuk wrote to Scott Morrison yesterday with a list of requests.
The most significant is a request to match Queensland's $2 billion commitment to create a Renewable Energy and Hydrogen Jobs Fund, which was announced in the most recent state budget.
Ms Palaszczuk also asked the federal government to match funding for projects under the Queensland government's $500 million Land Restoration Fund, in the hope of "doubling the effectiveness of our investments", and to match a commitment to keep funding for reef water quality improvement programs at current or higher levels for the next five years.
Queensland's state budget allocated $270 million over five years for water quality improvement programs.
The letter also calls for the reinstatement of the Great Barrier Reef Ministerial Forum as the joint governance body to oversee the progress of the Reef 2050 Plan.
The plan is undergoing its first five-year review, but the final updated version is yet to be released, despite being expected earlier this year.
The ministerial forum was abolished when National Cabinet agreed to overhaul former COAG councils and forums, a decision agreed to by the Queensland government at the time.
"There was a wholesale reform of all of the ministerial councils, but what we've seen since then … is a reduction in the ability to coordinate between levels of government," Deputy Premier Steven Miles said.
"We think it was a useful tool for governance … one of the things we could do to demonstrate to [the UNESCO committee] that the governments are working together would be to reconstitute that ministerial forum."
UNESCO's World Heritage Committee expressed its concern that, despite a strong commitment to the implementation of the Reef 2050 Plan and unprecedented levels of financial support, the deterioration of the ecosystem's long-term outlook had been more rapid and widespread than expected.
It noted the reef "suffered significantly" from coral bleaching events in 2016, 2017 and 2020.
It said the Reef 2050 Plan provided a "coherent framework" to improve management, but progress towards achieving the targets had been "very slow in many key areas".
Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley is holding meetings overseas with UNESCO delegates ahead of a World Heritage Committee session, which begins in China and online on Friday.
She has previously described last month's draft recommendation as a "blindside" and a "backflip", and has raised concerns about a lack of process and an absence of "proper" consultation.
A spokesman for Ms Ley said it was a time for all levels of government to work together in the interests of people whose livelihoods were tied to the reef.
The spokesman declined to say whether any of the state government's requests would be considered.
"The minister will continue to work constructively with the Queensland government to protect the Great Barrier Reef and to ensure that our joint efforts under the Reef 2050 plan, along with the latest reef science, are properly considered in any determination the World Heritage Committee makes on the status of the reef," the spokesman said.
"Minister Ley is keeping the Queensland government informed of her campaign regarding the listing process."
The federal government is providing $2.08 billion of the $3.05 billion funding under the Reef 2050 plan and has said it is committed to ongoing funding strategies to protect the reef and its World Heritage status.
Queensland Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon said she had had a "number of conversations" with Ms Ley since UNESCO's proposal was announced.
"What we need with this newest proposal to put the reef on the in-danger listing is more ambition from the Commonwealth government," Ms Scanlon said.
"This is a much-loved treasure here in Queensland that we need to protect," she said.
"We've been very clear from day dot that we think there needs to be greater ambition in investment in things like renewable energy … while we continue to work together in the best interest of Queensland.
"Of course we'll also advocate for the science."
The Australian Marine Conservation Society welcomed the move to seek greater funding to address water quality in the Great Barrier Reef, saying if funding was scaled up it could significantly benefit marine wildlife, communities and industries that relied on the reef.
"The Morrison government should not only match these funds, but commit to a national climate policy and plan that is compatible with no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming — a key threshold for the survival of the reef," society campaigner David Cazzulino said.
"Whatever the final decision of the World Heritage Committee … the reef's outlook will remain very poor in the near to medium-term future.
"We need to see urgent action by the federal government to dramatically cut emissions in the short term and to urge the rest of the world to do the same, to give our reef the best chance of survival."
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Environment Pollution
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Sea turtles at risk as scientists predict more than 50 per cent are ingesting marine debris
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Sea turtles at risk as scientists predict more than 50 per cent are ingesting marine debris
More than 50 per cent of sea turtles are ingesting marine debris, a huge amount of which is floating around the world's oceans, scientists say.
On North Stradbroke Island, in Queensland's Moreton Bay, the turtle population has been affected by rubbish floating in the water and washing up on the shores.
The increasing presence of plastics ending up on even the world's most remote beaches by ocean currents has been taking a toll on the animals that inhabit the ocean and ingest the rubbish.
Dr Qamar Schuyler, a CSIRO scientist studying the impact of debris on local populations of marine animals, said somewhere between 4 and 12 million tonnes of debris were entering the world's oceans annually.
"If you broke that down to, say, every metre of coastline, there are about 20 shopping bags worth of debris that enters the ocean from every metre of coastline — so it's a huge problem," she said.
Dr Schuyler said they had done modelling using ocean current data to look at where the debris was coming from and had found that South-East Asia was a major exporter of marine debris — in particular China.
"But we also can't let that make us complacent," she said.
Dr Schuyler said they had found that in many areas of Australia the majority of debris produced ended up coming back to Australian shores.
"So we also need to look at our country and make sure our act is clean as well."
She said that one of the ways they had been measuring the impact from marine debris, as well as measuring their success in dealing with it, was by using animals as a "bio indicator" and looking at those being affected.
"And we combined estimates of debris worldwide with where turtle populations are ... and we created a risk map, to see where in the world turtles are at highest risk of ingesting debris," Dr Schuyler said. "We found that the coast of Queensland is one of the hotspots for marine debris ingestion for sea turtles."
Dr Schuyler said they took the predications they made globally and combined them with population estimates globally to try and establish how many turtles worldwide had ingested debris.
"And it's a tough thing because scientists deal with a lot of uncertainty, but if you pin me down and say, 'well, I need a number', we estimate that over 50 per cent of sea turtles around the world have ingested debris," she said.
"That's an enormous number ... of course I'm a scientist, so I have to give you caveat which is that we don't know yet how bad that number is. "So we know that 50 per cent of turtles have eaten debris, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every single one of those turtles is going to die from eating debris."
To work that out, the team of scientists have been trying establish just how many pieces of debris it takes to kill a turtle. "So we have found turtles out there that have been killed by long line fisheries and have over 100 pieces of debris in them — they weren't killed by the debris, they were killed by the fishery," she said.
"But then we find other turtles that have one piece of debris which was enough to kill them."
They were still working on the data, she said, but in terms of an early estimate "the likelihood is that 50 per cent of turtles that eat fewer than 20 pieces will die from ingestion".
Dr Schuyler said while there needed to be more action from politicians globally, working together, local people could also be doing more to try and create change.
"A lot of this stuff is local government policies that can make a difference," she said.
"And people influence local government, so it's not an intractable issue, it's something that we can work on piece by piece."
She said that included "making sure that your local councils have adequate sewerage outfall management, that they have drains, [and] that the storm drains are fitted with ways of reducing the amount of plastic that flows into them".
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Environment Pollution
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Man who had terminal cancer and was granted early release from prison has died
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A man who had terminal cancer and was released from prison more than a decade early so he could be with his family has died, officials said. Danny Ray Aria died Wednesday, an official said. He was 49. Aria served 22 years of a 42-year sentence after being convicted of multiple charges for an incident that court documents say was fueled by drugs and alcohol. In 1999, Aria held four men at gunpoint in an Arlington Heights apartment and shot one of them in the head after the man wrestled Aria into a bathroom, according to court documents. The man survived but has lifelong complications because of the shooting, including being 80 percent blind in both eyes. Earlier this month, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Jennifer Branch released Aria from prison to home detention – a decision that was strongly criticized by Prosecutor Joe Deters. He viewed it as part of a shift at the courthouse, saying some judges were focusing on defendants instead of victims. Aria's colon cancer had spread to other organs, according to court documents, and he had been receiving hospice care in prison. He no longer was able to get out of bed, wasn't receiving chemotherapy and had a “do-not-resuscitate” order, the documents say.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release
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All Nippon Airways Flight 533 crash
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All Nippon Airways Flight 533, registration JA8658, was a NAMC YS-11 en route from Osaka, Japan, to Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku. It was the fifth crash in Japan in 1966 and the second one experienced by All Nippon Airways that year, the first being the loss of Flight 60 on February 4. It was also, at the time, the deadliest crash of an NAMC YS-11, and remains the second-deadliest after Toa Domestic Airlines Flight 63, which crashed in 1971 with 68 deaths. The plane left Osaka International Airport in Itami at 19:13. At approximately 20:20 it arrived at Matsuyama Airport and was cleared to land on runway 31. On its final approach, the plane was higher than normal and touched down 460 metres beyond the runway threshold. The plane continued on the ground for 170 metres before taking off again for a go-around. The plane reached a height of 70–100 metres, turned left, lost altitude, and crashed into the Seto Inland Sea at approximately 20:30. The reason for the loss of altitude that caused the crash was never determined.
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Air crash
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Huge solar storm hitting Earth today could cause mass disruption for power grids and satellites, agency warns
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Huge solar storm hitting Earth today could cause mass disruption for power grids and satellites, agency warns A X5.4 solar flare, the largest in five years, erupts from the sun’s surface March 6, 2012 (Getty Images) An enormous solar flare is expected to hit Earth today, potentially affecting power grids and generating an aurora in northern latitudes. The coronal mass ejection originates from the Sun , which is caused by a huge burst of electrically conducting plasma. An alert published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) informed that we should expect “weak power grid fluctuations” and satellite “orientation irregularities” which could increase drag on craft in low Earth orbit. The agency rates the storm as G2, which means it is moderately strong. It is expected to arrive around midday and will continue until 12 October. "Aurora is possible through [the] 11th across much of Scotland, although cloud amounts are increasing, meaning sightings are unlikely”, the Met Office said, as reported by Sky . "There is a slight chance of aurora reaching the far north of England and Northern Ireland tonight, but cloud breaks and therefore sightings are more likely in Northern Ireland." While this storm will be relatively weak, the planet is not ready for the height of a more powerful superstorm. On 15 May, 1921, multiple fires broke out in electricity and telegraph control rooms in several parts of the world, including in the US and the UK, due to the strength of the New York Railroad Storm. Storms like these happen once in every 100 years, and could plunge the world into an “internet apocalypse,” one study has claimed . “A Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) involves the emission of electrically charged matter and accompanying magnetic field into space. When it hits the earth, it interacts with the earth’s magnetic field and produces Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GIC) on the crust,” said Dr Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, from the University of California, Irvine and VMware Research. “In today’s long-haul Internet cables, the optical fibre is immune to GIC. But these cables also have electrically powered repeaters at ~100 km intervals that are susceptible to damages.”
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New wonders in nature
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A New Pest Attacking Healthy Ripening Fruit in Oregon
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A New Pest Attacking Healthy Ripening Fruit in Oregon: Spotted Wing Drosophila, Drosophila Suzukii (Matsumura)
Pest of Concern
Infestations of the Spotted Wing Drosophila fly (Diptera: Drosophilidae; SWD), an exotic pest, were found in Oregon fruits. There are 3000 species of Drosophila, commonly known as vinegar flies, but only two have been found to be harmful to crops, of which SWD is one. The SWD can infest and cause a great deal of damage to ripening fruit, as opposed to overripe and fallen fruit that are infested by most of the other Drosophila species. We have just confirmed findings of SWD in blueberries in Philomath, Benton County in Oregon, and have found suspect maggots (larvae) in wild blackberries, red raspberries and some leftover late hanging Marion blackberries east of Corvallis. In addition, maggot samples from the North Willamette Research and Extension Center (Aurora, OR) are also being reared to confirm fly identity. Continued searches for SWD are currently being conducted outside Corvallis over the next weeks. It is crucial to find infestations of this pest as early as possible when they can still be treated effectively. This document makes use of information gathered from both Florida and University of California and USDA Scientists. Several links are provided at the end of this document to aid dissemination of information. This document is based on that information and is being distributed to the Oregon small fruits and grape industries in order to rapidly inform growers, pest management consultants, and extension agents.
Description of Pest
Adult Drosophila flies resemble small fruit or vinegar flies that you may notice buzzing around your kitchen fruit or found around fallen fruit in the outdoors. Typically the well known vinegar flies lay eggs in damaged or decaying fruit, however SWD damage intact ripening fruit. They have a body length of 2-3 mm, with red eyes and a yellowish-brown colored body. The maggots are small (~3 mm) and white-to-cream colored (Figure 3). After maggots mature they may pupate. The pupae are cylinder-shaped, reddish-brown, 2-3 mm in length with 2 small projections on the end. Remember, there are many species of ‘vinegar flies’, so be careful not to mistake it for the common vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster, or the western fruit fly, Rhagoletis indifferens, a larger maggot in a different fly family.
Host Range and Potential Impact
These flies are native to SE Asia. Presently, they have been found in California, Florida, Oregon, Washington, and have been established in Hawaii since 1986. This fly attacks a variety of fruits including but not limited to blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, apple, peach, plum, persimmon and Rubus. There is still no proof that the fly attacks grapes, however it has been observed in a lab no-choice food test to oviposit on table grapes and was reported to cause damage to grapes in Japan in the 30’s The SWD lays its eggs within ripening fruit, which makes it an important economic pest to a range of important crops in Oregon.
Fruit Damage
Infestation of fruit reveals small scars and indented soft spots on the fruit surface left by the female’s ovipositor (“stinger”). The egg(s) hatch in a short time, about 1-3 days, maggots soon begin feeding inside the fruit. Fruit damage is caused by the feeding from maggot development. Within as little as 2 days, the fruit begins to collapse around the feeding site. Thereafter, fungal and bacterial infections and secondary pests may contribute to further damage. These damage symptoms may result in severe crop losses. The implications for exporting producers may also be severe, depending on quarantine regulations.
Conclusion
The SWD is a potential serious pest in Oregon fresh fruit production systems. If you suspect you have SWD in your fruit, it is essential that samples of fruit or adult flies be sent directly to: Jim LaBonte, ODA Plant Division, 635 Capital St. NE , 97391-2532, Salem OR, in order to positively identify adults. This will aid OSU, ODA, and USDA researchers to direct their research efforts during the coming crop season. Your help in this regard is greatly appreciated.
Drosophila suzukii male fly (2-3 mm). Females do not have spotted wings.
Photography credit: G. Arakelian, Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner.
Suzukii larvae (~3 mm), reared from blueberries in Oregon.
Photography credits: M. Reitmajer, Oregon State University Research Technician, Corvallis Or and D. Bruch, USDA-ARS Horticulture Crops Research Laboratory, Corvallis, OR.
March 2010
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Insect Disaster
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CFMEU fined $242,000 for 'arrogant' union action over Footscray concrete pour
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A Victorian man who flew from Brisbane to Hobart on flight VA702 today has tested positive to COVID-19 and has not been allowed to board a flight to Melbourne
A Watch & Act warning is in place for a fire in the northern parts of Mokine, in WA's Northam Shire. Keep up to date with ABC Emergency
Australia's most militant union and two of its lieutenants have been slugged with close to $250,000 in fines for "deplorable" and "arrogant" industrial action. The Federal Court issued fine to the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), along with officials Joe Myles and Drew MacDonald, for disrupting a concrete pour in Footscray, Melbourne.
The court found Mr Myles and Mr MacDonald abused their rights of entry to the Regional Rail Link project site, which they claimed was for health and safety purposes. Instead, the court heard the men deliberately put themselves in harm's way to stop trucks coming onto the site and causing the concrete they were carrying to 'cook' and become unusable. Mr Myles was fined $32,000 for what the court found was a history of offending, while Mr MacDonald was ordered to pay $10,000. The CFMEU was ordered to pay $200,000.
The Australian building and Construction Commission's Cathy Cato said it was unacceptable for the union to abuse right of entry laws and treat fines as the cost of doing business. "A permit holder must comply with site safety requirements the same as any other visitor to a site," Ms Cato said.
"The unlawful conduct in this case not only put the officials and others on site at risk but resulted in a significant disruption to an important taxpayer funded project."
We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.
This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.
AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)
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Organization Fine
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Maxton man arrested in Southern Pines bank robbery
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SOUTHERN PINES — A Maxton man has been arrested in connection with an armed robbery at a bank here, according to the Southern Pines Police Department. Herbert Lynn Lowery, 41, was arrested and charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon after the First National Bank near downtown Southern Pines was reported robbed Monday morning. Lowery was captured with assistance from the Hoke County Sheriff’s Office, the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI, according to the police department. A man entered the bank with a handgun shortly after 11:20 a.m. and demanded money from employees, according to the police department. After receiving an unspecified amount of cash, the man fled in a stolen 2000 Buick LeSabre. The police department did not say if the stolen money or vehicle were recovered when Lowery was arrested. Lowery was placed in the Moore County Detention Center under a $500,000 secured bond. He is due in Moore County District Court on Oct. 1. Anyone with information about the robbery is asked to call 910-692-7031 or the police department’s Crime Tip hotline at 910-693-4110. Information can be provided anonymously. When it comes to the climate emergency, hope is not enough Fairmont leaders hear RHCC to build health-care facility in town Please choose a reason below: November 09, 2021 LUMBERTON — Public Schools of Robeson County school board members approved Tuesday sign-on bonuses for kindergarten through grade six teachers in “hard to staff” areas and raised the hourly pay of Child Nutrition substitutes to $13 per hour. Board members approved a $3,000 sign-on bonus for certified teachers in kindergarten through grade six programs including math, science, English language arts, Exceptional Children and English language learners. The programs are considered “hard to staff areas,” said Erica Setzer, PSRC’s chief Finance officer. The bonus will be paid out over a three-year period at $1,000 per year, she said. “It is the responsibility of the employee to repay if they do not stay for the entire three years,” Setzer said. “I think that’s a good idea in terms of recruitment and retention,” said Terry Locklear, a school board member. Through the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s decision to allocate more funding from federal Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief Funds to North Carolina school districts, PSRC has received $148,366 to use for retention or recruitment of Child Nutrition staff, Setzer said. Board members also approved raising the wages of Child Nutrition substitutes from $7.25 per hour to $13 effective immediately. The raise does not apply to classroom substitutes who are paid $80 per day or $103, which is dependent upon their certifications, Setzer said. The school district can sustain the raises even if ESSER funding runs out. Also approved were COVID-19 stipends for employees up to $500. Every employee who qualified for June stipends will also qualify for the next round. Bus drivers that are not dual employees can get a $200 bonus in December and a $200 bonus in June, she said. Full-time employees can get $500 in December and $500 in June. The stipends are funded through ESSER Funds. Setzer said she would contact employees via email on Wednesday concerning wage changes and bonuses. The state is recommending employees be paid $13 an hour, Setzer said. But, the state has not yet passed a budget. School board member Dwayne Smith asked about the possibility of approving pay raises for bus drivers that reach $13 per hour at the December board meeting, but Setzer said it is difficult to budget for the raises without a state budget. Educators told The Robesonian in September that bus drivers are paid $12.75 an hour. Redistricting School board member Vonta Leach cast the lone vote in opposition to the redistricting map approved by the school board Tuesday. Some district lines had to be redrawn because of population shifts reflected in census results. The ideal population in each district is about 14,566, according to Janet Robertson, Rural Transportation Organization planner for Lumber River Council of Governments. Two districts were more than 9% above and two more were more than 10% above the ideal district population, she said. Two more districts reflected almost 6% of the population and the others were below 5%. “We had to move the lines to get everybody closer,” she said. Districts 1 and 2 reflected the most population loss, Robertson said. Other matters In other matters, board members also approved continuing with the school district’s mask policy, which requires students and staff to wear masks indoors and on buses. Masks are optional outdoors. Also approved were Policy Section 7000 revisions and adding the literacy platform Newsela as a sole source vendor. After emerging from closed session, school board members approved appointing Steven Sinclair as the new principal of St. Pauls Middle School and Katrina Locklear as the new principal at Fairmont Middle School. Sinclair will replace Karen Brooks-Floyd and Locklear will replace Tracey Ferguson. Board members agreed that a public hearing must be set in the future to address a request presented by board member Dwayne Smith and PSRC Athletic Director Jerome Hunt to name Lumberton High School’s soccer field after Kenny Simmons, who has served as the soccer coach for more than 25 years. “The reason that Lumberton has a soccer field is because of Kenny Simmons,” Hunt said. Board attorney Grady Hunt said the school board’s policy calls for a public hearing before the decision can be made. No date was set at the meeting for the hearing. Before closed session, board members shared in a moment of silence for the passing of former educator Sarah McLaurin and Fairmont High School student Makenzie Norton. Also at the meeting, Board member Brenda Fairley-Ferebee and the Rev. Larry Williams were recognized and presented plaques for support and donations of supplies like Clorox 360 disinfectant to the school district. Charlene Locklear, PSRC’s Child Nutrition director, was also presented with a plaque for her “unwavering support and dedication to PSRC Child Nutrition.” Locklear was formerly recognized with the UNC Health Southeastern Community Education & Emergency Support Award for her work to feed children in the district and community. Board members also presented Stephanie McGirt with a plaque. McGirt teaches science at Pembroke Middle School, and was recognized Tuesday for the honor of being named the District 4 Outstanding Middle School Science Teacher by the N.C. Science Teacher Association. November 09, 2021 LUMBERTON — The Lumberton Police Department is asking for help from the public in identifying the person or persons responsible for two homes that were struck by gunfire on Monday. Lumberton police responded about 7:20 p.m. Monday to a report of a house being shot into on Page Street, according to the police department. Responding officers learned that two people were inside the residence at the time of the shooting, but were not injured. Police responded to a report of a home on Roslyn Drive being shot into about 10:40 p.m. Monday, according to the police department. Three people were inside the residence at the time of the shooting, but none were injured. “While it is not known if these shootings are related, investigators were able to obtain an image of the vehicle used in the Roslyn Drive shooting,” according to the department. Anyone who recognizes the vehicle or has information about the shootings is asked call the Lumberton Police Department at 910-671-3845. Callers can remain anonymous. November 09, 2021 Ret. U.S. Navy veteran Wayman Sagendorph celebrates his 86th birthday on Veteran’s Day. Sagendorph was formerly stationed USS Soley, USS Tarawa, USS Manley, USS Mission Bay, and USS Raleigh. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1953-1972 and also fought in the Vietnam War. Sagendorph also formerly worked as a newspaper carrier for The Robesonian. The Robesonian salutes Sagendorph for his service to our country and wishes him a very happy birthday! Courtesy photo | Cheryl Sagendorph November 09, 2021 LUMBERTON — The number of new COVID-19 cases in Robeson County is the lowest it has been since early July, according to the Robeson County Health Department. The department reported 102 new virus cases from Nov. 2 through Monday, down from the 143 reported from Oct. 26 through Nov. 1. This is the least new cases in a seven-day period since the 100 cases reported from June 26 through July 2. One new virus-related death was reported in Robeson County since Nov. 2, bringing the pandemic total to 432. The county’s testing positivity rate is 5.2% over the last 14 days; this is down from the 5.7% rate over the last 14 days reported on Nov. 2, and close to the stated goal of 5%. There have been 55,756 first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered in Robeson County, or 43% of the population; 49,871 individuals are considered fully vaccinated, or 38%. The percent of each ethnicity which is vaccinated remains relatively unchanged from recent weeks, county Health Department Director Bill Smith said; 42% of African Americans, 39% of white individuals, 34% of Hispanics and 29% of American Indians in Robeson County have received at least one dose. First and second doses and booster shots are available throughout the county, Smith said, and children age 5 to 11 are now able to get the Pfizer vaccine. The Health Department will continue evening hours of operation for COVID-19 vaccines and will be open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 13. They will also be open on Saturday, Dec. 4, to coincide with when the second dose will be due for people who were vaccinated on Nov. 6 or Nov. 13, Smith said. In addition to the providers that have been traditionally available, a Pfizer Family Vaccination Site has been established at the Lumbee Boys and Girls Club in Pembroke, Smith said. The University of North Carolina at Pembroke reported 13 active cases among its student body on campus, with none among faculty and staff or subcontractors, as of late Monday. There have been eight new student cases, with none among faculty and staff or subcontractors, since Nov. 1. There have been 116 cases among the student body, 37 among faculty and staff and 18 among subcontractors since the start of the fall semester. Statewide, 12,243 new cases were reported by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services from Nov. 3 through Tuesday, down from the 13,183 cases reported from Oct. 27 through Nov. 2. There have been 1,495,921 total cases in North Carolina over the duration of the pandemic. There were 206 virus-related deaths reported in the state from Nov. 3 through Tuesday, down from 242 from Oct. 27 through Nov. 2. This brings the state’s pandemic total to 18,336 virus-related deaths. There are 1,097 virus-related hospitalizations in the state as of Tuesday, down from 1,150 on Nov. 2. There have been 5,805,434 first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered in North Carolina, or 60% of the population, according to NCDHHS as of Tuesday; 5,423,130 individuals are considered fully vaccinated, or 56%. November 09, 2021 LUMBERTON — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recently awarded the Housing Authority of the City of Lumberton $239,500 to make “needed” safety improvements to its housing facilities. The authority was one of 55 public housing authorities throughout the country to receive additional capital improvement funds through the Capital Fund Emergency Safety and Security Program. The funding will be used for community lighting, fencing installation, video surveillance systems, and high-definition cameras in five of the existing 10 communities, according to Adrian Lowery, executive director of the Lumberton Housing Authority. “The vast majority of our residents are normal, law-abiding citizens, and they deserve the right to live peacefully,” Lowery said. “The HACL is grateful to be awarded HUD’s Emergency Safety and Security grant to help reduce the threats to the health and safety of not only our residents but all of Lumberton.” In addition to focusing on the rebuild of 172 housing units damaged by hurricanes Matthew and Florence, the HACL has maintained focus on improving the overall infrastructure of the units, with some communities over 50 years old. In August 2021, the HACL completed a $454,000 capital funds project that added more than 220 high-definition cameras throughout the Meadows, Davis Heights, Rozier Homes, Turner Terrace, Weaver Court, and Tudor Court Housing Developments, according to a release from the public housing authority. Additionally, with the help of the City of Lumberton, the HACL is currently adding additional LED lights in some areas, and has been working to replace aged lights with LED in each of its communities over the past few months. “The video cameras have already aided in making our communities safer. It is hard for someone to deny they did something wrong when it is right there on the camera in high-definition,” Lowery said. “The injection of funds to focus on safety and security will help us complete the LED light upgrades at Turner Terrace, Tudor Court, and Weaver Court, and the installation of video surveillance systems at Eastwood Terrace and Lumbee Homes.” Lowery said the grant is a “big win” for the authority and staff, which was spearheaded by Steven Harrell, the Operations Manager for the HACL. “The Lumberton Housing Authority is continuing to amplify its mission to be concentrated and focused on improving the quality of life for the residents and empowering them to take control of their lives to become self-sufficient and productive members of the community in which they live,” said Pam Hunt, chairperson of the HACL Board of Commissioners. “The future is bright for our agency. The addition of Adrian Lowery as our executive director and the team he has assembled continue to benefit our agency and the City of Lumberton.” November 09, 2021 PEMBROKE — A recently awarded $62,000 grant will assist in preserving and enhancing the environment for the Town of Pembroke. Attorney General Josh Stein recently announced $426,612 in grants through the Environmental Enhancement Grant program, which is part of nearly $3 million in grants distributed to 27 recipients across North Carolina. The Town of Pembroke has received $62,000 to create a stormwater utility program with community input meetings, a management plan, an operations and maintenance plan, and stormwater ordinances. “This grant will help the town of Pembroke plan and develop a stormwater utility program,” Stein said. “This program will help maintain water quality and reduce flooding and runoff concerns in the area.” “The Town of Pembroke is extremely grateful to receive stormwater management funding assistance from Attorney General Stein,” said Pembroke Town Manager Tyler Thomas. “The funds awarded will ultimately prevent or greatly reduce the impact of future storm events on critical state supported assets and properties vital to the economic health and well-being of citizens in the Town of Pembroke.” Fully implemented, grant aid will protect a significant portion of property within the Pembroke valued at more than $60 million and protect 250 acres of state property and infrastructure valued at over $637 million, according to Thomas. The Environmental Enhancement Grant program began after an agreement between the Attorney General’s Office and Smithfield Foods in 2000. Under that agreement, Smithfield provides $2 million to the state every year to be distributed among environmental projects across North Carolina. Including the 2021 grants, the Attorney General Office’s has awarded nearly $37 million to more than 190 projects in the state. November 09, 2021 Sheila Dunlap, a case manager for Southeastern Community Action Partnership, left, and Sonia Locklear, an intern with The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, worked Tuesday at SCAP’s distribution event held at Robeson Community College which gave food boxes, cleaning supplies and other items to hundreds of people. The distribution, which was scheduled to occur from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., ended early because of traffic backups that extended to Interstate 95 traffic. ___ Jonas Richardson, right, a volunteer at Southeastern Community Action Partnership’s Big Pop Up distribution event, worked with other volunteers to load vehicles Tuesday with food boxes, cleaning supplies and other items. The event, which was held at Robeson Community College ended earlier than planned because of traffic backups that extended to Interstate 95. ___ Photos captured by Jessica Horne, staff writer at The Robesonian November 09, 2021 RALEIGH — Three blood drives have been scheduled for later this month in Robeson County as the American Red Cross works to address an ongoing emergency blood shortage. Two blood drives have been scheduled for Nov. 22. One is to take place 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Godwin Heights Baptist Church, located at 704 Godwin Ave. in Lumberton. The other is set for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1 University Drive on the campus of The University of North Carolina at Pembroke. The third blood drive is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 30 at Masonic Lodge #501, located at 301 Peachtree St. in Red Springs. The drives have been scheduled as the holidays approach and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns about a potential spike in flu cases this year, according to the Red Cross. It’s important that people who are eligible, healthy and feeling well to make an appointment to donate blood or platelets. According to the CDC, flu cases reached an all-time low this past year because of masking, physical distancing and shutdowns across the country, and many Americans may have reduced immunity this year. When seasonal illness increases, the number of healthy blood donors tends to decrease.
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Bank Robbery
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North Bengal: 130 kids down with respiratory illness; govt braces for outbreak
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At least 130 children in north Bengal have taken ill in the past few days from a disease that some experts suspect is being caused by Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). With doctors in government hospitals saying that they fear a massive outbreak in paediatric respiratory cases, an expert committee set up by the state government met in Kolkata to discuss treatment and testing protocols. There have been reports of similar cases in Kolkata as well. Multiple reports said that a six-year-old child admitted to Jalpaiguri Sadar hospital with high fever died on Wednesday. The child’s samples have been sent to the School of Tropical Medicine (STM) in Kolkata, sources said. The affected children, most of them between one and six years old, are being admitted to hospitals with high fever, and cough and cold. Some of them also have diarrhoea. Initially, they were tested for Covid-19, malaria and dengue, but the reports came back negative. While RSV is being suspected, according to the expert committee there is a chance that these children may have been exposed to metapneumovirus or parainfluenza virus. “The season for such respiratory disease outbreak is the end of October or the beginning of November. But this time, it is almost two months early. Hence, the health department is sensing something unusual and suspecting an outbreak,” a senior doctor told The Indian Express on the condition of anonymity. To date, most cases have been reported from the districts of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar, and some portions of Dinajpur. “There are reports of an outbreak and it specifically applies to children younger than two years. Some children are not even responding to oxygen therapy and are requiring ventilation. Viral panel labs will be built at some key places such as the School of Tropical Medicine, NRS [Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College], and Calcutta Medical College. Till the time the infrastructure is not developed on these lines, the state will take help from NICED [National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases],” a senior paediatrician told The Indian Express on the condition of anonymity. The expert group set up by the government met at Swasthya Bhawan, the headquarters of the state health department here, on Wednesday to discuss the rising cases. The panel includes, among others, Director of Health Services (DHS) Dr Ajoy Chakraborty, two paediatricians, three medicine specialists, and virologists from the School of Tropical Medicine. “We discussed the diagnostic protocol, treatment protocol, the protocol for intensive care units, and oxygen therapy. Dr Bibhuti Saha reminded us that we should investigate and exclude malaria, dengue, Covid-19, scrub typhus etc because not all patients are similar and not all are viral or influenza. To increase the laboratory capacity, kits will be procured to identify different respiratory viruses and set up at STM and North Bengal Medical College. Ten samples were sent from Jalpaiguri for testing at STM, two Influenza B and two RS virus cases were identified, and another mixed. There was a virtual meeting with all the principals, CMOHs and superintendents, and the present fever cases and the treatment protocols were discussed and explained by the experts,” said Dr Chakraborty. Dr Jaydeb Ray, the head of the paediatric department of the Institute Child Health (ICH) in Kolkata said, “It is peculiar that unlike Covid-19 when children come in contact with this infection they land up in hospitals or ICUs. Parents are advised to take all precautions with kids, such as avoiding crowded places, don’t bring children close to people with cough and cold. Wear a mask and wash hands frequently.” Sources said more than 20 children had been admitted to ICH with fever but tested negative for Covid-19. More than 200 in the city’s BC Roy Post Graduate Institute of Paediatric Sciences, and six children in Calcutta Medical College have similar symptoms, according to officials. “It is important to take precautions…Also, one should be alert and understand when to approach a hospital. If your child is having a high fever for three days, not eating food, not taking fluids, and is finding difficulty in staying awake or has developed respiratory discomfort, you must consult a doctor. Several cases turn critical because initially these are treated as normal cough and cold. However, there is no need to panic and in many cases, it is seasonal too. Most of such cases in our hospital have been diagnosed as influenza A and B,” said Dr Ray of ICH.
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Disease Outbreaks
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Gwen Stefani Married Blake Shelton, Wore Cowboy Boots
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Move over, The Bachelor: There’s another matchmaking reality show in town. After weeks of wedding rumors, former The Voice co-hosts Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton got married at Shelton’s Oklahoma ranch on Saturday. The Voice’s host, Carson Daly, officiated the ceremony, but Adam Levine, Shelton’s former fellow judge on the show, was reportedly not present. What was present: monogrammed cowboy boots, which Stefani wore to the reception along with a custom Vera Wang minidress. Stefani and Shelton, who started dating in 2015, announced their engagement in October. Due to Stefani’s Catholic faith, the pair had to annul their previous marriages before wedding (Stefani was previously married to Gavin Rossdale, and Shelton to Miranda Lambert). Stefani took to Instagram on Tuesday to share some pictures of the wedding day, which Shelton (like a good Instagram husband) then reposted. Update, July 6: Daly spilled about Shelton and Stefani’s nuptials on the Today show, calling it “perfectly them.” Daly said the event “was as elegant and refined and cool as Gwen is, and it was as country and down-home and fun as Blake is.” “They’re like if you pair delicious fried chicken with a glass of Champagne,” he said of the couple. “On paper and on the menu, it doesn’t seem to work, but it works. It’s comfort food with class. And everybody roots for that.” (Indeed — we would root for that as a wedding-menu pairing.) Daly added that he convinced Shelton and Stefani to write their own vows, saying that Shelton performed a song for Stefani for his. As we’ve previously declared: Wife Guy.
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Famous Person - Marriage
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U.S. to relax travel restrictions for vaccinated foreign air travelers in November
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WASHINGTON, Sept 20 (Reuters) - The United States will reopen in November to air travelers from 33 countries including China, India, Brazil and most of Europe who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the White House said on Monday, easing tough pandemic-related restrictions that started early last year.
The decision, announced by White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients, marked an abrupt shift for President Joe Biden's administration, which said last week it was not the right time to lift any restrictions amid rising COVID-19 cases.
The United States had lagged many other countries in lifting such restrictions, and allies welcomed the move. The U.S. restrictions have barred travelers from most of the world including tens of thousands of foreign nationals with relatives or business links in the United States.
The United States will admit fully vaccinated air travelers from the 26 so-called Schengen countries in Europe including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Greece, as well as Britain, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil. The unprecedented U.S. restrictions have barred non-U.S. citizens who were in those countries within the past 14 days.
Restrictions on non-U.S. citizens were first imposed on air travelers from China in January 2020 by then-President Donald Trump and then extended to dozens of other countries, without any clear metrics for how and when to lift them.
Zients did not give a precise start date for the new rules beyond saying "early November," and many details of the new policy are still being decided.
Separately on Monday, the United States extended its pandemic-related restrictions at land borders with Canada and Mexico that bar nonessential travel such as tourism through Oct. 21. It gave no indication if it would apply the new vaccine rules to those land border crossings.
The United States has allowed foreign air travelers from more than 150 countries throughout the pandemic, a policy that critics said made little sense because some countries with high COVID-19 rates were not on the restricted list, while some on the list had the pandemic more under control.
Monday's action means COVID-19 vaccine requirements will now apply to nearly all foreign nationals flying to the United States - including those not subject to the prior restrictions.
Americans traveling from abroad who are not vaccinated will face tougher rules than vaccinated citizens, including needing to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test within a day of travel and proof of purchasing a viral test to be taken after arrival.
'BASING IT ON SCIENCE'
Airlines for America, an industry trade group, said that through late August, international air travel was down 43% from pre-pandemic levels.
The announcement comes as President Joe Biden makes his first U.N. General Assembly speech on Tuesday, and hosts leaders from Britain, India, Japan and Australia this week.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday the policy was not timed for diplomacy. "If we were going to make things much easier for ourselves, we would have done it prior to June, when the president had his first foreign trip, or earlier this summer. This is when the process concluded," she said. "We're basing it on science."
Passengers depart Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., November 23, 2020. REUTERS/Chris Aluka Berry
U.S. COVID-19 infections and deaths have skyrocketed since June as the Delta variant spreads, particularly among the unvaccinated. Nearly 29,000 new U.S. cases were reported on Sunday.
British Airways Chief Executive Sean Doyle said the U.S. announcement "marks a historic moment and one which will provide a huge boost to Global Britain as it emerges from this pandemic."
Shares in U.S. airlines were little changed, while some European carriers gained. British Airways parent IAG SA (ICAG.L) rose 11.2%, while Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA) and Deutsche Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) AG closed up more than 5%.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the announcement "a fantastic boost for business and trade, and great that family and friends on both sides of the pond can be reunited once again." Germany's U.S. ambassador, Emily Haber, said on Twitter it was "hugely important to promote people-to-people contacts and transatlantic business."
It will have less impact travel from China, which requires its residents to quarantine for at least two weeks on return home. International flights from China are capped and running at around 2% of 2019 levels, a situation expected to last until the second half of next year. read more CDC HAS FINAL WORD ON VACCINES ACCEPTED
Foreign nationals will need to present proof of vaccination before travel and will not be required to quarantine on arrival.The White House said the final decision on what vaccines would be accepted is up to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC on Monday pointed to its prior guidance when asked what vaccines it will accept.
"The CDC considers someone fully vaccinated with any FDA-authorized or approved vaccines and any vaccines that (the World Health Organization) has authorized," said spokesperson Kristen Nordlund. That list could change pending additions by either agency, she said.
Exceptions include children not yet eligible for shots. Airlines heavily lobbied the White House to lift the restrictions, and it has been working since August on the new plan.
The U.S. Travel Association trade group previously estimated that the U.S. restrictions, if they ran to the end of the year, would cost the American economy $325 billion.
Zients said last Wednesday that given the rise of the Delta variant, it was not the right time to lift travel restrictions. Asked on Monday what had changed since then, Zients cited rising global vaccinations, adding: "The new system allows us to implement strict protocols to prevent the spread of COVID-19."
Zients said the new system would include collecting contact tracing data from passengers traveling into the United States to enable the CDC to contact travelers exposed to COVID-19.
The administration has been considering imposing vaccine requirements for foreign nationals since May, officials said, but the White House only decided on Friday to move forward.
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Diplomatic Visit
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Woman injured in gas pipe explosion in Mirpur dies in hospital
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A woman has succumbed to burn injuries sustained in a gas pipe explosion during repair works in the Mirpur 11 area of Dhaka on Wednesday.
Rina Akter, 50, died while undergoing treatment at the ICU of Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery (SHNIBPS) at 10:20pm on Thursday.
She sustained 70% burns.
At least seven people, including a child, were left with critical burn injuries after the gas pipe exploded on the ground floor of a six-storey building in Block C of Mirpur 11 at around 11:15pm on Wednesday.
The injured were rescued and admitted to the emergency department of SHNIBPS soon afterwards.
All of them were in critical condition, said Dhaka Medical College Hospital police outpost In-Charge Inspector Md Bachchu Miah, quoting on-duty doctors.
Among the injured, Shafiqul Islam, 35, and Rawshan Ara Begum, 70, sustained 85% burns, and Md Sumon, 40, sustained 45% burns.
Of the other three, Renu Begum, 35, sustained 38% burns, Naznin, 25, 27%, and her daughter Nowshin, 5, sustained 15% burns.
Rafiqul Islam, owner of the building where the explosion occurred and son of the injured Rawshan Ara, said they had a repairman named Sumon come and fix the gas pipeline as gas flow in their building had been low over the past week.
“The sudden blast and subsequent fire occurred when Sumon lit a matchstick to light a stove to check the gas flow after repairs,” he said.
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Gas explosion
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2017 Mumbai flood
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The 2017 Mumbai flood refers to the flooding that occurred on 29 August 2017, following heavy rain on 29 August 2017 in Mumbai. Transport systems were unavailable through parts of the city as trains and roadways were shut. Power was shut off from various parts of the city to prevent electrocution. [1] The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) called the South Asian floods one of the worst regional humanitarian crises in years. [2] This event can be compared with the 2005 floods in Mumbai, which recorded 944 mm (37.17 inches) of rainfall within 24 hours on 26 July. The extreme rainfall on 29 August 2017 was forecasted by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), five to six days in advance. However, the government failed to respond quickly, leading to the crisis. [3] Recent research indicates that these floods could be attributed to climate change. Climate change has led to huge fluctuations in the monsoon winds carrying the moisture from the Arabian Sea, resulting in heavy rainfall over central India, lasting for two to three days. [4]
Mumbai recorded 468 mm of rainfall in twelve hours, the highest in a day in August since 1997, according to data from the India Meteorological Department. [5] Transport systems came to a virtual standstill with local trains in Mumbai stationary and various flights cancelled with almost all delayed. On Link Road, a building collapsed. The Maharashtra Government declared 30 August 2017 a holiday for all schools and colleges. [6]
As of the morning of 30 August 2017, fourteen people were confirmed killed. [7]
Flooding caused a building to collapse, killing at least 21 people. [8]
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Floods
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Lockhart River air disaster crash
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The Lockhart River air disaster occurred on 7 May 2005, when Aero-Tropics Air Services Flight 675 crashed while on approach to land at Lockhart River Airport in Queensland, Australia, on a ridge known as South Pap 6 nautical miles (11 km) north-west of the airport. [2] All fifteen on board died as the aircraft was completely destroyed by impact forces and subsequent fire. The Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner commuter aircraft, registered VH-TFU,[3] was owned by Transair Ltd and operated by Aero-Tropics. The flight was scheduled from Bamaga on Cape York to the regional centre of Cairns, with a stopover in Lockhart River. It was the worst air crash in Australia in 36 years since MacRobertson Miller Airlines Flight 1750 on 31 December 1968. [4]
The Queensland Coroner's Inquest in 2007, found that, despite evidence that there were a number of issues leading up to the crash, pilot error was the prime cause. Families of those who lost their lives in the disaster have been highly critical of the Coroner's findings and the deficiencies in the operations of the regulator, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), and the poor company structure and practices of Transair Ltd. The investigation was aided by flight information from the aircraft's flight data recorder. As the cockpit voice recorder was unserviceable, and had been for some time, the conversations occurring between the flight crew will never be known. As a result of intense lobbying by the father of one of the victims, Constable Sally Urquhart, and others, the Australian Senate's Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee resolved to conduct an inquiry into the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, its operations and other matters. The Inquiry was convened on 2–3 July 2008 at Parliament House, Canberra. As well as Mr Shane Urquhart's submission, there were sixty others which were considered by the Inquiry. The vast majority of the submissions were highly critical of most aspects of CASA's operations.[who?] Several people and organisations, including Mr Urquhart, supported their submissions in person at the Inquiry. In September 2008, the Committee Chair, Senator Glenn Sterle, released the report of the inquiry to the Transport Minister Mr Anthony Albanese and the public. The recommendations from the report are:
Following the Lockhart River crash, Transair in Australia went into liquidation in late 2006. [5] Aerotropics also no longer operates because the Civil Aviation Safety Authority cancelled its Air Operator Certificate due to ongoing safety breaches. Transair continued to operate its PNG business until 31 August 2010 when the company's Cessna Citation ran off the runway on landing at Misima Island near Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea. The previous owner of Transair in Australia, Les Wright, died along with three others in the ensuing inferno. There was one survivor.
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Air crash
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1982 TABA Fairchild FH-227 accident crash
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The TABA Fairchild FH-227 accident happened on 12 June 1982 when a twin-engined Fairchild FH-227B (registered in Brazil as PT-LBV) on an internal scheduled passenger flight from Eirunepé Airport to Tabatinga International Airport crashed in bad weather. [1] On approach to land at Tabatinga, the aircraft hit a lighting tower and crashed into a car park; the aircraft exploded and burned, and all 44 on board were killed. [2][1]
The aircraft was a Fairchild FH-227B twin-engined turboprop that had been built in the United States in 1967 for Mohawk Airlines. [3] After a number of owners it was bought by TABA in June 1981. [3]
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Air crash
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Climate funding target for poorer countries ‘likely to be met’ by 2022
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Rich states missed $100bn target in 2020 but recent pledges by US, EU and China have lifted prospects, says economist Last modified on Mon 8 Nov 2021 13.05 GMT Developing countries could receive long-promised funds to help them tackle the climate crisis as soon as next year, in a major boost for the prospects of success at the Cop26 climate summit, the climate economist Nicholas Stern has said. Rich countries pledged in 2009 to provide at least $100bn (£73bn) a year to the developing world by 2020, a target that has been missed. But recent promises of additional cash from the US, the EU and others have lifted the prospects. “I think that we will probably hit the $100bn for next year,” said Lord Stern, the chair of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at the London School of Economics, in an interview with the Guardian. “We could start to get bilateral flows [from donor countries to poor nations] approaching $50bn to $60bn because if the US came up then others would come up as well. The finance which went to the fossil fuels, which the G7 agreed to phase out quickly, could be reoriented towards renewables.” He predicted that the global publicly funded development banks, such as the World Bank – where he served as chief economist from 2000 to 2003 – would also step up their efforts at a series of meetings next month. “They [the development banks] will be increasing their volumes and they will be increasing the proportions focused on climate. So my own view is we must push very hard to get the $100bn, it’s not going to be this year so it should be next year, and I think it could well be.” Joe Biden, the US president, pledged at the UN general assembly on Tuesday that the US would double its climate finance, to $11.4bn a year by 2025. China also pledged at UNGA to stop funding the development of new coal-fired power plants overseas, a significant move as China was the only major player still intending to fund new plants in poorer developing nations. At least 54 gigawatts of China-backed coal power projects, which are in active development but not yet under construction, could be affected by the pledge from China’s president, Xi Jinping, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. “Those events are positive, and key parts of what we have said we were looking for [at Cop26],” Stern said. “We have been looking for these movements from the US and China for some time, and they constitute really positive developments. Of course, we need to do much more in terms of finance – bilateral, multilateral and private – and for China to start reducing coal strongly at home.” Stern, who in 2006 led a landmark review of the economics of climate change that proved conclusively that cutting greenhouse gas emissions would be a fraction of the cost of climate breakdown, has been serving on a high-level advisory panel to the UK government on Cop26. The issue of climate finance – cash for poor countries to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of extreme weather – has weighed heavily on the summit. A report by the OECD confirmed just over a week ago what previous indicative assessments had found, that climate finance in 2019 reached only about $80bn, well short of the target. Developing countries, which tend to be more vulnerable than the rich world to the impacts of climate breakdown, have viewed the missed target as a betrayal of trust from the rich world, which has contributed most to the climate crisis. But Stern said countries must look beyond the totemic $100bn target, which was promised to continue annually to 2025, and further ahead to the prospects for finance in the second half of this decade. Private sector funding could play a much greater role then, he predicted. “My instincts now are not to get focused only on the $100bn,” he said. “What we should be looking for is financial packages with very strong leverage rather than one aggregate number. [We should be] looking for big private-sector multipliers.” More funding should also be directed towards helping poor countries adapt to the impacts of extreme weather, he added. At present, the bulk of climate finance flows to middle-income developing countries, to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions. But many such projects, such as windfarms or solar panels, provide a financial return and could be profitable in any case. Far harder to finance are projects that protect people and their livelihoods but do not turn a profit. Stern said that recognising the value of adaptation was more important than a strict division of funds. “Raising the profile of resilience and adaptation [is important], and I think there will be progress on that, but rather than saying 50% should be mitigation [reducing emissions] and 50% should be adaptation in finance, I would rather say there should be a strong component of resilience in climate finance and climate action,” he said. The UN security council also met at UNGA this week to warn global governments that the climate crisis was increasingly a question of national security. Michael Martin, the taoiseach, who led the discussions as Ireland holds the revolving presidency of the security council, said: “The impact of climate change is global and our collective security is at risk. We have seen how climate change is already contributing to conflict in many parts of the world. From the Sahel to Iraq, this council has recognised that climate change is one of the factors driving conflict and fragility.” Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, used his speech at UNGA to urge global leaders to redouble their efforts at Cop26. He repeated his mantra of “cash, coal, cars and trees”, emphasising that climate finance is a key aim for the UK hosts at the summit. Invoking Sophocles and Kermit the Frog in a wide-ranging speech, Johnson compared the world to a rowdy teenager that had begun to indulge in “all sorts of activity that is not only potentially embarrassing but also terminal … It is time for humanity to grow up.” Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, said: “I got a little irritated. If the UK itself would only grow up – stop the coal plant in Cumbria, not operate Cambo [oilfield], and restore aid to 0.7% of GDP, that would be leadership.” But she conceded: “He does have the capacity to galvanise attention, and at least it is attention of the right kind, rather than being Trump-like on the wrong side.”
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Financial Aid
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Rhoads Opera House fire
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The Rhoads Opera House Fire occurred on Monday evening, January 13, 1908 in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, United States. The opera house caught fire during a stage play sponsored by nearby St. John's Lutheran Church. The fire started when a kerosene lamp being used for stage lighting was knocked over, starting a fire on the stage. In short order, the spreading fire ignited a mixture of lighting gas and oxygen from a malfunctioning stereopticon machine being used to present a magic lantern show at intermission. Audience members waited for the fire to be extinguished by theatre personnel, wasting the precious minutes they needed to escape safely. The stage and auditorium were located on the second floor and the few emergency exits available were either unmarked or blocked. Two fire escapes were available but were only accessible through latched windows whose sills were located 31⁄2 feet above the floor. Of the approximately 400 men, women, and children either in attendance or associated with the performance of the play, 171 perished in various ways as they tried to escape the conflagration. In the panic to escape, many were crushed in the narrow main entrance stairway, as well as against the jammed main exit swinging doors of the second floor auditorium. In a few instances, entire families were wiped out. One firefighter, John Graver, was also killed while responding to the incident. The play being performed on the night of January 13 was The Scottish Reformation by Harriet Earhart Monroe, who was heavily involved in the production. A slide (magic lantern) show and lecture were presented at intermission to provide historical background for the play. Approximately sixty people were involved in the production, including stagehands and others not actually performing. 312 tickets were sold for the Monday night performance, although there is no certain count of the number actually in attendance, and a number of accounts state that there were many patrons standing. Monroe was subpoenaed to appear before the inquest after the fire, but refused to appear. She was accused of employing an inadequately trained young man to operate the stereopticon, but the inquest's jury found her innocent. Private lawsuits were brought against Monroe by the families of several victims. The result of these lawsuits is unclear from surviving records. Monroe's sister, Della Earhart Mayers, was killed in the fire and is buried in Boyertown's Fairview Cemetery. [1]
The "Rhoads Opera House" was not a structure normally described as an opera house. It was a three-story commercial brick building which contained a hardware store and a bank on its first floor, an auditorium (the "opera house") and offices on its second floor, and several meeting rooms and offices on its third floor. The auditorium was a rental facility made available for public and private events such as business meetings, lectures, school graduations and public entertainment events. The auditorium included a small stage located at the back end of the auditorium. It is doubtful that any opera was ever performed on this stage. The present day building occupying the same site as the original Rhoads Building, on the corner of Washington Street and Philadelphia Avenue, is somewhat similar in overall appearance to the original structure. The main difference is in the overall height of the building and its second floor windows. In the new building these are approximately six feet tall, in the original building they were closer to eight feet tall. The original auditorium was approximately 12 feet in height, thus accommodating the taller windows. The present day building does not house an auditorium at all, and the second floor is consequentially of a lesser height as are its windows. Additionally, the present day building is not equipped with fire escapes. The original building had three: one on its front façade, one on the Washington Street façade, and one on the opposite side façade. In many other major characteristics the present day building is similar to the original except for certain architectural and decorative details. The present day building was constructed approximately two years after the fire using fire insurance proceeds the building's owner and prominent Boyertown citizen, Dr. Thomas Rhoads, received as a result of the complete destruction of the original building. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, Philadelphians contributed relief funds of $18,000. Three morgues were set up and approximately fifteen thousand people attended funerals on a single day. One hundred and five new graves were dug in Boyertown's Fairview Cemetery. Just over $22,000 was received in response to an appeal for contributions toward burial of the dead. The incident spurred the Pennsylvania legislature into passing new legislative standards for doors, landings, lighting, curtains, fire extinguishers, aisles, and marked exits. All doors were required to open outward and remain unlocked. Governor Edwin Stuart signed Pennsylvania's first fire law on May 3, 1909. The building of apartments and stores has now been built on the former opera house's site with a plaque commemorating the tragedy. Memorial to the unidentified victims in Fairview Cemetery, Boyertown
Memorial Plaque on the present day building occupying the site of the former Rhoads Opera House Building
Notes
Bibliography
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Fire
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Gas explosion leaves 12 dead, 138 hurt
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President Xi Jinping has ordered all-out efforts to rescue the injured after a gas explosion in Central China's Hubei province on Sunday morning.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, asked authorities to console the families of the casualties and investigate the accident in a timely manner.
The blast happened at around 6:30 am at a two-story building in Zhangwan district of Shiyan city. The first floor of the building is a market and some people live on the second floor.
By 14:30, rescuers pulled out 150 people from the debris, 12 of them dead and 138 injured, including 37 critically hurt. All the injured are receiving treatment at hospital.
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Gas explosion
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The US to Withdraw from UNESCO
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The U.S. Department of State announced late on Thursday that the U.S. will withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), effective Dec. 31, 2018. According to the State Department's press release, the U.S. intends to remain a non-member observer state to “contribute U.S. views, perspectives, and expertise on some of the important issues undertaken by the organization, including the protection of world heritage, advocating for press freedoms, and promoting scientific collaboration and education.” UNESCO is responsible for programs such as the World Heritage Committee, which designates World Heritage Sites and is an international advocate for freedom of the press. “This decision was not taken lightly,” said State Department spokeperson Heather Nauert in the release, “and reflects U.S. concerns with mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO.” When the agency voted to give Palestine full membership in 2011, the U.S. was forced to cease funding UNESCO due to a 1990s law that "prohibits U.S. funding to any U.N. organization that grants full membership to any group that does not have 'internationally recognized attributes' of statehood," according to a Reuters article. In July 2017, UNESCO awarded World Heritage status to the old town of Hebron/Al-Khalil, in Palestine. Within hours of the announcement, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the U.S.’s decision to leave UNESCO and declared Israel’s intent to follow suit. I welcome @realDonaldTrump's decision to withdraw from UNESCO. I have instructed the Foreign Ministry to prepare Israel's withdrawal from UNESCO in parallel with the United States. This is a courageous and ethical decision because UNESCO has become a theater of the absurd and instead of preserving history, distorts it. UNESCO director general Irina Bokova released a written response to the U.S. announcement stating, "I regret the withdrawal of the United States. This is a loss to UNESCO. This is a loss to the United Nations family. This is a loss for multilateralism." (You can watch the full response below.) This is not the first time the U.S. has opted to leave UNESCO. In 1983 the country, under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan, decided to leave the organization "citing corruption and a pro-Soviet union, anti-U.S. bias," according to Time magazine. The U.S. did not rejoin until 2003. As of press time, President Trump has not commented publicly to the announcement.
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Withdraw from an Organization
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Police: Fleeing bank robber fires at officers, collides with truck
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Updated: March 10, 2021 11:19 pm Corley Peel, Reporter/Weekend Anchor JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A young girl and her grandfather were hospitalized Wednesday afternoon after colliding with a car driven by a suspected bank robber, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Cheyenne Meyer, public information officer with the Sheriff’s Office, said that around 4:30 p.m. officers were called to 103rd Street near the intersection of McManus Drive in reference to a bank robbery. She said an armed man entered the bank, brandished a firearm and demanded money from employees, who complied with the man’s demands. “As the suspect was exiting the bank, patrol officers were arriving on scene, and the suspect entered a vehicle that the patrol officers immediately recognized as a car that had previously been reported stolen earlier in the day,” Meyer said. She said officers began pursuing the vehicle, which was going in and out of oncoming traffic. She said the driver discharged a firearm at an officer on 103rd Street. Meyer said the driver struck a pickup truck. Anthony Boyle witnessed the crash. “Just out of nowhere a white car... it hits a blue truck almost head on,” Boyle said. Officers blocked the man’s vehicle, and he was apprehended. The grandfather and granddaughter, who were in the pickup, were taken to a hospital with injuries described as non-life-threatening. Their ages were not disclosed, but Meyer said the granddaughter was a minor. Meyer said an officer and the suspect also had non-life-threatening injuries. No injuries were reported at the bank.
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Bank Robbery
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NYC teen allegedly murdered ‘innocent kid’ after getting probation in 2020 shooting
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A Bronx teen was cut loose by a judge in an armed-robbery shooting over prosecutors’ objections — only to proceed to allegedly murder an “innocent kid” in a botched gang hit, The Post has learned. Steven Mendez, 17 — who was once even busted for allegedly pulling a gun on his own mom — could have been kept behind bars for up to four years after pleading guilty in the violent armed robbery in 2020, according to officials and law-enforcement sources. Instead, the reputed gang member was freed on five years’ probation in May at the judge’s discretion. That allowed Mendez to allegedly fatally shoot “completely innocent’’ 21-year-old Saikou Koma in the head last month in what may be a case of mistaken identity fueled by gangbangers out for vengeance, sources said. “This judge let him go, but I’m not letting [it] go,” said Koma’s stricken mother, Haja Kaira, to The Post through tears Monday. “My son will get justice. This is crazy. Steven Mendez was charged with allegedly gunning down Saikou Koma on Oct 24. “He don’t deserve to be out there,’’ she said of Mendez. “A killer is a killer. He’s going to do it again.” Koma’s dad, Amar Bully Koma, called the decision to free Mendez “insane. Police investigate the scene of a shooting near 2253 Ryer Ave in the Fordham Heights neighborhood of the Bronx. William Miller “What is wrong with this judge?” the father said. “If this was the judge’s son, or his nephew or a relative, he would not let him go. The city, the mayor. If this was his kid, they would not let him go. “They do not care about us.” Mendez had been indicted last year on first-degree assault, first-degree robbery and felony gun-possession charges stemming from his role as an accomplice in the July 17, 2020, armed robbery in The Bronx. Saikou Koma, 21, was killed on Oct. 24. The victim was shot in the leg during the crime, prosecutors and court officials said. Mendez, who was 16 at the time, was prosecuted as a “youthful offender” in the case. He pleaded guilty and was temporarily placed in a non-secure facility pending sentencing, according to the state Office of Court Administration. In May, acting Bronx Supreme Court Justice Denis Boyle then granted him probation over prosecutors’ objections to send the teen to prison. Mendez already had at least three other busts on his record, including the 2019 gun case in which he allegedly slapped his mother with an open hand and pulled a loaded .357-caliber handgun on her. The teen allegedly became incensed when he asked his mom for money and she turned him down, the sources said. Haja Kaira, Saiko Koma’s mother, is demanding justice. G.N.Miller/NYPost But Boyle opted to set the teen free, citing a report that Mendez was “fully engaged” and performing well in school. “The judge felt that a state prison sentence at that point in his life for a crime committed as an accomplice at the age of 16 was not warranted and accordingly was sentenced as a [youthful offender] to five years’ probation,” OCA spokesman Lucian Chalfen told The Post on Monday. Under state law, defendants between ages 16 and 19 can be granted “youthful offender” status — which reduces their sentences and seals their criminal records. A rep for Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said the judge’s decision came “over our objections,” and that prosecutors wanted a sentence of 1 1/3 to 4 years — the maximum allowed for a youthful offender convicted of a felony. Steven Mendez allegedly murdered Saikou Koma in a botched gang hit. William Miller Judge Denis Boyle granted Steven Mendez probation in May. Robert Kalfus Mendez was then with other suspected gang members Oct. 24 when they sought payback for the beating of one of their own by a rival gang, sources said. The riled-up suspects came upon Koma on Ryer Avenue in Fordham Heights and shot him — with Mendez allegedly pulling the trigger of the .357-caliber handgun, according to a criminal complaint in the case. The document accuses Mendez of shooting Koma in the head. Law-enforcement sources said the group may have mistaken Koma for a member of the rival gang — or was simply out for blood — but insisted that the victim was “a completely innocent kid.” Meanwhile, Boyle’s decision to cut Mendez loose wasn’t the Bronx jurist’s first brush with controversy. Saiko Koma’s alleged killer was out on probation at the time of his death. G.N.Miller/NYPost In June, the judge came under fire after he released a 16-year-old defendant with a string of prior gun busts — who was later charged with killing a father of two with a stray bullet. The teen, Alberto Ramirez, was bailed out by his family after Boyle reduced his bail from $75,000 to $10,000 — leaving him free to allegedly gun down 34-year-old dad Eric Velasquez. Last year, Boyle also released Jordon Benjamin, 16, who was facing a manslaughter charge , only to have the teen allegedly slash a young woman. And in 1999, Boyle agreed to a deal that allowed a homeless man to live in a shelter while he awaited sentencing in an attempted sex attack. The suspect, Ishmael Holmes, 22, was then implicated in a rash of sexual attacks on the Upper East Side. Koma’s heartbroken mother, railed that the judge has one job. Law enforcement sources said Saikou Koma’s death was a potential case of mistaken identity. G.N.Miller/NYPost “You have to keep us safe,’’ she said. “If one part of the system doesn’t work, none of it works. Too much gun violence everywhere now.” Mendez was arrested Friday in Koma’s murder. He was still on probation from the 2020 case. The suspect was arraigned last week and this time, held without bail. “When a kid gets caught with a gun and gets home before dinner, they’re sending a weaponized version of that kid back on the street,” a disgusted source said of the situation. “They’re more dangerous,” he said of such suspects. Mendez’s Legal Aid Society lawyer in the slay case did not respond to a request for comment Monday. A rep for the city Department of Probation said the agency is “legally precluded” by state law from providing information on youthful offender cases.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release
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2003 Boumerdès earthquake
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The 2003 Boumerdès earthquake occurred on May 21 at 19:44:21 local time in northern Algeria. The shock had a moment magnitude of 6.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). The epicentre of the earthquake was located near the town of Thénia in Boumerdès Province, approximately 60 km east of the capital Algiers. The quake was the strongest to hit Algeria in more than twenty years – since 1980, when a magnitude 7.1 earthquake resulted in at least 2,633 deaths. Northern Algeria is situated at the boundary between the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate, thus creating a zone of compression. This zone of compression manifests itself by several thrust and faults. [5] Due to this location between two tectonic plates, many earthquakes occurred in the region. [6] The mechanism of the earthquake on May 21 corresponds to a northeast-striking thrust fault named Zemmouri fault which was identified for the first time after this earthquake. [5] According to the United States Geological Survey,
The earthquake occurred in the boundary region between the Eurasian plate and the African plate. Along this section of the plate boundary, the African plate is moving northwestward against the Eurasian plate with a velocity of about 6 mm per year. The relative plate motions create a compressional tectonic environment, in which earthquakes occur by thrust-faulting and strike-slip faulting. Analysis of seismic waves generated by this earthquake shows that it occurred as the result of thrust-faulting. [4]
Approximately 2,266 people died, 10,261 injured, and 200,000 left homeless as a result of the earthquake. [7] Reports indicate more than 1,243 buildings were completely or partially destroyed. Infrastructure was predictably damaged in Algiers, Boumerdès, Réghaïa and Thénia; roads in Algeria are generally of high quality, but many city streets and local roads were difficult to traverse because of debris from collapsed buildings. Bridges are constructed similarly to those in the US, with precast steel girders supporting a concrete deck. A few days after the earthquake, three major highway bridges were still closed. The last highway bridge to open was the Hussein Dey Bridge on July 5. [7]
The quake generated a localized tsunami, which damaged boats off the coast of the Balearic Islands. [4] The eastern side of Algiers was affected most;[6] overall, the Boumerdès Province was the hardest-hit region. [8] According to officials, roughly 400 people were killed in Algiers only. [6] In the Boumerdès Province, several cities were heavily damaged, with Thénia, Zemmouri, and Boumerdès,[8] being the worst affected. [9] Many buildings built in the early twentieth century during the colonial rule suffered heavy damage in the Belcourt, Bab-El-Oued and El-Casbah areas in Algiers Province. [10]
According to the Algerian Ministry of Housing, in the Algiers Province only approximately 554 schools suffered light damage, while nearly 330 schools received moderate damage and 11 were heavily damaged or completely destroyed. [11] The University of Boumerdès was severely damaged, and many buildings in the area collapsed. Damage was also reported to the University of Science and Technology in Bab Ezzouar, which has the largest university campus in Algeria. [9]
A water treatment plant in Boudouaou, which provides more than 12% of the treated water to the Boumerdès and Algiers, suffered light damage to the clarifiers and clear water storage tanks. The water pipeline from the Keddara Dam to the water treatment plant was broken at a concrete junction structure at the dam, as well as at the treatment plant. The main power plant in Cap Djenet suffered minor to moderate damage. A high voltage switch yard located near Réghaïa had heavy damage. [12]
Société Nationale des Transports Ferrovaires, Algeria's state-owned railway company, suffered track damage near the town of Thénia. Some tracks were also blocked by debris of destroyed buildings. Eighteen bridges in the affected region had minor to moderate damage. Cracks developed in some roads and highways. The port of Algiers, which at that time handled approximately 40% of the national cargo traffic, suffered light to moderate damage due to soil liquefaction and settlement caused by the earthquake. Port operations was reportedly reduced by 30% immediately after the quake. The minor ports in Zemmouri and Dellys received little damage. [12] The airport control tower and terminal were moderately damaged. [13]
The earthquake had significant effect on local communication. An 8,000 switch central office in the El Harrach area of Algiers completely destroyed and another 20,000 switch office was heavily damaged. [12] Central offices in Boumerdes, Zemmouri and Tidjelabine were damaged. [14] Submarine telecommunication cables also suffered damage. [4] Two underwater fiber optic cables between Algeria and Spain received heavy damage due to undersea landslide caused by the quake. [13]
Many nations sent rescue teams to help in the search for earthquake survivors. [15] International teams of relief workers went to the spot and became involved in rescuing people still trapped under rubble. International relief agencies engaged in supplies like shelter, food and water to the people who became homeless due to the quake. [16] Sniffer dogs sent to Algeria to find survivors trapped under rubble. [17] The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement co-ordinated the relief efforts. Medical and rescue teams were dispatched from European countries. The Red Cross of the People's Republic of China donated $50,000.
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Earthquakes
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Volga-Dnepr Airlines Flight 4066 crash
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On 13 November 2020, Volga-Dnepr Airlines Flight 4066 suffered an uncontained engine failure on take-off from Tolmachevo Airport, Novosibirsk, Russia for Vienna International Airport, Vienna, Austria. The aircraft was severely damaged, and was further damaged when it overran the runway on landing at Tolmachevo airport. The accident aircraft was an Antonov An-124 Ruslan, registration RA-82042, msn 9773054055093. The aircraft had first flown in 1991. It was powered by four Lotarev D-18T turbofan engines. [1]
Volga-Dnepr Airlines Flight 4066 was a chartered cargo flight,[2] from Incheon International Airport, Seoul, Korea, to Vienna International Airport, Vienna, Austria, with a stopover at Tolmachevo Airport, Novosibirsk, Russia. On 13 November 2020, the first leg was performed without incident. The aircraft departed from Tolmachevo Airport for Vienna at 12:09 local time (5:09 UTC). Shortly after take-off the No. 2 engine of the Antonov An-124 Ruslan operating the flight suffered an uncontained engine failure. [1] Debris from the engine punctured the aircraft's fuselage and wings, affecting power supplies and rendering the ADS-B inoperative. The aircraft's braking system was also affected,[3] as were engines 3 and 4. [4] Communications with air traffic control were also lost. [5]
The aircraft landed back at Tolmachevo Airport, but overran the runway by 300 metres (330 yd) and its nosewheels collapsed; one of the two sets of nosewheels did not extend before the landing. The aircraft's brakes, spoilers and thrust reversers were inoperative. [1][5] All fourteen people on board the aircraft survived uninjured. [2] Due to the damage the aircraft sustained, engine No.1 was unable to be shut down for three hours after the accident. [6][5]
On 27 November, work began to move the aircraft from its final position to an apron where repairs will be carried out. Two BREM-1 armoured recovery vehicles were used to move the stricken aircraft. [7]
The Interstate Aviation Committee (Russian: Межгосударственный авиационный комитет; МАК) is responsible for investigating civil aviation accidents in Russia. On February 18, 2021, the West Siberia Investigative Department reported they found the failure of the number two engine fan disk as the main cause of the accident. Rostovia is still looking into the engine, and the investigation is in its final stages. This information was released in a press conference
On 25 November, Volga-Dnepr Airlines decided to ground its fleet of An-124 Ruslan aircraft. [3] The grounding was due to the discovery of flaws in some of the 60 engines that the airline owns. The intention is that following a detailed inspection the engines will be able to return to service, allowing the aircraft to fly again. [6] Following the grounding, Antonov brought its An-225 Mriya aircraft back into commercial operation, supplementing its own fleet of An-124s, which were operating at full capacity. [8]
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Air crash
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1956 Kano Airport BOAC Argonaut crash
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The 1956 Kano Airport BOAC Argonaut crash occurred on 24 June 1956 when a British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) four-engined Canadair C-4 Argonaut airliner registered G-ALHE crashed into a tree on departure from Kano Airport in Nigeria, three crew and 29 passengers were killed. [1][2]
At 17:21 the Argonaut departed Runway 25 at Kano Airport on the way to Tripoli in Libya. [1] The flight was from Lagos to London and had made a scheduled stop at Kano. [1][2] It was raining as the aircraft reached 250 feet (76 m) when the aircraft began to lose height. [1] The pilot applied full power but the aircraft continued to descend until it hit a tree about 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) from the end of the runway. [1] Three of the seven crew members and 29 of the 38 passengers were killed in the crash, two crew and two passengers were seriously injured. [1]
A team from the British Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation and BOAC flew out from London on 25 June in a chartered Canadair Argonaut to help in the investigation. [3] The Nigerian investigation team of four was led by the Director of Civil Aviation. [3]
The Board of Inquiry concluded "The accident was the result of a loss of height and airspeed caused by the aircraft encountering, at approximately 250ft after take-off, an unpredictable thunderstorm cell which gave rise to a sudden reversal of wind direction, heavy rain, and possible downdraft conditions. The formation of the cell could not have been predicted by the meteorological forecaster at Kano airport, nor was it visible to the pilot in command before taking off. In the circumstances, no blame can be attached to the pilot in command for taking off. "[4]
The report also recommended that the International Civil Aviation Organization urgently consider investigating the special hazards to aircraft inherent in taking off or landing in close proximity to thunderstorms. [4]
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Air crash
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1819 Rann of Kutch earthquake
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The 1819 Rann of Kutch earthquake occurred at about 18:45 to 18:50 local time on 16 June. It had an estimated magnitude ranging from 7.7 to 8.2 on the moment magnitude scale and a maximum perceived intensity of XI (Extreme) on the Mercalli intensity scale. It triggered a tsunami and caused at least 1,543 deaths. [2] The earthquake caused an area of subsidence that formed the Sindri Lake and a local zone of uplift to the north about 80 km long, 6 km wide and 6 m high that dammed the Koree / Kori / Puran / Nara river. This natural dam was known as the Allah Bund ("Dam of God"). The Kutch District of modern-day Gujarat lies 3–400 km from the plate boundary between the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate, but the current tectonics is still governed by the effects of the continuing continental collision along this boundary. During the break-up of Gondwana in the Jurassic period, this area was affected by rifting with a roughly west–east trend. During the collision with Eurasia the area has undergone shortening, involving both reactivation of the original rift faults and development of new low-angle thrust faults. The related folding has formed a series of ranges, particularly in central Kutch. The focal mechanism of most earthquakes is consistent with reverse faulting on reactivated rift faults. The 2001 Gujarat earthquake was caused by movement on a previously unknown south-dipping fault, trending parallel to the inferred rift structures. [3]
The earthquake lasted for two to three minutes. It was felt over an enormous area, from Chennai to Kolkata in the east, as far north as Kathmandu and as far west as Balochistan. The mainshock was followed by prolonged aftershock activity, with major earthquakes continuing for at least 50 years, including one with estimated magnitude of more than 6.5 in 1846. [4]
Maximum displacement during the earthquake is estimated at 12 m, based on the height of the bund and the amount of subsidence to the south. Combined with a lateral extent of at least 80 km, this gives an estimated magnitude of 7.7±.2. This matches well with magnitudes estimated using both the total felt area and the area of VIII intensity. [4] Other estimates based on intensity measurements give magnitudes as high as 8.2. [5]
Modelling of the surface deformation indicates that the fault that slipped during the earthquake dipped to the north at between about 50–67°. As faults that dip in excess of 50° are normally unfavourable for slip, it has been suggested that there was relatively high pore-fluid pressure developed at depth to allow this displacement to occur. [4] There is evidence that the Indus river shifted westwards after this earthquake. [6]
The most obvious topographic effect of this earthquake was the formation of a ridge about 6 m high, extending for 80 km (possibly as much as 150 km) that formed a natural dam across the Puran river. [7][8] To distinguish it from the man-made dams that were common in the region, the uplifted area became known as the Allah Bund, or Dam of God. [4] The mound produced had a markedly asymmetric geometry, with a shorter and steeper south-dipping margin, about 600 m wide and a dip of 0.65°, and a broader north-dipping margin over 5 km wide with a dip of only about 0.05°. [4]
Sindri Lake, with a surface area of more than 1,000 km2, was formed due to subsidence of up to 3 m south of the Allah Bund. Initially, the lake was cut off from the river (damming further upstream had stopped the flow) and was filled with seawater. On the western margin of the lake a small delta built out from the eastern part of the larger Indus Delta. After 1826 the river broke through the artificial dam and eventually broke through the bund itself, causing the lake to become freshwater again. [4]
The 1956 Anjar earthquake was due to reverse faulting, similar in type to that which is thought to have caused the 1819 Rann of Kutch earthquake. [9]
Changes in stress caused by coulomb stress transfer due to the 1819 earthquake may have been sufficient to trigger the 2001 Bhuj earthquake and other historic earthquakes that occurred in the region during the intervening period. [10]
There was a local tsunami that flooded the area known as the Great Rann immediately after the earthquake. The fort at Sindri was destroyed by the earthquake and then partly submerged by the tsunami, "forcing survivors to climb to the top of the ruins". [4]
The towns of Kothari, Mothala, Naliya and Vinzan suffered particularly heavy damage. Anjar, Bhuj, Lakhpat, Mandvi and Tera were also severely affected. [2] At least 1,543 people were killed in the larger towns; the number of casualties in smaller towns and villages is unknown. There was some degree of damage to buildings over most of Gujarat, including the destruction of the "shaking minarets" of the Jama Masjid in Ahmedabad. At Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, "at least 500 guests were smothered at a wedding feast". [2]
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Earthquakes
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Mikkeli hostage crisis
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The Mikkeli hostage crisis, or Jakomäki bank robbery took place on 8–9 August 1986, which ended in Mikkeli, South Savo, Finland, outside of the Mikkeli County Government House on Maaherrankatu. The crisis began when the perpetrator, Jorma Kalevi Takala (born July 11, 1950) took three hostages in Helsinki in a bank robbery, with whom he traveled by car to Mikkeli. The event ended when Takala blew up his car, killing himself and hostage Jukka Häkkinen (born May 13, 1961). In the aftermath of the incident, the Finnish police were subjected to harsh criticism. The events began on 8 August 1986, when Jorma Takala, armed with a sawed-off shotgun and an explosive charge, entered the Kansallis-Osake-Pankki bank in Jakomäki, Helsinki. Takala took twelve people inside the bank as his hostages. After receiving 2.5 million Finnish marks and a getaway car in exchange for most of the hostages, he left the bank with three remaining hostages, two female and one male. Takala forced the male hostage to drive the car, following Highway 4 and later Highway 5. The party arrived in Mikkeli on 9 August, where they parked in front of the Mikkeli County Government House. Finnish police surrounded the vehicle and tried to negotiate with Takala. When he threatened to blow up the car if he was not allowed to continue his journey, the police advised the hostages to leave the vehicle. Both female hostages complied, after which the police started to shoot at the car. In response, Takala detonated the charge and destroyed the vehicle, killing both himself and the male hostage. Nine police officers were injured in the explosion. [1][2]
The police received much criticism for its handling of the crisis. Nobody knew who gave the order to shoot at the car and initially none of the police commanders took the responsibility for the operation. [2] After an investigation by the NBI, Chancellor of Justice Jorma S. Aalto decided not to prosecute the police officers for the events. [1] In 1993, the Supreme Court of Finland convicted the police commissioner who led the operation of death and negligence and fined him 6,000 mk. [3]
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Bank Robbery
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Daunte Wright protests
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The Daunte Wright protests are a series of protests and civil unrest that began in Brooklyn Center, a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, on April 11, 2021. [21] Protests began soon after news spread of the killing of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old biracial Black man, who was fatally shot by police officer Kimberly Potter during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center earlier that day. [22][23] Wright's death came during a prolonged series of protests and unrest in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area over police brutality and racial injustice, notably due to the killing of George Floyd and the then-ongoing murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer deemed responsible for Floyd's death. [24] Local protests soon spilled over into other nearby locations in the Twin Cities area then to other cities in the United States. [24]
Protesters demanded justice for Wright's death and made several demands of public officials, including a more severe murder charge for Potter, an independent investigation of the shooting, and enactment of police reform measures. Several nights of civil disorder in Brooklyn Center and adjacent cities resulted in sporadic looting and property damage. [25] Many local protests were held outside the Brooklyn Center police station on Humboldt Avenue. Law enforcement established a heavily fortified barrier area and periodically clashed with demonstrators over several days. [26][27] Demonstrators made several attempts to overrun the security barrier established around the Brooklyn Center police station during a few nights of tense protests. [28][29][30] Law enforcement fired tear gas and non-lethal munitions into the crowds, resulting in controversy. [31]
Protests over Wright's death intersected with the conclusion of the jury trial of Derek Chauvin on April 19, 2021, in Minneapolis. Large demonstrations were held during jury deliberations that were part of the broader Black Lives Matter movement. Protesters also demanded justice for Wright, that rioting charges be dropped against demonstrators over his death, and that law enforcement discontinue use of tear gas and less-lethal munitions to control crowds. [32][33]
Daunte Wright was an unarmed, 20-year-old biracial[34] Black man,[35] who was fatally shot by Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter during an altercation at a traffic stop on April 11, 2021, on 63 Avenue North in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. [22][23][3] Police said Potter had meant to use her Taser but accidentally used a handgun. [25]
Brooklyn Center is a city in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, bordering Minneapolis to the north. It had a population of nearly 31,000 residents by 2021, and it had transformed from a mostly White suburb to one of the most diverse areas in the region over the previous decades with most of the its residents people of color. [36] The city was also one of the poorest in Hennepin County; 15 percent of residents lived below the federal poverty level. [37] In 2019, voters elected Mike Elliot, a Liberian-American, to be the city's first person-of-color mayor. By the time of Wright's death, most of the city's police force were White, and no officers lived within the city's boundaries. [36]
In 2020 and 2021, the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan region experienced a prolonged period of protests and intermittent unrest over issues of police brutality and racial justice, beginning soon after the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Three nights of riots and looting from May 27 to May 30, 2020, resulted in two deaths,[38][39] 617 arrests,[40][41] and upwards of $500 million in property damage to 1,500 locations in the metropolitan region, making it the second-most destructive period of local unrest in United States history, after the 1992 Los Angeles riots. [42][43][44][41] During the unrest, on May 28, 2020, a Minneapolis police station was overrun by demonstrators and set on fire. [45]
Wright's death in Brooklyn Center was approximately ten miles (16 kilometers) from the 38th and Chicago Avenue street intersection in Minneapolis where George Floyd died. Wright's death, and the subsequent protests, occurred as the trial of Derek Chauvin—the police officer who killed Floyd—was nearing its conclusion in Minneapolis. According to The New York Times, the fatal shooting of Wright "injected more frustration and anxiety into the Twin Cities region",[46] heightening local tension and outrage. [46][47] By early April 2021, state officials had already begun mobilizing law enforcement and National Guard troops, in an effort referred to as "Operation Safety Net", in preparation for a verdict in the Chauvin trial. Officials hoped to avoid a repeat of the civil disorder, violence, and property destruction that the metropolitan region experienced in May and June of 2020 after Floyd's death. [27][48]
On April 11, 2021, at 1:48 p.m., officer Kim Potter with the police department of Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, shot 20-year-old Daunte Wright, a black man, during a traffic stop. Wright had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. As officers attempted to detain him, a struggle ensued and Wright re-entered his vehicle. Officer Potter discharged her firearm, believing she was using her taser gun instead, striking Wright before he drove off. [49] Wright crashed his vehicle several blocks away. Though EMS arrived and attempted to revive him, Wright was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash. Wright's girlfriend was also a passenger in the car. She sustained non-life threatening injuries from the crash and was transported to the hospital. [50][51][52][53][54]
As news of the Brooklyn Center incident spread, family members of Wright, neighbors to the car crash, and protesters began gathering at the car crash scene in Brooklyn Center in what was initially a peaceful demonstration[51][50][52] to demand justice for Wright. [55] Several protesters came from another rally organized by families of people who had been killed by police, that they had held earlier in the day in nearby Saint Paul, Minnesota. [47] The crowd grew to several hundred people by evening as they demanded more information from police investigators. As tension at the scene rose over the ensuing hours, police in tactical gear arrived, formed a line, and moved in when demonstrators began climbing on police vehicles and throwing bricks. [51][50][52] Police fired tear gas into the crowd and a less-lethal round that struck a demonstrator in the head who appeared to be holding a chunk of concrete. [52][56]
In nearby Saint Paul, four people were arrested during looting in the afternoon. [12] Liquor stores, cell phone stores, and gas stations along University Avenue, Marshall Avenue, Payne Avenue, Arcade Street and Sherwood Avenue were looted. [57]
At nightfall, demonstrators gathered outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department building on Humboldt Avenue and stood off against a line of police in riot gear. Authorities declared the gathering unlawful and gave orders for the crowd to disperse. [58][59] When crowds did not disperse, police fired tear gas, flashbangs, and rubber bullets into the crowd, scattering demonstrators. [53][60] According to John Harrington, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, there were reports of rocks and other objects being thrown and gunshots being fired in the area. [60]
Violence and widespread looting occurred at many stores overnight in Brooklyn Center, in Minneapolis, and at other locations in the Twin Cities region. [50] Elsewhere in Brooklyn Center, looting took place at the Shingle Creek Crossing shopping plaza, and affected nearly every store located there. [3][61][62][63] Brooklyn Center Police reported that at its peak, there were 24 simultaneous looting incidents.
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Protest_Online Condemnation
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Colby Fire
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The Colby Fire was a wildfire in the Angeles National Forest. It was ignited along the Colby Truck Trail in the San Gabriel Mountains in northern Los Angeles County, United States. The fire started on January 16, 2014 and eventually burned 1,992 acres. On January 25, the Colby Fire had burned 1,962 acres, and was 98% contained. [1][2] The fire, which was fanned by strong Santa Ana winds, destroyed 5 homes, injured one person, and forced the evacuation of 3,600 people at its peak. [1][3]
Three men in their early 20s were arrested for recklessly starting a fire, and have allegedly admitted starting an illegal campfire that blew out of control. They will face federal charges of unlawfully causing timber to burn. Bail has been set at $500,000 for each of them "due to the seriousness of the crime, as well as the high cost of damaged property and resources to fight the fire. "[6] One of the men, a transient, has been placed in a residential drug treatment facility. [7] Two of the homeless men were convicted of lighting and failing to control an illegal campfire; the third person is scheduled to go to trial later in 2014. [8]
January fires are unusual in Southern California, but there was little rainfall in the area leading up to the fire, which led to a "red flag" fire danger situation. Warm temperatures, low humidity, and an excess of dry brush in the foothills around Glendora (which had not burned significantly since the 1960s) encouraged the growth of the fire. [5]
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Fire
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Elvetham air crash
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The Elvetham air crash occurred on 5 October 1945 when a Consolidated Liberator GR.VI aircraft, serial number KG867, of 311 Squadron Royal Air Force crashed at Elvetham, east of Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, following a fire in one of its engines and fuel starvation to another. The aircraft was about five minutes into a flight from nearby RAF Blackbushe to Ruzyně Airport, Prague, Czechoslovakia. The crash killed all 23 people aboard: five crew, 17 official passengers and one stowaway. [1]
All 23 victims were Czechoslovak. They included nine women and five very young children. The crash was the largest single loss of life in an accident involving Free Czechoslovaks serving in the RAF Volunteer Reserve. [1] After the crash the Czechoslovak Government switched the repatriation of its nationals from air to surface transport. [2][3][4]
Consolidated Aircraft had designed and built the four-engined B-24 Liberator as a long-range maritime patrol aircraft and heavy bomber. The GR.VI was a maritime patrol version that 311 Squadron had flown under RAF Coastal Command since June 1943. The Allies' need for such patrols was reduced by the surrender of Germany in May 1945 and ended by the surrender of Japan in August. However, the need for military transport aircraft remained high. Military transport tasks in the months after the end of hostilities included restoring transport links with recently liberated countries in what had been German-occupied Europe. Aircraft were needed to deliver supplies and equipment, and to repatriate nationals of formerly-occupied countries who had served in Allied forces. In their years of exile many of those nationals had got married and started families whom they now wished to take home with them. Therefore, in June 1945, 311 Squadron was transferred to RAF Transport Command and started flying GR.VI Liberators that had been converted into military transport aircraft. In each aircraft a temporary wooden floor covered the bomb bay doors. A cargo and passenger doorway was inserted in one side of the fuselage. If passengers were to be carried, wooden benches were installed. The colours of the aircraft remained as they had been under Coastal Command: white on the sides and underneath, with camouflage only on the upper surfaces. In August 1945, 311 Squadron was transferred from RAF Manston in Kent, England to Ruzyně Airport, Prague, Czechoslovakia to continue transport operations. [1]
Aircraft KG867 carried the marking PP-N.[5] PP was the code for 311 Squadron and -N identified the individual aircraft. Its captain was Pilot Officer Jaroslav Kudláček, a 25-year-old from Chrudim in eastern Bohemia. He had 1,421 flying hours' experience, 512 hours of which were on four-engined aircraft. [1] Kudláček had married a British woman, their first son had been born in October 1941 and the family was looking forward to the boy's fourth birthday. Kudláček had just returned from the Royal Hospital, Wolverhampton, where Mrs Kudláčková had given birth to their second son[1] about 10 days previously. [6]
KG867 was scheduled to make a 665-mile (1,070 km) flight from Blackbushe to Ruzyně on Thursday 4 October to repatriate Czechoslovak service personnel and their families to their homeland. P/O Kudláček tried three times to take off but aborted each time because of a problem with one of the engines. After Kudláček aborted the third attempt the flight was postponed until the next day to let KG867 be examined and repaired. [1]
One account states that the passengers were given temporary accommodation for the night. But another account, by Warrant Officer Pavel Svoboda of 311 Squadron, said "We spent a very unpleasant night, due to a lack of accommodation, especially the women with children. "[1]
By the next morning KG867's passenger manifest had been changed. Two 311 Squadron personnel who had been booked to fly as passengers – Warrant Officer Svoboda and WAAF Leading Aircraftwoman First Class Edita Sedláková – were displaced and their seats were reallocated to other passengers. [1]
On Friday 5 October three Liberators including the rescheduled KG867 were to take off from Blackbushe. [3][6] KG867 got airborne in good weather. Differing accounts suggest that it took off at either 1243 hours or 1420 hours. The aircraft made a normal circuit of the airfield as it turned to head for Prague. [1] At the Liberator's cruising speed of 215 mph (346 km/h) the flight could be expected to take more than three hours, so KG867 was carrying a substantial amount of fuel. Then about three minutes into the flight, witnesses on the ground saw a fire had broken out on the aircraft's main wing around the No. 2 (inner port) engine. One Witness, George Greenwood of 4167 Squadron RAF, said he saw "a great plume of black smoke from one of the engines". [1]
The plane was losing height and Kudláček tried to turn back to the airfield. About 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) short of the airfield KG867 turned steeply to port, with the port wing down and diving at an angle of 30 degrees. About five minutes after take-off the port wing clipped a hedge causing the port engines to hit the ground in a field of sugar beet at Elvetham, east of Hartley Wintney. The aircraft cartwheeled, disintegrated and burst into flames. [1]
The field was part of the Elvetham Hall estate of Sir Fitzroy Calthorpe, Baronet. A group of gypsies had been trimming the sugar beet and were sitting around a log fire eating a meal. They had a narrow escape as the Liberator crashed and burst into flames only 200 yards (180 m) away from them. [3][7]
In another field nearby a group of children was helping a farmer to pick potatoes. One girl, who was 12 at the time, recalled seeing KG867 fly over with its port wing down and both starboard engines "running very fast" before passing out of sight and crashing. The farmer told the children each to take a large potato and go home.
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Air crash
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Fairfield train crash
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The Fairfield/Bridgeport train crash occurred on May 17, 2013, when a Metro-North Railroad passenger train derailed between the Fairfield Metro and Bridgeport stations in Fairfield, Connecticut, in the United States. The derailed train fouled the adjacent line and a train heading in the opposite direction then collided with it. There were at 65 injured among the approximately 250 people on board each of the two trains. [1] Metro-North reported damages at $18.5 million. [1]
At 18:01 local time (22:01 UTC),[1] a Metro-North Railroad passenger train from Grand Central Terminal, New York City to Union Station, New Haven, Connecticut derailed between the Fairfield Metro and Bridgeport stations. The derailed train, 8 cars,[2] came to rest foul of the track used by trains traveling in the opposite direction and was hit by a train traveling on that track. [3] The engineer of the second train applied emergency brakes and was able to slow from 70 mph to 23 mph before the collision occurred. [4] Both of the involved trains consisted of Kawasaki M8 railcars, which first entered service in 2011 and were still being delivered at the time of the accident. There were about 250 people on each of the two trains. [1] The crash blocked both tracks in use – two others were out of service for maintenance – resulting in Amtrak canceling its Northeast Corridor service between New York and Boston, Massachusetts. [5] This was the first major accident on any of the MTA commuter rail systems in more than a decade, and it is also the first involving the M8 railcars. [6]
The injured were taken to hospitals in Bridgeport, Connecticut. St. Vincent Medical Center reported 46 people were treated there, with six being admitted in stable condition. Bridgeport Hospital said 26 people were treated there, of whom three were admitted, two in critical condition and one in stable condition. [7] As of the morning of May 19, nine people still were hospitalized, with one in critical condition. [8] The NTSB report states that there were 65 injuries, of which 53 were minor and 12 serious. [1]
As of 8 a.m. May 19, thirteen cars had been removed and the remaining three were expected to be removed by the early afternoon. [9] By 4 p.m., all the cars were removed, and were moved to the Metro-North rail yard in Bridgeport. [10]
Amtrak service between New York and Boston was suspended indefinitely, and Metro-North service also experienced problems. There was no train service at the Fairfield Metro, Fairfield, or Southport stations on Monday, May 20. A bus link transported those that would have taken the train to Westport, where a limited westward service was scheduled for the morning and eastward from Westport in the evening. A shuttle train was put into service to run about every 20 minutes between New Haven and Bridgeport as well as an express bus shuttle service from Bridgeport to Stamford, and regular train connections to Grand Central Terminal. [11] A limited number of Metro-North and Amtrak trains began to run between New York and New Haven during the afternoon of Tuesday, May 21. Full service resumed on Wednesday, May 22. [12]
An investigation was opened by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). [13] A broken rail was under initial investigation as a potential cause of the accident,[14] although it may also have been damaged during the accident sequence. [15] The NTSB sent a portion of the track to a laboratory for analysis of a fracture and foul play was ruled out. The total investigation may take up to ten days. [9] About 2,000 feet (610 m) of track was damaged, along with wires and signals. [10]
An inspection two days before the crash revealed vertical movement of the track system around an insulated rail joint due to insufficient ballast. Metro North said that this problem was deemed not serious enough to require immediate repair. In April, a cracked joint bar was repaired in the same area of track. [4]
The final NTSB report was issued on October 28, 2014. It states that the cause was broken compromise joint bars (used to join two different sizes of rail). The joint bars, in this case, were found to have fractured and broken causing the rail joint to break completely and causing the derailment. It was also discovered that inspections of the area had noticed in the days before the accident that there was insufficient ballast under the joint area causing the joint to flex repeatedly as well as an excessive mismatch in railhead height. This combination caused the failure from fatigue cracking. [1]
The report also points out that Metro-North's inspection procedures were somewhat insufficient, in that inspections were performed from a hi-rail vehicle traveling on a center track, while the inspectors had to examine four tracks at once. From the inspector's point of view, they would be unable to see all parts of the track due to distance issues. There were also issues with inspections being rushed to prevent delaying trains and deferred maintenance. [1]
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Train collisions
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Olympics-Weightlifting-China’s Shi breaks world record and wins gold medal in 73kg category
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Tokyo (Reuters)-China’s Shi Zhiyong broke his own world record of winning the men’s 73 kg weightlifting event at the Olympic Games on Wednesday and winning the gold medal twice in a row.
At the age of 27, he lifted a total of 364 kg to improve his own world record of 363 kg set at the 2019 World Championships.
Venezuela’s Julio Ruben Mayora Pernia won the silver medal with a lift of 346 kg.
Surprisingly, Indonesia’s Rafmat Irwin Abdullah entered the division with a lighter entry, lifting a total of 342 kg and winning the bronze medal. The city was strong throughout the Games, breaking the Olympic record with the second and third lifts. “My goal was not only to win a gold medal, but to break the world record,” Shi told reporters. “You would have regretted not breaking the world record. I came here to do this, I waited five years to do this. I’m sure I’ll break my record Was. “
The city, which was a gold medalist in the 69 kg category at the 2016 Olympics, also broke the clean and jerk Olympic record in the first attempt.
Shi challenged the decision in a second attempt at 192 kg of clean and jerk, but the decision was valid. He then lifted 198kg on his third lift to set a world record.
Mayora Pernia tried to lift 199 kg in a third clean and jerk, but failed.
Abdullah of Indonesia said his father and coach recommended him to compete in the lower weight class because he was so “more comfortable and relaxed”. “I’m very happy, the plan went well,” he said, adding that his father was unable to compete in the 2004 Olympics due to an injury. “Today I won two of us medals. I dedicate this to him.”
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Break historical records
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This May Be the Best Commencement Speech Ever
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It’s tough to give a good commencement speech , one that isn’t trite or packed with pseudo-inspirational Pinterest quotes. However, over the weekend, the 2021 graduating class of Wilberforce University got to hear a genuinely good one. During his commencement speech for the Ohio HBCU, university president Dr. Elfred Anthony Pinkard announced that all of the class’s student debt would be erased. “We wish to give you a fresh start,” Pinkard said. “Therefore, the Wilberforce University Board of Trustees has authorized me to forgive any debt.” Cheering, applause, and happy tears ensued. “Your accounts have been cleared,” Pinkard continued. “You don’t owe Wilberforce anything. Congratulations.” A total of over $375,000 in student debt was forgiven, per a press release . . @wilberforce_u in Ohio surprises the graduating class by canceling their debt to the school during the commencement on Saturday https://t.co/k1ebHYNhvE pic.twitter.com/wHJt0aO1oR — Wu-Tang Is For The Children (@WUTangKids) May 30, 2021 The announcement came just a few days before President Biden’s address on the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa massacre, in which he pledged to close the wealth gap between white and Black Americans. However, he was criticized for failing to address the student-loan debt crisis, which disproportionately impacts Black Americans. As NAACP president Derrick Johnson said in response: “You cannot begin to address the racial wealth gap without addressing the student loan debt crisis.” According to the United Negro College Fund , 25 percent of students attending HBCUs borrow $40,000 or more. More than 70 percent of Black students take on student debt, compared to 56 percent of white students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics . Black women, in particular, are disproportionately impacted. According to the American Association of University Women , Black women have the most student debt of any racial or ethnic group. “As these graduates begin their lives as responsible adults, we are honored to be able to give them a fresh start by relieving their student debt to the university,” Pinkard said in a news release . The announcement was met with celebration and surprise. “I couldn’t believe it when he said it,” said Rodman Allen, a member of WU 2021 graduating class. “I can use that money and invest it into my future.” Stay in touch. Get the Cut newsletter delivered daily Email This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Terms & Privacy Notice By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.
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Famous Person - Give a speech
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Locust plague hits eastern Australia - Phys.org
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April 14, 2010
Locust plague hits eastern Australia
Swarms of locusts have been ravaging crops in a vast section of eastern Australia following recent floods in the region, a top official has said.
Swarms of locusts have infested a huge area of eastern Australia roughly the size of Spain after recent floods, ravaging farmland, a top official said Wednesday.
Chris Adriaansen, head of the Australian Plague Locust Commission, said the quick-breeding creatures had hit from Longreach in Queensland in the northeast to Melbourne and Adelaide -- about 500,000 square kilometres (190,000 square miles).
"What we've got certainly is a very large and widespread infestation," he told AFP. "It's simply a reflection of the fact that we've had widespread rain across that entire area."
Adriaansen said some swarms covered areas as large as 300 square kilometres, and with about 10 locusts per square metre, "that's a lot of locusts."
Local media said the insects had already wiped out thousands of hectares (acres) of crops and were also damaging grazing areas and gardens in the key agricultural area.
"One farmer has about 400 hectares (1,000 acres) which will have to be resown," an agronomist in the town of Forbes, Graham Falconer, told public broadcaster ABC. "The locusts are doing considerable damage."
Adriaansen said the insects, which had destroyed some early planned cereal crops but mostly fed on pasture, were set to multiply in coming months as their offspring hatch.
"Come the middle of September through to October across that entire inland area... we expect there to be some very large infestations again," he said.
Swarms are expected in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales, areas which last month were flooded after heavy rains broke almost a decade of drought.
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Insect Disaster
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2008 Fed Cup Europe/Africa Zone
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The Europe/Africa Zone was one of three zones of regional competition in the 2008 Fed Cup. The fifteen teams were divided into three pools of four teams and one pool of three. The four pool winners took part in play-offs to determine the two nations advancing to the World Group II Play-offs. The nations finishing last in their pools took part in play-offs, with the two losing nations relegated to Group II in 2009. The seven teams were divided into one pool of three teams and one of four teams. The winner of each pool played the runner-up of the other pool to determine which two nations would be promoted to Group I in 2009. The nations finishing third in their pools took part in play-offs with the losing nation relegated to Group II in 2009, along with the nation finishing fourth in the pool of four teams. The eleven teams were divided into one pool of five teams and one pool of six. The top team of each pool progressed to Group II for 2009.
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Sports Competition
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‘Super blood moon’ eclipse earns mixed reviews
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People across New Zealand and around the world stayed up Wednesday to watch a cosmic event called a super blood moon, a combination of a total lunar eclipse and a brighter-than-usual supermoon. During the buildup, a glittering moon rose above the horizon. As the Earth’s shadow began taking bites from the moon, it created a dramatic effect. Half the moon vanished, leaving it looking like a black-and-white cookie. When the full eclipse took hold, however, the moon darkened, turning a smudgy burnt orange color for many viewers. In Southern California, clouds obscured the view for many, though the eclipse was visible in some areas. The Griffith Observatory livestreamed the event, shooting through the clouds with its high-powered telescopes. In celestial terms, it was a wonder: a projection of the world’s sunsets and sunrises onto the black canvas of the eclipsed moon. But for people peering up from their backyards, it wasn’t quite the brilliant display they’d anticipated. Not quite super or blood-colored. The lunar eclipse progresses is seen behind a ferris wheel over Santa Monica Beach in Santa Monica, Calif., Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years is coinciding with a supermoon for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – MAY 26: The Total Lunar Eclipse of the Moon is seen on May 26, 2021 in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the first total lunar eclipse in more than two years, which coincides with a supermoon. A super moon is a name given to a full (or new) moon that occurs when the moon is in perigee – or closest to the earth – and it is the moon’s proximity to earth that results in its brighter and bigger appearance. (Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images) A lunar eclipse occurs over Santiago, Chile, early Wednesday, May 26, 2021. Wednesday’s total lunar eclipse combines with a super blood-red moon. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix) A surfer falls off his board as the moon rises in Sydney Wednesday, May 26, 2021. A total lunar eclipse, also known as a Super Blood Moon will take place later tonight as the moon appears slightly reddish-orange in colour. (AP Photo/Mark Baker) The moon is partially covered by buildings in Brasilia, Brazil, at the start of a total lunar eclipse early Wednesday, May 26, 2021. Wednesday’s eclipse is the first in more than two years and coincides with a supermoon. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) People watch a lunar eclipse at the Central TV Tower in Beijing, Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years coincides with a supermoon this week for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) The moon rises over the Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years coincides with a supermoon this week for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung) Photographers take photos of a lunar eclipse at the Central TV Tower in Beijing, Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years coincides with a supermoon this week for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) The earth’s shadow partially obscures the moon as it rises during a lunar eclipse in the skies over Beijing, Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years coincides with a supermoon this week for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) A man looks through a pair of mounted binoculars as he waits for a lunar eclipse to begin at the Central TV Tower in Beijing, Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years coincides with a supermoon this week for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) People watch the sunset as they wait for a lunar eclipse to begin at the Central TV Tower in Beijing, Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years coincides with a supermoon this week for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) The moon rises over the Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years coincides with a supermoon this week for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung) Residents watch the lunar eclipse at Sanur beach in Bali, Indonesia on Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The total lunar eclipse, also known as a super blood moon, is the first in two years with the reddish-orange color the result of all the sunrises and sunsets in Earth’s atmosphere projected onto the surface of the eclipsed moon. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati) People gather to watch a total lunar eclipse at a park in Kawasaki, near Tokyo, Wednesday, May 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama) A full moon rises over a tree as a total lunar eclipse was taking place on a cloudy day in Taipei, Taiwan, Wednesday, May 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying) The moon sets behind the Montevideo port, in Uruguay, Wednesday, May 26, 2021, during a lunar eclipse, also known as a super blood moon. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico) A total lunar eclipse is seen over Santa Monica Beach in Santa Monica, Calif., Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years is coinciding with a supermoon for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) A total lunar eclipse is seen behind the clouds over Santa Monica Beach in Santa Monica, Calif., Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years is coinciding with a supermoon for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) The lunar eclipse progresses is seen over Santa Monica Beach in Santa Monica, Calif., Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years is coinciding with a supermoon for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) An airplane flies past as the full-moon sets over Santa Monica Beach in Santa Monica, Calif., Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years is coinciding with a supermoon for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) A woman watches as the full-moon sets over Santa Monica Beach in Santa Monica, Calif., Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years is coinciding with a supermoon for quite a cosmic show. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) The moon is partially covered during a lunar eclipse over Mexico City, Tuesday, May 25, 2021. Wednesday’s eclipse is the first in more than two years and coincides with a supermoon. (AP Photo Marco Ugarte) The moon is seen during a lunar eclipse over Mexico City, early Wednesday, May 26, 2021. Wednesday’s eclipse is the first in more than two years and coincides with a supermoon. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) The moon is partially covered during a lunar eclipse over Mexico City, early Wednesday, May 26, 2021. Wednesday’s eclipse is the first in more than two years and coincides with a supermoon. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) OAKLAND, CA – May 26: The shadow of the Earth glows red on the face of the moon as the third planet’s natural satellite reaches totality during a lunar eclipse early Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The color of the shadow results from sunlight being filtered and refracted by EarthÕs atmosphere throughout the celestial event. (Dylan Bouscher/Bay Area News Group) A full moon rises over a tree as a total lunar eclipse was taking place on a cloudy day in Taipei, Taiwan, Wednesday, May 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying) A full moon rises over the Taipei skyline as a total lunar eclipse was taking place on a cloudy day in Taipei, Taiwan, Wednesday, May 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying) The moon rises behind cloud, as seen from Kawasaki near Tokyo, before a total lunar eclipse starts Wednesday, May 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama) People wait to watch a total lunar eclipse, also known as a super blood moon, at Ochanomizu area Wednesday, May 26, 2021, in Tokyo. A total lunar eclipse was not visible from this site due to cloudy sky. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) The moon takes on a reddish tone as it is partially blocked by the earth as it sets over Lancaster, CA Wednesday, May 26, 2021. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) The moon rises as surfers wait for waves in Sydney Wednesday, May 26, 2021. A total lunar eclipse, also known as a Super Blood Moon, will take place later tonight as the moon appears slightly reddish-orange in colour. (AP Photo/Mark Baker) A man takes a photo as the moon rises in Sydney Wednesday, May 26, 2021. A total lunar eclipse, also known as a Super Blood Moon, will take place later tonight as the moon appears slightly reddish-orange in colour. (AP Photo/Mark Baker) The moon takes on a reddish tone as it is partially blocked by the earth as it sets over Lancaster, CA Wednesday, May 26, 2021. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) The earth’s shadow nearly covers the surface of the moon during the total lunar eclipse as viewed in the early morning hours on Wednesday, May 26, 2021, from North Tustin. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG) The earth’s shadow recedes from the surface of the moon following the total lunar eclipse as viewed in the early morning hours on Wednesday, May 26, 2021, from North Tustin. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG) The moon is partially blocked as it sets over Newport Beach, CA Wednesday, May 26, 2021. (Photo by Mark Evans, Orange County Register/SCNG) “It was not that vivid for those on ground,” said Ben Noll, a meteorologist with New Zealand scientific research agency NIWA. “Personally, I thought there would be a bit more red in the sky.” Still, Noll thought that overall, the evening was sensational. He heard plenty of people cheering and cars honking in downtown Auckland where he watched it all unfold. John Rowe, an educator at the Stardome Observatory & Planetarium in Auckland, said it was like the moon turned into a big, spooky smile looking down at him. That’s because of a bright rim that remained at the bottom. Rowe also enjoyed seeing surrounding stars appear to brighten as the light from the moon dimmed. The full eclipse lasted about 15 minutes, while the whole cosmic show lasted five hours. A partial eclipse began as the moon edged into the Earth’s outer shadow, called the penumbra, before moving more fully into the main shadow and then reversing the process. Rowe likes to imagine it as if he’s standing on the moon. The Earth would come across and block out the sun. The reddish light around the edges would be the sunsets and sunrises happening at that time on Earth, projected onto the moon’s surface. Pretty cool, he reckons. The color of the moon during the total eclipse can appear different depending on where people are in the world, and by factors like the amount of dust in the atmosphere and global weather. In much of New Zealand, the weather remained calm and clear on Wednesday, providing excellent viewing conditions. The same was true in Australia, although those in South Korea struck out because rain and cloudy weather across much of the country obscured the eclipse. There also was disappointment in Japan because of cloudy weather, with many posting messages like “I can’t see anything” on Twitter. Some places in the Pacific and East Asia got to see the show before midnight, while night owls in Hawaii and the western part of North America got to watch it in the early morning hours. Sky gazers along the U.S. East Coast were out of luck because the moon was setting and the sun rising. Europe, Africa and western Asia all missed out as well. In Anchorage, Alaska, Doug Henie didn’t know what to expect from his first lunar eclipse. He and his wife saw just a sliver of the moon as they drove to a prime viewing spot, on a hill off a winding road between Cook Inlet and the Anchorage airport. Once they arrived, he set up his camera as the eclipse neared totality just after 3 a.m. local time, when it looked more like dusk than night. That’s because Anchorage had more than 18 hours of sunlight on Wednesday. “It’s kind of cool,” Henie said. “I was kind of hoping to see a little more action, I guess, but now it’s lightened up. The light is certainly coming back.” In Hong Kong, Dickson Fu left work early to watch the eclipse from a seaside promenade in the Sai Kung neighborhood. Fu, who is president of Hong Kong’s Sky Observers’ Association, picked that particular spot because it would give him an unobstructed view. “In recent years I’m more interested in taking photos, and in the past few days I have already done rehearsals, testing out equipment such as the camera and lenses,” said Fu. For those living in places where the eclipse wasn’t visible, there were livestreams available. And everyone around the world got to see the bright moon, weather permitting. It was the first total lunar eclipse in more than two years. The moon was more than 220,000 miles (357,460 kilometers) away at its fullest. It was this proximity, combined with a full moon, that qualified it as a supermoon, making it appear slightly bigger and more brilliant in the sky.
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New wonders in nature
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4 Biggest Merger and Acquisition Disasters
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If a merger goes well, the value of the new company should appreciate as investors anticipate synergies to be actualized, creating cost savings, and/or increased revenues for the new entity. However, time and again, executives face major stumbling blocks after the deal is consummated. Cultural clashes and turf wars can prevent post-integration plans from being properly executed. Different systems and processes, dilution of a company's brand, overestimation of synergies, and a lack of understanding of the target firm's business can all occur, destroying shareholder value and decreasing the company's stock price after the transaction. This article presents a few examples of busted deals in recent history. In 1968, the New York Central and Pennsylvania railroads merged to form Penn Central, which became the sixth-largest corporation in America. But just two years later, the company shocked Wall Street by filing for bankruptcy protection, making it the largest corporate bankruptcy in American history at the time. The railroads, which were bitter industry rivals, both traced their roots back to the early- to mid-nineteenth century. Management pushed for a merger in a somewhat desperate attempt to adjust to disadvantageous trends in the industry. Railroads operating outside of the northeastern U.S. generally enjoyed stable business from long-distance shipments of commodities, but the densely populated Northeast, with its concentration of heavy industries and various waterway shipping points, had a more diverse revenue stream. Local railroads catered to daily commuters, long-distance passengers, express freight service, and bulk freight service. These offerings provided transportation at shorter distances and resulted in less-predictable, higher-risk cash flow for the Northeast-based railroads. Problems had been growing throughout the decade, as an increasing number of consumers and businesses began to favor, respectively, driving and trucking, using the newly constructed wide-lane highways. Short-distance transportation also involved more personnel hours (thus incurring higher labor costs), and strict government regulation restricted railroad companies' ability to adjust rates charged to shippers and passengers, making post-merger cost-cutting seemingly the only way to impact the bottom line positively. Of course, the resultant declines in service only exacerbated the loss of customers. Penn Central presents a classic case of cost-cutting as "the only way out" in a constrained industry, but this was not the only factor contributing to its demise. Other problems included poor foresight and long-term planning on behalf of both companies' management and boards, overly optimistic expectations for positive changes after the merger, culture clash, territorialism, and poor execution of plans to integrate the companies' differing processes and systems. Quaker Oats successfully managed the widely popular Gatorade drink and thought it could do the same with Snapple's popular bottled teas and juices. In 1994, despite warnings from Wall Street that the company was paying $1 billion too much, the company acquired Snapple for a purchase price of $1.7 billion. In addition to overpaying, management broke a fundamental law in mergers and acquisitions: Make sure you know how to run the company and bring specific value-added skill sets and expertise to the operation. In just 27 months, Quaker Oats sold Snapple to a holding company for a mere $300 million, or a loss of $1.6 million for each day that the company owned Snapple. By the time the divestiture took place, Snapple had revenues of approximately $500 million, down from $700 million at the time that the acquisition took place. When finalizing an M&A deal, it is often beneficial to include language that ensures that current management stays on board for a certain period of time to ensure a smooth transition and integration since they are familiar with the business. This can help an M&A deal be successful. Quaker Oats' management thought it could leverage its relationships with supermarkets and large retailers; however, about half of Snapple's sales came from smaller channels, such as convenience stores, gas stations, and related independent distributors. The acquiring management also fumbled on Snapple's advertising, and the differing cultures translated into a disastrous marketing campaign for Snapple that was championed by managers not attuned to its branding sensitivities. Snapple's previously popular advertisements became diluted with inappropriate marketing signals to customers. While these challenges befuddled Quaker Oats, gargantuan rivals Coca-Cola (KO) and PepsiCo (PEP) launched a barrage of new competing products that ate away at Snapple's positioning in the beverage market. Oddly, there is a positive aspect to this flopped deal (as in most flopped deals): The acquirer was able to offset its capital gains elsewhere with losses generated from the bad transaction. In this case, Quaker Oats was able to recoup $250 million in capital gains taxes it paid on prior deals, thanks to losses from the Snapple acquisition. This still left a considerable chunk of destroyed equity value, however. The consolidation of AOL Time Warner is perhaps the most prominent merger failure ever. Warner Communications merged with Time, Inc. in 1990. In 2001, America Online acquired Time Warner in a megamerger for $165 billion; the largest business combination up until that time. Respected executives at both companies sought to capitalize on the convergence of mass media and the Internet. Shortly after the mega-merger, however, the dot-com bubble burst, which caused a significant reduction in the value of the company's AOL division. In 2002, the company reported an astonishing loss of $99 billion, the largest annual net loss ever reported, attributable to the goodwill write-off of AOL. Around this time, the race to capture revenue from Internet search-based advertising was heating up. AOL missed out on these and other opportunities, such as the emergence of higher-bandwidth connections, due to financial constraints within the company. At the time, AOL was the leader in dial-up Internet access; thus, the company pursued Time Warner for its cable division as high-speed broadband connection became the wave of the future. However, as its dial-up subscribers dwindled, Time Warner stuck to its Road Runner Internet service provider rather than market AOL. With their consolidated channels and business units, the combined company also did not execute on converged content of mass media and the Internet. Additionally, AOL executives realized that their know-how in the Internet sector did not translate to capabilities in running a media conglomerate with 90,000 employees. And finally, the politicized and turf-protecting culture of Time Warner made realizing anticipated synergies that much more difficult. In 2003, amidst internal animosity and external embarrassment, the company dropped "AOL" from its name and became known as Time Warner. AOL was bought by Verizon in 2015 for $4.4 billion. In August 2005, Sprint acquired a majority stake in Nextel Communications in a $35 billion stock purchase. The two combined to become the third-largest telecommunications provider, behind AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ). Before the merger, Sprint catered to the traditional consumer market, providing long-distance and local phone connections, and wireless offerings. Nextel had a strong following from businesses, infrastructure employees, and the transportation and logistics markets, primarily due to the press-and-talk features of its phones. By gaining access to each other's customer bases, both companies hoped to grow by cross-selling their product and service offerings. Soon after the merger, multitudes of Nextel executives and mid-level managers left the company, citing cultural differences and incompatibility. Sprint was bureaucratic; Nextel was more entrepreneurial. Nextel was attuned to customer concerns; Sprint had a horrendous reputation in customer service, experiencing the highest churn rate in the industry. In such a commoditized business, the company did not deliver on this critical success factor and lost market share. Further, a macroeconomic downturn led customers to expect more from their dollars. If a merger or acquisition fails, it can be catastrophic, resulting in mass layoffs, a negative impact on a brand's reputation, a decrease in brand loyalty, lost revenue, increased costs, and sometimes the permanent closure of a business. Cultural concerns exacerbated integration problems between the various business functions. Nextel employees often had to seek approval from Sprint's higher-ups in implementing corrective actions, and the lack of trust and rapport meant many such measures were not approved or executed properly. Early in the merger, the two companies maintained separate headquarters, making coordination more difficult between executives at both camps. Sprint Nextel's managers and employees diverted attention and resources toward attempts at making the combination work at a time of operational and competitive challenges. Technological dynamics of the wireless and Internet connections required smooth integration between the two businesses and excellent execution amid fast change. Nextel was too big and too different for a successful combination with Sprint. Sprint saw stiff competitive pressures from AT&T (which acquired Cingular), Verizon (VZ), and Apple's (AAPL) wildly popular iPhone. With the decline of cash from operations and with high capital-expenditure requirements, the company undertook cost-cutting measures and laid off employees. In 2008, it wrote off an astonishing $30 billion in one-time charges due to impairment to goodwill, and its stock was given a junk status rating. With a $35 billion price tag, the merger did not pay off. When contemplating a deal, managers at both companies should list all the barriers to realizing enhanced shareholder value after the transaction is completed. These include: Managers at both entities need to communicate properly and champion the post-integration milestones step by step. They also need to be attuned to the target company's branding and customer base. The new company risks losing its customers if management is perceived as aloof and impervious to customer needs. Finally, executives of the acquiring company should avoid paying too much for the target company. Investment bankers (who work on commission) and internal deal champions, both having worked on a contemplated transaction for months, will often push for a deal "just to get things done." While their efforts should be recognized, it does not do justice to the acquiring group's investors if the deal ultimately does not make sense and/or management pays an excessive acquisition price beyond the expected benefits of the transaction.
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Organization Merge
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Latin Carga Convair CV-880 crash
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The Latin Carga Convair CV-880 crash happened on November 3, 1980 at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas, Venezuela. [1]
Latin Carga was a Venezuelan cargo airline. Most of the airline's aircraft were small turbo-props. However, it obtained two used Convair CV-880 airliners, including the one that crashed in this accident and had begun its commercial airline career flying for Delta Air Lines. [2]
A crew of four took off from Bolivar International Airport on November 3, 1980 on a training flight. Soon after take-off, the plane plummeted, causing the deaths of all 4 occupants. [2]
When it crashed, the aircraft was carrying the guitars of Peter Frampton including his black Les Paul custom which he named "Phenix" (pictured on the cover of Frampton Comes Alive). The guitar was recovered from the crash site by looters and passed through many hands over the years. The guitar was eventually returned to him in December 2011.
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Air crash
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Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 crash
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Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 was a Fairchild F27A Friendship airliner that crashed on May 7, 1964, near Danville, California, a suburb east of Oakland. [1][2] The Thursday morning crash was most likely the first instance in the United States of an airliner's pilots being shot by a passenger as part of a mass murder–suicide. Francisco Paula Gonzales, 27, shot both pilots before turning the gun on himself, causing the plane to crash, killing all 44 aboard. [3][4][5] As of May 2021[update], the crash of Flight 773 remains the worst incident of mass murder in modern California history. Francisco Gonzales, a warehouse worker living in San Francisco, had been "disturbed and depressed" over marital and financial difficulties in the months preceding the crash. Gonzales was deeply in debt and nearly half of his income was committed to loan repayment, and he had informed both relatives and friends that he "would die on either Wednesday, the 6th of May, or Thursday, the 7th of May." In the week preceding the crash, Gonzales referred to his impending death on a daily basis, and purchased a Smith & Wesson Model 27 .357 Magnum revolver through a friend of a friend, with serial number S201645. The evening before the crash, before boarding a flight to Reno, Nevada, Gonzales had shown the gun to numerous friends at the airport and told one person that he intended to shoot himself. Gonzales gambled in Reno the night before the fatal flight and told a casino employee that he did not care how much he lost because "it won't make any difference after tomorrow. "[3]
The plane, a twin-engined turboprop Fairchild F-27, registration N2770R, was a U.S.-built version of the Fokker F-27 Friendship airliner. It was manufactured in 1959, and had accumulated about 10,250 flight hours up to its final flight, with Pacific Air Lines as the sole owner and operator. [3]
The F-27 took off from Reno at 5:54 am PDT, with 33 passengers aboard, including Gonzales, and a crew of three, bound for San Francisco International Airport, with a scheduled stop in Stockton, California. The crew consisted of Captain Ernest Clark, 52, pilot in command, First Officer Ray Andress, 31, copilot, and flight attendant Margaret Schafer, 30. [3]
The plane arrived at Stockton, where two passengers deplaned and 10 boarded, bringing the plane's total to 41 passengers. Both deplaning passengers reported that Gonzalez was seated directly behind the cockpit. About 6:38 am, Flight 773 lifted off and headed towards San Francisco International. [3]
At 6:48:15, with the aircraft about 10 minutes out of Stockton, the Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) received a high-pitched, garbled radio message from Flight 773, and the aircraft soon disappeared from the center's radar displays. With Flight 773 minutes from landing, Gonzales, seated directly behind the cockpit, burst into the cockpit and shot both pilots twice. Gonzales's first bullet hit a tiny section of the frame tubing from Captain Clark's seat. His second bullet killed Clark instantly. He then shot First Officer Andress, critically wounding him. Flying at its assigned altitude of 5,000 feet (1,500 m), Flight 773 went into a steep dive of 2,100 feet (640 m) per minute at an airspeed of nearly 400 mph (350 kn; 640 km/h). The wounded Andress made a last frantic transmission as he tried to pull the plane out of the dive. The flight data recorder showed a sharp climb back to 3,200 feet (980 m). Gonzales most likely shot him again, fatally, before shooting himself, causing the plane to go into a final dive. [3]
After attempting unsuccessfully to contact Flight 773, Oakland ARTCC asked another aircraft in the immediate vicinity, United Air Lines Flight 593, if they had the plane in sight. Flight 593's flight crew responded that they did not see Flight 773, but a minute later they reported: "There's a black, uh, cloud of smoke coming up through the undercast at, uh, three-thirty, four o'clock position right now. Looks like (an) oil or gasoline fire." Oakland ARTCC realized that the smoke spotted by the United air crew was likely caused by the crash of Pacific Air Lines Flight 773. [3]
Flight 773 crashed into a rural hillside in southern Contra Costa County, roughly 5 miles east of what is now the city of San Ramon. The plane erupted in flames on impact, and dug a crater into the ground. Flight 773's last radio message, from First Officer Andress, was deciphered through laboratory analysis: "I've been shot! We've been shot! Oh, my God, help! "[6]
The official accident report stated that witnesses along the flight path and near the impact area described "extreme and abrupt changes in altitude of Flight 773 with erratic powerplant sounds" before the plane hit a sloping hillside at a relative angle of 90°. [3]
Investigators from the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB, a forerunner organization to today's National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB]) found in the mangled wreckage a damaged Smith & Wesson Model 27 .357 Magnum revolver,[7][8] holding six spent cartridges. [3] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) soon joined the CAB in a search for evidence so that the apparent criminal aspects of this case could be pursued. Investigators found that when Gonzales left San Francisco for Reno the day before the fatal flight, he was carrying the .357, and that he had purchased $105,000 worth of life insurance at the San Francisco airport, payable to his wife. [9] The probable cause stated in the CAB accident report was "the shooting of the captain and first officer by a passenger during flight", and the FBI determined that the suicidal Gonzales was the shooter. [3]
Civil air regulation amendments became effective on August 6, 1964, that required that doors separating the passenger cabin from the crew compartment on all scheduled air carrier and commercial aircraft must be kept locked in flight. [10] An exception to the rule remains during takeoff and landing on certain aircraft, such as the Fairchild F-27, where the cockpit door leads to an emergency passenger exit. The amendments were passed by the Federal Aviation Administration prior to the crash of Flight 773, but had not yet become effective.
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Air crash
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The new age of American power
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Despite forecasts of decline following the Afghanistan withdrawal, the US military is planning another century of global domination. By Adam Tooze In August 2021, the dismaying scenes at Kabul airport stirred a number of gloomy pronouncements about the decline of American power. The anguished tone of these reactions reflects not just the horror on the ground, but a sense of personal betrayal felt by the pundit class. For anyone with a historical imagination, the dishonourable retreat is the latest act in the grand drama of Western decline. The wreck in Central Asia set against China’s rising GDP makes for a bitter mix. China will supplant the US as the world’s ascendant power. The One Belt One Road initiative that already stretches from Shanghai to Karachi will subsume Afghanistan as well. We are headed for a post-American age. Compelling though this declinist verdict may be, it is misleading. In two key ways, American power continues to define the world order. [See also: Adam Tooze joins the New Statesman as a contributing writer] The first is through finance. With respect to global money – not to be confused with trade or economic growth – the dollar still rules. Much of the world’s payments, credit and finance continues to rely on the US currency. Since 2001, Afghanistan’s backwater economy has been sucked into that system. The Taliban may have rejoiced at the conquest of Kabul, but when it tried to lay its hands on Afghanistan’s national exchange reserves, most of which are held by the New York Fed, the group discovered that it still resides in the US’s world – or at least Afghanistan’s money does. The second dimension of American power is military. US planners have bungled the exit from Kabul, but that should not distract from the world-historic weight of US military might. The US has defined the global order since the 1940s, when it first emerged as a military hyper-power with a vast navy and an unparalleled nuclear-armed air force. It continues to do so. The withdrawal from Afghanistan does not surrender that pre-eminence. Instead, it is part of a broader realignment that began under Barack Obama. The place to decipher its logic and direction is not Kabul airport or in the sound and fury of the op-ed pages, but in the budgets of the Pentagon and the strategies that direct them. Far from conceding a post-American world, the US military leadership is girding itself to meet new challenges. It is not oblivious to China’s economic growth but their intention is to break the link between GDP and military power by denying China strategic technologies and by sharpening America’s own technological edge. The withdrawal from Afghanistan has stung the egos of the US elite. But Afghanistan had long ceased to be a decisive battlefield. The exit from Afghanistan is significant not because it tells us much about the global balance of power, but because of what it tells us about who is in charge in Washington, DC. In justifying his decision Joe Biden has insisted that American soldiers were never “supposed” to be in Afghanistan for nation-building. He is half-right as far as the original intervention in 2001 is concerned. Twenty years ago, George W Bush’s aim was to break al-Qaeda and displace the Taliban regime that had harboured it. “We are not fielding a nation-building military,” he told a private meeting of House Republicans. But Washington wasn’t naive. It was clear at the time that after more than 20 years of conflict, Afghanistan needed reconstruction. The idea was that the US would provide a small amount of development funding, along with its allies. For the likes of the vice-president Dick Cheney it was an article of faith that big business and the market economy, which the US inscribed into the Afghan constitution in 2004, would do the rest. All those assumptions proved false and from 2006, the US embarked on a programme of nation-building. Between 2009 and 2014, under the Obama administration, counter-insurgency, economic development and a geo-economic vision for Central Asia came together in an ambitious effort at transformation and regional stabilisation. Between 2010 and 2014, Congress appropriated more than $500bn specifically for war-fighting and development in Afghanistan. The surge: Brigadier General Larry Nicholson speaks to US marines in Helmand province, Afghanistan, before a major offensive against the Taliban, February 2010. Credit: Tyler Hicks/New York Times/Redux/Eyevine The reason the US and its allies are now leaving, and the reason Biden wants to distance himself from the idea of nation-building, is that this project failed. That has to do with many factors, such as corruption and misdirected spending, but also the unwillingness of the Obama administration to commit to the long-term future of Afghanistan. The Taliban knew that all it had to do was to wait out the surge. In 2014, as responsibility for security was handed from the US and Nato forces to the Afghan national army, the Taliban intensified its assault on Afghan security forces. Meanwhile, the profiteers around the regime in Kabul, such as the Karzai clan, knew that there was no point in investing in the long term. There was no long term. Since the withdrawal, there has been a lot of talk of the US’s lost credibility. But what credibility did it have to lose? Credibility is not about saying you are committed. It is not even about sending troops. It is about your antagonist believing that your public pronouncements are aligned with your interests, so that you will stick with them even when the going gets rough. The problem for the US in Afghanistan was that its reluctance to stay for the truly long haul was obvious. Even as Obama’s vice-president, Biden was consistent in opposing deeper engagement. Recent polling seems to vindicate him. In a deeply divided society, 70 per cent of Americans approve of leaving Afghanistan in time for the 20th anniversary of 9/11. It is tempting to blame this on geography. Afghanistan is a faraway place. But geography isn’t the only problem. Though Americans’ knowledge of the world is patchy, that doesn’t stop them being concerned about distant lands. Consider the Soviet Union in the Cold War, or Israel, or the preoccupation with China. What accounts for Afghanistan exhaustion is not geography, but time and the mounting sense of futility. Optimism gave way to cynicism. Interests shifted. The clock ran out. [see also: The graveyard of empires: Why American power failed in Afghanistan] Regardless of what intervention was “supposed” to do, the revenge exacted by Washington for 9/11 transformed Afghan society. The median age in Afghanistan is 18.4 years. The majority of Afghans alive today have no memory of their country before the 2001 intervention. Millions of life courses were redirected, many in a hopeful direction. The US has disappointed that hope. The partially modernised society that Western intervention created – the emancipated women, the hundreds of thousands who attended college, the green shoots of a public realm – now face two existential threats. The first comes from the Taliban. The second comes from the West itself. Such as it is, modern life in Afghanistan depends on a steady inflow of imports and foreign aid. The measure of that dependence is a trade deficit of 25 per cent of GDP. Tens of thousands of Afghans worked directly for the Western presence as translators, fixers and other staff. The Taliban may suppress public life – but financial sanctions are what will remove its material basis. The signs are alarming. The US Treasury has already announced that Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves are blocked. The allocation of Afghanistan’s special drawing rights by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – the synthetic currency with which the IMF can create credit for its members – will also depend on Washington’s say-so. Among Afghanistan’s main imports are petrol, flour, sugar, machinery and electrical goods – the basic ingredients of a modern economy. Afghanistan trades little with the West directly. But its trading partners, whether in Russia or Pakistan, will want to be paid. Without external funding the exchange rate will collapse and prices will spike. The economy will flat-line and the most vulnerable will face a food crisis. Before Ashraf Ghani’s regime fell, the World Food Programme estimated that 14 million out of Afghanistan’s population of 39 million faced food insecurity and half its children under five were malnourished. Drought stalks much of the countryside. The cold weather is coming and the healthcare system is one of the sectors most directly dependent on foreign funding. The country faces a humanitarian disaster in the making. The Taliban does have potential sources of help, above all from Pakistan’s military and intelligence services. But Pakistan is itself under severe financial pressure. China may provide financial aid to both Afghanistan and Pakistan. If both end up in Beijing’s orbit, it will be the US’s doing. Only when we see how this multi-sided financial relationship plays out will we have a sense of what US withdrawal actually means for Afghan society. An economic blockade on top of Taliban repression would crush the urban life that has developed over the past 20 years. On the other hand, ongoing aid would be a way of continuing US engagement. After the intervention in 2001, with Afghanistan’s currency system in chaos, US experts and the IMF favoured dollarising the country. The plan was rejected by patriotic Afghans as one humiliation too many. In recent months Afghanistan’s currency – the Afghani – has been sliding. It would be awkward for both sides, but dollars funnelled into Afghanistan under its new rulers would provide a lifeline to a society on the brink of collapse. There should be no pretending that the US’s military evacuation relieves it of the responsibility to continue essential support. Financial aid for reconstruction was generally the smallest part of Western spending in Afghanistan. Of the $500bn Obama surge, $29.9bn was civilian aid and $32.8bn was spending on the Afghan military. The majority went on the US’s own military spending, which cycled straight back to the West in the form of salaries, procurement and service contracts. During their most intense phase between 2007 and 2013, US operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq involved hundreds of thousands of troops, consuming in excess of $150bn per annum. In terms of brainpower and attention, these campaigns dominated the military agenda. The US military is a giant professional organisation run by senior officers with postgraduate degrees from some of the top universities in the world. At times, the US army can seem like a management consultancy in jackboots. Like any such organisation it is hierarchical and shot through with power. The battle for resources between branches is intense. But, as in any such organisation, culture matters. What animates the bureaucratic alliances that run the military are buzz-words and ideas. Between 2006 and the early 2010s, the slogan of the moment was Coin – counter-insurgency operations designed to repress resistance to the American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan by political, social, economic and military means. It was the Coin era that catapulted figures such as David Petraeus, Stanley McChrystal, James Mattis, Michael Flynn and HR McMaster to national attention as a new breed of warrior, tough but also sophisticated and systemic in their thinking. Where there is an orthodoxy there are also heretics, especially when blood and treasure are at stake. In the contentious military intellectual scene, the monolithic focus on Coin was always controversial, not just with regard to the success of nation-building but the broader strategic rationale. Was the US military losing its way? Was it facing the right enemy? Already in the 1990s, think tanks linked to the Pentagon had run war games anticipating a 21st-century confrontation with China. Against that backdrop, the war on terror could seem like a distraction. As the US wasted its resources hunting Bin Laden and non-existent weapons of mass destruction, China powered ahead. In 2011, the then secretary of state Hillary Clinton announced the US’s pivot to Asia. For the self-appointed avant-garde in the US military, it was a signal.
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Financial Aid
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Columbia | SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy
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The US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is now complete. Though the sanctions recently reimposed largely date from the Obama administration, the Iran policy of the United States now belongs only to Donald Trump.
Indeed, though some in his orbit may argue that the United States is laboring still under the problems created by the JCPOA, the confidence of the Trump administration in withdrawing from the agreement was based in no small part on the assertion that US partners would come along with the United States regardless of their own views or interests. Likewise, the United States bet that Iran probably would not retaliate immediately by restarting its nuclear program and that, if it did, the United States would come out of the resulting crisis much the better for matters. These two positions will be tested on the world stage in the coming months.
How Iran, US allies, and US competitors react to the stresses brought about by Trump’s decision will have far-reaching impacts for geopolitics, global energy markets and security, and financial markets. This brief outlines five guideposts to watch out for over the next year as the situation between Washington and Tehran inevitably heats up.
For some, the reimposition of US sanctions is the last word in an argument about foreign compliance and cooperation: now that the measures are in place, corporate compliance officers will do much of the work by forbidding transactions with Iran that even come close to the line, much less cross it. By virtue of the power of the US economy, banks and companies will forego business with Iran. Those few who resist will either be sufficiently marginal so as to make little difference or quickly put back in line by tough US enforcement.
The reality is a bit more complex. To be sure, this story is true for global banks and companies. Those institutions have been sufficiently scared by the imposition of large fines against banks that violated US sanctions in the past that they are unlikely to challenge the United States. The risk/reward calculations inherent in the limited amount of business possible with Iran—even after the JCPOA was agreed upon—were insufficient to prompt major investment before Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement. The retreat of those that had considered or consummated investments in Iran has been clear and unambiguous; they will not be returning to Iran any time soon.
But this is only part of the picture. Two other issues will complicate US enforcement.
First, the fact that Europe has decided not to cooperate with the United States in restarting pre-JCPOA sanctions will make the US enforcement effort that will now be required far more complex. Prior to the JCPOA, the United States and Europe were on the same side of the debate. Though some European—and, indeed, even US—companies were prepared to flout sanctions in order to make a buck in Iran, the United States and Europe were largely able to work together to police this behavior. The few designations that the United States made against European entities were limited largely to front companies or were made with the direct participation and support of European governments. For this reason, the imposition of sanctions was largely a conflict-free affair with Europe. A few cases did bubble to the surface in the 2010–2015 time frame—most especially the BNP Paribas sanctions. Generally, however, the facts were agreed upon and commonly understood even if the punishments were sometimes controversial.
Now, the United States and Europe have no such luxury. In fact, the European Union is directly courting potential sanctions evaders through the construction of a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) that may facilitate transactions that the United States would consider to be sanctionable. It remains to be seen whether this will in fact be the case or if the SPV will instead simply manage legitimate humanitarian transactions that otherwise find securing banking services hard. But even the possibility highlights a significant point: Europe will not help the United States police its nationals in their business with Iran. For those in Europe who find Iran an attractive place to do business and can identify ways to obtain essential services like banking and shipping, the United States will be left with few tools to stop them.
Second, the United States will have to add Europe to a list of other complex enforcement cases, like those of Dubai, Singapore, and Hong Kong. It will further stretch US enforcement officials, in particular, and will increase demands on US intelligence gathering and on the lawyers and experts who assemble the sanctions packages that make designations of individuals and entities a reality. For every entity or individual that gets through the net, the United States will face the domestic pressure of whether it is doing enough and the international risk that those on the outside of US law will see others making money and be willing to take their chances. (And, of course, the entire escapade will only add to dynamics that make sanctions overuse a real threat to the United States, as the author wrote about in a recent article with former Treasury secretary Jack Lew.) The United States may find in the years to come that its target list is growing notwithstanding its efforts and that its ability to respond quickly to new problems popping up will be impinged.
Taken in combination with other global dynamics—not least the possibility of a major clash with Saudi Arabia over the apparent murder of Jamal Khashoggi—oil prices over the short to medium term could hold near recent levels that are higher than those seen over the past three years.
Oil prices impact enforcement because high oil prices would help Iran weather the storm directly (as more expensive oil means that selling fewer barrels only hurts in terms of opportunity cost rather than as an absolute matter) and increase the odds of sanctions evasion.
As noted in July, Iran’s sales of approximately 2.4 million barrels per day (bpd) earlier in 2018 were netting approximately $65 billion in revenue at $70 to $75 per barrel of oil. At $100 per barrel of oil, Iranian sales of only 1.5 million bpd would be worth a sizeable fraction of this amount, at approximately $55 billion annually; of course, the benefits to Iran would accrue in a scalable fashion with every dollar in increased oil prices. Iran would surely prefer one to the other, but—having apparently set national budget figures on $57 per barrel of oil—Iran can make do regardless.
Obviously, if the Trump administration were more successful in securing reductions, then the pressure on Iran would be that much greater. Cuts from Iran’s exports by as much as 1.6 million bpd have been discussed by some observers, and the decision of European, South Korean, and Japanese importers to go to zero in November was a direct result of aggressive US pressure in the second quarter of 2018. It is more than what the author assessed would be likely in February 2018, at least within the first year of sanctions reimposition. But it is questionable whether further deep cuts will be possible. As a matter of government policy, China and India have refused to consider going to zero, and their purchases may add up to as much as 1 million bpd—in other words, the same amount as the Obama administration achieved in 2012–2013. Turkey is also on the bubble of cooperation and compliance with US sanctions, having its own serious issues with the United States notwithstanding the release of Pastor Brunson in early October. If 1 million bpd in exports does become an Iranian floor, then it is hard to see Iran making deeper concessions on its nuclear program or much else—as will be discussed further below—but the effect will still be to increase market nervousness and threaten supply stability, especially since the Saudis have been increasingly open about how they and OPEC cannot close the supply gaps created by cuts to Iranian exports, the situation in Venezuela, and so forth.
Of course, higher prices will also motivate some to take advantage of the offer of deep discounts that Iran is uncharacteristically advertising in a public way. Should 30–40 percent discounts be offered by Iran, then they may find a way to bring some of their otherwise locked-in production and exports back to the market. This would come along with the possibility of creating downward pressure on oil prices—as supply itself would be increased, reducing at least some of the tension—but depending on how much evasion Iran would be utilizing in its exports, the effects on price could be muted. In the 2012–2013 experience, Iran utilized ship-to-ship transfers and may have exported oil off of anyone’s books. A similar approach today could result in oil getting to market but without necessarily creating the sense of stability that would allow prices to fall significantly.
All of this might be manageable for an Iran with deep pockets and a sustainable form of government. But for many US sanctions advocates, neither condition persists at this time in Iran. Iran is racked with protests and demonstrations due in some part to its poor economy. President Rouhani, having based his future on a sustainable international agreement for sanctions relief that would permit domestic reform, is now being criticized from all sides, not least a somewhat jubilant hard-line segment of the government that always decried the possibility of negotiations. That this segment includes Supreme Leader Khamenei himself only adds to the tremors presently gripping the Iranian government. Indeed, every bad news story in Iran should be expected to give rise in 2019 to rumors that a revolution in the country is imminent.
But as others—especially Suzanne Maloney, who literally wrote the book on postrevolution Iranian political economy—have discussed, this is not the first time that Iran has faced such challenges. Iranian economic leaders often note that Iran has suffered dozens of various economic crises since the revolution, and yet—still—they remain in charge. Some observers, such as Karim Sadjadpour, have argued that this is because the Iranian government retains a readiness to inflict violence on its population that the population is unwilling to absorb. But regardless of the source, Iranian political stability has been stronger than most regime opponents have hoped. This may not persist, particularly if the economy hits new lows or if an unexpected political event, such as Khamenei’s death, were to occur. However, safe betting remains that Iran will be able to muddle along, counting on international turmoil, the fact that oil remains a desired international commodity, and basic economic self-interest to keep some amount of international business activity flowing.
It is also worth noting that, even should Iran’s government fall, the idea that it would immediately transition to a stable, peaceful, liberal democracy is absurd, not least because the people most in a position to take control after such a crisis would be those in the security services, the most hard-line segment of Iran’s government.
Though the likelihood of Iranian political stability may please some inside of the Iranian government or international community (particularly those concerned that the chaos of Syria or Afghanistan could spread to a country of 80 million people), it would likely present the Trump administration with a very serious challenge and threat. Contacts in the Trump administration have indicated that they anticipate regime collapse or, at the very least, regime rattling by early 2019. Even if they are talking up this possibility, the idea that imminent regime change is a possibility pervades the US policy approach. Secretary Pompeo’s criticism of John Kerry’s alleged interactions with Europeans and Iranians (e.g., arguing that Iran should not take steps that provoke the United States, such as nuclear restart) is indicative of a policy interest in the situation coming to a boil as quickly as possible. Why else would the Trump administration condemn a policy framework in which the United States would get to impose massive penalties on Iran while still retaining a core national security benefit in Iran’s nuclear restraint? Politics perhaps explain some of this. Far more compelling, however, is the possibility that Iran is hoping that a future US administration will be more prepared to negotiate with Iran in a serious fashion and is taking whatever steps it can now to avoid making major concessions or escalating the situation.
A similar argument can be made from the administration’s effort to seek zero Iranian exports by November 4 and its refusal to use the formal JCPOA withdrawal process to reimpose UNSC sanctions on Iran in May. Taken in combination, they present a picture of an administration that is convinced that Iran is one or two quick shoves away from collapse.
If this line of reasoning is correct, then the possibility that Iran may soldier on in defiance of US efforts is potentially fatal for Trump’s Iran policy. Sanctions fatigue, frustration over high oil prices, and the ever-increasing turbulence in global political affairs will ensure that other problems come to the fore in 2019. Even if this is not the case, the Trump administration has other fish to fry. It may seek to bring matters to a head with Iran in 2019 regardless but especially if it senses that its opportunity is slipping away; indeed, an analogy to Venezuela may be apt here, as only months ago, it looked certain that the Maduro government would fall on its own only to remain fully in charge today. Syria could prove to be another example, as those who thought Assad’s regime would collapse on its own now face the prospect of negotiations over the future of Syria with Assad himself.
All of this could add up to a strong incentive on the part of the Trump administration to escalate matters with Iran in 2019. Iran will doubtless take steps that make it easier for the administration to do so, as the alleged plan for terrorist attacks in Europe over the summer makes clear. Iranian adventures in Syria and support for Yemeni Houthis launching rockets at UAE and Saudi Arabia will also buttress US claims that Iranian recklessness merits reprisal.
But it is hard to ignore that a US-driven escalation is also possible, particularly if leaders in Washington and in other US partner capitals (such as Jerusalem) come to the conclusion that their golden opportunity to make a real change in Iranian affairs may pass by. The result may be an increased willingness to contemplate more aggressive actions, such as military raids against Iranian nuclear or missile facilities, as well as to push back on Iranian activities in and around the Persian Gulf. Here, the possibility that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis may be replaced will be critical, especially if a more aggressive replacement were to be named.
Another possibility, of course, is that escalating tensions and flailing sanctions lead Trump himself to seek an alternative course of action: direct talks. Trump’s initiative with North Korea was prompted probably by his own expectation that direct negotiations with Kim Jung Un would result in a good deal. Trump has spoken publicly about his willingness to meet Rouhani, and allegedly, US officials have sought such a meeting on the margins of the UN General Assembly. Senior officials such as John Bolton have made little attempt to hide their reluctance to engage in real talks with the Iranians and concern about what the North Korean process has wrought. Trump’s potentially open-minded approach to Iran may also convince these officials that they have to avoid an easily frustrated and temperamental president from seeking the political boost of another nuclear threat engaged.
This takes us to the last but perhaps most important element for forecasting 2019: what Iran will do with its nuclear program. As predicted, Iran did not respond to US withdrawal by immediately restarting its nuclear program. Instead, Iran played for international support and time, which it has gained in spades. Multiple International Atomic Energy Agency reports indicating that Iran is in full compliance with its JCPOA obligations have only contributed to the real sense internationally that Iran is behaving while the United States is not.
But Iran’s temperate approach thus far should not obscure the very real chance that Iran will move to restart major aspects of its nuclear program in 2019. Iran’s leaders have made clear that, unless they get the full benefit of the JCPOA, they will have no choice, even though there are few intrinsic benefits of a restart in uranium centrifuge R&D, for example, at this point. Still, Iran will feel political pressure to do so. This will increase as economic costs mount in 2019, even if they are insufficient to threaten regime cohesion in any serious way.
Rather than abruptly withdraw from the JCPOA, Iran would probably test further the bounds of its JCPOA restraints, possibly by increasing its stocks of heavy water or enriched uranium, or even by restarting uranium centrifuge production in a serious way. Less than a full-fledged breakout may be judged by Iran to be a more moderate course of action, creating pressure on Europe and others to take what they can get from some Iranian restraint. A “JCPOA minus” approach is far from ideal but, depending on its contents, may be desirable in contrast to an Iranian drive to restore its nuclear weapons breakout timeline to 1-2 months. In some ways, such an approach might be the equivalent of stepping back to the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), the predecessor of the JCPOA that managed to serve as a decent basis for managing the Iranian nuclear program for nearly two years. If doing so can create outlet for Iranian nuclear restart and renewed pressure against Iran in order to buy time and space for renewed negotiations – either by the Trump Administration or its successor after 2020 – then this might be a reasonable and attractive alternative to a renewed crisis.
That said, if Iran chooses to restart its nuclear program in full or in part, then this will create real pressure on Europe and other partners to get in line with US sanctions, particularly since it would also create a reason for the Trump administration to consider limited military strikes on key facilities. If Iran refuses to retaliate through nuclear expansion, then further infighting in Iran’s political leadership should be anticipated that would create pressure for other means of Iranian acting out. Given Iran’s traditional method of doing so is to find ways of creating problems in the region, nuclear abstinence may give way to more regional provocations.
For this reason, even if the situation with Iran looks stable—albeit dangerous—by the end of 2018, there is every reason to expect that 2019 will be far more turbulent.
***
The views represented in this commentary represent those of the author and not the Center on Global Energy Policy or Columbia University.
This work was made possible by support from the Center on Global Energy Policy. More information is available athttp://energypolicy.columbia.edu/about/mission.
Richard Nephew is the author of The Art of Sanctions and an expert on the use of sanctions for deterrence and impact. He is currently serving in the Biden-Harris administration.
Jason Bordoff, Antoine Halff, and Richard Nephew offer insights on the attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil production and their potential impacts on energy markets, geopolitics, and energy security.
In his latest opinion column in Foreign Policy, Jason Bordoff examines the massive attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, arguing that “the attack on Abqaiq, the world’s most critical oil facility, is a stark reminder that the United States is not energy independent, nor can it go it alone when it comes to diplomacy in the world’s most critical oil-producing region."
CGEP Senior Research Scholar Richard Nephew analyzes the conflict brewing in the Persian Gulf and offers four observations and expectations for the coming week.
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Tear Up Agreement
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2007 Bihar flood
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The 2007 Bihar flood, which started in August 2007, was described by the United Nations as the worst flood in the "living memory" of Bihar. [1] It is believed to be the worst flood in Bihar in the last 30 years. By 3 August, the estimated death toll was 41 people, and 48 schoolgirls were marooned in a school in the Darbhanga district. [2] By 8 August, the flooding had affected an estimated 10 million people in Bihar. [3] Army helicopters delivered food packets to Bihar residents and 180 relief camps were established. By 10 August, aid workers in Bihar reported that there was a dramatic increase of people with diarrhoea[4] and by 11 August, flood deaths were still occurring. [5] Total deaths recorded in 2007 Bihar floods was 1,287, which was second highest death toll in state after 1,399 deaths in 1987 Bihar floods. [6]
The states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were the most affected due to their high population density. Nearly two million people, spread over eleven districts in Bihar, grimly endured the floods. Many major rivers, including the Ganges, Punpun, Bagmati, Gandak and Kosi, were flowing above danger mark. Flooding had submerged more than 40 percent of Bihar. Rainfall in July was five times higher than the monthly average over a 30-year period. The area around the town of Darbhanga was one of the worst affected areas in the state. Roads leading to the remainder of the state were impassible by the flood. Many people had to seek shelter on higher ground and many people were marooned. Some people lamented that help from the state authorities was not forthcoming. [7]
The flood affected 19 districts of the state. Some of the worst affected districts are Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Saharsa, East Champaran, Supaul, Darbhanga, Patna, Bhagalpur, West Champaran, Katihar, Madhubani, Samastipur, Sheohar, Nalanda, Khagaria, Gopalganj, Madhepura, Araria and Begusarai. [8]
More than 4822 villages and 10,000,000 hectares of farm land were affected. About 29,000 houses were destroyed and 44,000 houses were damaged by the floods. Thousands of people were shifted to places of safety, including relief camps. [8]
The United Nations described the flood, the worst to occur in the living memory of Bihar. The general recommendations suggest that a flood victim would be entitled to, a compensation of Rs. One lakh to the next of kin for every deceased person subject to certification by a competent authority. Compensation packages for fully damaged pucca house- Rs 25,000/-, Fully damaged kachcha house – Rs. 10,000/-, Severely damaged pucca house Rs 5,000/-, Severely damaged Kachcha house – Rs 2,500/-, Partially damaged pucca and kachcha house – Rs 1,500/-, Hut- Rs 2,000/- Compensation of Rs 35,000/- to any person injuring his eyes / limbs with damage between 40 and 75 per cent. Beyond that the compensation would be Rs 50,000/- compensation for grievous injury with hospitalization up to one week – Rs. 2,500/-. For hospitalization of more than a week, the compensation would be Rs. 7,500/- lost clothing and utensils Rs 1,000/- per family. Immediate sustenance – Rs. 20/- per adult per day and Rs. 15/ per child per day for 15 days. This can be extended to 30 days in case of extreme situation. Rs 2/- per day per infant for additional nutrition as per ICDS norms for a maximum period of 30 days. De-silting of agricultural land with minimum sand casting depth of 3 inches – Rs. 6,000/- per hectare for small and marginal farmers. Renovation of Fish Farm – Rs 6,000/- land lost due to changing course of rivers Rs. 15,000/- per hectare subject to establishing the ownership. An agricultural input subsidy of Rs. 2,000/- for small and marginal farmers in rain fed areas and Rs. 4,000/- per hectare in assured irrigation areas. Rs. 6,000/- agriculture input subsidy for perennial crop. These benefits are also available to other farmers with a ceiling of one hectare. Subsidy for cattle lost as under (a) Milch Cattle like buffalo, cow and camel – Rs 10,000/-, (b) Draught Animal like Camel, horse or bullock – Rs 10,000/-, (c) Calf/ Donkey and Pony – Rs. 5,000/- and (d) Sheep / Goats Rs. 1,000/-, Birds – Rs 30/ per bird. Fishermen losing their traditional craft, Partly – Rs 2,500/- +net; Fully Rs 7,500/- +Net. Besides, there are various other provisions that a flood victim is entitled.
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Floods
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Bank robbery foiled when teller can’t read stickup note
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Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. A British man allegedly botched a bank robbery because of a handwritten stickup note that was so sloppy the teller couldn’t read it. That would-be robbery was part of a short-lived spree in East Sussex by 67-year-old Alan Slattery that included a second failed stickup and one successful theft of $3,300, Sussex Police said in a news release Wednesday. Slattery was sentenced to four years behind bars and two years under supervision in Lewes Crown Court on July 16, police said.Alan Slattery, and the alleged note. (Sussex Police) The retiree tried to rob the Nationwide Building Society on the morning of March 18 by slipping a note to the teller – but he hightailed it out of there with no cash when the teller couldn’t make out the writing, the release said. Only after he was gone did staff make out that the note said "your screen won’t stop what I’ve got just hand over the 10s and 20s think about the customer’s (sic)." The goofy crime was reminiscent of a scene from the 1969 comedy film "Take the Money and Run," which shows a bank robbery that goes wrong when the would-be robber argues with tellers, a vice president and others about whether his stickup note says "gun" or "gub." But Slattery kept at it after his first stickup went south, and on March 26 he slipped a note to a teller at Nationwide Building Society who was able to read it – and turned over about $3,300 cash, police stated. Surveillance footage showed Slattery boarding a bus afterward, and he was identified through the bus company by the photo on his pass, according to police. NEW YORK ACCUSED BANK ROBBER HITS TWO MORE FOLLOWING NO-BAIL RELEASE Slattery struck out one last time before police charged him, though – this time at a NatWest bank on April 1, the release said. He once again used a note, but this time the teller pushed back and scared off Slattery who left the bank without taking anything, according to police. Police arrested Slattery walking near his home later for robbery and attempted robbery, police stated. In his house, they found "sticky labels" that matched one of his stickup notes, the statement said. "These incidents caused fear and distress to both the employees working in the banks and to the wider public," Detective Constable Jay Fair said in a statement. "I’d like to thank all the victims and witnesses who supported our investigation, and I’m pleased to see the severity of the offenses reflected in the sentence handed out by the court." Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox
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Bank Robbery
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1954 National Service riots
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In December 1953, the British colonial government in Singapore passed the National Service Ordinance, requiring all male British subjects and Federal citizens between the ages of 18-20 to register for part-time National Service. The deadline for registration was on the 12th May 1954 and those who fail to register would either be jailed or fined. On the 12th May 1954, students from the Chinese Middle Schools still did not register themselves for National Service. In light of the impending deadline for registration and with
requests from the Chinese students, Chief Secretary William Goode would later meet representatives from the affected student body in the government house on 13 May 1954.
On 13 May 1954, students gathered to present their petition to Chief Secretary William Goode. However, the peaceful demonstration turned into a clash between the police and students. More than 2 dozen people were injured and 48 students were arrested. The demonstration of 13 May 1954 was followed by further demonstrations and proved a key moment in galvanizing popular opposition to colonial rule. Following the end of the Japanese Occupation in 1945, the British sought to regain political control over Singapore, what was a vital strategic centre to them. The British Military Administration was set up, focusing on the reorientation of the state in order to meet post-war crisis. The British set sights to bolster social and economic life, and to secure their footing in Singapore (Harper, 2001).Of the social programmes that the government laid out, the most far-reaching and critical was education. The British envisioned setting up "national schools", prioritizing English-medium education and undermining vernacular education. With that, Chinese schools were starved of funding, resulting in anger and resentments among the Chinese students and teachers. This led to the rise in anti-colonial sentiments.
This growing anti-colonial sentiment was further fueled by the larger anti-colonial sentiment that was also happening outside Singapore - how winning freedom for colonies in Africa and Asia played a part in instilling hope in the progressive left in Singapore – that independence may come one day.One good example was also the defeat of the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam (1954). Moving into 1948, the outbreak of communist insurrection in the Malayan jungles, saw the declaration of emergency in Singapore. The declaration of emergency which was to last for almost a decade, saw heightened security control. Singapore was turned into a police state, progressives and anti-colonial activists were rounded up, and political repression suspended all forms of left-wing politics in Singapore (Turnbull, 2009). While organized opposition to colonial rule was difficult, nevertheless, the period was plagued with social discontent and stirrings of anti-colonial and nationalistic sentiments in view of the British's plan to consolidate and maintain rule, following the Japanese occupation (Quee, Tan, & Hong, 2011).
In December 1953, the National Service Ordinance was passed, requiring the registration of all male British subjects and Federal citizens between the ages of 18-20 for part-time military training. After the announcement was made regarding the National Service draft, personnel involved were to register for the call-up from 8 April – 12 May 1954. By 12 May 1954, students from the Chinese Middle Schools still did not register themselves for National Service (NS). ] In light of the impending deadline for registration and with requests from the Chinese students, Chief Secretary William Goode would later meet representatives from the affected student body in the government house on 13 May 1954. This day however, resulted in a clash between Chinese Middle School students and riot squads. More than 2 dozen were reportedly injured and nearly 50 students were arrested. Of those arrested, 7 were convicted of obstructing the police. Following the riot, students re-assembled in Chung Cheng High School and only dispersed in the afternoon on 14 May 1954. [6]
On 18 May 1954, a delegation of students (the 55-member Chinese Middle Schools Student Delegation) met the Chinese Chamber of Commerce (CCC), requesting their (CCC) help to speak to the British government on their (the students) behalf. However, the only concrete result from this meeting was having their school holidays being pushed forward by 2 weeks to deny students the opportunity to rally together. Having their school holidays pushed forward, this action prompted a second massive sit in by the students which took place on 23 May 1954 in Chung Cheng High School. However, due to the prevention of food supplies from reaching these students, the group dispersed. The third massive sit in took place in the Chinese High School on 2 June 1954. This time, students requested for the postponement of call-up for National Service. Though, the lack of response from the government saw the students went on hunger strike on the 15 June. The students only dispersed on the 24 June.
Constant negotiations were made back and forth between the students and the government in the following days. However, due to the resistance put up by the students, the attempt to recruit male youths for National Service took a back seat. The aftermath of 13 May 1954 resulted in the conviction of 7 students for obstructing the police during the demonstration, as well as further tightening of control over the students by the British. 13 May 1954 connotes different interpretations, and be characterized as a communist subversion, as an Anti-Colonial Movement, as a bottom up, spontaneous response to particular events. In the 1950s, the Chinese students were one of the largest groups involved in demonstrations and their motivations have been consistently credited to communist manipulation – through the united front strategy. The united front strategy was a political tool employed by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) with aims of regathering and rebuilding their strength which was greatly depleted in jungle fighting during the earlier years of the State of Emergency between 1948 and 1960. The strategy focuses on building relations and contacts with workers, peasants and students, emphasizing on how plans and arrangements should be made in order to gain mass. [6] According to Singh (2008), the first step of this strategy is to engage students through the exploitation of communal issues. Singh quotes an MCP directive as saying:
The work of winning over the school children is very important and must not be overlooked. Especially in circumstances where the enemy is stronger than we are, the work of winning support from school children and organising them is more important than military activities. (Sing, 2008)
According to Lee (1996), the reason as to why the MCP chose to start the mass movement from the students can be attributed to the following reasons:
(i) the MCP recognised these Chinese students as a valuable political force and worked towards systematically absorbing them into the communist movement and
(ii) during this period of time, members of the Town Committee (a secret organisation operating underground as the executive arm of the Malayan Communist Party with its mobile headquarters on the borders of Malaya and Thailand) were arrested, leaving only the cells in charge of propaganda and cells in the Chinese Middle School, intact. The propaganda sector consisted of few people, but the student sector had many members. Thus, it was the student sector which had the manpower to launch the open united front struggle when the time came.
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Riot
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Driver dead after Rosa Brook Road crash near Margaret River
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Police are seeking help from any witnesses after a 23-year-old man died overnight in a vehicle crash near Rosa Brook. The man was driving a Volkswagen panel van east from Margaret River when police claim the driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a tree. The victim was a local resident, but speed and other factors would form part of the investigation, a WA Police spokesman said. Officers were notified about the crash by residents about 10.20pm last night. Police, St John Ambulance and Department of Fire and Emergency Service officers attended, but the driver was pronounced dead at the scene. The crash site on Rosa Brook Road was 5km east of the Margaret River Perimeter Road. Police asked anyone who witnessed the crash or saw the van beforehand to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or make a report online at crimestopperswa.com.au.
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Road Crash
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Chinese famine of 1942–1943
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The Henan Famine of 1942–1943 occurred in Henan, most particularly within the eastern and central part of the province. The famine occurred within the context of the Second Sino-Japanese War and resulted from a combination of natural and human factors. 2 to 5 million people died of starvation or disease and upwards of 4 million fled Henan. [1]
Henan had previously suffered as a result of the war. Thousands of its young men had already been conscripted. In 1938 the Nationalist government flooded the Yellow River in an attempt to stop the advance of the Japanese, flooding through eastern and central Henan, central Anhui and north-central Jiangsu. As many as 400,000 to 500,000 Northern Chinese civilians and Japanese soldiers may have died from famine, disease and flooding. When Japanese troops did enter the area they caused much destruction, which contributed to causing the famine. [2] By the time of the famine itself, Henan was divided, with the eastern half of the province under occupation by Japan and the western half part unoccupied and nominally under the authority of the Nationalist government based in Chongqing. In 1942 the spring and summer rains failed, causing drought. In addition to this, locusts caused much damage to the existing harvest. The result was that the supply of grain in the affected areas was reduced greatly. This started to make itself felt by the winter of that year. Yet Chinese and Japanese authorities in the affected areas continued their grain requisition policies in order to feed their soldiers. Environmental historian Micah S. Muscolino also suggests that there is a link between the deliberate flooding of the Yellow River in 1938 and the 1942 famine as the flooding 'contributed to a total disruption of Henan's hydraulic and agricultural systems'. [3]
The terrible conditions that the famine created were vividly described by journalist Theodore White in a special report written for Time magazine, published in March 1943. Cannibalism was rife and parents sold their children just to survive. [4] Disease bred in these conditions, contributing greatly to the death toll. [5] Relief efforts were organized by the government, and by Christian missionaries operating in the area. [6]
In his work China's War with Japan, 1937 – 1945, which is broadly sympathetic to Chiang Kai-shek, Rana Mitter places much of the blame at the hands of corrupt or incompetent local officials. He notes that Chiang announced a reduction in the grain quota for Henan, but the head of the Henan grain administration collected more than the quota demanded anyway. [7] Officials in the neighboring provinces refused to send their surplus grain to Henan. [8] A further example of this incompetence and corruption comes from Runan County where a grain storage system had been set up at the outbreak of war. However, officials there had never actually stored the grain and used it instead to make private deals. [9] Theodore White described being invited to a feast by local authorities which included delicacies such as 'chicken, beef, water chestnut and three cakes with sugar frosting'. [10] The Chongqing government is, however, blamed for reacting slowly and sending paper money instead of food for relief. [11] Mitter notes that the famine can be seen as a consequence of the reduction of the Nationalist government's authority over the provinces as the war dragged on. [12] He also says that Chiang's government was also reluctant to press further for a reduction in the grain tax when national survival was at stake. [13]
Due to the ongoing Sino-Japanese war, there was a lack of statistics from Japanese occupied regions of Henan. An investigation report by Zhang Guangsi (张光嗣) on the behalf of the National Government Relief Committee on September 28th, 1943 recorded the following deaths. [citation needed]
In 1942, I continued my office as a delegate of the 3rd national political council, that was when the Henan Famine happened, not a single grain was yield only a couple of exceptions. The Central (Government) did not allow this to be reported, nor provided aid, I did what I can as a delegate. The result was 5 million deaths in Henan, President Li Peiji (李培基) of Henan only reported 1602 deaths, never have this occurred in politics. In Communist-controlled areas, the authorities did reduce the grain quotas for those most affected by the drought. Mao Zedong exploited this for propaganda purposes to portray his government as more benevolent than the Nationalist government. This was effective as it became 'an obvious point of comparison'. [16][17] The Communists were able to pursue this policy in part because they depended on guerilla warfare and did not need to maintain a standing army in order to participate in the wartime alliance. [18]
The Chinese famine of 1942–1943 has been referred to as 'China's forgotten famine',[19] overshadowed by the war that took place around it and the much greater famine of 1958–61. Even in Henan itself this tragic period is not well remembered or talked about, with novelist Liu Zhenyun saying that there is a 'collective amnesia' in the province. [20] Interest in the event has rekindled in recent years, however, with the release of the film Back to 1942, adapted from Liu Zhenyun's novel Remembering 1942. [21]
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Famine
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Seahawks cornerback Gavin Heslop recovering from surgery on broken leg
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Seattle Seahawks defensive back Gavin Heslop is recovering from surgery to repair fracturing to both bones in his left leg sustained in Sunday’s win over the Houston Texans. Heslop had surgery Sunday night and has remained in Houston as he begins his recovery. “He had a real successful surgery,” head coach Pete Carroll said. “He sounded way better, was much more upbeat about that everything worked out OK and all that. He’ll get back here in a couple days.” Heslop was injured with just over a minute left to play in the 33-13 win over the Texans. Heslop was playing the final snaps of the game in place of Quandre Diggs with the game in hand at free safety. Nico Collins caught an 18-yard pass from Davis Mills in front of Heslop. As Collins was falling to the ground, Heslop planted his left leg and Collins fell and landed on the middle of Heslop’s lower leg. The impact caused fractures to both the tibia and fibula. Heslop had just been promoted to the active roster to take the place of Jamal Adams , who is also out for the season after sustaining a torn labrum in his shoulder. Heslop had appeared in two games this season as a standard practice squad elevation. Sunday’s game was his first chance to play on defense and he saw just four snaps before the injury. “A heartbreaker. Just got started,” Carroll said. “He was doing well, too. And to get to this point where we got him active and all that, it’s just too bad.”
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Famous Person - Recovered
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RCEP: A new trade agreement that will shape global economics and politics
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On November 15, 2020, 15 countries — members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and five regional partners — signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), arguably the largest free trade agreement in history. RCEP and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which concluded in 2018 and is also dominated by East Asian members, are the only major multilateral free trade agreements signed in the Trump era.
India and the United States were to be members of RCEP and the CPTPP, respectively, but withdrew under the Modi and Trump governments. As the agreements are now configured (see Figure 1), they forcefully stimulate intra-East Asian integration around China and Japan. This is partly the result of U.S. policies. The United States needs to rebalance its economic and security strategies to advance not only its economic interests, but also its security goals.
Figure 1: Members of RCEP and CPTPP
(Numbers present 2018 GDP in trillions of U.S. dollars)
Source: Authors.
RCEP will connect about 30% of the world’s people and output and, in the right political context, will generate significant gains. According to computer simulations we recently published, RCEP could add $209 billion annually to world incomes, and $500 billion to world trade by 2030.
We also estimate that RCEP and CPTPP together will offset global losses from the U.S.-China trade war, although not for China and the United States. The new agreements will make the economies of North and Southeast Asia more efficient, linking their strengths in technology, manufacturing, agriculture, and natural resources.
The effects of RCEP are impressive even though the agreement is not as rigorous as the CPTPP. It incentivizes supply chains across the region but also caters to political sensitivities. Its intellectual property rules add little to what many members have in place, and the agreement says nothing at all about labor, the environment, or state-owned enterprises — all key chapters in the CPTPP. However, ASEAN-centered trade agreements tend to improve over time.
Southeast Asia will benefit significantly from RCEP ($19 billion annually by 2030) but less so than Northeast Asia because it already has free trade agreements with RCEP partners. But RCEP could improve access to Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) funds, enhancing gains from market access by strengthening transport, energy, and communications links. RCEP’s favorable rules of origin will also attract foreign investment.
RCEP, often labelled inaccurately as “China-led,” is a triumph of ASEAN’s middle-power diplomacy. The value of a large, East Asian trade agreement has long been recognized, but neither China nor Japan, the region’s largest economies, were politically acceptable as architects for the project. The stalemate was resolved in 2012 by an ASEAN-brokered deal that included India, Australia, and New Zealand as members, and put ASEAN in charge of negotiating the agreement. Without such “ASEAN centrality,” RCEP might never have been launched.
Without such “ASEAN centrality,” RCEP might never have been launched.
To be sure, RCEP will help China strengthen its relations with neighbors, rewarding eight years of patient negotiations in the “ASEAN way,” which participants typically describe, with varying degrees of affection, as unusually slow, consensual, and flexible.
RCEP will also accelerate Northeast Asian economic integration. A spokesman for Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted last year that negotiations on the trilateral China-South Korea-Japan free trade agreement, which has been stuck for many years, will become active “as soon as they are able to conclude the negotiation on RCEP.” As if on cue, in a high-profile speech in early November President Xi Jinping promised to “speed up negotiations on a China-EU investment treaty and a China-Japan-ROK [South Korea] free trade agreement.”
Finally, RCEP and the CPTPP are powerful counterexamples to the global decline in rules-based trade. If RCEP spurs mutually beneficial growth, its members, including China, will gain influence across the world.
U.S. policies in Asia need to adjust to the changing realities of East Asia, recognizing the increased role of China, maturing ASEAN integration, and America’s diminished relative economic influence.
Looking back, the Trump administration’s Asia policies focused on a new Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision. As experts have noted, the principles of FOIP — an open, inclusive, peaceful region — were consistent with established U.S. policy. But the administration’s tactics then emphasized isolating China from regional economic networks and prioritized security arrangements centered on the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the United States).
Meanwhile, FOIP’s economic dimensions remained secondary, ranging from modest investments and a plan to exclude China from supply chains to rating infrastructure projects often funded by China. The U.S. approach antagonized ASEAN and other East Asian friends, forcing countries into unnecessary and risky political choices.
Looking ahead, one U.S. option is to continue FOIP in current form with greater multilateral support. The Trump approach — minus inflammatory rhetoric — has support in Congress and even in some ASEAN countries like Vietnam. Yet the approach risks sidelining the United States while economic arrangements like RCEP, CPTPP, and BRI continue to grow. Without an economic pillar, FOIP will still push countries to choose between economic and security interests.
A second U.S. option is to reengage fully in regional economic networks alongside an active security role. For example, the United States could join the CPTPP and advocate its rapid enlargement to Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. U.S. markets and technology make such arrangements attractive and, in the long run, might persuade China to join (we estimate big gains if it does). But current U.S. politics appears to offer little support for this approach.
A third U.S. option is to emphasize intensified soft-power engagement combined with narrow but firm security commitments. This approach would build on U.S. strengths and buy time for more ambitious initiatives. It would emphasize vigorous participation in regional forums, people-to-people exchanges, principled advocacy of rules-based trade, and a clearly articulated military presence. It would benefit from supportive U.S.-China understandings, no mean feat in the current context.
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Sign Agreement
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Pope Francis will travel to Armenia on Friday to start a three-day trip
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Follow NBC News ROME, Italy — Pope Francis will travel to Armenia on Friday to start a three-day trip that will test the Vatican’s already-strained relations with Turkey.
The pope's visit is officially to honor the country’s status as the first nation to recognize Christianity.
However, there will be intense focus on the words he chooses to describe the slaughter of up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.
More than 20 nations have labeled the systematic killing of Armenians a genocide. Turkey firmly rejects the term, saying the deaths were collateral damage in its fight to curb the rise of Armenian separatists during World War I.
“Loss of life, regardless of numbers and regardless of possible guilt on the part of the victims, is tragic and must be remembered,” Turkey’s foreign ministry says on its website. “However, it is factually problematic, morally unsound and legally unfounded to call this episode a genocide.”
Francis, though, doesn’t agree.
During a Mass marking the 100th anniversary of killings in April 2015, he described the events as “the first genocide of the 20th century,” echoing a phrase first used by Pope John Paul II in a 2001 joint declaration ahead of his own trip to Armenia.
That prompted Turkey to summon the Vatican ambassador and recall its own envoy to the Holy See, citing “grave disappointment and sadness” over Francis’ remarks. Diplomatic relations were restored in February, but Turks and Armenians around the world will keep a watchful eye on the pope's trip to see whether he will reignite tensions.
The U.S. government has not officially recognized the episode as genocide but more than 40 individual states have done so. The House of Representatives also adopted resolutions using the term in 1975, 1984 and 1996.
Ronald Reagan was the only president to call it a genocide, in a 1981 speech. More recent occupants of the White House have shied away from doing so, especially given Turkey’s strategic importance as a partner in the post-9/11 War on Terror. While President Barack Obama used the term while a senator, he has avoided it since taking the Oval Office.
Aram Hamparian, the executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, told NBC News that all eyes are on the pontiff to set an example.
“The pope is acting as a moral compass on Armenia’s genocide and if he calls it a genocide while in Armenia it will put pressure on President Obama, or whoever takes his place, to finally break the silence and call it a genocide once and for all,” Hamparian said.
Francis will visit the Armenian Genocide Memorial in the capital Yerevan on Saturday, where he will also meet descendants of Armenians who were offered a safe haven at the pope’s summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.
Should Francis become the first pope to use the term genocide while on Armenian soil, he will likely trigger a fresh diplomatic tussle with Turkey — but could also inspire governments around the world to follow suit.
Armenia, which became an independent country following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, was the first country in the world to recognize Christianity as a state religion. It did so in 301 AD.
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Diplomatic Visit
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UFC 153
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UFC 153: Silva vs. Bonnar was a mixed martial arts pay-per-view event held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship on October 13, 2012, at the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Vitor Belfort was expected to face Alan Belcher at the event. However, Belfort was pulled from the bout to face Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones on September 22, 2012 at UFC 152. [3] Belcher also was forced to drop out of the card due to a spinal fracture. [4]
After having their first fight end in a no contest due to an eye poke in the first round, a rematch between Phil Davis and Wagner Prado was briefly linked to UFC on FX: Browne vs. Bigfoot and then scheduled for this event. [5]
Quinton Jackson was scheduled to face Glover Teixeira at the event. However, Jackson pulled out of the bout citing an injury,[6] and was replaced by Fabio Maldonado. [7] Former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Rashad Evans was offered the fight with Teixeira but turned it down due to the short notice. [8]
Geronimo dos Santos was scheduled to fight Gabriel Gonzaga at this event. However, dos Santos pulled out of the bout after a blood test showed that he had antibodies for Hepatitis B. [9][10][11] With no time to find a suitable replacement, Gonzaga was pulled from the card. Erik Koch was expected to face UFC Featherweight Champion José Aldo in a title fight at this event, but on August 31, 2012, Koch was forced to pull out due to injury. Former UFC Lightweight Champion Frankie Edgar had agreed to step in for Koch and fight Aldo for the Featherweight title. [12] However, on September 11, Aldo was also forced to pull out of the event with a foot injury after being involved in a motorcycle accident. [13]
On September 12, 2012, UFC officials announced that UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva and former The Ultimate Fighter star Stephan Bonnar would fight in the main event. [14] Silva was a massive favorite going into the bout,[15] which was a three-round fight. Although all main event fights have been five-round affairs since UFC 138, UFC 153 was the exception due to the short notice. [16]
On November 4, 2012, UFC announced Bonnar had tested positive for drostanolone, and Dave Herman for marijuana. Both fighters were suspended. [17]
Fighters were awarded $70,000 bonuses. [18]
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Sports Competition
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Mental at Mentos: WA man campaigns against confectionery giant's plastic wrapping
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Ocean lover Adam Western was sick of picking up Mentos mint wrappers from his favourite beach so he decided it was time somebody took on the global confectionery giant.
He enlisted the help of a fishing buddy and together they filmed the catch and release of a fish using only a Mentos wrapper as bait.
Mr Western is now waging war on the tiny, blue packets and is successfully encouraging local businesses to stop providing free over-the-counter minty treats.
Mr Western, who lives in the picturesque coastal town of Denmark is south-west WA, spends a lot of time in the ocean and often picks up rubbish from the beach.
"It must have been a few days in a row I saw those little Mentos packs and I thought, 'I've had enough of these things'," he said.
"They were already in my brain because I have been to conference centres and functions for work and restaurants and I've noticed a lot of places hand them out.
"I came home one day and said 'right, I'm going to send an email to Mentos and tell them to change their packaging'."
Friends told Mr Western that email was a bit outdated, and his voice would be better heard over social media.
"I did some social media posts, tagging Mentos, trying to get their attention," he said.
In the weeks since the "Go mental at Mentos" social media campaign began, Mentos' parent company Perfette Van Melle has not responded to the calls for change. Mr Western decided to go one step further and started a petition, calling for the individual Mentos to be wrapped in paper or another bio-degradable material.
"Or just stop wrapping the lollies individually all together," he wrote on the petition page which has been signed by almost 700 people so far. The fight then took him out onto the Wilson Inlet, where he and fishing expert John Taylor demonstrated how easy it was to catch a fish using just a couple of Mentos wrappers as bait.
"We drifted around and it didn't take us long, probably within 20 minutes we had a fish," Mr Western said.
Mr Taylor wasn't surprised at how quickly the fish chomped on the plastic wrappers.
"I think it's a case of it just being the colour — something different in the water that they might mistake for a bait fish," he said.
Mr Western took his Mentos campaign to the streets and successfully managed to convince his nearby Bunnings store and two Westpac branches to stop providing single-use Mentos mints for free to their customers.
Bunnings area manager Peter Kingwell said the store teams were always open to feedback from customers.
"On this occasion, the Albany team were happy to remove Mentos from the Trade Desk at Adam's request," he said.
Westpac Albany confirmed they were sourcing more sustainable options for customers after listening to customer feedback.
Mr Western said it felt great to receive such positive responses, and he started to realise he could actually make a difference.
"A friend suggested that I might get sued but I said 'why is it all right for them to pollute our world just because its cost effective but it's not alright for us to call them out on it?'
"One of my goals is to get a nasty letter from Mentos actually, I would love to enter a dialogue with them."
The ABC contacted Perfette Van Melle but did not receive a reply at the time of publication.
Every year, up to 15 million tonnes of plastic waste is estimated to make its way into the ocean through coastlines. This amount is expected to double by 2025.
Anas Ghadouani is a Professor of Environmental Engineering at UWA and says that anything that is made out of plastic these days can make it into the oceans.
"Now probably someone has done the maths and looked at how many Mentos we use in Australia daily," he said "I just came out of a business meeting and there were lots of Mentos wrappers there.
"I think it's is a legitimate question. My answer to that is anything we can do today is significant.
"We just need to think — is there an alternative for this kind of wrapper?"
Professor Ghadouani is not suggesting Mentos become wrapper-free, but adapt to wrappers that are not plastic-based.
Global food and beverage giant Nestle, who make KitKat chocolate bars, have committed to making 100 per cent of their packaging reusable or recyclable by 2025.
The company is exploring a range of innovations, including new paper-based materials as well as compostable polymers that are also recyclable
"That is what is great about initiatives like this [Go Mental at Mentos]," Professor Ghadouani said.
"We should celebrate people for attracting attention to a single problem that can be solved.
"It can go a long way — we need multiple initiatives and lots of awareness because these are significant problems."
Mr Western is taking his fight against plastic one step further, with Aussie staple Masterfoods now in his sights.
He would like to see them stop making the squeezy portion-control packaging and instead, stick to reusable plastic bottles.
"I've lived a good life and it's probably not going to affect me as such, but for the next generation plastic is a catastrophe happening right now," he said.
"I've been lucky with my job [as a marine engineer] to go to some of the most remote beaches in Australia that nobody's ever been to.
"The sad thing is, the more remote a beach it is, the cleaner it used to be but nowadays the more remote a beach is, the dirtier it is because it's just full of plastic.
"Hey, fresh breath is nice but is it really worth polluting the oceans?"
)
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Environment Pollution
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New Zealand Charges 13 Parties Over Deaths At White Island Volcano
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Recovery workers are seen at New Zealand's White Island last December. A volcanic eruption on the island killed 22 people and has led to work safety charges against tour operators. New Zealand's government has filed charges over the volcano eruption that killed 22 people on White Island last year, saying operators that brought tourists to see the country's most active volcano failed to follow health and safety rules. Officials say 47 people were on the island when the volcano erupted in the early afternoon of Dec. 9, sending a plume of ash, toxic gas and rocks some 12,000 feet into the sky. Rescue crews rushed to find survivors, and recovery teams spent roughly two weeks trying to find victims. The eruption was unexpected, but it wasn't unforeseeable, according to WorkSafe New Zealand, the country's workplace safety agency. "Those who went to the island, did so with the reasonable expectation that there were appropriate systems in place to ensure they made it home healthy and safe," WorkSafe Chief Executive Phil Parkes said in a statement issued Monday. The eruption was a "hydrothermal explosion," the U.S. Geological Survey determined. "The volcano had been showing signs of unrest for several weeks before the December 9, 2019, explosion," the USGS said. "In October, seismic tremors and sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas emission rates were at their highest levels since 2016, indicating an increased likelihood of an eruption." Everyone who was on White Island that day suffered "serious injuries and trauma," WorkSafe said. Survivors endured major burns to their skin and lungs. WorkSafe charged 13 parties in Auckland District Court — 10 organizations and three people. Nine of the groups are charged with failing to ensure the health and safety of workers and others, while the other is charged with failing to control a workplace. Each of those charges carries a maximum fine of more than $1 million. The three individuals face smaller fines, charged under a provision that requires people "with significant influence over a company to exercise due diligence" in meeting health and safety obligations. WorkSafe has not named any of the parties, noting that they have a right to ask for their names to be suppressed at their first court appearance. White Island, which is also known by its Maori name, Whakaari, is the peak of a huge submarine volcano rising more than 1,000 feet out of waters of the Bay of Plenty. The island is roughly 30 miles off New Zealand's north-northeast coast. Those who were on the island at the time of the eruption included nine Americans and 24 Australians. Other visitors' home countries included China, Malaysia, Germany, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. The work safety charges are not related to the response that ensued after the eruption, such as rescue and recovery operations. WorkSafe says it didn't investigate that part of the incident. "Those actions may be the subject of other proceedings, such as a coronial inquest," the agency says. NPR thanks our sponsors
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Volcano Eruption
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The Straits Times
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SINGAPORE - When Ms Siti Hawa Mohd Najib's two-month-old daughter started projectile vomiting - "like the Merlion", as she put it - she panicked.
"I told my husband, this is not normal," the 40-year-old bank teller told The Sunday Times.
As it turned out, her baby girl, Aaisyah Humaira, tested positive for Covid-19 the next day - Sept 24.
Ms Hawa's second of four daughters, Aqilah Shazwani, 12, was the first to contract Covid-19 in the family of six. She developed symptoms after coming home from her PSLE listening comprehension examination on Sept 17 and tested positive two days later.
"Because Aqilah's ART (antigen rapid test) was negative at first, we thought it was just a normal fever. So we still mingled and ate together," she said.
Both Ms Hawa and her husband, Mr Muhamad Firdaus, 41, are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
Berita Mediacorp first reported Ms Hawa's story on Thursday (Sept 30).
While Aqilah was kept under home isolation, Aaisyah was rushed to the National University Hospital (NUH) the day she tested positive. She was admitted into the neonatal intensive care unit.
Aaisyah had to undergo blood tests and a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) swab. The baby is too young to receive medication.
"I cried because as a mother, this was too much to handle," Ms Hawa said.
On Sept 25, Ms Hawa and Mr Firdaus tested positive for Covid-19. Ms Hawa was warded in NUH, while her husband isolated himself at home.
She said: "I developed a sore throat and itchy eyes. My asthma was getting quite bad and my chest was in pain and felt heavy. I have asthma, diabetes and hypertension, so I was worried that with all these conditions, Covid-19 could affect me badly."
Still, Ms Hawa continued to breastfeed Aaisyah.
Aaisyah Humaira in the neonatal intensive care unit. PHOTO: COURTESY OF MS SITI HAWA MOHD NAJIB
"She slept and cried more than usual. It seemed like her body and throat hurt," she said.
"Luckily, I'm fully vaccinated, so my breast milk has antibodies, which is why I think Aaisyah managed to recover so quickly."
Both mother and daughter tested negative for Covid-19 on Tuesday and were discharged from NUH.
Ms Hawa added: "Those days in the hospital were very exhausting and stressful. My husband plays a big part in taking care of Aaisyah, so she was more cranky without him around. The video calls kept me sane and gave me strength to look after Aaisyah."
However, the family has yet to be reunited as Mr Firdaus remains isolated in his room until Oct 5.
Their two other daughters, Athirah Firzana, 10, and Aaliyah Falisha, 15, were not infected.
"All of us are quite sad without Daddy at the dinner table; my kids really miss their father a lot. But we still video call often," Ms Hawa said.
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Famous Person - Sick
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