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Japan tsunami: remains on beach identified as victim of 2011 disaster
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Family of Natsuko Okuyama ‘extremely happy’ after remains identified as those of 61-year-old woman who went missing 10 years ago Skeletal remains found on a beach have been identified as those of woman who went missing 10 years ago in the 2011 Japan tsunami. Dental and DNA analysis this week revealed the remains to be those of Natsuko Okuyama, a 61-year-old from Higashimatsushima in the north-eastern Miyagi prefecture who disappeared when the waves swept in on 11 March 2011, a police spokesman said. The remains, including a skull, were found on 17 February on a beach in the north-eastern region of Miyagi, he added. The confirmed death toll in the magnitude 9.0 quake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown stood at 15,899 in December 2020, according to Japan’s national police agency. But more than 2,500 are officially still considered missing 10 years after the disaster. That has left many families in limbo, feeling unable to fully process the loss of loved ones whose bodies were never retrieved. Local media quoted Okuyama’s son as thanking the person who found the remains. “I’m extremely happy that my mother was found as the 10th anniversary is coming up,” Kyodo news agency quoted him as saying. “This will allow me to get my emotions in order and move forward.”
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Tsunamis
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Half of all seabirds along south-east Queensland coast have plastic in stomachs: CSIRO
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The coastlines are being littered with millions of pieces of plastic that are causing harm to marine life, new research reveals.
The CSIRO says on average, 11 items can be found along every metre of coastline from the Sunshine Coast to the Gold Coast.
Professor Chris Wilcox said about half of all seabirds and a third of turtles had plastic in their stomachs.
"Plastic production is going up really rapidly and the amount in the ocean seems to be tracking that and the amount in the animals is also tracking that," he said.
Professor Wilcox's said his team did "a lot of walking" while scouring Australia's coastline, where they collected samples from the ocean edge to vegetation at the back of the beach.
He said Mission Beach, between Cairns and Townsville, was the most polluted spot his team surveyed in Queensland.
However generally areas on the edges of cities tended to be the worst spots, Professor Wilcox said.
"Illegal dumping around urban margins is a major contributor," he said.
"We see everything. Pretty much any piece of plastic you see in your daily life, we see."
Professor Wilcox said about eight million tonnes of rubbish was dumped in the world's oceans each year.
However unlike the broader issue of climate change, ocean pollution would not be costly to stop if people took more care in disposing of their rubbish.
"Each one of these pieces of plastic was in someone's hand at some point ... being more careful about how we use these things is critical," he said.
The CSIRO research is being published today in peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
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Environment Pollution
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1946 Antarctica PBM Mariner crash
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The 1946 Antarctica PBM Mariner crash occurred on 30 December 1946, on Thurston Island, Antarctica when a United States Navy Martin PBM-5 Mariner crashed during a blizzard. [1][2] Buno 59098 was one of 4 aircraft lost during Operation Highjump. [2]
The aircraft, Bureau Number 59098, callsign "George 1", hit a ridge and burned while supporting Operation Highjump. [2] The crash instantly killed Ensign Maxwell A. Lopez and Petty Officer Wendell K. Hendersin. [2] Two hours later, Petty Officer Frederick Williams also died. [2] Six surviving crewmembers, including Aviation Radioman James H. Robbins, pilot Ralph "Frenchy" LeBlanc and co-pilot William Kearns, were rescued 13 days later by an aircraft from USS Pine Island (AV-12). [2] LeBlanc was so frostbitten from the conditions that a quadruple amputation was performed on him. [1] His legs were amputated on the Philippine Sea, a ship that was part of the rescue, and his arms were amputated later in Rhode Island. [1] Hendersin, Williams, and Lopez were buried at the crash site and their remains have not been recovered. [1][2]
In 2004, during a surveying flight, a Chilean navy airplane flew over the site using ground penetrating radar to discover the exact location. [3][4] A two-expedition recovery mission was planned, but subsequently cancelled, for both November 2008 and November 2009 to recover the three fatalities of the crash from their temporary grave. [5][3] In 2012, another group announced plans to drill 100 ft (30 m) down to recover the bodies. [4] Rich Lopez, nephew of Maxwell Lopez, was part of the plan. [4] However the group struggled to raise the $1.5-3.5 million dollars they would need. [4]
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Air crash
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Athletics: Venezuela's Rojas smashes women's triple jump world record to take gold
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TOKYO -Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela jumped 15.67m on Sunday (Aug 1) to smash the world record in the women's triple jump with her last attempt, having already secured the gold medal.
The previous record of 15.50m was set by Ukraine's Inessa Kravets in 1995 in Sweden.
The win made Rojas Venezuela's first woman Olympic champion.
Tokyo 2020 Olympics - Athletics - Women's Triple Jump - Final - OLS - Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, Japan – August 1, 2021. Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela reacts after winning the gold medal and breaking the world record REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
Tokyo 2020 Olympics - Athletics - Women's Triple Jump - Final - OLS - Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, Japan – August 1, 2021. Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela celebrates after winning the gold medal REUTERS/Hannah Mckay
Patricia Mamona of Portugal won silver with 15.01m, a national record. The bronze went to Spain's Ana Peleteiro, who also broke the national record with 14.87.
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Break historical records
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Vatican police raid top offices in financial investigation
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VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Vatican police raided the offices of the Holy See’s Secretariat of State and its Financial Information Authority, or AIF, on Tuesday and took away documents and electronic devices as part of an investigation of suspected financial irregularities, a Vatican statement said.
FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Mass for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, led by Pope Francis at the Vatican, September 29, 2019. REUTERS/Remo Casilli/File Photo
It was believed to be the first time the two departments were searched for evidence involving alleged financial crimes.
The Secretariat of State, the most powerful department in the Vatican, is the nerve center of its bureaucracy and diplomacy and the administrative heart of the worldwide Catholic Church.
The AIF, headed by Swiss lawyer Rene Bruelhart, is the financial controller, with authority over all Vatican departments.
The Vatican statement gave no details except to say that the operation was a follow-up to complaints filed in the summer by the Vatican bank and the Office of the Auditor General and were related to “financial operations carried out over the course of time”.
A senior Vatican source said he believed the operation, which the statement said had been authorized by Vatican prosecutors, had to do with real estate transactions.
Since the election of Pope Francis in 2013, the Vatican has made great strides in cleaning up its often murky financial reputation.
Last year, a former head of the Vatican bank and an Italian lawyer went on trial to face charges of money laundering and embezzlement through real estate deals. It is still in progress.
In May, the AIF said reports of suspicious financial activity in the Vatican reached a six-year low in 2018, continuing a trend officials said showed reforms were in place.
For decades, the bank, officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion, or IOR, was embroiled in numerous financial scandals as Italians with no right to have accounts opened them with the complicity of corrupt insiders.
Hundreds of accounts have been closed at the IOR, whose stated purpose is to manage funds for the Church, Vatican employees, religious institutes or Catholic charities.
In 2017, Italy put the Vatican on its “white list” of states with cooperative financial institutions, ending years of mistrust.
The same year, Moneyval, a monitoring body of the Council of Europe, gave Vatican financial reforms a mostly positive evaluation.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate
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Ways to stave off starvation
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Cash would be used to provide a single meal a day for one year to stave off starvation 1 November 2021, Peyvand Khorsandi & Paul Anthem A total 42 million people are on the brink of famine across 43 countries and the slightest shock will push them over the edge, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned today (1 Nov). An instant cash injection of $US6.6 billion would reel them back from the precipice, by providing a meal a day for each person for the next year. Without immediate emergency food assistance, they face starvation. Issuing an urgent rallying call, WFP Chief Executive David Beasley said: “$6 billion to help 42 million people that are literally going to die if we don't reach them. It's not complicated. "While COVID is undeniably exacerbating fragility around the world, manmade conflict is driving instability and powering a destructive new wave of famine that threatens to sweep the world. The toll being paid in human misery is unimaginable.” Afghanistan is becoming the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with the country's needs surpassing those of the other worst-hit countries — Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and even Yemen. A total 22.8 million people now face acute food insecurity in Afghanistan according to the latest IPC assessment — a global standard for assessing food insecurity — including 8.7 million facing emergency levels of food insecurity (IPC phase 4). New figures expected in the coming days are likely to show the situation has worsened even further. WFP has never seen this many people facing emergency levels of food insecurity in the country, in the 10 years that the UN has been conducting IPC analyses. Across the world, 15 million more people are at risk of starvation than was the case before the the COVID-19 pandemic. The slightest shock — be it extreme weather linked to climate change, conflict, or the deadly interplay of both hunger drivers — may push tens of millions of people into irreversible peril, a prospect WFP has been warning of for more than a year. WFP is undertaking the biggest operation in its history, targeting 139 million people this year. But there are immense hurdles. In 2020 extreme weather displaced 30 million people, while conflict displaced 10 million — figures that in tandem with the cost of responding are only expected to rise. WFP Chief Economist Arif Husain explained how spiralling costs were affecting the organization's work and required urgent cash support. "Food procurement prices are up 21 percent from a year ago — Us$300 million more if we bought the same amount of food as last year,” he said. “Transport costs are through the roof because of high fuel prices — a container that cost $1,000 a year ago now costs $4,000 or even more.” Updated figures due out this week are likely to paint an even bleaker picture of people in need, said Husain: "Don’t expect these numbers to go down unless we solve the conflicts, climate crises and economic fallout of COVID-19. I grieve when any child is harmed and we work every single day to give millions of children hope and a future." WFP is uniquely positioned to stop famine in its tracks, and steer people away from the edge of starvation, with a deep-field presence, operations in over 80 countries and cutting-edge expertise acquired over decades fighting hunger. The most powerful tool that WFP can deploy to save lives in the face of famine is emergency food assistance. This will remain critical to mitigate or avert the direct effects of food insecurity and famine in the short term. To eliminate the threat of starvation and prevent famine entirely requires longer term and more complex interventions, including processes to strengthen education, nutrition, livelihood resilience and social protection systems.
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Famine
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Cocoanut Grove fire
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The Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston, Massachusetts, United States on November 28, 1942, was the deadliest nightclub fire in history, and second-deadliest single-building fire in American history, claiming 492 lives. The "Grove" was one of Boston's most popular nightspots, attracting many celebrity visitors. It was owned by Barnet "Barney" Welansky, closely connected to the Mafia and to Mayor Maurice J. Tobin. Fire regulations had not been observed: some exit-doors had been locked to prevent unauthorized entry, and the elaborate palm-tree décor contained flammable materials. The air-conditioning also used flammable gas, because Freon was in short supply. As it was the first Thanksgiving weekend of the United States participation in World War II, the club was filled to more than twice its legal capacity. The fire started when a young couple removed a lightbulb for privacy, and a busboy was told to replace it, lighting a match to see better in the dimly-lit zone. Although he had apparently extinguished the match, the draperies ignited and flames and smoke spread rapidly through all areas of the club. Blame, however, was directed at Welansky for violation of standards; he served nearly four years in jail before being released, only weeks from death. The local hospitals were especially well prepared to treat the casualties, as they had been rehearsing emergency drills in response to possible attacks on the East coast. The crisis demonstrated the value of the new blood banks, and it stimulated important advances in the treatment of burn victims. Following the tragedy, many new fire-safety laws were enacted for public establishments, including the banning of flammable decorations and a provision that emergency exits must be kept open and that revolving doors cannot be the sole egress outlet. The Cocoanut Grove had opened in 1927 as a speakeasy during Prohibition as a partnership between two orchestra leaders, Mickey Alpert and Jacques Renard. (Although neither held an interest in the club by 1942, Alpert was leading the house band on the night of the fire.) It was located at 17 Piedmont Street, in the Bay Village neighborhood of Boston, a few blocks south of the Boston Public Garden. Alpert and Renard's mob-connected financiers gained control and opened a speakeasy on the premises, and it gained a reputation for being a gangland hangout. It spanned from Piedmont Street to Shawmut Street. Gangland boss and bootlegger Charles "King" Solomon, also known as "Boston Charlie", owned the club from 1931 to January 24, 1933, when he was gunned down in the men's room of Roxbury's Cotton Club nightclub. [1][2] Ownership passed to Solomon's lawyer Barnet "Barney" Welansky,[2] who sought a more mainstream image for the club while he privately boasted of his ties to the Mafia and to Boston Mayor Maurice J. Tobin. Welansky was known to be a tough boss who ran a tight ship: hiring teenagers to work as busboys for low wages, and street thugs who doubled as waiters and bouncers. He locked exits, concealed others with draperies, and even bricked up one emergency exit to prevent customers from leaving without paying. [3] Coincidentally, on the night of the fire, Welansky was still recovering from a heart attack in a private room at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where some of the victims would be sent. Originally a garage and warehouse complex, the brick and concrete buildings had been converted to a one-and-a-half-story meandering complex of dining rooms, bars, and lounges. A new lounge in an adjoining building had opened only a week before the fire. [2] The club offered its patrons dining and dancing in a South Seas-like "tropical paradise" and a roof that could be rolled back in summer for dancing under the stars. [4][2] The decor consisted of leatherette, rattan and bamboo coverings on the walls, heavy draperies, and "swanky" dark blue satin canopies and covering on ceilings. Support columns in the main dining area were made to look like palm trees, with light fixtures made to look like coconuts. That theme was carried over into the basement Melody Lounge, with what little light there was provided by palm tree light fixtures. The "Grove" had become one of Boston's most popular nightspots, featuring a restaurant and dancing in the main area, floor shows, and piano-playing entertainers in the Melody Lounge. The restaurant was visited on occasion by movie and music stars, who would have their entry announced by the maître d'. Across from the main dining area was the "Caricature Bar", which featured renditions of the establishment's more prominent guests. The club had recently been expanded eastward with the new Broadway Lounge, which opened onto adjacent Broadway between Piedmont Street (south side) and Shawmut Street (north side). [citation needed]
Wall coverings and decorative materials had been approved on the basis of tests for ordinary ignition, which showed resistance to combustion from sources such as matches and cigarettes. Decorative cloth was purportedly treated with ammonium sulfate as a fire retardant upon installation, but there was no documentation that the fire retardant treatment was maintained at the required intervals. Since the US entry into the war, air-conditioning systems had been serviced and the freon refrigerant was replaced by a flammable gas called methyl chloride, due to the wartime shortage of freon. [citation needed]
On November 28, 1942, the Boston College football team played College of the Holy Cross at Fenway Park. In a great upset of that period, Holy Cross beat Boston College by a score of 55–12. College bowl game scouts had attended the game in order to offer Boston College a bid to the 1943 Sugar Bowl game. As a result of the rout, a Boston College celebration party scheduled for the Grove that evening was canceled. [5] Mayor Tobin, an enthusiastic Boston College fan, also canceled plans to go to the Cocoanut Grove that night. [6] Actor Arthur Blake, famous for his female impersonations, was one of the headlining acts at the Cocoanut Grove that night. [7]
It is estimated that, on that Saturday night, more than 1,000 Thanksgiving weekend revelers, wartime servicemen and their sweethearts, football fans, and others were crammed into a space rated for a maximum of 460 people. [citation needed]
Official reports state that the fire started at about 10:15 pm in the Melody Lounge. Goody Goodelle, a young pianist and singer, was performing on a revolving stage surrounded by artificial palm trees. The lounge was lit by low-powered light bulbs in coconut-styled sconces beneath the fronds. A young man, possibly a soldier, had unscrewed a light bulb in order to give himself and his date privacy while kissing. [4] Stanley Tomaszewski—a 16-year-old busboy—was instructed to put the light back on by tightening the bulb. He stepped up onto a chair to reach the light in the darkened corner. Unable to see the bulb, he lit a match to illuminate the area, tightened the bulb, and extinguished the match. Witnesses first saw flames in the fronds, which were just below the ceiling, immediately afterward.
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Fire
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Suspect wearing 'wig and fake beard' wanted for bank robbery in Baltimore, Ohio
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BALTIMORE, Ohio (WSYX/WTTE) — Police in Baltimore, Ohio are searching for a suspect wearing a wig and fake beard during a bank robbery on June 26. Around 10:30 a.m., Baltimore Police and Fairfield County Sherrif's deputies responded to a robbery at the People's Bank on North Main Street in Baltimore. The suspect fled the scene with an undisclosed amount of money before law enforcement arrived. The suspect is described as a white man, standing between 5'8" and 6', with a medium build. He reportedly wore a wig, what appears to be a fake beard, dark glasses, and a "COVID-19 type" mask. He was also wearing a dark blue zip-up jacket and blue jeans.
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Bank Robbery
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1960 Writers Guild of America strike
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The 1960 Writers Guild of America strike was a labor dispute held by both Writers Guilds of America (WGAW and WGAE), against the Association of Motion Picture Producers. It lasted for 146 days (from January 16 until June 10, 1960, with network writers joining mid-March, although an agreement between the involved parties was signed two days later after the strike), making it the second longest strike ever held by both unions by just one week less than the 1988 writers strike. This dispute was meant to raise concerns about broadcast royalties for films that air on television. For a time, the actors were on strike at the same time, but they had returned to work before the writers reached a compromise with the film companies. Seven of the eight major studios have reached an agreement:
The eighth, Universal International, had reached an agreement before the strike began. The settlement included having the studios pay into the writers' pension and health funds in the amount of $600,000. They also agreed to give 5% of the studio's income from pre-1960 movies that air on television. On post-1960 movies, writers got 2% of income. If the film was shown on pay TV, they would not receive additional income. The minimum rates were also increased to $350 a week and writers would get a 10% raise for the first two years and then 5% for the next year and a half. For television writers, minimum wages increased 100 percent for the first two years and 100 for the next two. Writers for low-budget half-hour shows would get $935 instead of $850. High budget writers would get $1,200 instead of $1,100. Writers would get a 4% royalty domestically and internationally on all reruns "in perpetuity". In the past, writers were paid on only the first five domestic reruns (they got 140% of their minimum pay scale for that). They also agreed to create a health and welfare fund.
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Strike
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Woman dead after being shot by Memphis police during stolen car investigation
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A woman is dead after being shot by Memphis Police during an incident Wednesday afternoon in South Memphis.
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has been called in to investigate. This is at least the fourth time TBI has investigated a shooting involving law enforcement in Shelby County this year.
Keli McAlister, spokesperson for TBI, said preliminary information found Memphis Police officers responded around 2 p.m. to check for a stolen car in the area of Third Street and Clinton Road.
Officers discovered a stolen Ford Fusion from Olive Branch in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant at 3120 S Third St., she said.
McAlister said officers blocked the stolen vehicle with police cruisers and exited their cars in attempt to apprehend the female driver.
The suspect accelerated toward officers and hit at least one occupied patrol car, McAlister said.
A Memphis Police officer then shot at the driver and killed her, McAlister said.
No officers were injured, she said.
MPD closed down north and southbound lanes at Third St. between Brooks Rd. and Mitchell Rd. indefinitely as police look into the shooting.
A cluster of police cars and an ambulance surround the parking lot as of Wednesday around 5 p.m. in the blocked off area.
TBI said this is an ongoing investigation.
This story will be updated.
Commercial Appeal reporter Micaela Watts contributed to this report.
Dima Amro covers the suburbs for The Commercial Appeal and can be reached at Dima.Amro@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @AmroDima.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate
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Alliance Air Flight 7412 crash
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Alliance Air Flight 7412 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by Alliance Air, a subsidiary of the airline Indian, from Kolkata's Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport to Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi. On 17 July 2000, while on approach to its first stopover in Patna, the Boeing 737-2A8 operating the route nose-dived and crashed into a residential area in Patna, killing 60 people including 5 on the ground. The final report, investigated by the Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation, concluded that the cause of the crash was due to pilot error. [1]
Flight 7412 departed Calcutta (Kolkata) at 06:51 on 17 July 2000, for a flight to Delhi, with stops at Patna and Lucknow. Patna ATC asked the aircraft at 07:17 to report for descent and also to check descent traffic with Kolkata Area Control. The aircraft soon responded that Kolkata had reported negative traffic. Flight 7412 was then cleared for descent to FL75 and asked to report 25 NM and the same was reported by the aircraft at 07:26. Flight 7412 was cleared to descend to 4000 ft. and was asked to report for approach runway 25. [1]
At 07:28, Flight 7412 reported commencing the turn and at 07:31 reported crossing the airport area and coming up on the localiser. Flight 7412 was then asked to descend to 1700 ft. The crew had been cleared to land at runway 25 at Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Airport at Patna when the pilots requested a 360-degree orbit due to the flight being high on the approach. Permission was granted and a left turn was initiated. During the left turn, the aircraft stalled. The plane then grazed a few single-storied houses in a government residential housing estate and crashed in a government residential colony behind Gardani Bagh Girls School at Anishabad, which is located about 2 km southwest of the Patna Airport. [2] The aircraft broke into four pieces. [2]
When the aircraft struck the residential quarters and the ground, the impact was severe. The intensity of post impact fire was also severe. Initially, seven passengers were extricated alive. Of them, six were seriously injured. Miraculously, one of the passengers walked out of the wreckage without much injury even though he had a minor concussion and was treated later. Of the six injured passengers, four died subsequently. Two passengers recovered completely after treatment. [1]
The airport ambulance had proceeded to the crash site along with the CFTs. Two injured passengers were transported to the PMCH in the first instance. Subsequently, the second ambulance from the airport was also pressed into service to transport the remaining injured passengers for medical aid. Shortly after the arrival of the airport ambulance, ambulances from other assisting agencies also arrived and helped in removing all the injured for medical aid. [1]
The accident site was 5–6 km from the airport. The fire personnel reached the site in 5 to 6 minutes (local residents stated that the tenders reached only after 15–20 minutes). The first Crash Fire Tender (CFT) laid two hoses and began to fight the fire; however, it failed in 3 minutes. After failing in their efforts to rectify the fault, the CFT crew had to call a mechanic from the airport and the CFT was put back into operation after an hour. However, after a few minutes of operation, it went back to the airport to refill water. On the way it broke down twice. [3]
The second CFT after a few minutes of operation had to return to the airport to refill water. The crowd that collected within a short time was unmanageable and definitely hampered the rescue operations. According to witnesses, crowd tempers ran high and there was a general tendency to target anybody in uniform or position of authority with verbal abuse and physical violence. At times there were hundreds of people trying to climb on to the rescue vehicles to get a better view. It was only after the arrival of the Bihar military police jawans and the army contingent that some semblance of crowd control was achieved. [3]
The aircraft involved in the accident was a Boeing 737-200. Boeing 737-200 is a twin-engine jet transport airplane manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplane Company, USA. It is designed to operate over short to medium ranges at cruise speeds of approximately 950 kilometres per hour (km/h). Two P&W JT8D/17A engines power the aircraft, each developing approximately 16,000 pounds (lbf) of thrust at sea level. [1]
The aircraft involved in the accident was registered in India as VT-EGD with a serial number of MSN22280. The aircraft was manufactured in 1980 and sold to Indian Airlines. It was subsequently leased to Alliance Air in 1999. [1]
The aircraft in question, VT-EGD, had been involved in an earlier accident. On 15 January 1986, the pilot of flight 529 attempted to land at Tiruchirapalli in conditions below weather minima (reported Wx was exactly the minima). During a go-around (wave-off, just before touch down) the wing contacted the runway due to an excessive bank angle (the delay in spool-up times for both engines were more than 5 seconds apart with the right engine slow). The HIALS was not switched on at the time 529 was approaching and the ATC anemometer was unserviceable. The wing was substantially damaged, but there were no injuries among the 6 crew and 122 passengers. The pilot displayed great skill in manually flying the B737 at FL100 and diverted to Chennai and landed safely with flight controls in "manual reversion" on runway 07[2][4] The aircraft was to be phased out by the end of the year per Indian government guidelines which do not allow aircraft over 20 years old to operate in Indian airspace.
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Air crash
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1977 Encino helicopter crash
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On August 1, 1977, a Bell 206 news helicopter piloted by Francis Gary Powers ran out of fuel and crashed into a field near Encino, California, killing Powers and the aircraft's only passenger, cameraman George Spears. [1][2][3]
The Bell 206 JetRanger was operating under Federal Aviation Regulation Part 91 on a noncommercial flight and departed Hollywood Burbank Airport in Burbank on the morning of August 1, 1977, to provide aerial coverage and record video after a wildfire in Santa Barbara, 86 nautical miles (160 km; 100 mi) to the west. At approximately 12:25 pm PDT, Powers contacted KNBC and stated he had completed gathering footage, was returning to Burbank, and believed he had enough fuel for the return trip. A few minutes later, Powers radioed the control tower at Van Nuys Airport requesting clearance to land there due to low fuel; permission was granted, but the aircraft failed to arrive. [4]
The helicopter was now at 800 feet (240 m) above ground level (AGL) and almost out of fuel. Realizing he would not make the airport, Powers began searching for a spot to land in the heavily built-up area. At 12:35 pm, Powers pointed the aircraft towards the Sepulveda Dam Recreational Area and prepared to auto-rotate down to an open area. The Bell 206 has superior autorotation characteristics,[5] but as he descended, it is surmised that Powers saw a group of teenagers playing on a baseball diamond and made an abrupt maneuver to avoid them. Powers' last radio transmission was "TV four just lost -". At approximately 50 feet (15 m) AGL, the tail rotor fell off and Powers was ejected from the helicopter. At 12:36 pm, the aircraft hit the ground about 50 yards (45 m) from where the boys were playing, gouged a trench twenty feet (6 m) long in the earth, and flipped upside-down. Powers and Spears were both killed, but nobody on the ground was hurt. [6]
The helicopter involved in the accident was a Bell 206B JetRanger serial number 433 built in 1969. [7]
It was powered by a single Allison model 250-C20B turboshaft engine, rated at 420 shaft horsepower. The aircraft Certificate Issue Date was September 19, 1974, and it had been modified with the addition of an externally mounted 360-degree video camera and video recording equipment. Registered as N4TV, it was commonly referred to as the "Telecopter. "[8]
The helicopter pilot was 47-year-old Francis Gary Powers, who began flying the JetRanger when he joined KNBC in November 1976. Best known for piloting an unsuccessful reconnaissance mission over the Soviet Union in 1960, Powers held a valid commercial pilot's license and was instrument rated with 7,193 total flight hours, including 381 in the Bell 206. [8]
The half-million dollar helicopter was completely destroyed during the crash. When firefighters arrived, they removed the helicopter's smoking battery from the fuselage for safety. The wreckage was moved to the Wayne Airframe Aviation Company in Van Nuys. Found inside
the helicopter were the video recorder and four video cassettes. The investigators hoped the tapes might have clues to the reason for the crash but apparently the recorder had not been operating at the time of the incident. The aircraft had not been equipped with a flight data recorder (FDR) or a cockpit voice recorder (CVR). [4]
During the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation, no evidence of failure or malfunction of the aircraft or any of its systems prior to the crash was found. Further examination of the engine found approximately five fluid ounces of jet fuel in the entire fuel system and that the engine had flamed out due to fuel starvation. The final report from the NTSB lists the probable causes as improper in-flight decisions and mismanagement of fuel by the pilot in command which led to fuel exhaustion. Also listed was improper operation of flight controls during the power-off autorotation. [8]
According to one report, the helicopter's fuel gauge had been reported faulty by Powers. The improperly operating fuel gauge would indicate empty when the fuel tank contained enough fuel for 30 minutes flying time. It has been alleged the gauge was repaired to function correctly without Powers being notified. This is a possible explanation why an experienced pilot such as Powers could have run out of fuel. [6]
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Air crash
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2003 Baghdad DHL attempted shootdown incident crash
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On 22 November 2003, shortly after takeoff from Baghdad, Iraq, an Airbus A300B4-200F cargo plane, registered OO-DLL and owned by European Air Transport (doing business as DHL Express), was struck on the left wing by a surface-to-air missile while on a scheduled flight to Muharraq, Bahrain. [1] Severe wing damage resulted in a fire and complete loss of hydraulic flight control systems. Because outboard left wing fuel tank 1A was full at takeoff, there was no fuel-air vapour explosion. Liquid jet fuel dropped away as 1A disintegrated. Inboard fuel tank 1 was pierced and leaking. [2]
Returning to Baghdad, the three-man crew made an injury-free landing of the seriously damaged A300, using differential engine thrust as the only pilot input. This is despite major damage to a wing, total loss of hydraulic control, a faster than safe landing speed and a ground path which veered off the runway surface and onto unprepared ground. [3]
Paris Match reporter Claudine Vernier-Palliez accompanied a Fedayeen unit on their strike mission against the DHL aircraft. [4]
Sara Daniel, a French weekly newsmagazine journalist, claimed receipt, from an unknown source, of a video that showed insurgents, faces concealed, firing a missile at the DHL A300. [5][6] Daniel was researching a feature about Iraqi resistance groups but she denied any specific knowledge of the people who carried out the attack, despite being present at the moment of attack. [6]
The aircraft took off from Baghdad International Airport en route to Bahrain International Airport at 06:30 UTC with an experienced crew of three: two Belgians, 38-year-old Captain Éric Gennotte and 29-year-old First Officer Steeve Michielsen, and a Scotsman, 54-year-old flight engineer Mario Rofail. [7] The captain had 3,300 total flight hours, more than half of them logged in the A300. The first officer had 1,275 hours of flight experience and the flight engineer had 13,400 hours of flight experience. [8]
To reduce exposure to ground attack, the aircraft was executing a rapid climbout. At about 8,000 ft (2,400 m), a 9K34 Strela-3 (SA-14 Gremlin) surface-to-air missile struck the rear of the left wing between the engine and the wing tip. [1][9] The warhead damaged trailing-edge surfaces of the wing structure and caused a fire. All three hydraulic systems lost pressure, and flight controls were disabled. The aircraft pitched rapidly up and down in a roller-coaster phugoid, oscillating between a nose-up and a nose-down position. As in the case of the 1989 United Airlines Flight 232 disaster in the United States, Captain Genotte could only use thrust to modify pitch, speed and altitude and vary throttles asymmetrically to control yaw and turn the aircraft. Flight engineer Mario Rofail executed a gravity drop to extend the landing gear, a procedure normally accomplished with hydraulic power. Early deployment of the gear was critical to a safe outcome because increased drag helped reduce speed and stabilize the aircraft. In about 10 minutes of experimentation, the crew learned to manage turns, climbs and descents. After a meandering trajectory, they executed a right turn and initiated a descent path to Baghdad International Airport. Because of left wing damage and fuel loss, Rofail had to monitor the engine closely – if fuel flow was lost from the left side, he would have to feed fuel from a right tank to maintain thrust. Survival was dependent on accurate power control of each jet engine. Genotte and Michielsen set up for a final approach to runway 33R. The aircraft drifted to the right of the intended course, so Genotte chose the shorter 33L runway. Visibility was excellent and the pilots managed a controlled descent. They knew that, counter-intuitively, they could not retard throttles before touchdown without risking the nose or a wing smashing disastrously into the ground. [2]
At about 400 ft (120 m) turbulence upset the aircraft balance and the right wing dipped. With thrust adjustments, the roll was controlled but the aircraft touched down off the runway centerline. Rofail immediately deployed full reverse thrust but the aircraft veered off the paved runway. The aircraft ran through rough soft ground, throwing up a plume of sand and dragging a razor wire barrier, and halted after about 3,300 feet (1,000 m). [2]
The Honourable Company of Air Pilots jointly honoured crewmembers with the Hugh Gordon-Burge Memorial Award. [10] This is awarded to flight crew whose action contributed outstandingly by saving their aircraft or passengers, or made a significant contribution to future air safety. This annual award is made only if a nomination is considered to be of significant merit. The Flight Safety Foundation's FSF Professionalism Award in Flight Safety was presented to the crewmembers for their "extraordinary piloting skills in flying their aircraft to a safe landing after a missile strike following takeoff from Baghdad, Iraq". [11]
In May 2006, Captain Éric Genotte, together with Armand Jacob, an Airbus experimental test pilot, gave a presentation to the Toulouse branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society titled "Landing an A300 Successfully Without Flight Controls". In addition to severe wing and undercarriage damage, both jet engines suffered ruinous abuse by ingesting debris. In November 2004 the aircraft was repaired and re-registered as N1452, and put up for sale but not sold in 2005. [1] However, the already aging aircraft did not fly again. The aircraft has since been scrapped.
The incident was featured in "Attack over Baghdad", a Season 3 (2005) episode of the Canadian TV series Mayday[14] (called Air Emergency and Air Disasters in the U.S. and Air Crash Investigation in the UK and elsewhere around the world). Coordinates: 33°15′45″N 44°14′04″E / 33.26250°N 44.23444°E / 33.26250; 44.23444
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Air crash
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Seven hurt in Willesborough house explosion
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Seven people have been injured after an explosion left residents trapped in a row of terraced houses.
The front of a property in Mill View, Willesborough, Kent, was totally destroyed in the blast, which started a fire on the street at 08:00 BST.
Two people were taken to hospital to London with serious injuries, South East Coast Ambulance Service said.
Five others were taken to William Harvey Hospital in Ashford with injuries thought to be less serious.
Kent Police said "a number of people" were trapped in the rubble and rescued, but all residents are now accounted for.
The blaze is now under control, and the operation has been scaled back. Fire crews are working to extinguish any remaining hotspots and make the scene safe.
The cause of the fire is yet to be established but it is not being treated as suspicious.
Chantel Weller, from Osborne Road, adjacent to the road where the explosion occurred, said: "We all felt our houses shake along this road. The whole house shook, and it felt like something had blown into the side of it.
"It wasn't very loud but it was a strange feeling.
"People said they thought it might be a gas explosion, and it looks like the houses have been evacuated
"The whole area is cordoned off."
The Salvation Army set up a centre at a local village hall to provide support to those whose homes were evacuated.
People were advised to avoid the area and keep windows and doors closed.
At its height, seven fire crews were called to the site, as well two road vehicles from the air ambulance.
Gas engineers were also brought in.
An update. pic.twitter.com/ZygUAdEBwd
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Steve Bannon charged with contempt of Congress
Britney released from 13-year conservatorship
BBC's John Simpson in Taliban territory 20 years on. VideoBBC's John Simpson in Taliban territory 20 years on
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Gas explosion
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In-Depth: Tsunami danger lurking off San Diego coast
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SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - San Diego's coastline is more susceptible to a tsunami than previously thought. A new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America says that strike-slip faults found along the California coast could cause tsunamis. It was previously thought that only subduction zone faults created tsunamis. A subduction zone is where one tectonic plate moves underneath another. In an earthquake along one of those faults, the ground either rises or falls dramatically. When that happens in the ocean, it often displaces a large amount of water, leading to a tsunami. Recent Stories from 10news.com In strike-slip faults, like the San Andreas or Rose Canyon fault in San Diego, tectonic plates crash into each other or move alongside one another. Those kinds of earthquakes aren't thought to cause tsunamis. But the new report points to events like the 2018 earthquake and tsunami in Palu as proof that it can happen. "For the people of San Diego, it shows us that we have the potential of having tsunami, located close to shore, rather than things that just come from 1000s of miles away," says San Diego State University geology professor Dr. Pat Abbott. Tsunamis in San Diego are rare, with only 11 happening in the last 100 years, and most of them coming from earthquakes that occur in Japan, Chile, or Alaska. But there have been four tsunamis in Southern California created by local earthquakes. Geologists say an earthquake with a magnitude higher than 7.0 on the Richter scale could generate tsunami waves as big as four feet. That wouldn't create the kind of devastation we saw in past tsunamis from Japan or Indonesia. Still, it would do some damage to boats and businesses in the harbor or one of San Diego's bays. "That would cause boats and ships to be broken away from their moorings or maybe cause swimmers to have difficulties swimming," says NOAA Meteorologist Alex Tardy. "It could even make it impossible for a boat to enter a harbor or even leave a harbor." In 2017, San Diego lifeguards added new signs to danger zones, warning people about tsunamis and what to do if they feel an earthquake. RELATED: Lifeguards unveil new beach signs for tsunami awareness week Abbott says the best advice is to seek higher ground if you feel the earth shake. "If you feel a big earthquake, you don't want to be standing at the waterline," Dr. Abbott says. "Let's get some elevation. Let's go up a floor in a building or climb up a hill or something."
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Tsunamis
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Eagan shop was closed due to COVID
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Updated: 7:44 PM CDT September 23, 2021 EAGAN, Minnesota — The pandemic forced a lot of businesses to pivot. Tina Rexing of T-Rex Cookie Company found herself in that position last year. "The pandemic kind of forced my hand in terms of what can we do to keep us afloat," Rexing said. The Eagan-based cookie company is known for its giant cookies — the smallest being half-pound pucks. Prior to T-Rex Cookie , Rexing spent 20 years working in corporate America. As a hobby, she was a competitive baker at the Minnesota State Fair. But in 2015, she took a leap of faith and launched T-Rex Cookie. "Eight months after I started the company, I landed on the Today Show and kind of changed the trajectory of the company. So that was not in the business plan," Rexing said. Tina Rexing packs online orders at her Eagan location. Besides her Eagan shop, Rexing opened a second location inside Ridgedale Mall on March 1, 2020. "14 days later I closed it. So my retail and wholesale accounts just kind of dried up because COVID was happening," she recalled. Even after reopening three months later, business was not the same. The company was pushing out more online orders but Rexing also wondered if customers could bake T-Rex cookies at home. In October 2020, Rexing started testing out the idea with her customers. By January 2021, her frozen cookie dough could be found at the Plymouth Hy-Vee. By the end of the month, the cookie dough could be found at 13 Hy-Vee stores and 11 Kowalski's locations. Credit: Heidi Wigdahl The two pounds of cookie dough are split into four half-pound pucks. "Retail is really tough these days and so by taking a look at other ways we can sell T-Rex cookies, I thought the grocery store would be the best way," Rexing said. The two pounds of cookie dough are split into four half-pound pucks. Now two of the flavors are coming to the frozen dessert section of 63 Target stores on October 10. About 80% of the stores are located in Minnesota but Rexing said the cookie dough will also be in a few Targets in Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. "It's just very exciting to see it go off on a truck with Target logos on it. It was just really exciting," Rexing said. Eagan-based @TrexCookie is getting ready to launch in more than 60 Target stores across the Midwest. Coming up on @kare11 at 6, hear from Tina Rexing about her T-Rex frozen cookie dough! #BehindTheBusiness pic.twitter.com/4p7pXf4QwF — Heidi Wigdahl (@HeidiWigdahl) September 23, 2021 It's also a full-circle moment for Rexing. She spent seven years working for Target in IT and Operations. T-Rex stuffed animals and toys can be found all around her stores. But she also has a section dedicated to the Target Bullseye Dog. "When I was actually working for Target, I would collect the dogs just because I thought it would be a fun thing to do. When I left Target, I couldn't get myself to get rid of them because I love them so much," Rexing said. "It's actually a nice reminder of where I've been and like in terms of people who think that they're in roles that they might not necessarily want to be in, there's always something else to do." T-Rex cookie dough flavors, Monster and Sea Salt Caramel Chocolate Chip, will launch at select Target stores on October 10. It retails between $7.99-$8.99. You can also visit T-Rex Cookie in Eagan on Thursday-Saturday and at Ridgedale Mall seven days a week. More information on hours and locations can be found, here . It's also T-Rex Cookie's first year selling in the U.S. Bank Main Concourse.
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Organization Closed
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2016 Lockhart hot air balloon crash
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On July 30, 2016, sixteen people were killed when the hot air balloon they were riding in struck power lines, crashed and caught fire in the unincorporated community of Maxwell, near Lockhart, Texas, 30 miles (50 km) south of the state capital Austin. It is the deadliest ballooning disaster to ever occur in the United States. [1]
The aircraft involved was a Kubicek BB85Z hot air balloon,[2] registration N2469L. [3] The balloon was operated by the Heart of Texas Balloon Ride company, which served people in the Greater Austin area. [4]
The balloon departed from Fentress Airpark at 06:58 local time (11:58 UTC) on Saturday, July 30, 2016. [2][5] It was carrying the pilot and fifteen passengers. [6] At 07:42,[2] the aircraft struck power lines and crashed into a field near Lockhart, Texas. [7][8][9][5] All sixteen people on board were killed. The emergency services were alerted at 07:44 about a "possible vehicle accident", and arrived at the scene to find the basket of the balloon on fire. [10][11]
A witness described hearing two "pops" which were thought to be a gun going off. Reports said that the balloon lost contact about half an hour into the scheduled one-hour flight. [4] The envelope of the balloon landed about 3⁄4 mile (1,320 yd; 1,210 m) northeast of the burned-out gondola. The flight had covered a distance of about 8 nautical miles (15 km). [2]
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) led the investigation into what was designated a "major accident" by the NTSB. [12][4] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also secured evidence for the NTSB's investigation. [9] Fourteen personal electronic devices (cellphones, an iPad, and cameras) were recovered from the wreckage. These were turned over to the FBI for the recovery of evidence. [2] The NTSB held an investigative hearing into the accident in December 2016. [13][14]
In October 2017, the NTSB determined the accident was caused by the pilot's "pattern of poor decision-making" that led him to launch the balloon (on a day when other balloon operators cancelled their planned flights because of low cloud and fog), to continue the flight into fog and above clouds, and then to descend near clouds which made it difficult to see and avoid obstacles. The pilot's medical conditions (depression and ADHD), the prescription drugs he was taking, and the fact that balloon pilots do not need a medical certificate even for commercial flights were contributing factors leading to the accident. [5]
On August 1, Heart of Texas Hot Air Balloon Rides, whose owner died in the accident, announced that it would be suspending operations. [15][16] More than two years later on September 27, 2018, the House of Representatives approved new legislation that would mandate medical exams for commercial balloon pilots. [17]
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Trump pledges to withdraw from TPP on his first day in office
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Pivot or not, the future of the U.S. policy of engagement with Asia is likely to be a defining feature of a Donald Trump presidency, especially after the U.S. president-elect released a video on Monday (November 21) in which he pledged to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a major regional trade accord—on his first day in office. Turning the worst nightmare of America’s regional allies into reality, the 70-year-old real estate mogul’s surprise election victory threatens to dismantle U.S. President Barack Obama’s Asia policy legacy and put decades-old U.S. alliances in the region in doubt. Some diplomatic pundits even say an isolationist foreign policy under Trump, known for his showman style and brash and blunt personality, might become a turning point for America’s leadership of a chaotic world – with an increasingly assertive China in mind as a successor. Although America’s president-elect has yet to unveil his foreign policy line-up or release any policy road map, observers warn that Asian nations should expect a bumpy ride ahead, with post-election chaos and uncertainty likely to reign in Washington in the coming weeks, if not months. During his campaign, Trump frequently criticised Obama’s Asia policy, mused about the possibility of abandoning America’s long-standing promise to defend key regional allies such as Japan and South Korea, and challenged various “job-killing” multilateral and bilateral free-trade deals, including the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that the U.S. signed early this year but has yet to ratify. In Monday’s video, Trump described the TPP as a “potential disaster for our country” and said he would instead negotiate bilateral trade deals that would “bring jobs and industry back onto American shores”. Since his stunning, upset victory over former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who laid out the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” policy in 2011, Trump has sought to reassure both Tokyo and Seoul that the U.S. would maintain a strong defensive posture in the Asia-Pacific region to protect its security and trade allies. But pending the roll-out of a concrete and coherent Asia policy, observers say such reassurances are far from enough to remove mounting doubts about America’s regional reliability under Trump amid intensifying U.S.-China rivalry. In his post-election diplomatic debut, Trump met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Trump Tower in Manhattan on Thursday. Abe described the hour-long meeting with the president-elect as “candid”, which in the lexicon of diplomatese usually means heated discussion with few concrete results. At a news conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Monday, Abe said the TPP would be “meaningless” without the U.S. and could not be renegotiated. Observers also note that Trump has stopped short of clarifying his stance on the fate of the Asian pivot itself – later rebranded a rebalance – which has kept everyone guessing about how important Asia is to the incoming president. “It’s going to be a bit of a mess as far as Trump’s Asia policies are concerned,” said Robert Sutter, a professor at George Washington University in the U.S. capital. “Trump would probably even abandon the pivot policy as he sees it as a failed policy. It’s Obama’s signature Asian policy. Trump does not have an Asian policy yet.” But Trump’s advisers insist he will not pull some 78,500 U.S. troops out of Japan and South Korea or cede American military dominance in the Asia-Pacific region to China. In an article published in Foreign Policy magazine on the eve of the U.S. presidential election, Peter Navarro, a professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine, and Trump defence policy adviser Alexander Gray offered some rare glimpses into the president-elect’s Asia policy thinking. They acknowledged the pivot was “an appropriate and timely response” to China’s growing military and diplomatic clout, but nonetheless criticised the Obama administration for “talking loudly but carrying a small stick”. Instead of a much-rumoured American retreat from the region, they said Trump would double down on Washington’s commitment to rebuilding the U.S. military, including adding some 80 warships to the U.S. Navy to counter China’s rapidly expanding military capabilities, and urging Japan and South Korea to share the cost of sustaining a U.S. presence in the region. “Trump will never again sacrifice the U.S. economy on the altar of foreign policy by entering into bad trade deals,” they said. They suggested that the new president would follow Ronald Reagan’s hawkish foreign policy doctrine of peace through strength, which has been endorsed by every Republican presidential nominee since the 1980s. Considering the likelihood of Navarro joining Trump’s administration, Steve Tsang, a senior fellow at the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham in Britain, said the article should be taken seriously. Despite his often self-contradictory campaign rhetoric, Tsang said Trump was more likely to stay the course than reverse it. “Trump does not have a clear policy on Asia or on the pivot,” he said. “His foreign policy team is not yet in place and it will take time for it to be put in place. Without a network to draw on he will have to reach out beyond the usual Trump core supporters. Their advice is likely to be in line with long-standing U.S. national interests.” While restoring U.S. military prowess, and in particular its naval capabilities, would make him more able to implement an Asia rebalance, Tsang said it remained to be seen how Trump would work with long-standing U.S. allies in the region to get them to share more of the burden. However, observers warn, such a foreign policy approach would risk intensifying the arms race in the region and escalating tensions with China over maritime disputes. Pang Zhongying, an international affairs expert at Renmin University in Beijing, also questioned the feasibility of Trump’s upgraded version of a pivot to Asia. “As much as 60 per cent of U.S. Navy ships have been deployed in the Asia-Pacific, I simply don’t see how it could be possible for Trump to further strengthen its presence in the region without creating a strategic vacuum in other geopolitically important regions and further annoying its allies in the Middle East and Europe,” Pang said. Wang Wenfeng, deputy director of American studies at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said that unlike defeated Democratic presidential nominee Clinton and his predecessors as president, personal factors about Trump, such as his unpredictability, temperament and relations with his advisers may hold the key to his success in the White House. “The learning curve for Trump on how to become a president and how to deal with China will be much longer than previous presidents, which may not be good news for Beijing,” he said. “Trump is known for his impulsiveness and he is a total amateur on foreign affairs, which makes it more interesting to see if he’s willing to listen to his advisers or he’d rather be the boss calling the shots.” Stapleton Roy, a former U.S. ambassador to Beijing, also noted that most of the experienced foreign policy people in previous Republican administrations, such as former World Bank president Robert Zoellick, former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, and former deputy secretary of defence Paul Wolfowitz, had said they would not support Trump. Instead of tapping well-regarded foreign policy veterans, it has been reported that Trump is considering some controversial and less experienced loyalists, such as former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton, who briefly served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005, to lead the State Department. “So who would be his secretary of state? Would the secretary of state have any influence with him? Because he has had a bad record of taking advice from his advisers, with Trump we don’t know what would happen,” Roy said. During the campaign, Trump talked a lot about slapping a big tariff on America’s imports from China, but he also talked about the need to get along with China and Russia. “He has no experience in this area and we haven’t seen him handle these issues before,” Roy said. “It’s not at all clear who his advisers will be in these areas. So he’s an unknown unknown. That’s why you can’t really predict what the U.S. approach to China would be.” While Asia-Pacific nations have generally welcomed the renewed U.S. diplomatic and military activism in the region, critics have said the new Asian orientation has often been marred by Obama’s perceived weakness in defending America’s role as regional security guarantor in the face of growing challenges from China and the nuclear-armed North Korean regime. China experts in the U.S. also say the lack of a significant, effective economic component in the pivot policy had undermined its effectiveness in countering China’s expansion of its influence through military muscle-flexing and chequebook diplomacy. With Trump’s pledge to torpedo the TPP, the only real economic component in the entire pivot strategy, on day one of his administration, the pivot policy itself would need to be rebalanced. “The pivot was always unbalanced in a way towards the military rather than the economic and cultural,” said David Lampton, a China expert at Johns Hopkins’ school of advanced international studies. “I agree with the idea we should get more involved, but it’s unbalanced.” Roy also noted that most countries wanted to take advantage of China’s economic strength, making any efforts to contain it almost impossible. “Containment strategy does not work because countries around China, including U.S. friends and allies, won’t support the containment strategy,” he said. “They want to work with China.” Analysts said Trump and his advisers appeared to have pinned their hopes on an upgraded military pivot to Asia but had failed to spell out what trade element, deemed essential for a successful rebalance policy, would be added to U.S. Asia policy following the dumping of the TPP. “Asian countries would need an economic dimension and they don’t want an upgrade in the security relations with the U.S. alone,” Sutter said. Former assistant secretary of state Kurt Campbell, a main architect of the pivot policy who has said the history of the 21st century will be written in Asia, said last month that “expectations have risen exponentially” as a result of America’s renewed activism in Asia. “I’m afraid that the U.S. doesn’t fully understand what it’s going to take to be really effective in Asia going forward,” he said. “And we’re going to need a much more integrated, much more cohesive, much more determined set of efforts.” Bonnie Glaser, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said regional anxieties were rising due to uncertainty about America’s transition to the new president and widespread concerns about China’s behaviour and intentions. “China is trying to spin a narrative about how the U.S. is not going to remain committed to the region and so the countries had better have better relations with China,” she said. “I think the anxiety will calm down, but people will continue to be concerned about the U.S. staying power in the region.” Glaser said Asia-Pacific nations, and especially U.S. allies in the region, were particularly disheartened by talk of a possible special relationship between the world’s two biggest economies — the U.S. and China – also known as the Group of Two. “Nobody in the region wants a U.S.-China relationship that is too intense, too engaged in strategic competition,” she said. “Nobody wants a U.S.-China relationship that is too close and cooperative ... because they think it will happen at their expense.” Experts said neighbouring nations’ discomfort with Beijing’s increasing assertiveness was the single biggest factor behind the spiralling tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. Richard Bush, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, said that while the U.S. pivot was the application of a very old policy in a new situation, the way China projected its power created doubts over Beijing’s peaceful intentions. Although it was true that the U.S. sometimes failed to meet its allies’ expectations to demonstrate its firmness,“I would say the U.S. political position in East Asia today is better than it was five years ago because of China’s behaviour,” he said. Elizabeth Economy, director of Asian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said: “Over the past several years, there’s a heightened sense of nationalism and growing sensitivity accompanied with the belief that somehow China should have a larger say in the region because it is a larger country.” Many experts say the watershed moment occurred during a regional meeting in Hanoi between China and its Southeast Asian neighbours in July 2010, months before the announcement of the pivot initiative. Pointing at his Singaporean counterpart, then foreign minister Yang Jiechi reportedly said: “China is a big country and you’re a small country.” “That kind of diplomacy was a problem and not particularly helpful to resolving any sort of diplomatic challenge,” Economy said. “It’s really not helpful to China’s image. I found it really out of step with Chinese best diplomatic practices.” Roy said that although the way China projected its power was the main source of concerns among Southeast Asian nations and Japan, the Obama administration’s failure to demonstrate U.S. firmness had made things worse. “The way the power has been exercised in specific situations created doubts over China’s peaceful intentions,” he said. Both Roy and Lampton noted that under Xi Jinping, China had stopped following Deng Xiaoping’s foreign policy doctrine of hiding its capabilities and biding its time. “Although people like former state councillor Dai Bingguo insist China has never rejected Deng’s doctrine, they just don’t talk about it any more. But it amounts to the same thing,” Roy said. “This is one of the foreign policy problems that Xi’s government is running into, that if China throws its weight around, then it creates difficulties with its neighbours. That plays into U.S. hands and creates frictions with key countries that are important to China.” Lampton said: “Sometimes China sees everything everybody does, but has no perception of how people look at what China does. I think it’s time to see a kinder and gentler China, which is consistent with China’s interest.” China needed to improve its relations with neighbours such as the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam and Indonesia, he said. “Then these countries would not keep coming to us asking for protection,” he said. “So one reason I’d like to see China improve its relations with its neighbours is it will help us rebalance the rebalance policy in a more constructive direction.” Analysts said the Trump factor might create a lot of uncertainty for Washington’s relations with world powers, including China. The sweeping transition and power shift currently under way in Washington, with more than 4,000 top jobs in the administration reportedly up for grabs, including key cabinet positions and the heads of U.S. diplomatic missions around the globe, will also have an international impact. Pang warned it would be naive for Beijing to expect some grand bargains with Trump, considering the political background of many of his top advisers. “It seems he’s been surrounded by a bunch of neoconservatives and Republican veterans, such as Bolton and former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who are known for their hawkish views on China and multilateralism,” he said. “They apparently have little interest in the kind of multilateral global governance that Xi has envisioned. “We’ll have to wait and see if both sides can develop some new common grounds to replace the old ones that may soon vanish once the new administration takes office.” Lampton said that although the U.S. and China had worked hard to improve military dialogue, overall strategic trust seemed to be deteriorating. “Frankly when our militaries plan a war with another power, they’re essentially planning for a war with each other,” he said. “It’s just planning. I don’t think we are going to have one ... but for purposes of planning, we each assume the other could be our adversary. “I hope not, but I fear that relations between China and the U.S. are heading into more troubled waters.” Wang said that while long-term Sino-U.S. relations might not be affected, bilateral ties would be in for a bumpier ride as both sides would need to make some adjustments in order to redefine bilateral ties under a Trump presidency. “But compared to Clinton, Trump may offer greater challenges and opportunities at the same time,” he said. “There are simply too many uncertainties and no one knows what will happen next.” While Xi’s nationalism, assertiveness and strident rhetoric could be very challenging for the U.S., Economy said she believed his ambition could be beneficial at the same time. “So clearly there are elements of rivalry, challenges, we have different political systems and political values that are really the opposite,” she said. “By the same token, it doesn’t mean when the world is faced with very pressing problem that we cannot find ways to work together.”
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Withdraw from an Organization
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Cleveland Clinic fire of 1929
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The Cleveland Clinic fire was a major structure fire at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on May 15, 1929. It started in the basement of the hospital and it was sparked when an exposed lightbulb came too close to flammable nitrocellulose x-ray film. [1] The fire, generating poisonous gas and two separate explosions, claimed 123 lives, including that of one of the clinic's founders, Dr. John Phillips. [2][3] Policeman Ernest Staab was killed by the gas while rescuing twenty-one victims. [2]
The Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit Ohio corporation, founded in 1921 by four physicians. Late in the morning of May 15, 1929, an exposed lightbulb came too close to and ignited some nitrocellulose x-ray film. The burning film quickly produced a significant amount of poisonous gas, causing victims to inhale carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, and methyl chloride. Their faces turned yellowish-brown within minutes as they suffocated. [2] Further complicating response to the fire, nitrocellulose continues to burn even while immersed in water and fighting the film-fueled fire simply caused more poisonous smoke to accumulate, raising the death toll. [4]
A first explosion came at a few seconds past 11:30 am; a clock on the third floor balcony stopped at that time. After the hollow center of the building was filled with poisonous gas, a second explosion shattered a skylight and sent the vapors into every corner of the clinic. Many of the building occupants succumbed to the poisons. [2]
Despite the heavy loss of life, firemen estimated the property damage at only $50,000 (about $800,000 in 2021 dollars). [5]
According to investigators, the Cleveland Clinic was not at fault for the fire. Nonetheless, the disaster was responsible for influencing significant changes to firefighting techniques. The city of Cleveland issued gas masks to its fire departments and proposed a city ambulance service. [1] Nationally, the disaster prompted medical facilities to establish standards for the storage of nitrocellulose film and other hazardous materials. [1]
Some historians have argued that the Cleveland Clinic fire was also a catalyst for the development of non-flammable, non-toxic chlorofluorocarbon refrigerants. Nevertheless, most of the deaths were from breathing carbon monoxide and nitric oxide rather than methyl chloride itself, and even at the time of the disaster chemical companies were aware of the hazards of existing refrigerants. [6]
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Fire
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Federal government rips up Victoria’s controversial Belt and Road agreements with China
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The federal government has stepped in and torn up four agreements made by the Victorian government with foreign powers, including two linked to China’s Belt and Road initiative.
In a statement on Wednesday evening, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the contentious memorandum of understanding and framework agreement Victoria signed with China in relation to the initiative had been cancelled under new Commonwealth veto laws.
The other two agreements torn up related to deals struck with Iran and Syria.
“I consider these four arrangements to be inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy or adverse to our foreign relations,” Senator Payne said.
It is the first time the federal government has used the new veto powers, which permits it to cancel agreements states and territories strike with other countries.
The Belt and Road deals tied Victoria to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s major infrastructure project.
Agreed areas of cooperation included increasing participation of Chinese infrastructure companies in Victoria’s infrastructure construction program and promoting cooperation of Victorian businesses in China.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews late last year said scrapping the agreements would be risky and they could bring jobs and investment to the state during its coronavirus recovery.
China has in the past 12 months launched a series of damaging trade strikes against Australia after Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an independent inquiry into the origins of the pandemic.
The Chinese government also remains furious with Australia over foreign interference and investment laws and the decision to ban Huawei from the country’s 5G rollout.
Senator Payne said on Wednesday she would continue to monitor arrangements made with foreign nations, and she expected “the overwhelming majority of them to remain unaffected”.
She said she had also approved a proposed memorandum of understanding between the West Australian government and Indonesia in regards to a minerals project.
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Tear Up Agreement
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Explosion at gold mine in China leaves 22 workers trapped underground
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The Chinese authorities have deployed rescue workers at the gold mine, reported Xinhua, the state news agency. The accident occurred in Xicheng Township, which is located in the Shandong province of China. According to the news agency, rescue workers have not been able to contact the trapped miners, as the blast damaged the communication system underground. Xinhua noted that the mine was owned by Shandong Wucailong Investment. The safety record in China’s mining sector is poor despite the government’s efforts to improve miners’ working conditions and actions to curb the operation of illegal mines. Last month, at least 23 workers in southwest China lost their lives after being trapped underground in a coal mine in the city of Chongqing. In August last year, 13 miners were killed due to an explosion in a mine in the southern part of the country. In 2019, a total of 219 accidents occurred in the Chinese coal industry with 375 deaths.
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Mine Collapses
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American Airlines Flight 63 (Flagship Ohio) crash
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On July 28, 1943 American Airlines Flight 63 was flown by a Douglas DC-3, named Flagship Ohio, routing Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati-Louisville-Nashville-Memphis, that crashed on the Louisville-Nashville sector about 1.6 miles (2.6 km) west of Trammel, Kentucky. The aircraft descended from 200 feet (61 m) until it struck trees, then slid across an open field and stopped in an upright position. [1] Of the 22 people on board, 20 died. The cause of the crash was loss of control due to severe turbulence and violent downdrafts. Flagship Ohio was a Douglas DC-3 manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company and owned and operated by American Airlines. Since its first flight in 1936, the aircraft had logged 17,991 hours of flight time. [1] At the time of the crash, it serviced a domestic scheduled passenger route with several stops in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Flight 63 departed Cleveland at approximately 5:42 pm on July 28, 1943. The flight proceeded normally during its scheduled stops in Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, and Louisville. The aircraft arrived at its fourth stop, Louisville, at 9:42 pm. After refueling, the flight received clearance to depart at 9:54 pm. [1] During the Louisville-Nashville leg, the Flagship Ohio was crewed by four American Airlines personnel, and carried eighteen passengers. The aircraft's departure clearance specified an altitude of 2,500 feet (760 m) to Smiths Grove, Kentucky, and then at 2,000 feet (610 m) onward to Nashville. [1] The projected arrival time was 10:54 pm — an hour's flight. Thunderstorms around Smiths Grove caused extreme turbulence and strong downdrafts which forced the plane to lose altitude. The Smiths Grove area is characterized by hilly terrain with an elevation that ranges from 695 to 720 ft (212 to 219 m) above sea level. [1] The plane clipped a clump of trees before skidding across an open field until it came to rest in an upright position in a copse of trees approximately 1,000 feet (300 m) away from its initial point of impact. [1]
The Civil Aeronautics Board investigated the crash and determined that the extreme turbulence and conditions caused by the nearby thunderstorm created such severe flying conditions that the pilot was unable to maintain control of the aircraft. Loss of control of the aircraft due to unusually severe turbulence and violent downdraft caused by a thunderstorm of unknown and unpredictable intensity. All four crewmembers died in the crash. Of the eighteen passengers, only two survived. [1]
After the loss of the Flagship Ohio, American Airlines replaced the aircraft on the Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati-Louisville-Nashville-Memphis route with sister DC-3 Flagship Missouri. Three months later, on October 15, 1943, Flagship Missouri crashed on the Nashville-Memphis leg of the flight. [citation needed]
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Air crash
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Australian swimmer breaks 100-meter backstroke world record
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Swimmer Kaylee McKeown says the death of her father 10 months ago inspired her to break the 100-meter backstroke world record on Sunday at the Australian Olympic trials.
The 19-year-old McKeown had a time of 57.45 seconds at the South Australian Aquatic Centre to improve on the previous mark of 57.57 set by American Regan Smith in 2019.
McKeown’s father Sholto died last August from brain cancer.
“With COVID and the passing of my dad in August last year, it has been a huge, huge build-up to these trials,” she said.
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“And I have turned it into a bit of a hunger and motivation behind me. I use it every day that I wake up. I know it’s a privilege to be on this earth and walk and talk. So to get up and do that tonight is not really for me but my family.”
McKeown last month set a then-Commonwealth and Australian record of 57.63. Just before Sunday’s final, her coach Chris Mooney signaled the world record was a target.
“He did say something to me before I got in for warm-up, it was like ‘you know buddy, I believe in you’,” she said. “I knew and he knew at that time, that it was go time. He knew something special was about to happen. I may not have known it but I was just trying to keep the nerves down as much as I could.”
McKeown’s record sets up a highly anticipated showdown with American star Smith at next month’s Tokyo Olympics.
“It’s just whoever comes up on the day, you never know what can happen in five, six weeks’ time,” she said.
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Break historical records
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Lawyers: Residents smelled gas for months leading up to Dunwoody apartment explosion
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Jasmine Johnson was still in bed Sunday afternoon when her dog began barking and jolted her awake.
The 30-year-old resident of the Arrive Perimeter apartment complex got up to see what was wrong. Moments later, an explosion shook her entire building, an emotional Johnson said Thursday morning. The screen door was ripped off her balcony and the impact of the blast threw into the wall of her second-story unit, she told reporters at a downtown Atlanta law office.
The weekend explosion injured at least four people and left others without a place to stay, utility and fire officials said this week. But Chris Stewart, an Atlanta attorney representing Johnson and five other residents, said tenants had complained for months about smelling gas in the parking garage and hallways of the Dunwoody apartment complex.
“What happened never should have occurred,” Stewart said. “The complex and its management company played Russian roulette with the lives of countless individuals.”
Johnson, who is training to become a flight attendant, said she complained about the smell to her roommate for two or three days leading up to Sunday’s explosion.
“I’ve been smelling that smell around the apartment for weeks, months,” she said. “But it was so strong three days prior to the incident.”
She injured her shoulder in the blast and will need surgery, according to her attorneys, who say they plan to file a lawsuit against the complex and property management company.
Johnson, who moved in last February, credits her dog, Charmed, with waking her up just before the explosion.
“She was going crazy and I thought maybe she wanted to go to the dog park,” she said. “She was whimpering, whining. She doesn’t really whimper like that so I knew something was wrong. ... I remember looking at my dog. Then there was a huge explosion and I was thrown into the wall.”
After the blast, Johnson grabbed Charmed and rushed out of the apartment. On her way outside, she ran into a neighbor who was going back upstairs to check on her children. The woman was covered in blood and pleaded with Johnson to call 911, she said.
“I asked her what happened and she said, ‘The whole apartment building’s gone,’” Johnson said, sobbing.
When she got outside, Johnson said she saw dozens of dazed residents. Many of them mentioned the strong smell of natural gas around their building in the days leading up to the explosion. One man was lying on the ground with his leg “contorted,” Johnson said, adding that it was clearly broken.
Stewart said residents who had previously complained about the smell were told by the apartment’s management that they needed to call the gas company. Others never even heard back, according to Madeleine Simmons, another partner at the law firm.
“The fact that an apartment complex and their management company would not fix complaints of gas (leaks), which you know can lead to an explosion, is beyond reckless,” Stewart said. “Get a maintenance man out there to fix it.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reached out to Arrive Perimeter management several times for comment but has not heard back.
An Atlanta Gas Light technician was actually en route to the apartment complex Sunday as the blast occurred, causing a partial collapse of one of the complex’s three buildings. Of the four residents who were injured, one had a severe burn and one suffered a broken leg, DeKalb County fire officials said. Two others were treated for minor injuries.
Sherelle Baker, 26, considers herself lucky to be alive after debris from the building ripped through her car and knocked her unconscious, she said Thursday. The Powder Springs resident had just pulled into the complex for a work meeting when the explosion occurred.
“I arrived early and was just getting ready to get out of my car,” she said. “Before I could even open my door, it happened.”
Baker remembers waking up moments later to a woman screaming in the car next to hers. She had just come out of the building and gotten into her vehicle when the blast occurred.
Baker’s mother came and picked her up at the scene. She went to the hospital the following day and was diagnosed with a concussion, she said.
“My back hurts pretty bad and my head is still killing me,” said Baker, who is being represented by another law firm.
A spokeswoman for Atlanta Gas Light said the company was told to shut off gas to the entire complex after discovering “appliance and fuel line issues within the buildings” during an initial inspection.
As of Thursday, gas remained shut off to the more than 400 units in the complex, Dunwoody city spokeswoman Jennifer Boettcher told the AJC. Before the gas can be reconnected, the apartment complex must have someone inspect the appliances in each unit.
“In every unit, they’re checking the kitchen range, the furnace, the water heater and the fireplace to make sure there’s no leaks, all the fittings are secure and there’s a verified shutout valve,” she said.
Crews must also conduct system pressure checks on the gas lines before the utility is reconnected.
Stewart said many of the displaced residents are staying in hotel rooms for now, though some don’t have the money to pay up front. Others with pets are remaining in their homes because many of the hotels in the area don’t allow dogs, he said.
“They’re not going to abandon their animals,” Stewart said.
But Johnson isn’t sure she’ll ever return home.
“Your home is supposed to be your safety net, but I don’t want to go back to that place,” she said.
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Gas explosion
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Physical, emotional scars slow to heal 2 years after Durham explosion
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Durham, N.C. — The site of a natural gas explosion near downtown Durham remains a vacant lot two years later, and the emotional toll the blast took on many that day has likewise not been built over.
"I walk up the street every day. I walk right past it. It’s tough walking by it, seeing just the empty lot now," said Pete Susca, the owner of It’s A Southern Thing restaurant, on West Main Street a couple of blocks from the site of the explosion.
A contractor installing underground cables struck a gas line outside the Kaffeinate coffee shop on North Duke Street on April 10, 2019. The resulting blast rocked the area west of downtown Durham, killing two and injuring about two dozen others.
Complete coverage: Downtown Durham natural gas explosion
Durham Fire Chief Bob Zoldos was at City Hall that morning for a celebration of the city's 150th anniversary.
"The building shook. I felt it," Zoldos said. "We could feel the explosion even though we were five, six blocks away."
Rich Meyer was driving a shuttle bus for Carolina Livery and was across the street from Kaffeinate to pick up passengers when the explosion occurred. The blast shattered the windows in the bus and blew off its doors.
"Every single day, I battle fatigue, headaches, memory disconnects," Meyer said, noting that he suffered a brain injury in the explosion that also affected his sight and hearing. "It’s changed my life. ... I have to control the environment that I’m in because sound, light and motion affect me and can affect me very negatively."
Meyer is one of four clients attorney David Kirby is representing in a series of lawsuits filed last year .
"This gas line should not have been ruptured. There should not have been a gas leak; there should not have been an explosion," Kirby said. "It was completely avoidable and preventable. I think everybody, all parts of this lawsuit, would all agree to that. I think the issue that is trying to be determined is who bears responsibility for this happening."
The state Department of Labor fined three companies for workplace safety violations related to the explosion. They are among several contractors named as defendants in the lawsuits.
"I think what every one of these individuals who are part of this lawsuit, they would all want safety enhancements so that this never happens to another family," Kirby said. "It’s not directly an aspect of this lawsuit, but I know all the families involved would love to make sure that this never happens to anyone else."
The lawsuits will likely go to trial sometime in late 2022, he said, noting the coronavirus pandemic has slowed the pre-trial process.
Meyer said he doesn't blame anyone for the explosion, but he hopes to get compensation for his injuries. He has been able to do very little work since then, and his workers compensation claim was denied, leaving him responsible for all of his medical costs.
"I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time," he said. "I incurred my injuries from somebody else’s mistakes, and people make mistakes. I don’t harbor any anger against anyone. It is what it is."
He said he's just thankful to have survived the explosion.
"I can enjoy my wife and my grandkids, my brothers and my sisters. I don’t harbor any resentment at all," he said. "Some day, I hope to wake up and I don’t have to fight the symptoms."
Zoldos said he is paying close attention to the mental health of his firefighters who were on the scene that day, evacuating buildings and helping those hurt in the blast.
"A lot of firefighters nationwide won't go to something this significant their entire careers," he said. "So, it’s something we want to watch [and] take care of."
Susca said some windows in his restaurant that were shattered in the explosion were repaired only Thursday. He said he and his staff remain wary of suspicious sounds or smells.
"Anytime anyone smells gas, it’s almost instantly a freak out," he said. "You hear a big boom, a big crash, and you instantly think, 'What just happened?'"
Replacing the vacant lot with something tangible will help the area and those affected by the blast heal, Susca said.
"I think it’ll make it a little bit easier to, not necessarily forget, but feel like it’s turning into a better, or a more comfortable, situation," he said.
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Gas explosion
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The temperature's rising but you can't swim at these Tasmanian beaches
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With Hobart's temperature expected to hit 30 degrees Celsius today, make sure you check out which beaches are off limits to avoid wasted energy.
If you are looking to cool off, avoid swimming at Blackmans Bay beach south for the foreseeable future, where sampling earlier this year identified unacceptable levels of enterococci, the germs that commonly live in the bowels of most people.
The Kingborough Council is spending $35,000 of unbudgeted funds on an intensive water sampling program for parts of Blackmans Bay beach, after the water quality was downgraded to poor. The water was deemed to pose a risk to public health, and has since been closed to swimmers. The council last week embarked on an intensive, 12-week sampling regime to locate the cause of the contamination. Mayor Dean Winter said the initial results had been positive, but warned residents to avoid the area during today's warm weather. "We're hoping that over the next 12 weeks of intensive sampling we're going to be able to identify the problems that are causing the water quality issues, but also be able to clearly tell people whether or not it's safe to swim at Blackman's Bay Beach," he said. "At this stage it's still the case that Blackmans Bay beach is going to be closed over summer, however Kingborough Council has now put as much resourcing as it possibly can into this issue. "Kingborough's got a reputation as an environmental leader, and as part of that we need to make sure we're keeping our waterways clean."
Mr Winter said TasWater was working with the council on the issue. The Derwent Estuary Program will begin its summer water quality monitoring from early December, with weekly testing results to be published on their website. Derwent Estuary Program chief executive Ursula Taylor said just two of Hobart's 18 beaches were unsuitable for swimmers — Blackmans Bay south, and Nutgrove Beach west. "Hobart is in an enviable position, there are lots of beaches in Hobart which have fantastic water quality," Ms Taylor said. "We're hopeful this season will show some improvements in the water quality at [Nutgrove Beach west] and that rating can be changed."
Ms Taylor said people should avoid swimming at beaches in the estuary in the days following heavy rain.
The high Hobart temperature will combine with north to north-westerly winds of up to 40 kilometres per hour until late afternoon, with a very high fire danger about parts of the south-east, upper Derwent Valley, Midlands and east coast forecast districts.
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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Environment Pollution
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Where Darius is now...divorce from actress, near-fatal coma and his mum's miracle cancer recovery
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Before social media and 24-hour access to your favourite stars, Popstars made household names of its contestants, and opened the floodgates for modern behemoths like X Factor and The Voice, as well as predecessor Pop Idol, the Mirror reports.
Back in Darius' day, the Popstars show created winning band Hear'Say and runners up, Liberty X.
Though the young Glaswegian didn't make it through to either group, the programme changed his life forever.
Just a year later he came in third place to Will Young and Gareth Gates and the rest became history.
After turning down a contract with Simon Cowell, he went on to have five UK top 10 singles including his number one hit, Colourblind, and a platinum debut album, Dive In.
Aged just 22, he moved to the US and found love when he married Candadian actress Natasha Henstridge, becoming step-father to her two young sons in the process.
But their relationship was a turbulent one according to Darius, now 40, who said they were on and off throughout their courtship.
"That relationship was certainly not without its ups and downs. Over the course of 12 years we broke up many times and had a period of six months apart," he previously told the Scottish Herald.
"It was often a long distance relationship for half of it. That in itself was an amazing experience, but a painful one. When you love someone you want to be with them."
Darius was critically ill after a water blunder (Image: Getty Images Europe)
When they filed for divorce in 2013, Darius was devastated.
"I felt a great sense of loss with the divorce and I went through a grieving period. You see, you don’t break up with one person, you break up with three. And in some ways, it’s like a death," he added.
The breakdown of his marriage wasn't the only heartache the mid noughties had in store for the star.
Ten years earlier his Iranian-born gastroenterologist father, Dr Booth Danesh, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given just three months to live.
And in 2015, his Scottish GP mother, Avril Campbell Danesh, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Natasha Henstridge and Darius Campbell (Image: Getty)
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But both went on to make miraculous recoveries, with chemotherapy and radiotherapy curing Dr Booth of stage 4 lymphoma that had spread to his bone marrow.
Before his diagnosis, he had been feeling run-down for 18 months but symptoms were dismissed as arthritis.
It was only when he collapsed one day at home that a scan revealed a tumour the size of a large orange in his pelvis. By that point it had spread to his bone marrow and was terminal.
Chemotherapy shrunk the tumour to the size of a walnut but by July 2004, his body was so ravaged that his heart stopped beating - only to restart again. By Christmas he was in remission.
A decade later Avril found a lump in her breast and also underwent a gruelling course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy on top of surgery.
Darius told the Daily Record: "Mum’s illness was very serious – she had a lump in her neck too. It wasn’t good and at one point, we thought we might lose her but she came back.
“My parents are the most amazing, inspiring people.
“Both my parents have been very lucky to have faced death and survived.
“I love them both so much, I’m so thankful they are still here and they are both so inspiring for me.”
Darius Campbell demonstrates a water filter in a video for charity Fresh20 Water for Life (Image: Internet Unknown)
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Jane Park moves to Dubai to see out coronavirus lockdown and 'make 2021 more positive than 2020'
Meanwhile, Darius suffered his own health scare in 2017 when he collapsed into a near-fatal coma after accidentally drinking dirty water from the River Thames while shooting an advert for a charity water filter.
“I drank the water for the video and raised the funds but, when I went to Glasgow to see my mum for her birthday, I collapsed," he told the Record, reflecting on his horror hospitalisation which happened because the filter he used was a dummy version.
“It turned out I had a cerebral oedema where your brain swells bigger than your skull. Dad saved my life. He got me to hospital. They diagnosed it quickly.”
He’d caught an inflammatory virus from the Thames, which left his immunity low, then picked up bacterial meningitis.
Avril, who was going through her own treatment at the time, kept a bedside vigil after he lapsed into a coma.
Darius added: “As I came out of the coma, I remember my mum sitting beside the bed.
“It felt upside down and wrong because my mum was going through cancer treatment.
“Yet she was next to me with tears in her eyes telling my brother that they almost lost me.
“My illness knocked me off my feet and I was bed-bound for three months and picked up a new respect for what my parents went through.”
Throughout his 20 year career, Darius has had several name changes, reverting to his mum's maiden name Campbell in honour of his grandfather in 2010, before switching back to Danesh.
He launched a successful West End career, starring in Chicago, Guys and Dolls, Gone With The Wind, From Here to Eternity and opposite Sheridan Smith in Funny Girl in 2016.
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Famous Person - Divorce
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1973 DeKalb–Peachtree Airport Learjet crash
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On February 26, 1973, a private Learjet 24 crashed shortly after take-off from DeKalb–Peachtree Airport in Chamblee, Georgia, United States. The aircraft, registration N454RN, owned by a private corporation, struck birds shortly after lifting off. Air traffic control advised the flight crew of smoke trailing from their left engine; the crew said they would not be able to return to the airport. The aircraft impacted the roof of an apartment building and came to rest in a ravine. All five passengers and two crew members aboard the aircraft were killed; a person in the apartment building suffered severe burns. A subsequent investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirmed the aircraft had impacted birds during take-off. Due to loss of power in the left engine, the flight crew were unable to control their aircraft before it struck the roof of the apartment building. The investigation further determined the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and officials at DeKalb–Peachtree Airport were aware of the danger of birds at the airport after a landfill site had opened in the vicinity of the airport ten years before the accident. The Learjet 24, registration N454RN, used for the flight between Chamblee, Georgia, and Miami, Florida,[1] had been manufactured in 1966, and had accumulated 4,041 flying hours. Powered by two General Electric CJ610-4 turbojet engines,[2] the aircraft was registered to Machinery Buyers Corporation, an Atlanta firm. [3] A spokesperson for the company later told the Daily Record the aircraft was to pick up a customer in Miami. [4] The flight crew consisted of captain Ernest Sellfors, aged 31, and first officer David Phillips, aged 27. Sellfors was permitted to fly Learjet 24, Learjet 23 and Hawker Siddeley 125 aircraft, and had a total of 5,600 flying hours, of which 2,150 were in jet aircraft. Phillips had begun flying in the Learjet 24 several weeks before the accident, and had accumulated a total of 4,000 flying hours in other aircraft. [5]
The weather around the time of the accident was overcast, with a ceiling of 500 feet (150 m). Visibility was 4 miles (6.4 km), with a 4-knot wind at 60 degrees. At 10:10 Eastern Standard Time, air traffic control cleared the aircraft to take off from Runway 20L of DeKalb–Peachtree Airport. Witnesses told the NTSB the take-off path of the aircraft appeared to be normal, but it was trailing smoke when it crossed the airport perimeter. Controllers in the air traffic control tower observed the smoke and radioed the aircraft to notify them. [6]
Witnesses also said they heard two explosive noises, the first as the aircraft "crossed the airport boundary and the second when the aircraft was about halfway between the airport and the crash site." Although most witnesses described the smoke as white or grey, two witnesses said black smoke and flames were visible at the rear of the aircraft. [6] According to witness statements, the aircraft climbed to a height of between 250 feet (76 m) and 300 feet (91 m), before the nose began to rise. One said the aircraft was "wobbling" and another said they thought the aircraft had stalled. The aircraft impacted with the roof of a three-storey apartment building before it crashed into a wooded ravine approximately 250 feet from busy Buford Highway, a major Atlanta road lined with apartments. [7] All five passengers and two crew members were killed in the accident,[8] and an individual on the ground, standing in a parking lot, sustained serious burns from aviation fuel and remained in a critical condition for a day after the accident. [9] The apartment building was damaged, and several parked vehicles destroyed. [8]
Upon reaching the accident site, investigators from the NTSB found both engines, the wings and empennage had separated from the fuselage, which had largely been consumed by fire. It was clear to investigators the aircraft had encountered a bird strike upon take-off. [7] One pilot who landed at around the time the Learjet took off told the Gadsden Times, "Just as we came across the runway it was almost black with birds. They swarmed and parted as we went through them. "[9]
Analysis of the cockpit area found there was bird residue and feathers on the windshield and center post. The remains of 15 cowbirds were found within 150 feet (46 m) of the end of Runway 20L. [7] These birds, the NTSB found, had collided with the aircraft structure. [10] Examination of the two engines found evidence of foreign objects, which consisted of minute fragments of feathers. The objects had blocked cooling ports, and had damaged the rotor assembly inside the engine. It was found the left engine had encountered 14 separate bird strikes and the right engine had encountered five. [7] When the birds entered the engine, they caused the compressors to stall; these were the two loud bangs the witnesses heard as the aircraft took off. As the aircraft passed over the perimeter fence, the left engine flamed out, and the trail of smoke was unburned fuel passing through the hot combustion and turbine sections. Investigators determined it was possible the flight crew had managed to restart the left engine. [10]
To pass certification, the General Electric CJ610 turbojet engine underwent bird strike testing, during which chloroformed birds are passed through a test engine. [11] However, the damage to both engines was, according to the NTSB, "considerably heavier" than it had been in the test engine. Because of the failure of the left engine, and the severe damage to the right engine, the aircraft was unable to remain airborne. [10]
Formerly a military base, DeKalb–Peachtree Airport came under control of the DeKalb County government in 1960 for use as a civil airport. The County government told the FAA they would "take action to restrict the use of land adjacent to or in the immediate vicinity of the airport to activities and purposes compatible with normal airport operations including landing and take-off of aircraft. "[11] However, in the summer of 1962, ten years before the accident, a sanitary landfill site was opened in the vicinity of the airport. The NTSB report suggests birds were regularly attracted to the landfill site. [10]
In 1970, the FAA contacted the County government and alerted them to the potential risk of a bird strike at the airport. "In February 1971, the FAA was advised by the County that the dump would be closed by August 1972," as stated in the NTSB accident report. [10] However, the landfill site was not closed in 1972, and remained open at the time of the accident. Investigators concluded it was likely the dump was a factor in the accident: "There is little doubt that the municipal dump located adjacent to the airport property attracts birds which are a serious hazard to aircraft.
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Air crash
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Kenya's locust hunters on tireless quest to halt ancient pest
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As dawn breaks in central Kenya, a helicopter lifts off in a race to find roosting locusts before the sun warms their bodies and sends them on a ravenous flight through farmland. Pilot Kieran Allen begins his painstaking survey from zebra-filled plains and lush maize farms, to dramatic forested valleys and the vast arid expanses further north, his eyes scouring the landscape for signs of the massed insects. The chopper suddenly swings around after a call comes in from the locust war room on the ground: a community in the foothills of Mount Kenya has reported a swarm. "I am seeing some pink in the trees," his voice crackles over the headphones, pointing to a roughly 30-hectare (75-acre) swathe of desert locusts. Reddish-pink in their immature—and hungriest—phase, the insects smother the tips of a pine forest. Allen determines that nearby farms are at a safe distance and calls in a second aircraft which arrives in minutes to spray the swarm with pesticide. On the ground, having warmed to just the right temperature, the thick cloud of locusts fills the air with a rustling akin to light rainfall. But a few hours from now, many will be dead from the effect of the poison. Last month alone, Allen logged almost 25,000 kilometres (15,500 miles) of flight—more than half the circumference of the world—in his hunt for locusts after a fresh wave of insects invaded Kenya from Somalia and Ethiopia. Like other pilots involved in the operation—who have switched from their usual business of firefighting, tourism, or rescuing hikers in distress—he has become an expert on locusts and the dangers they pose. "Those wheat fields feed a lot of the country. It would be a disaster if they got in there," he says pointing to a vast farm in a particularly fertile area of Mount Kenya. Second wave Desert locusts are a part of the grasshopper family which form massive swarms when breeding is spurred by good rains. They are notoriously difficult to control, for they move up to 150 kilometres (90 miles) daily. Each locust eats its weight in vegetation daily and multiplies twenty-fold every three months. The locusts first infested the east and Horn of Africa in mid-2019, eventually invading nine countries as the region experienced one of its wettest rainy seasons in decades. Some countries like Kenya had not seen the pest in up to 70 years and the initial response was hampered by poor co-ordination, lack of pesticides and aircraft, according to Cyril Ferrand, a Nairobi-based expert with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). A slick new operation to combat a second wave of the pests has improved control and co-operation in Kenya, Ethiopia and parts of Somalia. Locust war room In Kenya, the FAO has teamed up with the company 51 Degrees, which specialises in managing protected areas. It has rejigged software developed for tracking poaching, injured wildlife and illegal logging and other conservation needs to instead trace and tackle locust swarms. A hotline takes calls from village chiefs or some of the 3,000 trained scouts, and aircraft are dispatched. Data on the size of the swarms and direction of travel are shared with the pilots as well as governments and organisations battling the invasion in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. "Our approach has completely been changed by good data, by timely data, and by accurate data," said 51 Degrees director Batian Craig. He said in Kenya the operation had focused on a "first line of defense" in remote and sometimes hostile border areas, which had successfully broken up massive swarms coming in from Ethiopia and Somalia before they reach farmland further south. In a complex relay, when the wind shifts and the swarms head back into Ethiopia, pilots waiting on the other side of the border take over the operation. Southern and central Somalia is a no-go zone due to the presence of Al-Shabaab Islamists and the teams can only wait for the swarms to cross over. Ferrand told AFP that in 2020 the infestation affected the food supply and livelihoods of some 2.5 million people, and was expected to impact 3.5 million in 2021. He said while a forecast of below average rainfall and the improved control operation could help curb the infestation, it was difficult to say when it will end. But with dizzying climate fluctuations in the region, "we need to start looking ahead to what needs to be in place if we start to see more frequent infestations of desert locusts." While the size of swarms have decreased this year, each one is "affecting someone's livelihood along the way," said Craig. In a Meru village, desperate farmer Jane Gatumwa's 4.8-hectare farm of maize and beans is seething with ravenous locusts. She and her family members run through the crops yelling and banging pieces of metal together in a futile bid to chase them away. "They destroy everything, they have been here for like five days. I feel bad because these crops help us to get school fees and also provide food." "Now that there's nothing left we will have a big problem."
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Insect Disaster
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1989 Sukhumi riots
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The Sukhumi riot was a riot in Sukhumi, Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, in July 1989, triggered by an increasing inter-ethnic tensions between the Abkhaz and Georgian communities and followed by several days of street fighting and civil unrest in Sukhumi and throughout Abkhazia. The riots started as an Abkhaz protest against opening of a branch of Tbilisi State University in Sukhumi, and concluded with looting of the Georgian school which was expected to house the new university on 16 July 1989. The ensuing violence quickly degenerated into a large-scale inter-ethnic confrontation. By the time when the Soviet army managed to temporarily bring the situation under control, the riots resulted in at least 18 dead and 448 injured, mostly Georgians. The first case of inter-ethnic violence in Georgia, it effectively marked the start of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. From 1921 until 1931 Abkhazia was a quasi-independent Soviet republic, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia (SSR Abkhazia), united with the Georgian SSR in a special treaty status but not fully subservient. This arrangement ended when the SSR Abkhazia was downgraded into the Abkhaz ASSR and fully under the control of the Georgian SSR, a move not popular amongst the Abkhaz. [1] Protests were held opposing this move, and repeated again in 1957, 1967, and in 1978. [2] Only in 1978 were there any concessions from either the Georgian or Soviet government, including the upgrading of the Sukhum Pedagogical Institute into a full university, Abkhaz State University. [3][4]
It was with the onset of perestroika within the Soviet Union that gave renewed hope to the Abkhaz in their desire to leave the Georgian SSR. On 17 June 1988, an 87-page document, known as the 'Abkhazian Letter', was sent to Mikhail Gorbachev and the rest of the Soviet leadership. Signed by 60 leading Abkhazians, it outlined the grievances the Abkhaz felt, and argued that despite the concessions of 1978, autonomy had largely been ignored in the region. It concluded by asking for Abkhazia to be removed from the Georgian SSR, and it to be restored as a full Soviet republic, akin to the SSR Abkhazia. [5] Though the letter failed to gain the attention of the Soviet authorities, it raised concern amongst the Georgian leadership, who implemented a policy calling for increased instruction of the Georgian language in schools; this faced opposition in Abkhazia, where most ethnic Abkhaz did not speak Georgian but instead used up to three other languages (Abkhaz, Mingrelian, and Russian). [6]
Further issues occurred on 18 March 1989. Around 37,000 people met at the village of Lykhny, a traditional meeting spot for the Abkhaz, and signed what became known as the Lykhny Declaration. It once again called for Abkhazia to become a separate republic like it was between 1921 and 1931. The Declaration, which unlike the prior 'Abkhazian Letter' was made public immediately saw mass opposition demonstrations from the Georgian community in Abkhazia. [7] The protests climaxed in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and evolved into a major anti-Soviet and pro-independence rally on 9 April 1989, which was violently dispersed by Soviet Interior Ministry troops, resulting in the deaths of at least nineteen, mostly young women, and the injury of hundreds of demonstrators. [8] At a plenum of the Georgian central committee the following day the Communist party first secretary, Jumber Patiashvili, resigned and was replaced by the former head of the Georgian KGB, Givi Gumbaridze. [9] The 9 April tragedy removed the last vestiges of credibility from the Soviet regime in Georgia and pushed many Georgians into radical opposition to the Soviet Union, and exacerbated ethnic tensions between Georgians and other groups, in particular the Abkhaz and Ossetians. [10]
The issue of a university had always been very sensitive in Abkhazia. Sukhumi State University was established in 1978 as a part of the concessions towards the Abkhaz secessionist demands, which in its turn was triggered by the Georgian national mobilization in defense of their language and culture. The university had three sectors: Abkhaz, Georgian, and Russian. [11] However, Georgian students repeatedly complained of discrimination at the hands of their Abkhaz and Russian lectors and administration. [12] In the aftermath of the 9 April events, Georgian students at Sukhumi State University started a hunger strike, calling for the Georgian sector of the university to be transformed into a branch of Tbilisi State University, and in effect controlled by Georgians and not Abkhaz. [13] Joined by students and faculty from the Subtropical Institute, this was part of a campaign started by ethnic Georgians in Abkhazia for greater cultural separation, and more clear division between the two ethnic groups. Aware it would cause unrest in Abkhazia, the authorities approved the measure on 14 May. [14] In response Abkhaz organized a sit-in. The Supreme Soviet in Moscow also launched a commission, which ruled that the Georgians had no authority to establish the university, as that was solely under its purview. [15] They concluded that a region the size of Abkhazia had no need for two universities. It also found that despite Georgian claims they were discriminated against under the language system in place, they had a higher percent of applications than the Abkhaz sector (33.5% for the Georgian compared to 24% for Abkhaz; the Russian, which would have had applicants from all three groups, saw 42.5% of all applications. [16]
Despite the ruling against the legality of the university, entrance exams were scheduled for 15 July. [17] Attempts by Abkhaz to photograph the crowds of Georgians congregated in the city is said to have started the violence. [18][17] By 7:00pm the university was under attack. [18] Late on 16 July, a crowd of five thousand Abkhaz, many of whom were armed, surged into the building. Several members of the Georgian exam commission were beaten up, and the school was looted. [19]
This set off a chain of events that produced further casualties and destruction as the both sides engaged in armed fighting for several days to come. That evening, Abkhaz and Georgians began mobilizing all over Abkhazia and western Georgia. Svans, an ethnic Georgian subgroup from northeastern Abkhazia, and Abkhaz from the town of Tkvarcheli in Abkhazia clashed in a shootout that lasted all night and intermittently for several days afterward. [15] Meanwhile, up to 25,000 Georgians from western Georgia, and the predominantly Georgian Gali district in southern Abkhazia, gathered near Ochamchire. [20] Soviet Interior Ministry troops were sent in to restore order, and by 17 July the violence had largely dissipated. [21]
The July events in Abkhazia left at least 18 dead and 448 injured, of whom, according to official accounts, 302 were Georgians. [22] It also marked the first case of inter-ethnic violence in Georgia; while previous protests and demonstrations had occurred in Abkhazia, none had seen any casualties. [23] Although a continuous presence of the Interior Ministry troops maintained a precarious peace in the region, outbursts of violence did occur, and the Soviet government made no progress toward solving any of the inter-ethnic problems. [24] The Georgians suspected the attack on their university was intentionally staged by the Abkhaz secessionists in order to provoke a large-scale violence that would prompt Moscow to declare a martial law in the region, thus depriving the government in Tbilisi of any control over the autonomous structures in Abkhazia. At the same time, they accused the Soviet government of manipulating ethnic issues to curb Georgia's otherwise irrepressible independence movement. On the other hand, the Abkhaz claimed that the new university was an instrument in the hands of Georgians to reinforce their cultural dominance in the region, and continued to demand that the investigation of the July events be turned over to Moscow and that no branch of Tbilisi State University be opened in Sukhumi. [25]
Tensions remained high in Abkhazia, and saw the Abkhaz totally disregard Georgian authority in the region. This was confirmed on 25 August 1990, when the Abkhaz Supreme Soviet passed a declaration, "On Abkhazia's State Sovereignty," which gave supremacy to Abkhaz laws over Georgian ones.
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Riot
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1933 Imperial Airways Ruysselede crash
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The 1933 Imperial Airways Ruysselede crash occurred on 30 December 1933 when an Imperial Airways Avro Ten collided with one of the radio mast of Belradio at Ruysselede, West Flanders, Belgium and crashed killing all ten people on board. The aircraft was operating an international scheduled passenger flight from Cologne, Germany to London, England via Brussels, Belgium. The accident aircraft was Avro Ten registration G-ABLU, c/n 528. The aircraft had entered service with Imperial Airways in May 1931 and having served for a time with Iraq Petroleum Transport Co., it had returned to Imperial Airways. The aircraft was named Apollo. [1]
Operating a flight from Cologne, Germany to Croydon Airport, United Kingdom via Haren Airport, Brussels, Belgium, the aircraft departed at 12:20 local time (11:20 GMT), which was 20 minutes later than scheduled. As a result of fog, the aircraft was flying on a route to the north of its normal route. At 13:15,[2] whilst flying at an altitude of 250 feet (76 m),[3] it crashed into a guy wire of the 870 feet (270 m) tall radio mast at Ruysselede,[2][4] which was illuminated at the time. The top section of the mast was demolished. The aircraft lost a wing and crashed. Four workers at the radio station rushed to the aid of those on board the aircraft, as did twelve villagers from Ruysselede. At least one passenger was seen to have survived the crash. There was an explosion and the wreckage of the aircraft was burnt out. The rescuers all suffered burns. [2]
All ten passengers and crew on the aircraft were killed. Four rescuers suffered burns. [2]
The accident was investigated by Belgian authorities. The British Accidents Investigation Branch sent a representative to assist in the investigation. [5]
The relatives of one of the victims praised the bravery of one of the rescuers, and pressed for him to be rewarded for his courage. [6] King Albert I awarded Camille van Hove the Civic Cross (1st Class) for his efforts in attempting to rescue the victims of the crash. Mr van Hove received serious burns and was still in hospital in Bruges at the time the award was notified. [4][7] Nine other rescuers were given rewards of money. [8]
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Air crash
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Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity 2 completed its third successful spaceflight on May 22, 2021.
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Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity 2 completed its third successful spaceflight on May 22, 2021. (Virgin Galactic) Virgin Galactic completed its third successful spaceflight with the VSS Unity on Saturday May 22, and the first ever human space flight from Spaceport America, New Mexico. VSS Unity achieved a speed of Mach 3 after being released from the mothership, VMS Eve, and reached space, at an altitude of 55.45 miles, according to a May 22 press release. On VSS Unity’s flight deck were CJ Sturckow and Dave Mackay, while Kelly Latimer and Michael Masucci piloted VMS Eve. CJ, who flew as pilot-in-command. The company fulfilled a number of test objectives during the flight, according to the release, including: “We will immediately begin processing the data gained from this successful test flight, and we look forward to sharing news on our next planned milestone,” Michael Colglazier, Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Galactic, said in a statement. Check out this video of the flight tweeted by Virgin Galactic on Saturday. Breeze will operate a fleet of 13 Embraer e-jets ahead of Airbus A220 aircraft arriving from October, according to a May 21 press release. (Breeze Airways) Breeze Airways, the new Utah-based low cost carrier launched in 2020 by JetBlue founder David Neeleman, officially launched its debut network in a May 21 press release. The airline is headquartered in Salt Lake City, and is focusing on operations from four main airports, including “Tampa, FL; Charleston, SC; New Orleans, LA; and Norfolk, VA,” according to the release. “Breeze will operate 13 single-class Embraer aircraft this summer, flying routes with an average flight length under two hours. The ten E-190 jets will be configured to seat 108 Guests while the three E195 aircraft will have 118 seats,” the airline said in the release. Additionally, the new low cost carrier will start taking delivery of 60 Airbus A220 aircraft, beginning in October of this year and delivering at about one per month for five years. The A220 routes, which will be announced later this year, will serve routes longer than two hours in duration. "Together, we created Breeze as a new airline merging technology with kindness. Breeze provides nonstop service between underserved routes across the U.S. at affordable fares. A staggering 95 percent of Breeze routes currently have no airline serving them nonstop,” Neeleman said in a statement. No modifications were made to the storage, distribution infrastructure, aircraft or engines to use the SAF. Air France Flight 342 became the first long-haul flight powered by sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) produced in France when it took off from Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport for Montreal on May 18, according to a release. The flight was a joint effort between Air-France-KLM, Total, Groupe ADP, and Airbus, according to the release from the companies. The SAF used was produced in Total’s French plants. "This first flight from Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport is a symbol of our ambition to decarbonize air transport by integrating new sustainable air fuels into aircraft,” Augustin de Romanet, Chairman and CEO of Groupe ADP, said in a statement. “The European air transport roadmap aims for zero net emissions by 2050, and we are keen, as an airport operator, to support this energy transition and to embark, without delay, on the path of transforming our operation process and infrastructure." No modifications were made to the storage, distribution infrastructure, aircraft or engines to use the SAF, according to the release. The SAF used was produced from cooking oils at its La Mède biorefinery in southern France and at its Oudalle factory near Le Havre. This did not include any virgin plant-based oil. It also received certification from the International Sustainability & Carbon Certification System. “The development of biofuels is part of Total's broad-energy strategy for decarbonizing the transportation industry,” Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Total, said in a statement. “After successfully launching production of sustainable aviation fuels at our facilities in France last March, we are continuing to adapt our industrial facilities to prepare for the growing demand from the aviation industry in the coming decade. By directly reducing the carbon intensity of the energy products used by our aviation industry customers, we are actively working with them to achieve our ambition to get to net zero by 2050, together with society.” Lawmakers introduced new legislation Thursday that would establish a blender’s tax credit for using sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent. The Sustainable Skies Act was introduced by representatives Bradley Schneider (D-IL), Dan Kildee (D-MI), and Julia Brownley (D-CA) and would establish a $1.50 per gallon tax credit for SAF that reduces emissions by 50 percent. If the reduction is over 50 percent, $0.01 is added for every percentage point maxing out at $2. “Airlines have made sustainability commitments to reduce the carbon emissions, and the SAF industry has demonstrated its preparing to meet that demand,” Schneider said during a press call announcing the legislation. “But there is a clear need for federal investment to help SAF producers scale up and ensure aviation can meet their goals. This tax legislation represents a well-calibrated well-timed effort to kickstart SAF’s long-term viability. Our legislation enjoys the support of the aviation industry, the environmental community, fuel producers, and organized labor. The Sustainable Skies Act represents a pragmatic focused approach to reducing aviation's carbon emissions.” Aerion Supersonic is shutting down its production plans for the AS2 supersonic jet. (Aerion) According to reports confirmed by several media outlets, including CNBC, Nevada-based Aerion Supersonic is no longer pursuing its plans to develop business jets capable of flying faster than the speed of sound, and is shutting down. “In the current financial environment, it has proven hugely challenging to close on the scheduled and necessary large new capital requirements to begin production of its AS2 supersonic jet," the company said in a statement reported by CNBC. “Aerion Corporation is now taking the appropriate steps in consideration of this ongoing financial environment." The announcement comes several months after the company announced an avionics supplier agreement with Honeywell Aerospace for the AS2, which was previously on track to fly by 2024. Luxembourg-based business jet operator Luxaviation is partnering with Lilium, the Munich, Germany-based eVTOL developer whose 7-seater jet—pictured here—has received CRI-A01 certification from EASA and concurrent type certification with EASA and the FAA. The 7-seater jet has a cruise speed of 175 mph and flies at 10,000 feet with a range of 155 miles. (Lilium) Luxembourg-based private aviation operator Luxaviation has established a new partnership with Munich-based electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) jet-maker Lilium to support the building out of their airline operations in Europe, according to a May 20 press release. Under the partnership, Luxaviation will build on its track record of becoming the first business jet operator to obtain a European Union Aviation Safety Agency Air Operator Certificate (AOC) approval to become responsible for parts of the airline operations being developed by Lilium. These responsibilities will include “securing necessary approvals and managing pilots, which will be trained following a type rating concept developed by Lufthansa Aviation Training, another Lilium partner,” according to the release. “Electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft will fundamentally change the way we travel, and the Lilium network is poised to be at the forefront of this sea change in aviation,” Patrick Hansen, Group CEO at Luxaviation Group said in the release. Airbus Corporate Jets is bringing a new smart Li-Fi monitor to its business jet family. (Airbus Corporate Jets) Airbus Corporate Jets (ACJ) announced a new partnership with Toulouse-based electronic wiring interconnection system (EWIS) supplier Latécoère Interconnection Systems to develop the aircraft manufacturer’s first Light Fidelity (Li-Fi) in-flight entertainment (IFE) monitor on the first day of the European Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition’s (EBACE) 2021 online forum. According to a May 17 press release, the two companies are developing the next generation "ACJ Smart Li-Fi Monitor," with the goal of having it certified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) before the end of the year. The monitor will usher in a new generation of cabin IFE technology for the business jet division of Airbus, as it will also feature Bluetooth, casting, mirroring, videoconferencing, and Wi-Fi all embedded inside a single screen without the need for an associated computing box or server. The U.S., Canada, and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) have approved Astronics Corporation’s Max-Viz 1200 and 1400 Enhanced Vision Systems (EVS) for EC130 B4 and T2 Airbus Helicopter models, according to a May 20 release. “The Astronics' Max-Viz technology provides pilots with an unprecedented level of situational awareness and safety,” Tom Geiger, Max-Viz Business Unit Director for Astronics, said in a statement. “Our EVS is perfectly suited for these single-engine light utility helicopters. To advance the application of our technology, we worked closely with STC holder AVIO dg to get this excellent technology approved for daily missions on the EC130.” The Astronics’ EVS systems are lightweight, solid-state, low power, and feature an uncooled thermal camera, according to the release. Turbine helicopters and propeller airplanes showed increased deliveries and business jet and piston helicopter shipments were flat in the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) first-quarter shipments and billings report, according to a May 20 press release. Piston airplane deliveries increased about 7 percent and turboprop airplane deliveries increased about 18 percent when comparing the first quarter of 2021 to 2020, according to the release. Civil-commercial turbine helicopter deliveries increased about 8 percent and piston helicopter deliveries matched last year’s numbers. “The first quarter of 2021 shows progress for the industry. It is encouraging to see manufacturers begin to bounce back from the impacts of the pandemic,” GAMA President and CEO Pete Bunce, said in a statement. “Although, we are not yet in the clear. The industry continues to face headwinds, especially with ongoing supply chain issues and pandemic related restrictions and constraints to global travel. It is important that we continue working with governments to assist in strengthening our supply chain, safely easing travel related restrictions and protecting our highly skilled workforce. Our outlook toward the future is exciting, particularly in light of our industry’s commitment to, and focus upon, environmental sustainability which continues to spur development of new aircraft, innovative technologies, and the production, distribution and uptake of Sustainable Aviation Fuel.” Boeing-Saab's T-7A aircraft, shown here with drop-down access panels open, has begun production at the company's St. Louis production line. (Boeing) Boeing awarded a contract to Rohde & Schwarz for R&S MR6000R multiband-capable airborne transceivers to be used on the new advanced pilot training system used by the U.S. Air Force on the T-7A Red Hawks, according to a May 19 release. “This cooperation is the culmination of years of unwavering teamwork by Boeing and Rohde & Schwarz,” Michael Hostetter, vice president of Boeing Defense & Space Germany, said in a statement. “Along with updated technology and performance capabilities, the T-7A will be fitted with an enhanced radio communications suite, giving it an added benefit, preparing pilots for fifth-generation aircraft. We are looking forward to working with Rohde & Schwarz on this very important project, as well as future opportunities.” The R&S MR6000R covers the frequency range from 30 MHz to 400 MHz and supports NATO frequency algorithms for interoperability, according to the release. “We are proud to work with Boeing, having committed ourselves to delivering systems that meet the training needs of the U.S. Air Force,” Frank Dunn, President and CEO of Rohde & Schwarz USA (and Canada) Inc., said in a statement. “The airborne transceivers from the SOVERON radio family provide excellent RF characteristics suitable for applications in harsh military environments for all types of airborne platforms. As this is a software defined radio, we can adapt it for further training opportunities.” Teledyne Technologies’ acquisition this month of FLIR did more than dramatically expand its portfolio of sensor capabilities, it expanded the company’s suite of unmanned systems that now range from unmanned and remotely operated undersea and surface vessels to unmanned ground and aerial systems for solutions across multiple domains. FLIR, prior to Teledyne closing the deal for the company, also recently booked a $15 million order to deliver more palm-sized Black Hornet 3 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the Army, bringing order totals to $85 million under the Soldier Borne Sensor program. FLIR also has a lineup of small vertical take-off-and-landing UAVs and several small fixed-wing UAVs. “As a combined company, Teledyne FLIR will uniquely provide a full spectrum of imaging technologies and products spanning X-ray through infrared and from components to complete imaging systems. Teledyne FLIR will also provide a complete range of unmanned systems and imaging payload across all domains ranging from deep sea to deep space. Finally, I want to congratulate Edwin and Todd, whose promotions are very well deserved," Robert Mehrabian, Executive Chairman of Teledyne, said in a May 13 press release. Teledyne and FLIR filed the vote results for their respective special meetings of stockholders on a Form 8-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on May 13, 2021. In a May 17 press release, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) announced that they have concluded negotiations on the "Technical Implementation Procedures (the TIP)." The TIP gives both the CAA and EASA oversight of the Air Safety Agreement that was signed between the UK and EU in December, and sets out the measures the aerospace sector must take in order to design and produce new aerospace parts moving between the UK and the EU, according to the release. “This agreement today provides the clarity aerospace organizations need to allow them to operate efficiently under the post-EU regulatory landscape. While the UK system is now independent of the EU regulatory system, both sides recognize the importance of close collaboration to overseeing the highest standards of aviation safety,” Richard Moriarty, Chief Executive at the UK Civil Aviation Authority's, said in the release. The Viasat-3 constellation is to deliver three terabits per second of capacity. (Viasat) Viasat has signed a multi-year In-Flight Connectivity (IFC) content partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to make its live game subscription service NBA League Pass available to airline passengers. The initial agreement includes Viasat-equipped planes from JetBlue Airways and American Airlines, according to a Viasat representative, with more airlines to come. Under this partnership, passengers can watch live and on-demand NBA games and content on their personal electronic devices at no extra cost when they register for NBA League Pass in-flight. The service will begin for the 2021 NBA Playoffs, which start May 22. One limitation is that the service is only available on international flights — the agreement doesn’t include domestic flights within the U.S., Canada, or China. Viasat said this partnership is an example of how it is offering premium Over-the-Top (OTT) content and streaming experiences for in-flight customers. (Via Satellite) Ball Aerospace and Microsoft have demonstrated satellite-to-cloud data processing in recent tests for the U.S. Department of Defense, that also involved Telesat’s Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. In the tests, announced by Ball Aerospace on Wednesday, simulated data from Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) was pushed to Microsoft’s Azure cloud where it was processed using Ball-developed event-driven architecture. The data was then disseminated to multiple endpoints. In the final demonstration, Telesat joined completed a direct downlink of data from its network of LEO satellites to a Ball-built electronically steerable Ka-Band phased array affixed to a tactical vehicle The companies said these tests proved commercial cloud computing can process and securely deliver actionable information quickly, to a ground station, command center, or the battlefield. The demonstrations were enabled by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), and support the U.S. Space Force Space and Missile Systems Center’s (SMC) CASINO program office, which stands for Commercially Augmented Space Inter-Networked Operations. Skyports, a vertiport company, will participate in two electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) projects in Japan’s Osaka Prefecture, the company announced in a May 21 release. “As part of these projects, we are helping Osaka fulfill its vision of becoming an urban air mobility center in Japan, providing not only a vital facility to support the burgeoning air taxi market but demonstrating the benefits that drone delivery services will provide to the region,” Duncan Walker, chief executive officer at Skyports, said in a statement. “The fact that we have been selected to contribute to multiple programs aimed at developing Japan’s AAM ecosystem is testament to the work that Skyports does. We look forward to working with new and existing partners to enable AAM to thrive.” The projects will include being one of five organizations providing eVTOL expertise to the Osaka prefecture Super City and participating in Osaka Prefecture’s “Green Table,” according to the release. The upgrades were valued by the company initially at $211,000 with a lifetime potential of $20 million, according to the release. (Abaco)
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New achievements in aerospace
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Justice News
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Miami, Florida – This week, 60-year-old Paul Vernon Hoeffer was arraigned in federal court in West Palm Beach on charges that he called and threatened to injure two members of Congress and a district attorney.
The indictment charges Hoeffer with three counts of interstate transmission of threats to injure. According to allegations made by prosecutors during a court hearing, in March 2019, Hoeffer called a congresswoman in Washington, D.C., and threatened to come a “long, long, way” to rattle her head with bullets and cut her head off. On the same day, Hoeffer called a district attorney in the State of Illinois, telling her bullets were going to “rattle her brain,” it is alleged. In November 2020, Hoeffer called another congresswoman, this time in New York. Hoeffer told her that he would “rip her head off” and cautioned her to sleep with one eye open, according to allegations made by prosecutors.
If convicted, Hoeffer faces a total of up to 15 years in prison. Hoeffer pled not guilty during the arraignment. His trial is set to start during the two-week period beginning January 18, 2022. Particular trial dates will be addressed during calendar call before U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon on January 11, 2022.
Juan Antonio Gonzalez, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and George L. Piro, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Miami, made the announcement.
FBI Miami investigated this case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Luisa Honora Berti is prosecuting it.
An indictment is a charging instrument containing allegations. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or at http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov , under case number 21-cr-14042.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate
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Aeroflot Flight 2174 crash
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Aeroflot Flight 2174 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by an Antonov An-24B that crashed on approach to Saratov Tsentralny Airport on Wednesday 1 December 1971, resulting in the death of all 57 people on board. An investigation revealed the aircraft entered icing conditions leading to a loss of control. Flight 2174 was a scheduled passenger flight from Yekaterinburg to Saratov with a stop at Ufa. At 19:59 local time the Antonov departed Ufa International Airport and had an uneventful flight until it began the descent to Saratov Tsentralny Airport when the aircraft encountered icing conditions. As ice accumulated the crew added power to counter the effects of the ice build up but control of the aircraft was lost and it crashed at a high rate of descent 13 kilometers northwest of the runway and 1,130 meters to the right of its centerline with the landing gear and flaps retracted. There was a post crash fire and no survivors were found. [1][2][3]
The aircraft involved was an Antonov An-24B, serial number 57301801 and registered as CCCP-46788 to Aeroflot. The construction of the airliner was completed on 4 April 1965 and it had sustained a total of 10,913 flight hours and 8,544 takeoff and landing cycles before the crash. [1][2][3]
Investigators discovered that under the conditions the aircraft was operating prior to the crash approximately 15 millimeters of ice would have developed creating significant drag and undermining the wings ability to generate lift. Investigators examining the wreckage found the anti-icing system switches in the off position and confirmed that the anti-ice was not operating during the crash sequence. The reason the anti-ice was not activated could not be determined. [1][2]
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Air crash
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Atmospheric River' Causes Disastrous Flooding, Mudslides in California
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Exceptionally heavy rain caused debris flows and flash flooding that damaged as many as two dozen homes and buildings in California's Salinas Valley on Wednesday. In Paso Robles, unhoused people living in the Salinas Riverbed are especially in danger and local officials were working to alert them to the potential 20-25-foot rise in water levels. The heavy rains produced by an atmospheric river also caused flooding and knocked out power for thousands in the Bay Area and the threat of landslides and debris flows remains across the state after the state's record-smashing 2020 wildfire season. The landslides are an example of the compound disasters made more frequent as human caused climate change makes wildfires more extreme and extreme precipitation more frequent. As reported by KPIX : The heavy rain triggered a mudslide in the River Road area near the Salinas River and Highway 101 south of Salinas. KSBW reported an estimated 50 large animals that were stuck in mud that had to be rescued. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Monterey County confirmed Wednesday afternoon that it had taken in 41 animals for shelter due to people having to evacuate the area. As of Wednesday afternoon, SPCA Monterey County had taken in nine dogs, 14 cats, 17 horses and a donkey for residents who did not have anywhere else to take the animals. Anyone in the county who needs assistance with sheltering animals is asked to call the organization at (831) 373-2631 during day hours and (831) 264-5424 at night. River Road has been closed by the California Highway Patrol from Chualar River Road north to Parker Canyon Road due to flooding and mud. MCRFD working with local property owners on damage assessment In the River Rd area. Thank you to all the local ranc… The weather service said its tracking has the Big Sur coastline as the 'bullseye' for the storm front that has been intensified by the moisture from an atmospheric river. "Our local in-house model is showing extensive storm totals in the Big Sur hills in excess of 20 inches with a bullseye amount in excess of 31 inches," the weather service said.
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Mudslides
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2009 Mount Redoubt eruptive activity
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Alaska's Mount Redoubt volcano began erupting on March 22, 2009, and activity continued for several months. During the eruptions, which lasted for several months, reports found ash clouds reaching as high as 65,000 feet (20,000 m) above sea level. [1] In response, the National Weather Service issued a series of ash fall advisories. The Mat-Su Valley, Anchorage, Valdez and large portions of the Kenai Peninsula all received coatings of tephra. The 2009 eruptions of Mount Redoubt represented the most seismic activity occurring on the mountain in twenty years. [2]
The 2009 eruptions of Mount Redoubt renewed concerns over the safety of the nearby tank farm which holds crude oil, known as the Drift River Terminal Facility. [3] During the earlier, 1989-90 eruptions of Redoubt, the facility was inundated and damaged by lahars. Dikes built after the 89/90 activity protected the tanks, although an aircraft hangar and runway were flooded and damaged by the flooding and related debris. [4] In late March the US Coast Guard decided to move the millions of gallons located at the facility to prevent an ecological disaster. The plan called for then refilling the tanks with "harmless" ballast water to prevent them from being dislodged by flooding. [5]
However, on April 5, the Coast Guard stated that filling the empty tanks with ballast water was not possible, because it would create a hazardous waste that the neither the facility nor the Coast Guard was prepared to deal with afterward. Instead, the oil was removed and the empty tanks remained vulnerable to damage from further flooding. In the meantime, oil production in Cook Inlet was suspended, because the tank farms were out of commission while Mount Redoubt remained in an eruptive state. [6]
When the eruptions subsided, the tanks were undamaged and the facility was cleared of debris and subsequently reopened. As of April 4, 2009, AVO had recorded twenty-six volcanic eruptions and/or explosions at Redoubt volcano, although they singled out nineteen of them as most notable. The AVO refers to an "eruption" as any event which discharges ash into the atmosphere, while adding the term "explosion" for more vigorous events. The AVO did not rate and compare each eruption, although the 9:24 am eruption on March 26 reached an altitude of 65,000 feet making it the highest volcanic ash cloud to date during the 2009 phase of activity. [7] The eruption on April 4 was described as being the biggest eruption to date. There were also periods when the volcano emitted notable amounts of steam but did not erupt. The AVO reported that Redoubt erupted or exhibited other notable activity at the following times, with all ash cloud heights in feet above sea level:
On April 11, 2009, the Alaska Volcano Observatory released the following statement into the public domain on their USGS affiliated website regarding the aftermath of the 2009 eruptions of Mount Redoubt, and a prognosis for future activity. The 2009 eruption of Redoubt Volcano continues. A lava dome is currently growing in the summit crater, accompanied by intermittent emissions of volcanic gases and minor amounts of ash. Additional explosive events are likely and could send ash to greater than 30,000 feet above sea level. Such a cycle of dome growth and explosive dome destruction may continue for many months. The potential for lahars (volcanic mudflows) and other flooding down the Drift River Valley remains, as does the potential for trace to minor ash fall on communities near Redoubt (e.g., the Kenai Peninsula Borough, The Municipality of Anchorage, and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, and possibly more distant areas). The 2009 eruption of Redoubt Volcano began with a minor explosion of steam and ash just after 13:00 AKDT on March 15. Major explosive events began at approximately 22:40 March 22 AKDT, and since then AVO has recorded more than 19 separate explosions. Plume heights, as measured by radar and confirmed by pilot reports, have exceeded 50,000 feet (15 km) above sea level on multiple occasions. To date, the largest explosion occurred at 05:55 AKDT April 4, lasted more than 30 minutes, and is comparable in size to the largest event of the 1989/1990 Redoubt eruption. Three major lahars (volcanic mudflows), on March 23, March 26, and April 4, have inundated the Drift River Valley and its downstream coastal fan. All of these reached the Cook Inlet and affected the Drift River Oil Terminal (DROT). The peak discharge rates of these lahars remains under investigation, but all are considered significant, and the April 4 event may have exceeded the size of any lahar observed during the 1989/1990 eruption. Smaller lahars that did not impact DROT have also occurred. Several of Redoubt's recent explosions have resulted in measurable ash fall over populated areas as distant as Delta Junction (340 miles northeast of Redoubt), with more significant ash fall in more proximate areas, including the Susitna Valley, the Kenai Peninsula and the Anchorage bowl. On the afternoon of March 28, ash fall in Anchorage closed the airport from 17:00 until 07:00 the next morning (March 29). The maximum ash fall measured so far in a populated area is about 1/16 inch (1.5 mm) near Seldovia following the April 4 explosion. A measurement of about 1/8 inch (3 mm) following the explosion on March 26, was recorded near Silver Salmon Creek Lodge, about 30 miles (48 km) south of the volcano. Trace ash fall has also been observed between explosive events during times when the volcano is emitting a continuous low altitude (< 15,000 feet ASL) gas and ash plume. A rich variety of seismic signals have been recorded at Redoubt throughout the eruption and in the preceding months of unrest. These seismic events include: (1) typical "rock-breaking" earthquakes; (2) volcanic "tremor", indicative of steam and other volcanic gases or fluids vigorously propagating through cracks; (3) large, far-reaching, "cigar-shaped" signals resulting from volcanic explosions; (4) ground shaking from lahars as they pass nearby seismometers; and (5) small, repetitive, self-similar events associated with the slow extrusion of lava (this kind of extrusion is often referred to as "dome building"). More than 1700 earthquakes have been located since mid-January, and many more occurred that were either too small or of such a character as to make location impossible. Typically, the magnitudes of these events are small, the average being around M0.5. However, on April 9 a magnitudeML 3.3 earthquake occurred about 2.5 miles (4 km) E/NE of Redoubt's summit, possibly resulting from a crustal adjustment to the ongoing withdrawal from Redoubt's subterranean magma reservoir. Since the fall of 2008, AVO has flown 13 gas measurement flights, and of these, 5 have occurred since the eruption began on March 15, 2009. Elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) emission rates (up to 2000 tonnes/day) were measured in October–November, 2008. Starting in late January 2009, and coincident with a strong increase in seismicity, gas emission rates rose to a level (> 5000 tonnes/d) suggesting significant unrest at the volcano, and emissions stayed at this level until the eruption began. Since that time, emissions of both CO2 and sulfur dioxide (SO2) have been very elevated, sometimes reaching levels in excess of 10,000 tonnes/d. These volcanic gas emission rates are among the largest ever measured in Alaska, though such high values are consistent with an openly degassing volcanic system that is actively extruding lava. Based on measurements and observations from Redoubt's previously observed eruptions, these gas emission rates are likely to drop substantially when the eruption wanes. The combination of gas and ash emission from Redoubt since the beginning of the eruption has on occasion resulted in a brownish-yellow volcanic haze in the Cook Inlet region.
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Volcano Eruption
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Gino D'Acampo says he 'couldn't care less' if wife Jessica had dinner with an ex-boyfriend
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Celebrity chef Gino D'Acampo has claimed that he "couldn't care less" if his wife of almost 20 years were to have dinner with an ex-boyfriend. The Family Fortunes host, 45, made the revelation in an unearthed interview after insisting that his wife, Jessica Stellina Morrison, "loves" that he works with over 700 women across his restaurant empire. If she wants to have dinner with an ex-boyfriend, I couldn't care less Gino D'Acampo Speaking about his long-lasting marriage to his half-Italian, half-British wife, Gino got candid about their relationship. He said last year: "I employ more than 700 women in my restaurants. "In TV, I'm surrounded by women. I love it." The Italian chef also went on to reveal Jessica's attitudes towards the women he works with. READ MORE: Meghan Markle’s unseasonable wardrobe a ‘vulgar’ stunt claims Lady C "Women are more interesting than men, but my wife loves it too. "She doesn't get jealous," he insisted. Gino said: "She understands that if you want to be unfaithful, you'll do it anyway. It's a matter of trust." The star explained that he also wouldn't be bothered if she were to have dinner with an ex-lover, insisting that he just wants her to be happy. Gino said: "If she wants to have dinner with an ex-boyfriend, I couldn't care less. "I want her to be happy. If that makes her happy that evening, I'm doing my job," he told the Mail's Weekend magazine. Childhood sweethearts Gino and Jessica met when they were working in a restaurant in Majorca. Despite spending the first few weeks arguing, Gino revealed that they eventually shared their first kiss in the meat fridge. DON'T MISS... Angel Strawbridge opens up on ‘weird’ feeling leaving the Chateau [ANALYSIS]‘Blessing in disguise’ Janette Manrara shares cryptic post [INSTAGRAM]GMB's Alastair Campbell opens up about feeling 'suicidal' [INSIGHT] However, Gino and Jessica went on to split for a year before eventually getting back together and tying the knot. Following their reunion, they relocated to the UK. In 2002, the couple got married when Gino was 24. Together, they went on to have three children, Luciano, Rocco, and daughter Mia. Last month, the This Morning star sparked a frenzy on social media when he shared a snap of himself preparing Jessica for an "italian massage". Lying on a massage table, Jessica grinned as her husband drizzled extra virgin olive oil over her back ahead of her receiving a relaxing rub down from her beau. The second snap showed the star getting hands on, as he massaged his wife's neck in a peaceful-looking garden.
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Famous Person - Marriage
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Shoalwater Bay Tribe Builds Evacuation Tower to Provide Tsunami Safety for Community
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FEMA Region 10 Earthquake Program Manager Amanda Siok shares how the people of the Shoalwater Bay Tribe are proactively taking steps to protect their community from an earthquake and tsunami. The Washington and Oregon coastlines sit on the edge of two plate tectonics. The intersection of these plates is called the Cascadia Subduction Zone, where the oceanic plate is being pushed underneath the continental plate. This action, known as subducting, occurs at the same rate your fingernails grow. This process fuels the 13 active volcanoes in the Cascade Range, including Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens. Roughly every 300-500 years the fault slips creating a massive earthquake and tsunami. The last Cascadia earthquake happened 321 years ago, in 1700, impacting tribes living along the Pacific Coast including the Shoalwater Bay Tribe. The tribe recounts stories from the 1700 Cascadia earthquake and tsunami in their hazard mitigation plan. Stories of this massive event have been passed down through generations explaining that the earthquake and tsunami triggered landslides that also destroyed some villages. Many native village sites were abandoned or relocated after this event. It also describes natives finding trash among treetops and canoes in the woods. It wasn’t until 1995 that scientists really began to understand the tectonics of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, realizing the 1700 event is cyclical and will happen again. In 2004, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami killed some 220,000 people and elevated the importance of understanding tsunami vulnerabilities to coastal towns. FEMA and NOAA studied how to build structures capable of withstanding earthquake and tsunami forces and published guidance in P-646 . Then, Washington Emergency Management Division created Project Safe Haven to guide earthquake and tsunami vulnerability assessments, evacuation planning, and vertical evacuation needs assessments. The Shoalwater Bay Tribe used the Safe Haven process and determined that in a Cascadia event, time doesn’t allow for safe evacuation to reach high ground before a tsunami makes landfall. The tribe decided they needed a vertical evacuation structure to provide safety for their people and immediately identified potential locations and designs. The tribe budgeted for the design and construction of a tower that would be built to withstand both earthquake shaking and tsunami waves. They applied for a FEMA Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant and received $2.8 million, using tribal funds for the match, to build the first federally funded tsunami vertical evacuation structure. The tower is intended to provide temporary refuge above tsunami waves for tribal members, as well as residents of the neighboring town. Engineering drawings of FEMA-funded Tsunami Vertical Evacuation Tower for the Shoalwater Bay Tribe and Tokeland. Photo Credit: Degenkolb Engineers. On May 17, 2021 the tribe celebrated the funding and start of construction of this project with a groundbreaking ceremony. Construction of the tower will be complete in Winter 2021-2022. This is the first tsunami evacuation tower like this in the country and a great step towards mitigation risk for this coastal tribe and community. Groundbreaking with Washington Emergency Management Division Director Robert Ezelle, Shoalwater Bay’s First Emergency Manager Lee Shipman, Tribal Council Chairperson Charlene Nelson and Acting FEMA Region 10 Administrator Vince Maykovich.
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Tsunamis
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Alitalia Flight 1553 crash
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Tuninter Flight 1153 (UG1153/TUX1153) was a Tuninter Airlines international flight from Bari International Airport in Bari, Italy, to Djerba-Zarzis Airport in Djerba, Tunisia. On 6 August 2005, the Tuninter ATR 72 ditched into the Mediterranean Sea about 18 miles (29 km) from the city of Palermo. Sixteen of the 39 people on board died. The accident resulted from fuel exhaustion due to the installation of fuel quantity indicators designed for the ATR 42, in the larger ATR 72. [1][2] It was also Tuninter's first fatal accident in the 14-year history of the company. The flight was under the command of 45-year-old Captain Chafik Al Gharbi (Arabic: شفيق الغربي), a skilled and experienced pilot with a total of 7,182 flight hours. The co-pilot, 28-year-old Ali Kebaier Al-Aswad (Arabic: علي كبيّر الأسود), had logged 2,431 flight hours. Both the captain and co-pilot were well-acquainted with the ATR 72, having accrued 5,582 hours and 2,130 hours in it, respectively. The aircraft, an ATR 72–202, had its fuel quantity indicator (FQI) replaced the night before the flight, but technicians inadvertently installed an FQI designed for the ATR 42, a similar but smaller airplane with smaller fuel tanks. Ground crews and the flight engineer, relying on the incorrect readings from the newly installed FQI, loaded the aircraft with an inadequate amount of fuel for the flight. On the flight from Bari to Djerba, both engines cut out in mid-flight. The aircraft's right engine failed at 23,000 feet (7,000 metres). The aircraft began to descend to 17,000 feet, but 100 seconds after the right engine failure, the left engine also failed at 21,900 feet (6,700 metres). The flight crew did not detect the fuel exhaustion because the incorrectly installed ATR 42 gauge indicated an adequate amount of fuel in the tanks, even after all of the usable fuel had been consumed. After the engine failure, the Captain requested an emergency landing in Palermo, Sicily. The crew tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to restart the engines as they navigated to Palermo. The ATR glided for 16 minutes, but was unable to reach the runway and the plane was forced to ditch into the sea, 23 nautical miles (43 kilometres; 26 miles) northeast of Palermo International Airport at a speed of 145 miles per hour (65 metres per second; 233 kilometres per hour). The aircraft broke into three sections upon impact. [3]
The entire aircraft floated for some time after the crash, but only the central fuselage and the wings remained floating. Patrol boats from Palermo arrived 46 minutes after the ditching and began the rescue and recovery. [citation needed]
One of the four crew members died—a flight attendant—and 15 out of the 35 passengers died. The engineer who died was not a part of the flight crew, but had been called to the flight deck by the pilot and copilot after both engines failed; because he was not officially part of the crew, his death was accounted for as a passenger death. The flight's other flight attendant survived. All of the paying passengers were Italian, while the crew and the engineer were Tunisian. [4] Autopsies indicated that many of the dead succumbed to the impact. [5] Autopsies established that eight passengers who received injuries during the impact were unable to escape from the aircraft due to their injuries and ultimately drowned. [4] Most of the survivors were seated in the rear of the ATR 72, while most of the passengers who died were in the front. [6] Three dead passengers, including the engineer who tried to help the plane's crew, were found on the seabed. The ANSV stated that the cause of death of these passengers was difficult to determine. [4]
The investigation revealed several factors leading to the crash. Simulation results suggest that handled optimally, the ATR could have reached Palermo with the tail wind of that day. Two crews flew a simulator at ATR's facility in France from the same starting conditions. By feathering the propellers and reducing the speed to the optimal gliding speed, one made a landing at Palermo and one ditched one mile short of the runway. The fundamental difference was that the simulator pilots knew what was happening and responded accordingly. In contrast, the Captain of the Tuninter ATR focused initially on trying to restart the engines in the hope they would respond, not knowing that this was impossible as the aircraft was out of fuel. When the engines could not be restarted, the Captain focused on selecting a place to ditch the aircraft. Unlike the simulator pilots, Gharbi had a lack of instruments and experienced radio interruptions. The final investigative report suggested that airlines train their pilots to deal with unusual situations. [6]
Tuninter compensated each family of a victim or survivor with €20,000. On 7 September 2005 the Italian government banned Tuninter from flying into Italian airspace. [7] Tuninter rebranded itself as Sevenair and had scheduled flights into Italy again as of 2007. [citation needed]
In March 2009, an Italian court sentenced the pilot, Chafik Garbi, to 10 years in prison for manslaughter. Prosecutors said that after the plane's engines stopped functioning, Garbi succumbed to panic, started praying,[8] and failed to follow emergency procedures, and that he could possibly have reached runway 25 of Falcone–Borsellino Airport, or even the standard runway 20. Six others, including the co-pilot as well as the chief operating officer of Tuninter Airlines, were sentenced to between eight and 10 years. As of 2009 they had not started serving time, pending the appeals process. [8] The International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations protested the flight crews' criminal sentences, calling the investigation "injustice" and the sentences "flawed. "[9]
The criminal investigation and subsequent sentencing caused considerable controversy in Tunisia and, to a lesser extent, in the civil aviation world. [citation needed] The official investigation was accused[by whom?] of being one-sided and of ignoring mistakes made by Italian air traffic controllers. Unedited cockpit recordings leaked to the public demonstrated the Palermo air traffic controller as having a poor grasp of English, failing to assign the distressed flight its own radio frequency on which to communicate, and giving the pilots incomplete and/or useless information about their position.
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Air crash
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Northwest Airlines Flight 85 crash
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Northwest Airlines Flight 85 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in the United States to Narita International Airport in Japan. On October 9, 2002, while over the Bering Sea, the Boeing 747-400 experienced a lower rudder hardover event, which occurs when an aircraft's rudder deflects to its travel limit without crew input. The 747's hardover gave full left lower rudder, requiring the pilots to use full right upper rudder and right aileron to maintain attitude and course. The flight diverted to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. No passengers or crew were injured, but the incident resulted in an airworthiness directive to prevent the possibility of a future accident. The aircraft involved was the prototype Boeing 747-400 (Boeing 747-451, c/n 23719, reg N661US) and was built by Boeing for flight testing as N401PW, before subsequently being reregistered as N661US and delivered to Northwest Airlines (the launch customer for the 747-400) on December 8, 1989. [2] The aircraft was later delivered to Delta Air Lines on October 29, 2008. After a further seven years in service with Delta, N661US was retired in 2015, and was then sent to the Delta Flight Museum for preservation on April 30, 2016. [3]
The flight departed Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The incident occurred at 5:40 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time, around seven hours into the flight. [4] At the time of the incident, Junior Captain Frank Geib and First Officer Mike Fagan had just taken control of the aircraft, allowing Senior Captain John Hanson and First Officer David Smith to rest. [5] Flight 85's captain said that the event occurred at flight level 350 (35,000 feet/11,000 meters). [1]
The aircraft abruptly entered a 30- to 40-degree left bank. [1] Geib initially believed that an engine failure had occurred. Hanson reentered the cockpit and continued to fly the aircraft by hand with Fagan. Geib declared an emergency and began a diversion to Anchorage. [5] While the crew tried to declare the emergency, the plane was in a communications dead zone between North America and Asia. Even with a weak signal, the crew contacted another Northwest Airlines flight, Flight 19, which helped Flight 85 declare the emergency as it was closer to Alaska. [6] Flight 85's captain reported that none of the emergency procedures available could correct the problem. [1] The pilots established a conference call with Northwest Airlines at the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, but the employees there were unable to find a solution to the sudden bank. [5] The flight crew took back control of the aircraft and landed at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. To steer the aircraft, they had to use the ailerons and asymmetric engine thrust, applying more engine power to one side than the other. [4]
Hanson said that crew resource management (CRM) contributed to the flight's safe landing at Anchorage: "This was a classic application of CRM. We were blessed and lucky that we had full flight crew augmentation. We had four pilots to work together in the cockpit. We had an excellent group of flight attendants on board; that became important later because we briefed this as a ‘red’ emergency, which means there’s at least a solid chance you’re going to have to evacuate. We weren’t sure we were going to be able to keep the airplane on the runway. "[5] The incident did not initially receive media attention. [4]
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Boeing launched investigations into the incident. [4] NTSB investigator Carolyn Deforge, who oversaw the investigation, recounted on the television program Mayday (Air Crash Investigation, Air Emergency): "it appeared to be a very dramatic event, and ... it definitively seemed like something we needed to follow up on, trying to understand what had happened. "[6]
The NTSB found that there was a fatigue crack in the power control module and that it was not possible to visually inspect that type of failure. [1] The lower rudder control module's cast metal housing had broken. The end portion of the control module housing that housed the yaw damper actuator had separated from the main portion of the housing. [4] Deforge said in the Mayday episode that the NW85 failure was unusual because most failures are of internal components rather than of the housing itself. [6]
The NTSB ruled that the probable cause was a "fatigue fracture of the lower rudder power control module manifold, which resulted in a lower rudder hardover. "[1] In a rudder hardover, the rudder is driven to its full deflection and stays there. [7]
A non-destructive inspection process for the module was developed. As a result, Boeing issued Alert Service Bulletin 747-27A2397. The bulletin, dated July 24, 2003, recommended that Boeing 747 operators conduct ultrasonic inspections of pertinent high-time lower and upper rudder power control modules. [1]:4
The Federal Aviation Administration published a Notice of Proposed Rule Making for an airworthiness directive that would make ultrasonic inspections mandatory on Boeing 747-400, 400D and 400F aircraft. The "Airworthiness Directive; Boeing Model 747-400, -400D, and -400F Series Airplanes" was published in the federal register on August 28, 2003. [1]:4 The directive, labeled Directive 2003-23-01,[9] was issued on November 3, 2003 and became effective December 18, 2003. [10] It has since been superseded by directive 2006-18-17,[11] issued August 30, 2006 and effective October 13, 2006. [12] In 2008, a proposed replacement to this directive was published. [13][14]
N661US was not damaged during the incident and it was returned to service with Northwest Airlines. [15]
By January 2004, the Air Line Pilots Association awarded the "Superior Airmanship Award" to the crew of Northwest 85. [5]
On February 24, 2009, the aircraft involved in the incident, along with the other 747-400s in Northwest Airlines' fleet, joined the Delta Air Lines fleet as part of the Northwest-Delta Air Lines merger. On September 8, 2015, it left Honolulu, Hawaii for its final flight and was retired on arrival at Atlanta, Georgia's Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport. It was transferred to the adjacent Delta Flight Museum for public display at the end of April 2016. [16][17][18][19] After being moved to its current position, a special permanent exhibit called the 747 Experience was constructed alongside the aircraft, and was formally opened on March 28, 2017.
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Air crash
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Pearse Street fire
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The Pearse Street fire was a conflagration in Pearse Street, Dublin on 5 October 1936, in which three firemen died. The fire began at No.163 Pearse Street some time after 8.30 pm and spread next door to No.164. The alarm was raised at 10.50 pm and the Dublin Fire Brigade from the Tara Street station arrived on the scene at 11.12, ensured the buildings were evacuated, and began fighting the blaze. The water pressure at the nearest fire hydrants was inadequate and three firemen went onto the flat roof of No.165 while colleagues connected their hose to a farther hydrant. While they waited, two explosions were caused by the fire igniting cylinders of coal gas and oxygen stored at No.163 by a company which manufactured car batteries. This engulfed the three men and strengthened the blaze, which burned itself out the following morning. The bodies of the firemen were recovered that evening; they had died of carbon monoxide poisoning. A tribunal of inquiry was established by order of the Oireachtas, which criticised the fire brigade supervisors, the water company, and the battery company. The cause of the initial fire was not established; the inquiry ruled out arson and felt a discarded cigarette was the most likely explanation. A memorial plaque to the three firemen was unveiled at the site in 2008, by which date it remained the Dublin Fire Brigade's worst loss of life. [1]
Coordinates: 53°20′38″N 6°14′55″W / 53.3438°N 6.2487°W / 53.3438; -6.2487
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Fire
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South Sudan becomes newest U.N. member state
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South Sudan becomes newest U.N. member state
By Faith Karimi, CNN
South Sudan becomes newest U.N. member
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: South Sudan is an official member of the United Nations
The U.N. Security Council recommended the world's newest nation to the General Assembly
South Sudan celebrated its independence Saturday
(CNN) -- South Sudan officially became the 193rd member of the United Nations on Thursday morning, capping a flurry of activities that started with its independence last week.
The United Nations Security Council recommended the world's newest nation to the General Assembly on Wednesday. The General Assembly acted on the council's recommendation Thursday.
"We look forward to the Republic of South Sudan joining us as a member of the United Nations and to working closely with its representatives," Guido Westerwelle, the foreign minister of Germany, said in a statement Wednesday.
Germany is leading the Security Council this month.
South Sudanese celebrated their independence Saturday in a boisterous ceremony attended by world leaders, including Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary-general.
South Sudan: The world's newest nation
RELATED TOPICS
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Join in an Organization
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Laurel Run mine fire
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The Laurel Run mine fire is an underground mine fire near the communities of Laurel Run and Georgetown, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The fire started burning in 1915 at the Red Ash Coal Mine. Attempts to control it lasted from 1915 to 1957 and recommenced in 1966. [1] In the 1960s, the United States government and the Pennsylvania state government became involved in containing the fire. [2] Attempts at stopping the spread of the fire were erroneously declared successful in 1973, but the fire is still burning. [3]
The Laurel Run mine fire began on December 6, 1915, in the Red Ash Coal Mine. A miner accidentally left a carbide lamp hanging from a timber support, which caught fire. Because of the lack of a night watchman, the fire went unnoticed for the entire weekend. When it was noticed after work resumed the following week, attempts were made to block off its air supply by pouring sand in the area and filling the openings of the mine with concrete. The mine's owners then stated that the fire was under control. [1]
By 1921, it became evident that the mine fire had persisted and spread. The company operating the mine began placing temporary barriers to stop the spread of the fire so that the rest of the mine could continue to be worked. Mining in the area ended in 1957. At this point attempts to stop the spread of the fire also ceased. [1]
Over the years, the Laurel Run site became known as 'the burning mountain' because of smoke vented from a number of fissures leading to the abandoned underground works. In September 1962, a number of residents of the nearby community of Laurel Run were forced to abandon their homes due to subsidence (due to removal[clarification needed] of the mine's pillars in the area) and fumes from the mine fire. [1][2] The pillars were columns of anthracite coal that were left to support the ground above the mine. Legitimate miners would "rob" them through mining when they couldn't otherwise meet their coal quotas, and "outlaw" miners, not affiliated with a given mine, would subsequently rob them as well when the mines were closed. The resulting subsidence at the surface could cause dangerous sink holes. The community at this point became aware of the presence of an uncontrolled mine fire in the area. [1]
In the early 1960s, the then governor of Pennsylvania William Scranton and the congressman Daniel J. Flood arrived at the area of the Laurel Run mine fire and called upon the Appalachian Regional Commission to aid in containing it. [2]
By 1964, local plant life was dying out and residents of Laurel Run were experiencing adverse symptoms such as headaches. In February 1964, high levels of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide were detected in the area, and mine gases reaching the surface gave off a blue glow at nights. [2] On March 19, 1964, the Defense Materials, Manufacturing and Infrastructure Standing Committee announced a $1,000,000 cleanup project for the Laurel Run area. The state of Pennsylvania contributed $500,000. [4] In 1965, evacuation of Laurel Run began in earnest, led by the Appalachian Regional Commission. [2]
On April 23, 1966, a plan to control the mine fire was put into action. [1][2] A series of boreholes were dug in the area to determine the scope of the fire. It was found that it had spread under the community of Laurel Run and also to the community of Georgetown. However, in Georgetown, the ground was relatively stable and the fire did not cause problems aboveground. [1] Clay and sand were injected into the boreholes to contain the fire. The containment efforts occupied 800,000 square feet. Amy Randolph of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection estimated that the efforts would cost $4,000,000. This figure was later revised to $9,000,000. [2] Meanwhile, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development relocated 850 residents who lived over the mine fire. The area of the fire that was below Georgetown was controlled by blocking off the tunnels in the vicinity, robbing it of the necessary oxygen to continue burning. [1]
In 1973, the containment of the mine fire was stated to be complete, but it continues to burn into the 21st century. [1][2][3] The people of Laurel Run were able to gain more governmental support in combating the Laurel Run mine fire than the people of Centralia were in stopping the Centralia mine fire. [5]
The Earth Conservancy considered harnessing the geothermal energy of the mine fire. [6]
In 2013, Michael Corgan, a businessman from Wilkes-Barre Township was granted permission to strip mine 40 acres of land on top of the Laurel Run mine fire, on the condition that the strip mining operations remained at least 120 feet (37 m) above the fire. Strip mining on top of a mine fire had not previously been done, although Corgan had attempted to start a strip mine in the area in 1992. [7]
The setting of the novel Whispers from the Ashes is based on the community of Laurel Run in the early 1960s, when the residents were forced to evacuate. [8]
The Laurel Run mine fire may burn for another century. [9]
The geographical setting of the Laurel Run mine fire has been compared to that of the Centralia mine fire. The Laurel Run mine fire was located on the southern spur of the Wilkes-Barre syncline. It is part of the ridge and valley geographical province. The coal beds that are on fire are the Ross bed, the Top Red Ash bed, and the Bottom Red Ash bed. The coal beds dip 10 or 15 degrees to the north. The Llewellyn Formation is situated on top of the Red Ash bed and the Pottsville Conglomerate is situated below it.
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Fire
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Jocky Wilson Cup
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The Jocky Wilson Cup (officially the PartyPoker.com Jocky Wilson Cup for sponsorship) was a professional darts team tournament that took place at the Braehead Arena in Glasgow, Scotland, on 5 December 2009. This one-off tournament, which was named after Jocky Wilson, a two-time world darts champion, was the last of the eight non-ranking Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events of the 2009 season. The tournament was contested by two nations of two players each. The winning nation was the first country to earn four points over a five-match series – four singles fixtures and one doubles game. Phil Taylor and James Wade of England won the competition and whitewashed their opponents Gary Anderson and Robert Thornton of Scotland 6–0. Wade won the first game against Anderson 6–4; Taylor beat Thornton 6–0 in the second. Wade and Taylor defeated their opponents in the doubles match 6–2 for the overall victory and won their final two singles matches 6–4 over their Scottish opponents. The Jocky Wilson Cup, sponsored by online gambling company Partypoker,[1] was launched in August 2009 by the PDC. The tournament was named after Jocky Wilson, a two-time world darts champion. [2] It was held at the Braehead Arena in Glasgow, Scotland, on 5 December. [3] This was the last of eight non-ranking PDC-sanctioned events in the 2009 season. [4] The tournament was broadcast on Sky Sports 2 in the United Kingdom and on PDC TV. [1] Two nations of two players each competed in the tournament: Robert Thornton and Gary Anderson for Scotland; Phil Taylor and James Wade for England. [a][2][6]
There were five matches in the cup: four 501 points singles matches and one 1001 points doubles game. [b] All games were best of 11 legs, so the first to win six legs would win the tournament. If the doubles match was tied, the team with the most maximum scores or the player who made the first maximum would be declared the winner. [7] One point was awarded to the winners of each four singles games and two to the winning team of the doubles fixture. The first country to earn four points would win the tournament. [2][5]
Bookmakers installed England as the favourite to win the event. [3] Thornton, the 2009 Players Championship Finals runner-up, said playing in Glasgow against England would possibly be the high point of his career and was looking forward to it. Anderson said he liked the challenge of playing Taylor and Wade due to their form. Taylor commented it would be desirable to win the tournament and dedicate it to Wilson. Wade said his match against Anderson had the potential to establish the overall mood. [1] Sportscaster Sid Waddell said that Taylor would not treat the event as an exhibition and did not expect England to win all five matches. [8]
All matches were held on the evening of 5 December. [7] Anderson played Wade in the opening match of the competition, taking 20 minutes to build a 4–0 lead from checkouts of 96 and 118, and a double five finish. He missed four targets in leg five, allowing Wade to claim his first leg with an 85 checkout on the bullseye ring. [9] After the break, Wade finished twice on the double ten ring to go 4–3 behind and tie at 4–4 on the double 12 ring after Anderson missed the double 20 ring. Wade used the misses from Anderson at the bullseye and double 16 rings to take the lead and secure a 6–4 win on the double 10 ring. [10] Wade said post-match he was "really lucky" to have won because he missed his targets in the first four legs and felt that he would have lost if Anderson went five legs ahead. [10]
The second match was contested by Taylor and Thornton. Finishes on the double eight and two rings won Taylor the first two legs after Thornton was unable to hit two of the double rings in the second. A 78 checkout put Taylor three legs in front, followed by finishing on the double eight ring in leg four after Thornton failed twice to hit the double 18 ring. Finishes on double 16 and 10 allowed Taylor to whitewash Thornton 6–0. Taylor commented that Thornton had not played to the best of his ability and England was under pressure to finish the task. [10]
The doubles match was next. Anderson made a maximum score to set up a 59 checkout for Thornton to win the first leg for Scotland. Wade finished with a maximum score and a double 20, and thus England won leg two and took the lead when Wade made an 88 checkout after Thornton missed the double 18 ring. Wade was unable to claim leg four twice, but when Thornton missed the double 20 ring, he took a 3–1 lead for England. He extended the nation's lead by one leg on the double ten ring before two maximum scores and a double six finish from Thornton, and thus Scotland won leg six. He missed the double 20 ring for a 116 checkout and Wade hit the double 16 ring to put England another leg ahead. England won the match 6–2 and the Cup with Taylor's finish on the double 18 ring. [10] Wade commented on England's overall win: "It's brilliant but the match isn't over yet and it would be great to win the final two games too. Gary and Robert will be playing for pride and I'm sure they'll do a job in the last two games. "[10]
Wade met Thornton in the fourth game. Thornton won the first leg on a 95 checkout, before Wade broke back by scoring 168 followed by hitting the double 12 ring on the first try. Wade took the third leg after Thornton failed to complete a 156 checkout. Thornton produced a 106 checkout to move level again on leg four before Wade made an 11-dart finish to take the lead again in the fifth leg. Wade missed the double 12 ring three times and Thornton won leg six on the double 20 ring. Checkouts of 90 and 160 provided Wade with a clear lead until Thornton won a fourth leg with a finish on the bullseye ring for a 121 checkout.
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Sports Competition
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Angela Merkel’s austerity condemned Europe and Germany to decline
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Yanis Varoufakis At the height of the eurozone crisis, one of Angela Merkel’s close advisers explained to me her driving ambition: to bequeath to her successor a stronger chancellery than she inherited. If so, as Merkel prepares to retire, she should be delighted. Germany’s trade surpluses, and thus political clout, are far greater now than when she took office in 2005. However, the policies responsible for enlarging Germany’s surpluses, and thus strengthening the chancellery, have condemned the country to secular decline and the European Union to stagnation. Power and paradox seldom mixed more grippingly than during Merkel’s tenure. Wall Street’s collapse in 2008 revealed two painful truths to her: that, judging by the unfathomable size of their dollar-denominated bets, German banks had been even more criminally reckless than American ones. And that persistent trade surpluses, on which Germany’s business model relied, had forced rich Germans to trust indebted foreigners with their savings, while undermining the living standards of poorer Germans. How did she respond? By spending the rest of her tenure covering up these defects. Merkel is not responsible for Germany’s current business model. That was established by Gerhard Schröder, her social democratic predecessor, whose administration stole a competitive march on France and the rest of the eurozone by embedding austerity into Germany’s postwar mercantilist model. Merkel’s responsibility lies in the way she sought to maintain this approach once the 2008 financial crisis revealed its unsustainability. The crash rendered Germany’s banks insolvent. Disguising this fact, so as to maintain the country’s business model and the eurozone’s flimsy economic architecture, required successive bank bailouts. In turn, those required Merkel to argue that the banks were not facing bankruptcy but, instead, temporary “illiquidity” difficulties. That’s how, in 2008, the first Merkel administration managed to inject around €500bn of German taxpayers’ money to the country’s bankrupt banks. When a year later that bailout proved insufficient to refloat Germany’s banks, a second one was devised. The eurozone’s poorer taxpayers would underwrite a €110bn loan to the Greek government on condition that the monies be channelled to German (and French) banks. To convince the Bundestag to sign off on this ludicrous plan, it was presented as a case of “tough love” for the unbearably spendthrift Greeks. In essence, Merkel was proposing to her parliament the exportation to the rest of the eurozone (beginning with Greece) of the austerity first imposed on German workers – only, this time, with a ruthlessness that will keep social historians busy for decades. Other bailouts followed. However, by the end of 2011, something had to give. Once the public likened bailouts to credit cards issued to repay previous credit cards, they had to end. A new source of cash had to be found that bypassed parliaments while still rolling over the burgeoning bad debts. That source was to be the European Central Bank (ECB) and Mario Draghi, its newly appointed president, was the right man. However, to tap the ECB’s printing presses, Merkel and Draghi first had to overcome two major obstacles: one was the Bundesbank. Never having come to terms with its loss of control over German money, the central bank was resisting the Merkel-Draghi plan. The second was Greece’s first Syriza government, elected with a clear mandate to challenge the combination of permanent bailouts and austerity. By the summer of 2015, both obstacles had been overcome. The crushing of Syriza by Draghi, whose ECB shut down Greek banks for that purpose, enabled Merkel to kill two birds with one stone. First, to signal to other Europeans not to dare elect an anti-austerity government. Second, to bypass the Bundesbank’s objections by demonstrating to Germany’s elites that printing euros to buy bad debt did not undermine the permanent class war (also known as austerity) against German and European workers. By 2018, Merkel and Draghi, aided by a global economic upturn, had claimed victory. Their opponents (within and without Germany) were soundly defeated, German surpluses continued to grow and European democracies showed no signs of generating serious dissent. But at what price? Concealing permanently the bankruptcy of states and banks caused investment to shrink across Europe (in proportion to available cash) to its lowest postwar level. Whereas in 2007, EU corporations earned around €100bn more than their US counterparts, by 2019 the situation had been reversed. Only in 2019, US corporate earnings rose 50 per cent faster than in Europe. In 2020, as a result of the pandemic, US corporates lost 20 per cent of their earnings but European corporates lost 33 per cent. European capitalists, and not just workers, seem to have paid the price for Merkel’s and Draghi’s success. Defenders of the chancellor often retort with the argument that she is responsible for Germany’s prosperity, not Europe’s. But even this does not wash. For, in addition to a stagnant Europe, Germany itself is suffering low investment. The result? Poor quality jobs, dreadful digital networks, increasing dependence on Russia for energy, antiquated infrastructure, a car industry and an artificial intelligence industry falling rapidly behind those of the US and China. Even the surpluses Merkel has helped Germany accrue are being squandered. Since 1999 they have been devalued by 7 per cent (compared to a 50 per cent gain for US assets). Why? Because low domestic investment forces the rich to lend their stash of trillions of euros to assorted foreigners whose subsequent distress leads to large losses. On 26 September 2021, German voters will go to the polls to elect Merkel’s successor. Is there any chance the next chancellor will discontinue the policies of expanding surpluses that cannot be invested in Germany or in the Eurozone without forfeiting Germany’s future capacity to extract more surpluses? Not really. Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrats’ chancellor candidate, who has emerged as the frontrunner, is running as Merkel’s natural successor – a credible claim given his fiscal conservatism, not to mention the fact he has served as Merkel’s finance minister since 2018. Moreover, of the five parties that stand a realistic chance of entering a new coalition government, only the Greens may envisage a break with Merkel’s legacy. However, even if they win the chancellery, they will not control the key finance ministry – and vice versa. It is, therefore, hard to imagine the end of Merkel’s greatest bequest to her successor: the paradox of German surpluses getting larger, boosting the chancellery’s power, pushing Europe deeper into a quagmire of stagnation, while weakening Germany’s workers and, simultaneously, diminishing German capitalism.
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Financial Crisis
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Reasons and influence of lunar and solar eclipses
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Eclipses aren't always visible to everyone on the planet, but trust—even if you can't see an eclipse happening, you're still going to feel the effects of this important cosmic event. Here's what you need to know about what causes lunar and solar eclipses and what they mean for you. There are two major types of eclipses: lunar eclipses and solar eclipses. Lunar eclipses involve the moon, and solar eclipses involve the sun. Eclipses are more rare than new moons and full moons: They happen four to six times annually. Join The AstroTwins to learn The Astrology of Love in 2021 A total lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth is directly between the sun and a full moon. The shadow from the earth will temporarily give the moon a red, brown, or gray hue. There are two other types of lunar eclipses: partial and penumbral. A partial lunar eclipse happens when the Earth is not directly in line with the sun and moon, causing only part of the moon to be cast in the Earth's shadow. A penumbral lunar eclipse happens when the sun, Earth, and moon are this close to being perfectly aligned, but aren't quite there, making it difficult to tell these eclipses apart from a regular full moon. A solar eclipse, on the other hand, happens when a new moon sits directly between the sun and Earth. If this happens during the daytime in an area where the eclipse is visible, you can see the moon fully blot out the sun for a few moments. While the image of a total solar eclipse (cue Bonnie Tyler) is probably the one you're most familiar with, there are two other types of solar eclipses: partial and annular. A partial solar eclipse is when the sun, moon, and Earth don't perfectly align, so only part of the sun is blocked by the moon. An annular solar eclipse, also called a "ring of fire" (paging Johnny Cash?) happens when the moon doesn't fully block the sun, leaving a flaming outline around it. You're much more likely to get a good view of a lunar eclipse since solar eclipses are usually only visible from a certain path on Earth. Pro tip: Total lunar eclipses—often called "blood moons" because of the reddish tinge the moon takes on—are the real showstoppers for sky gazers. At these events, the moon sits in the Earth's shadow, and the only light cast on it comes from the outer edges of our planet, where sunrises and sunsets are happening. This is what creates the buzzed-about "blood moon" look. In ancient times, eclipses were feared by many civilizations. Some believed that eclipses defied the laws of nature and even had an apocalyptic quality! Today, we know that eclipses are a normal occurrence—but they still carry an intense energy. In astrology, the sun represents our conscious mind and our creative power, and the moon represents our emotions and our unconscious. If you think about the symbolism of the moon blocking out the sun, you can get a pretty good read on the energy of a solar eclipse. Heightened feelings can "eclipse" our so-called rational judgment, driving up intense reactions. Solar eclipses are a time to reflect internally, to embrace new opportunities that are coming your way, and deal with the past themes from your life. They can bring bold beginnings out of the blue, or a surge of motivation to start a new path that's better suited to your soul. You can think of the energy stirred by a solar eclipse like an introspective new moon hyped up on 10 matcha lattes. A lunar eclipse heightens the energy of the full moon and is a time to embrace endings and let go of things that are no longer serving you—ready or not. This may happen abruptly at these supercharged full moons—a situation or person can literally be "eclipsed" out of your life. While it can be jarring, this intense illumination allows us to see people (and ourselves) in a new light—and forces us to deal with our shadows. A lunar eclipse helps you realize who you want to be and identify your next areas for growth. Eclipses are the cosmic cleanup crew and catalysts, believed to bring on abrupt endings and beginnings. They're the push we need to make change in our lives. Eclipses usher in change—and fast. We may not have time to think, much less process how we feel about these sudden events! Journaling, meditating, or talking things through with a wise adviser can help you make sense of what the cosmos are trying to tell you. This may seem counterintuitive. After all, an eclipse's whole deal is "change"—like, yesterday. But emotions are running high, and the energy in the days before and after an eclipse is still a bit chaotic. When possible, avoid making any rash decisions. Staying grounded can be especially helpful during a lunar eclipse. It could be as simple as taking off your shoes and walking barefoot outside or touching a tree. You could bring a new plant into your home or pick up a crystal associated with the zodiac sign that the eclipse is falling in. Eclipse energy can be exhausting, which can make it harder to stick to your self-care routines. Squeezing in a workout can seem minor compared to dealing with all of the drama an eclipse can dredge up. But this is exactly the time when stress relief (and release) can help the most—even if you just take a power walk or a quick bike ride.
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New wonders in nature
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Beaches closed in Port Lincoln after 26 tonnes of sewage spill from bulk carrier
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The South Australian Environment Protection Authority (EPA) and SA Health are investigating a sewage spill in Port Lincoln yesterday. Council has closed public beaches while the investigation is ongoing
It is believed 26 tonnes of waste from a moored bulk carrier was discharged, with the EPA saying beaches west of Kirton Point Jetty were likely impacted.
City of Port Lincoln Council closed public beaches from Shelly Beach to Kirton Point this morning, with water sample tests being carried out today.
Council's chief executive Matthew Morgan said, while there were no visible signs of sewage in the ocean this morning, council was concerned with remnant waste from the spillage.
"We don't want people on the sand and on the water and we don't want people fishing; we're happy to keep the jetty open at this stage, but we don't want people fishing off the jetty," he said.
"We've got teams putting up signs and we'll be in communication with SA Health and the EPA.
"They're doing some water samples in those areas, and we should know [the results of] those either later today or early tomorrow."
Yesterday, temperatures in Port Lincoln reached more than 30 degrees Celsius with many families swimming at the main beach near the wharf.
Mr Morgan said residents who went swimming yesterday should monitor their health, and if there were any concerns they should ring their GP or SA Health. "At this point it's probably not a cause to panic too much until we get more information from the EPA," he said.
Mr Morgan also advised any fishers who caught seafood around Port Lincoln beaches yesterday not eat anything that was caught.
Jamie Coote was fishing off the Port Lincoln wharf yesterday and noticed the spillage around 3:45pm.
"There was nothing there to start with, then I saw a big dark patch off the end of the wharf — I thought it was a school of fish," he said.
"We fished there for a couple of hours because we had no idea."
Mr Coote said he saw six boys jetty jumping near the spillage area as well.
"It's not just the water side of it, it's also how many contaminants there are," he said.
"If it's a freshwater product it's going to be floating [towards] surfaces — pylons, rocks, the breakwall. It's not going to sink in one area."
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Environment Pollution
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Crews Fire
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The Crews Fire was a wildfire that burned east of the city of Gilroy in Santa Clara County, California in the United States. The fire started on July 5, 2020. It burned 5,513 acres (2,231 ha) and was extinguished on July 13, 2020. Burning approximately three miles east of Highway 101, the fire caused the evacuation approximately 20 homes and 70 residents. One structure was destroyed, one was damaged, and one firefighter was injured. It threatened 30 structures and farm and ranch lands in southeast Gilroy in the San Juan Valley. Mandatory evacuations were ordered on July 5th, and they were lifted on July 8th. [2]
The Crews Fire was first reported around 2:45 pm on July 5, 2020 burning at Crews Road and Oak Spring Circle, approximately three miles east of Highway 101, in the hills east of the city of Gilroy, California. [1] By the evening, the fire had burned 1,000 acres (405 ha), destroyed two structures, and threatened other structures. The fire crossed Cañada Road, resulting in mandatory evacuations were put in place for residents in the area. [1][3][4] However, it started at 1:52 p.m, according to CAL FIRE SCU (Santa Clara Unit). By the morning of July 6, CAL FIRE reported that the fire had burned 2,000 acres (809 ha) and was 20 percent contained. [1] Additionally, one structure was destroyed, one was damaged, and one firefighter sustained minor injuries. [1][5][6] By the afternoon, the fire began moving southeast, threatening farmland. Approximately 70 residents were evacuated and ranchers began evacuating animals. The American Red Cross opened up the Gilroy Senior Center as an evacuation center. [6] Christmas Hill Park was closed to be used a staging area for fire crews. That night, residences and businesses along Highway 152 from Bloomfield to San Felipe Road. [7] The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District issued an air quality warning for San Joaquin Valley. [8]
Crews slowed the fires crawl towards Highway 152 and Henry Coe State Park on July 7. However, the fire remained challenging to access due to complex fire lines and rugged terrain, requiring the use of aircraft to control the fire. [9] By July 8, all mandatory evacuations were lifted and the evacuation center was closed. The Crews Fire had burned 5,400 acres (2,185 ha) and was 70 percent contained. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. [1]
By July 9th, the fire had burned 5,400 acres (2,185 ha) , and was 85% contained. Firefighters worked on mopping up and also improving fire lines. [10]
By July 10th, the fire had grown up 153 acres (about 62 ha) but firefighters made progress and the Crews Fire was 90% contained. CAL FIRE reported that minimal fire activity was expected, while crews worked on fire line improvement and also mopping up. Later in the day, containment rose to 93%. Firefighters patrolled the perimeter throughout the night. [11]
By July 11th, containment was reported at 96%. Firefighters continued to work on the fire line improvement and mopping up, while incident command was transferred from IMT (Incident Management Team) 6 back to SCU. Later in the day, SCU reported that no progress was made on containment. [12]
By July 12th, containment rose to 97%. On July 13th, CAL FIRE declared the Crews Fire fully extinguished. The burn area of the fire was updated to 5,513 acres (2,231 ha) due to better mapping of the fire perimeter. Firefighters were set to remain in the area to make sure the fire was fully extinguished for the next week. [13]
The following was closed by of the morning of July 8:[1] Road closures were subsequently lifted by the afternoon of July 8th. Within hours of the fire being reported, residents on Canada Road were evacuated. [4] Approximately 20 homes and 70 residents were evacuated. [4][14] Farm and ranch land was also threatened, with ranchers opening their fences to allow animals to quickly escape the flames. [6] The organization Cowboy 911 provided support, recruiting volunteers with horse trailers to help evacuate animals. [14]
The Crews Fire destroyed one structure, damaged a second, and one firefighter sustained minor injuries. [1][5][6]
The City of Gilroy closed Christmas Hill Park, which served as a staging area for fire crews. [6]
Additionally, the fire impacted air quality in the San Joaquin Valley. This resulted in the local air quality agency putting a warning in place, asking residents to stay inside indefinitely until the fire is extinguished. Air quality was impacted in Madera, Kern, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Tulare counties. [8]
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Fire
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Iberia Airlines Flight 062 crash
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Iberia Airlines Flight 062 was a twin-engined Sud Aviation Caravelle registered EC-BDD operating a scheduled flight from Málaga Airport, Spain, to London Heathrow Airport. While on approach to Heathrow on 4 November 1967, the Caravelle descended far below the flight level assigned to it and flew into the southern slope of Blackdown Hill in West Sussex, killing all 37 on board. [1]
The time of the accident was approximately 10:02 pm,[2] about 5½ minutes after the plane had been cleared to descend from FL110 (11000 ft) to FL60 (6000 ft). [3] Flying at a shallow rate of descent, the Caravelle first clipped trees near Black Down House, then broke through a large hedge and careened across a meadow where 65 sheep were killed outright and 23 more were fatally injured. [4] The disintegrating plane continued on, destroying a garage and damaging parts of the roof of Upper Black Down House. [1]
Aviation fuel caused small fires to break out in the wooded hillside. Debris from the aircraft was scattered over the whole of the roughly 355 yards (325 m) of its passage. [4]
An investigation could not determine why the aircraft descended through its assigned flight level. [1] Audio recordings taken from air traffic control and from the recovered cockpit voice recorder revealed nothing unusual. [3] The investigation stated that "no evidence was found of any pre-crash failure or defect in either the airframe or the engines, or of any faulty workmanship. "[3]
The investigation report gave considerable attention to the possibility that the air crew could have misread their "three-pointer" altimeters, which were designed to warn the pilots with a cross hatch indicator when the altitude was below 10,000 feet. [3] An excerpt from the report stated:
"The aircraft descended continuously at a steady rate over a period of 13½ minutes and the pointers would have been in continuous motion throughout, increasing the likelihood of misreading. The cross hatching in this type of altimeter first appears in a window in the 10,000ft disc at an indicated altitude of 26,666ft and the edge of the cross hatching would have been visible within 2 minutes of the aircraft beginning its descent. At 10,000ft the cross hatching completely fills the window and it remains filled as long as the aircraft is below 10,000ft. Thus the cross hatching would have been visible to the crew for a period of about 9½ minutes before the aircraft passed through FL60 and it is a matter of conjecture whether it was still an effective warning to them at that stage of the descent. "With this type of altimeter it is not difficult to read an indication of 6,000ft as 16,000ft if particular note is not made of the position of the 10,000ft pointer. Evidence against the possibility of simple misreading of this sort is the message from the aircraft to ATC reporting passing FL145, indicating at this time the crew knew that they were below 16,000ft. "[3]
Among the dead was British film and TV actress June Thorburn, who was five months pregnant. A mass grave and memorial for 19 of the deceased is located 28 km (17 mi) north of the crash site at 51°18′09″N 0°37′44″W / 51.30254°N 0.6288°W / 51.30254; -0.6288 in Brookwood Cemetery, Brookwood, Surrey. [5]
The nationality of the 37 casualties are listed below.
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Air crash
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UAE establishes new food security council to step up local production efforts
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Related tags: Uae, Food security, Food production, Middle east According to the UAE Government website, the ECSF will help meet the goals of the National Food Security Strategy 2051 which includes making UAE first in the Global Food Security Index by 2051, and top 10 by 2021. The National Food Security Strategy 2051 was launched in November 2018 which aimed to achieve zero hunger by ensuring access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round. The strategy specifically aims to implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production. Some of the roles of the ECFS include reviewing all legislation on food before it is adopted at the federal level, proposing regulations, legislations and policies to enhance food security, and develop a sustainable local production. The ECFS will also submit periodic reports to the UAE Cabinet on the progress of initiatives and projects and follow up with the Global Food Security Index to achieve the UAE’s objectives. The council is chaired by Mariam Hareb Almheiri, Minister of State for Food Security, and includes members from other ministries including the Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, Ministry of Energy and Industry, Ministry of Health and Community Protection, Ministry of Education, and National Authority for Emergency, Crisis and Disaster Management. Almheiri said: "The council’s implementation of a national food security governance system will achieve many tangible social and economic benefits up to 2021. These benefits include creating over 16,000 job opportunities around the country, increasing agricultural production by over 100,000 tonnes, achieving economic returns of some AED22 billion, and aligning the government’s efforts with the Water Security Strategy," as reported in WAM. One example of a sustainable local production is UAE-based Madar Farms. Its facility located in Abu Dhabi uses LED lights to grow fresh tomatoes, microgreens and other produce in an indoor farm. It expected to be fully operational by the end of this year and triple the amount of microgreens it currently produces. The farm was designed by Dutch firm Certhon which installed more than 5,000 ultra-efficient Philips GreenPower LED fixtures from Signify Netherlands. Produce can be grown in ideal conditions year-round making production consistent and reliable. The farm is expected to use 30% less water per kilogram of tomatoes compared to other greenhouses. The produce will be distributed across UAE, and help increase local production. Abdulaziz AlMulla, CEO and co-founder of Madar Farms told local media: "Our new state-of-the-art farming facility is a milestone moment for Madar Farms. As the population in the UAE continues to grow and there’s more focus on sustainability, the new farm will help to meet this increasing demand and give UAE consumers more options to enjoy the best quality fresh locally-grown produce."
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Organization Established
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Afghanistan: Roaring tanker fire kills 7, injures 14 in Kabul
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A searing blaze that raced through fuel tankers on the northern edge of the Afghan capital of Kabul has killed seven people and injured 14 others.
Investigators combed through dozens of smouldering tankers on Sunday and a petrol station caught in the flames that roared through the area late Saturday, said interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian.
Arian said authorities were still investigating how the fire started and did not yet know the cause, but he ruled out a “terrorist incident”.
It came on the same day the United States and NATO officially began the final phase of a withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending a nearly 20-year military engagement.
Firefighters extinguish a burning fuel tanker in Kabul [Rahmat Gul/AP]
All of the 2,500 to 3,500 US soldiers and about 7,000 NATO allied forces will be out of Afghanistan at the latest by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the attacks in the US that first brought them into the country.
Arian said the fire began when a spark set a fuel tanker ablaze. Several tankers nearby were quickly engulfed, sending giant flames and plumes of smoke into the night sky before the fire moved on to several homes and a nearby gas station. Several structures were destroyed and electricity to much of Kabul, which usually has only sporadic power, was knocked out.
The wounded were being treated mostly for burns in local hospitals. Truck drivers on Sunday blocked the road leading to the area, demanding the government provide compensation.
‘Vehicle to vehicle’
One driver, Haji Mir, said the explosion was deafening as trucks were lined up entering the city.
“The first explosion sounded like a mine explosion,” he said. “There were flames shooting from one truck and then a second truck exploded, and a third.” He estimated as many as 100 trucks may have ignited.
Dozens of fuel trucks were reportedly destroyed [Rahmat Gul/AP]
Obaidullah, a resident in the area, said the fireballs were enormous. His family and neighbours ran into their yards.
“Fire lit up the sky,” he said. “Drivers were yelling that their co-drivers were stuck and were burning.”
Firefighters arrived at the scene but their capacity was limited and it took hours to bring the blaze under control. On Sunday morning, flames still leapt from the smouldering ruins.
In mid-February, a huge fire occurred on the border between Afghanistan and Iran involving hundreds of trucks and containers worth millions of dollars after a fuel truck exploded. At least 17 people were injured.
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Gas explosion
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Get Ready for the Super Flower Blood Moon Eclipse Next Week
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Much of the western U.S. will see an extra-large, eerily red full moon on May 26 Theresa Machemer Correspondent Later this month, the moon will put on a fantastic display with a name to match: the Super Flower Blood Moon Eclipse. Early in the morning on May 26, the spectacle will be visible across the western half of North America, Doyle Rice reports for USA Today. This month’s full moon will be the first total lunar eclipse in about two and a half years, according to NASA. The event gets each part of its name from a different source: “flower” comes from this being the full moon in May, when many flowers are blooming. The moon is considered “super” because it is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit, which makes it look slightly larger in the sky than usual. And it’s a “blood” moon because of the rusty hue that comes over the moon as it moves through Earth’s shadow. “People call it the Blood Moon, but that is not a scientific term,” says University of Southern California astronomer Edward Rhodes to Inverse’ Passant Rabie. “There's a scientific reason for why it looks reddish and that's because the atmosphere of the Earth bends some of the sunlight in just such an angle that the red wavelength illuminates the Moon’s surface.” The same light-bending by Earth’s atmosphere that makes the moon turn red also creates colorful sunrises and sunsets on Earth, per NASA. But because the moon’s orbit is tilted, it doesn’t line up in Earth’s shadow every month. In Colorado, the eclipse will begin at about 3:45 a.m., when the moon enters the outer edge of Earth’s shadow, and reach peak eclipse at 5:18 a.m. local time, reports Chris Spears for CBSN Denver. The eclipse will be completely over by 7:51 a.m. in Denver. The eclipse will not be especially visible to people living east of Texas because the moon will be too low in the sky, per the Old Farmer’s Almanac. But people living in the Pacific and Mountain time zones, as well as Hawaii and Alaska, will be able to see the full eclipse for 15 minutes. Residents of Hawaii will get the best view, as the moon will be high in the sky when the brief eclipse occurs, reports USA Today. “This particular eclipse, the reason that the total phase is so brief is that the north edge of the Moon's disk is just skirting the inner edge of the inner portion of the Earth’s shadow,” says Rhodes to Inverse. Other lunar eclipses can for hours if the moon passes through a wider swath of shadow. In the next two years, there will be four partial and full lunar eclipses, per USA Today. The next total lunar eclipse will be in May 2022. This month’s full moon is also special it will be the closest full moon to Earth this year, about 95 miles closer to Earth than in April. That means that May’s full moon will be the last and brightest supermoon of 2021.
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New wonders in nature
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The week of heavy rain caused more mudslides covered parts of Norwood Hill at mile markers 94 and 96-98
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Mudslides on Norwood Hill closed that section of Highway 145 for nearly three hours Saturday afternoon. (Photo courtesy of San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office) The week of heavy rain caused more mudslides Saturday afternoon, when mud, rocks and debris covered parts of Norwood Hill at mile markers 94 and 96-98, according to a San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office announcement posted on social media. The stretch of Highway 145 was completely closed to traffic, as it took nearly three hours to fully clear and reopen the roadway. A flash flood advisory was in effect, while Sanborn Park Road was deemed impassable and closed. “Avoid the area,” officials warned. Colorado Department of Transportation, state patrol and Norwood Fire Protection district all assisted in the cleanup effort. No injuries were reported, according to sheriff’s office public information officer Susan Lilly. The Norwood Hill slides weren’t the first of the week. On July 20, a mudslide released into the East Pandora neighborhood, and left three feet of debris on the river trail. No injuries or structural damage was reported, Lilly told the Daily Planet at the time, but Highway 145 east of Lone Tree Cemetery was open to alternating lanes due to debris removal. At the same time, Imogene Pass was closed so the county could inspect bridge safety. It was reopened the following day. A hiker “requested assistance getting out of steep terrain that was compromised with the torrential rain and slides,” Lilly explained, and was safely retrieved by way of UTV up Tomboy Road. Telluride deputies and search and rescue also responded to a motorist who was “stuck above the stairs on Black Bear Pass” with four other occupants and his pet, Lilly said. No injuries were reported during either rescue last week. Unlike last week, there weren’t any flash flood advisories in effect as of press time Tuesday afternoon, but the forecast calls for at least a 50 percent chance of rain every day through Sunday this week, which means conditions throughout the area are still ripe for mudslides. “Like we’ve been seeing pretty much every afternoon, there’s definitely a chance for showers and storms to form in the high terrain and move around the Telluride area,” said Kris Sanders, a forecaster at the National Weather Service office in Grand Junction. “ … That’s going to increase your chance for flooding, debris flows and mudslides.” People should continue to pay attention to weather patterns throughout the week, as well as areas where slides are more likely, he added. “As far as the next couple days, the threat is there, but what we’re seeing now compared to later in this week and the weekend, we’re going to get a little more moisture and maybe even some forcing mechanisms to help the storms form over the terrain,” Sanders said. “We’re probably looking at a slightly higher risk of rain in the Telluride area this week and into this weekend. … The rates are certainly there, so if it hits that one spot on that one mountain pass, the likelihood of it going is high.” While it’s too early to tell, Sanders explained that the wet weather may cease early next week, or it may be more of the same. “Looks like there could be a downtick in thunderstorm or some slightly drier air pushing in which would decrease the threat for heavy rain,” he said. “It’ll still be there probably. It just depends on how big this dry push is. Some models are showing some pretty good drying; some are showing little drying before the monsoon pushes back in. There’s increased potential going into the weekend. Potentially something less active earlier next week, but we’re still watching that.”
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Mudslides
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Paratroopers from Serbia will be hosts to elite counterparts from Russia and Belarus for this year`s Slavic Military Brotherhood exercise
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Paratroopers from Serbia will be hosts to elite counterparts from Russia and Belarus for this year`s Slavic Military Brotherhood exercise, which will last over 13 days between June 14 and 27. On June 14 the multinational tactical exercise with live firing “Slavic Brotherhood 2019” started lining up members of the armed forces of the participating countries, in the “Rastko Nemanjić” barracks in Pancevo, northern Serbia. At the exercise carried out on the topic “Multinational forces in anti-terrorist operation” there are more than 750 members from Serbian, Russian and Bealrusian Army. The Commander of the Special Brigade of the Serbian Armed Forces, Brigadier General Miroslav Talijan, greeted participants of the exercise on behalf of the Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Army, General Milan Mojsilovic. “This exercise is performed in the area where members of the Soviet Red Army hand in hand with the members of the Yugoslav Army led a decisive struggle in October 1944 to liberate Banat, eastern and entire Serbia from fascists”, stated Serbian General Talijan and added that the exercise “Slavic Brotherhood 2019” is conducted with the aim of training commands and units for the execution of missions in special forces operations . Russian Colonel Viktor Babikov pointed out that members of the army of the three countries will jointly conduct maneuvers and combat operations using the latest resources that these armies have in their arms. Cooperation between the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the Serbian Armed Forces began with the implementation of the exercise “Srem 2014”, which was realized at the Nikinci field in Serbia. In 2015, the exercise was organized on the territory of the Russian Federation under the title “Slavic Brotherhood 2015” and besides the armed forces of the Russian Federation and the Army of Serbia, the members of the armed forces of the Republic of Belarus also participated for the first time. In 2016, the trilateral exercise “Slavic Brotherhood 2016” was carried out in the territory of Serbia. In 2017, the host of the exercise was Belarus, and last year the exercise was carried out not far from Novorossiysk in the Russian Federation. During the last meeting of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, which occurred in late May on the margins of the “Belt and Road” Forum in Beijing, in a joint analysis of the relations between Serbia and Russia, one of the topics of the meeting of the two presidents was military cooperation. In a statement for the media, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic pointed out that in the previous period payments of about 619 million euros were agreed for various types of weapons from Russia. On this occasion, he added that Serbia will pay more than 60 percent of the sum by the end of the year, or about 360 million. However, Serbia as a neutral state purchases military equipment from the West also. The president of Serbia announced in mid-February this year that the H145 and H215 helicopters would cost a total of 175 million euros. What is particularly interesting is the comparison of Serbia’s military cooperation with Russia and NATO. In this field, NATO is absolutely dominant. Serbian Army cooperates far more with NATO that it does with Russia. Since 2006, when Serbia joined the NATO Partnership for Peace program, Serbia has participated in over 150 military exercises with NATO member states. The number of joint exercises with Russia was ten times smaller. Last year in Serbia was held the largest NATO civilian exercise in history of the alliance. International Field Exercise “Serbia 2018” was organized by the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the NATO EURO-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre ( EADRCC ).
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Military Exercise
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Researchers identified what is known as a decuple weight with 10 times the reference unit mass of 11 grams among artifacts unearthed at a series of archaeological sites collectively known as the Sugu group
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Artifacts newly identified as a decuple weight, right, and a trigintuple weight shown at the Nakoku-no-Oka historical museum in Kasuga, Fukuoka Prefecture, on Sept. 1 (Junko Watanabe) KASUGA, Fukuoka Prefecture--Prehistoric people in Japan apparently used an advanced system of weights and measurements on a decimal basis, excavations at a Yayoi Pottery Culture Period (1000 B.C.-A.D. 250) site here suggest. Researchers identified what is known as a decuple weight with 10 times the reference unit mass of 11 grams among artifacts unearthed at a series of archaeological sites collectively known as the Sugu group, where many measurement weights have previously been discovered, the Kasuga municipal board of education said. Board officials said Sept. 1 that the decuple weight, the first artifact of its kind to be found in Japan, offers valuable insight into Yayoi culture. The stone, which is cylindrical in shape, weighs 116.3 grams. Unearthed in 1989 from the Sugu-Okamoto archaeological site, the artifact was recently re-examined by researchers who included Junichi Takesue, a Fukuoka University professor emeritus of archaeology, who identified it as a measurement weight. The object was likely used with a set of scales, he said. The archaeologists identified another artifact from the same site as a trigintuple weight, with 30 times the reference unit mass. Weights with 1, 3, 6, 20 and 30 times the reference unit mass were identified last year among artifacts previously found at the Sugu sites. Bronze weights measuring approximately 11 grams, which likely follow the same scaling system, have also been unearthed at an archaeological site in southern South Korea. The Sugu site group is believed to have formed a core part of the early Japanese state of Na, which is mentioned in “Weizhi Worenzhuan,” a section of a Chinese history book dating from the third century. It is believed a bronzeware workshop was located near the site where the decuple weight was unearthed. Researchers speculated that the weights may have been used to weigh copper and lead used for the mix. “This latest find shows beyond all doubt that the area here was an advanced zone, a sort of ‘technopolis’ of the Yayoi Pottery Culture Period, and that the Yayoi people were using the decimal system,” Takesue said. The decuple weight was set to be displayed, along with a set of other weights, as part of a special exhibition at the Nakoku-no-Oka (state-of-Na hill) historical museum in Kasuga from late August. However, the museum remains closed due to a COVID-19 state of emergency declared for Fukuoka Prefecture. In light of this, the museum on Sept. 1 began displaying images of the weights on its website. The online exhibition, annotated in Japanese, runs through Sept. 26. DNA study traces origins of Japanese to Paleolithic man Parasite eggs in old toilet came from pork eaten 1,300 years ago VOX POPULI: ‘Primitive’ wrong term for artifacts found at Jomon Period sites Okayama man seen as world’s earliest victim of shark attack Fireball turns ‘night into day’ in western Japan, falling to Earth November 11, 2021 Coastal rowing finding smooth sailing in ocean waters off Japan November 11, 2021 Aichi police trust vast old-school database to find cars tied to crime November 7, 2021 Haruki Murakami and other writers read from books before selected audiences at the new Haruki Murakami Library. The Asahi Shimbun aims “to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” through its Gender Equality Declaration. Let’s explore the Japanese capital from the viewpoint of wheelchair users and people with disabilities with Barry Joshua Grisdale.
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New archeological discoveries
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Pan Am Flight 799 crash
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Pan Am Flight 799 was an international cargo flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Cam Ranh Airport in South Vietnam that crashed on December 26, 1968 near Anchorage, Alaska. The aircraft involved was a Boeing 707-321C aircraft operated by Pan American World Airways. All three crew members died in the crash. The Boeing 707-321C with construction number (c/n) 18824 and manufacturer serial number (msn) 397 was rolled out of Boeing's Renton, Washington factory on December 17, 1964 and two weeks later was sold to Pan American World Airways, where it received the name Clipper Racer. The four turbofan engines installed under the wing were Pratt & Whitney JT3D-3B models, with a thrust of 18,000 pounds each. [1]
The captain was 47-year-old Arthur Moen, who had 15,207 hours of total pilot time including 3,969 hours in a Boeing 707, and had been with the airline since 1949. The first officer was 38-year-old Johannes D. Markestein, who had 9,813 hours of total pilot time, including 2,813 hours in a Boeing 707, and had been with the airline since 1957. The flight engineer was 31-year-old James R. Skellenger, who had 3,032 hours of total pilot time, including 138 hours of flight engineer time in Boeing 707s. These three crew members had not flown together before, although the captain and co-pilot had previously flown together from Anchorage, twice. [2]:22
The aircraft carried out a regular postal shipment from San Francisco, California to Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam with intermediate stops in Anchorage, Alaska; Tokyo, Japan; and Da Nang, South Vietnam. An interim landing in Anchorage, Alaska was done for refueling and crew change. At 10:54 p.m.,[note 1] Flight 799 took off from San Francisco to Anchorage, and the flight initially took place without any problems. However, since Anchorage Airport was closed due to weather conditions, Captain Moen had to land at nearby Elmendorf Air Force Base, as planned ahead of time. The crew noted that there were problems with the No. 4 engine's thrust-reverser. [2]:2
Flight 799 was delayed in leaving Elmendorf for two hours. Eventually, at 5:55 a.m., Captain Moen started the engines, and, at 6:02 a.m., the craft was allowed to taxi to the runway: Air Traffic Control gave permission to proceed to Runway 5, but the crew requested Runway 23, as the latter had greater effective length. When the crew were offered a "follow me" truck due to lack of knowledge of the facility, they were pre-occupied with the taxi checklist. Captain Moen had not re-lowered the flaps after raising them to prevent icing, during which time First Officer Markestein remarked "Okay, let's not forget them." As Flight 799 reached the runway's end thanks to the "follow me" truck guiding them there, two Air Force flights took off before them, and then Flight 799 was cleared for takeoff at 6:15 a.m.
Take-off would be performed by First Officer Markestein, and he proceeded to power up all four engines. Immediately after the plane left the ground, the cockpit stick shaker began to vibrate, a safety feature to alert pilots of imminent aerodynamic stall. The aircraft then banked to the right, the right wing touched the ground, and the plane crashed 59.2 seconds after takeoff just beyond Runway 23, exploding from ground impact and being consumed by explosion and fire. All three crew members were killed upon impact. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) came to the conclusion that probable causes of the crash were (a) a defective checklist, (b) the 707's defective takeoff warning hardware, (c) ineffective implementation of Boeing's Service Bulletins, and (d) stress caused by a rushed flight schedule. The immediate mechanical cause was takeoff with flaps retracted, leading to loss of attitudinal control and altitude. NTSB discovered that a lower-flaps item appeared only on the taxi checklist, and was not included in the pre-takeoff checklist (which comes after the taxi checklist) so that it could remind the pilots that flaps must be lowered to ensure safe takeoff. The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) showed that First Officer Markestein lowered flaps during initial reading of the taxi checklist, but Captain Moen then retracted flaps, initially without Markestein's knowledge, in accordance with Pan Am's cold weather operating procedures to prevent icing. Markestein was made aware of Moen's flaps retraction only during the taxi checklist's second reading, but neither officer remembered to revisit flaps, that item being absent from the pre-takeoff checklist. Any time a 707's flaps aren't extended (lowered) for takeoff, upon the crew applying thrust, the takeoff warning system should sound an audible warning signal (horn), but this didn't happen on flight 799, because Pan American had failed to implement Boeing's January 31, 1967 Service Bulletin 2384 recommending the warning system's throttle actuation point be reduced from 42 degrees of thrust-lever advancement to 25 degrees in order to work correctly in cold-weather conditions (where very cold air provides greater lift, as was the case with flight 799, hence less need for thrust): Pan Am's operations engineering group had decided (incorrectly) that Boeing's service bulletin was inapplicable to Pan Am aircraft, for reasons they never documented. The NTSB recommended that checklists be revised so that items critical for safe flight be accomplished prior to takeoff, and that Boeing Service Bulletin No. 2384 be immediately made mandatory via an FAA airworthiness directive. FAA (belatedly) issued the requested airworthiness directive five months later, on May 28, 1969. [3][4][5]
Flight 799 was one of a series of aircraft losses resulting proximately from failures in checklist design and implementation. Unfortunately, it took 18 years for NTSB's recommendation in the 1969 crash report that "Air carrier cockpit checklists to be reviewed in an effort to ensure that each list provides a means of reminding the crew, immediately prior to takeoff, that all items critical for safe flight have been accomplished" to be implemented. After the August 16, 1987 loss of Northwest Airlines Flight 255 for similar reasons,[6] NTSB recommended that Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) convene a human-performance research group to determine "...if there is any type or method of presenting a checklist [that] produces better performance on part of user personnel," and for the FAA to recommend checklist typography criteria for commercial operators. [7][8] In due course, these recommendations led to a sea change in checklist design and implementation, incorporating human-factors research and Crew resource management into cockpit management. [9]
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Air crash
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San Diego’s Ardem Patapoutian experiences the dizzying, fragile joy of winning the Nobel Prize
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Using Twitter can bring joy one moment, anxiety the next, something Ardem Patapoutian experienced recently after he posted a tweet praising a new study on acupuncture. The Scripps Research scientist realized that some readers might mistakenly think he was endorsing the treatment in his new standing as a Nobel Prize winner. This story is for subscribers
“I’ll have to be a bit more careful about what I say,” said Patapoutian, who is sharing this year’s Nobel in physiology or medicine for helping discover cells that enable people to sense temperature and touch. “But I don’t want to be so careful that I change the way that I act and think.”
Like other laureates before him, Patapoutian is sorting out what it means to win the most prestigious science award in the world, an honor that seems to cast a permanent glow. Science
How San Diego grew into a magnet for Nobel-quality talent in science
At least 27 scientists who do, or did, work here won the prize Oct. 9, 2021
It comes with riches. He will split $1.14 million in prize money with co-recipient David Julius of the University of California San Francisco.
The instant stardom does not come with a training manual. That much was evident on October 4 when Patapoutian and his wife, venture capitalist Nancy Hong, learned that he had won the prize. Patapoutian’s 94 year-old father called him at his home in Del Mar at about 2 a.m. to say that people in Sweden were trying to reach him and that he should reply straight away.
He briefly paused before tapping the keypad on his iPhone. “There was this awkward interlude where it was, like, goodness are we really ready to get on this ride?” Hong told the Union-Tribune. “What does that even mean? It was a little bit scary, to be honest.”
Just in! New medicine laureate Ardem Patapoutian and his son Luca, watching the #NobelPrize press conference shortly after finding out the happy news.Stay tuned for our interview with Patapoutian coming up soon!Photographer: Nancy Hong pic.twitter.com/44OCpRSTki
The late laureate Seamus Heaney likened the “Nobel moment” to “being struck by a more or less benign avalanche.”
Patapoutian — who sometimes holds “faculty meetings” while bobbing in the ocean with colleagues — leaned into the chaos. He even found time that day to bake an almond citrus Ottolenghi cake for his wife’s birthday.
But the gravity of winning the prize is setting in. He recently retweeted a message that appeared on a sign in a store window: “Think once before you speak. Twice before you act. And three times before you post on Twitter.”
Patapoutian, an Armenian-American, is currently writing the lecture that all new Nobel laureates are expected to give, words that will be stored for posterity. His remarks will be broadcast during Nobel Week, which begins Dec. 6 and is partially virtual this year due to the pandemic. Nobel medals will be delivered in each winner’s home country instead of in Stockholm and Oslo.
Patapoutian is making sure the focus is on his research, rather than on things like growing up in Lebanon, which descended into civil war when he was young. At one point he was briefly detained by armed militants.
“I don’t think the Nobel lecture is the place to talk about things like that,” said Patapoutian who, at 54, is young for a new laureate. “I try to incorporate (political and personal things) into the chats and interviews that I do.”
Those issues include a refusal by many Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19, and the political polarization found across social media.
Patapoutian, who often walks six miles to work, usually speaks calmly and plainly about things like the anti-vax movement.
“When Jonas Salk developed the (polio) vaccine, everybody was excited and positive,” said Patapoutian, a neuroscientist. “In his day, people got their news from three or four sources of TV and a few in radio. Journalists told the news the way it was. In the modern era, there’s so many sources of news, and many are not reputable. They’re not fact-based. The COVID-era proves how problematic it is.” “I hope the majority of Americans celebrate the (COVID-19) vaccines as amazing progress in science that went from not knowing what this entity of the virus is to getting a vaccine in absolute record time, and has enabled us to at least partially exit from the shutdowns and the lockdowns.”
This is an explosive topic on Twitter, ground zero in the cancel culture. Techjury.com says that one of every 13 tweets contains a curse word. He loves the platform nonetheless, and has nearly 18,000 followers. “A lot of scientists are on LinkedIn, which is serious information,” he said. “Twitter has lots of interesting, serious science, too. But it’s also a lot of fun. That’s what life is like in our lab — fun. Science is fun. “One of the things I want to project is that we’re not stuffy people in lab coats.”
Many of his posts espouse humor and gratitude, something that colleagues say genuinely reflects his personality.
“Some people think of scientists who do really good work as being unrelatable because they’ve come up with a new way to see the world,” said Scripps Research neuroscientist Lisa Stowers, who has known him for years. “But Ardem is a regular guy. That’s part of what makes him a good scientist. Others can relax and be creative when they’re with him.”
It also helps that the research that won Patapoutian a Nobel is comparatively easy for the general public to grasp. He and Julius discovered receptors that enable people to sense temperature and touch, which could make it easier to develop drugs and therapies.
“Our ability to sense heat, cold and touch is essential for survival and underpins our interaction with the world around us,” the Nobel Foundation said in announcing the prize. “In our daily lives we take these sensations for granted, but how are nerve impulses initiated so that temperature and pressure can be perceived? “This question has been solved by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates.”
Patapoutian’s “Average Joe” posts on Twitter include noting that his car got towed on the day he won the Nobel, and that he was not going to receive an NIH grant he was seeking. “I am privileged, and I realize no-one wants to hear me complain,” Patapoutian said in a tweet. “Just sharing to make the point that everyone experiences this kind of (NIH) feedback, and that it never stops from stinging.”
He remained upbeat even when he learned that this year’s Nobel Prize ceremony won’t be held at the ornate Stockholm Concert Hall because of lingering concerns about the pandemic. Some of the new laureates, including Patapoutian, will get their medals in December at the modest Beckman Center in Irvine, the West Coast home of the National Academies.
Irvine will be “just as exciting as Stockholm!” Patapoutian said. Not all of his posts are as frothy. In October, he tweeted that it was “Ignorant and Irresponsible!” of Fox News co-anchor John Roberts to simply say on Twitter, “The fact that Colin Powell died from a breakthrough COVID infection raises new concerns about how effective vaccines are long-term.” Patapoutian agreed with prominent San Diego cardiologist Eric Topol, who noted on Twitter that Powell had long suffered from a form a cancer that damaged his immune system, making him more vulnerable to the virus. That was left out of the post.
Roberts deleted the tweet after a public outcry. Ignorant and Irresponsible! Thank you @EricTopol for your public service. https://t.co/fIWvLjAP8G
A couple of weeks earlier, Patapoutian took on an equally sensitive issue, retweeting another person’s message, which said, “Abortion should only be permitted in cases of rape, incest, and when the woman chooses it.” The controversy that often arises from such issues has led some prominent scientists to delete their Twitter accounts, including immunologist Kristian Andersen, one of Patapoutian’s colleagues at Scripps Research. He dropped off the platform earlier this year after a toxic dustup over his insights about the origins of COVID-19. The key to coping with such tension is suggested in an illustration that appears at the top of Patapoutian’s Twitter page. It shows a woman wearing a blind fold while she tries to walk a tight rope.
The image was created by renowned illustrator Jorge Colombo and was used make a point about research that Patapoutian published in 2015 in the journal Nature Neuroscience. But it also speaks to his desire to say what’s on his mind without causing an uproar. “I do love the image of balance in life and this is very apt,” Patapoutian said.
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Awards ceremony
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1984 Balkan Bulgarian Tupolev Tu-134 crash
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The 1984 Balkan Bulgarian Tupolev Tu-134 crash occurred on 10 January 1984 when a Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Tupolev Tu-134 airliner crashed on an international flight from Berlin Schönefeld Airport in Schönefeld, East Germany, to Sofia Airport in Sofia, Bulgaria. [1] All fifty on board were killed. [1]
While on approach to Sofia Airport in heavy snow, the crew failed to make visual contact with the ground as they descended below decision altitude. The crew attempted to overshoot for an altitude of 80 to 100 meters (260 to 330 ft), but the aircraft hit a power line and crashed 4 km (2.5 mi; 2.2 nmi) from the runway into a forest. The aircraft was destroyed with no survivors. [2]
Thirty-eight passengers and the crew were Bulgarians, the other seven on the flight were East Germans. [1]
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Air crash
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Acquisition
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Will Kenton is an expert on the economy and investing laws and regulations. He previously held senior editorial roles at Investopedia and Kapitall Wire and holds a MA in Economics from The New School for Social Research and Doctor of Philosophy in English literature from NYU. An acquisition is when one company purchases most or all of another company's shares to gain control of that company. Purchasing more than 50% of a target firm's stock and other assets allows the acquirer to make decisions about the newly acquired assets without the approval of the company’s other shareholders. Acquisitions, which are very common in business, may occur with the target company's approval, or in spite of its disapproval. With approval, there is often a no-shop clause during the process. We mostly hear about acquisitions of large well-known companies because these huge and significant deals tend to dominate the news. In reality, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) occur more regularly between small- to medium-size firms than between large companies. Companies acquire other companies for various reasons. They may seek economies of scale, diversification, greater market share, increased synergy, cost reductions, or new niche offerings. Other reasons for acquisitions include those listed below. If a company wants to expand its operations to another country, buying an existing company in that country could be the easiest way to enter a foreign market. The purchased business will already have its own personnel, a brand name, and other intangible assets, which could help to ensure that the acquiring company will start off in a new market with a solid base. Perhaps a company met with physical or logistical constraints or depleted its resources. If a company is encumbered in this way, then it's often sounder to acquire another firm than to expand its own. Such a company might look for promising young companies to acquire and incorporate into its revenue stream as a new way to profit. If there is too much competition or supply, companies may look to acquisitions to reduce excess capacity, eliminate the competition, and focus on the most productive providers. Sometimes it can be more cost-efficient for a company to purchase another company that already has implemented a new technology successfully than to spend the time and money to develop the new technology itself. Officers of companies have a fiduciary duty to perform thorough due diligence of target companies before making any acquisition. Although technically, the words "acquisition" and "takeover" mean almost the same thing, they have different nuances on Wall Street. In general, "acquisition" describes a primarily amicable transaction, where both firms cooperate; "takeover" suggests that the target company resists or strongly opposes the purchase; the term "merger" is used when the purchasing and target companies mutually combine to form a completely new entity. However, because each acquisition, takeover, and merger is a unique case, with its own peculiarities and reasons for undertaking the transaction, use of these terms tends to overlap. Friendly acquisitions occur when the target firm agrees to be acquired; its board of directors (B of D, or board) approves of the acquisition. Friendly acquisitions often work toward the mutual benefit of the acquiring and target companies. Both companies develop strategies to ensure that the acquiring company purchases the appropriate assets, and they review the financial statements and other valuations for any obligations that may come with the assets. Once both parties agree to the terms and meet any legal stipulations, the purchase proceeds. Unfriendly acquisitions, commonly known as "hostile takeovers," occur when the target company does not consent to the acquisition. Hostile acquisitions don't have the same agreement from the target firm, and so the acquiring firm must actively purchase large stakes of the target company to gain a controlling interest, which forces the acquisition. Even if a takeover is not exactly hostile, it implies that the firms are not equal in one or more significant ways. As the mutual fusion of two companies into one new legal entity, a merger is a more-than-friendly acquisition. Mergers generally occur between companies that are roughly equal in terms of their basic characteristics—size, number of customers, the scale of operations, and so on. The merging companies strongly believe that their combined entity would be more valuable to all parties (especially shareholders) than either one could be alone. Before making an acquisition, it is imperative for a company to evaluate whether its target company is a good candidate. In corporate America, the 1990s will be remembered as the decade of the internet bubble and the megadeal. The late 1990s, in particular, spawned a series of multi-billion-dollar acquisitions not seen on Wall Street since the junk bond fests of the roaring 1980s. From Yahoo!'s 1999 $5.7-billion purchase of Broadcast.com to AtHome Corporation's $7.5-billion purchase of Excite, companies were lapping up the "growth now, profitability later" phenomenon.1 2 Such acquisitions reached their zenith in the first few weeks of 2000. AOL Inc. (originally America Online) is the most publicized online service of its time, and often extolled as "the company that brought the internet to America." Founded in 1985, by the height of its popularity in 2000 AOL was the United States' largest internet provider.3 Meanwhile, the media conglomerate, Time Warner, Inc. was being decried as an "old media" company, despite its tangible businesses like publishing, and television, and an enviable income statement. In 2000, in a masterful display of overweening confidence, the young upstart AOL purchased the venerable giant Time Warner for $165 billion; this dwarfed all records and became the biggest merger in history. 4 The vision was that the new entity, AOL Time Warner, would become a dominant force in the news, publishing, music, entertainment, cable, and Internet industries. After the merger, AOL became the largest technology company in America. However, the joint phase lasted less than a decade. As AOL lost value and the dot-com bubble burst, the expected successes of the merger failed to materialize, and AOL and Time Warner dissolved their union: In October 2016, AT&T (NYSE: T) and Time Warner (TWX) announced a deal in which AT&T will buy Time Warner for $85.4 billion, morphing AT&T into a media heavy hitter. In June 2018, after a protracted court battle, AT&T completed its acquisition of Time Warner.4 Certainly, the AT&T-Time Warner acquisition deal of 2018 will be as historically significant as the AOL-Time Warner deal of 2000; we just can't know exactly how yet.4 These days, 18 years equals numerous lifetimes—especially in media, communications, and technology—and much will continue to change. For the moment, however, two things seem certain: Wall Street Journal. "AtHome Agrees to Acquire Excite In Stock Deal Valued at $7.5 Billion." Accessed Aug. 19, 2020.
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Organization Merge
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2020–2021 Khabarovsk Krai protests
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Protests began on 11 July 2020 in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, in support of the then governor, Sergei Furgal, after his arrest. [3][4][5][6][7] Subsequently, a few protests in support of Furgal also took place in other cities including Novosibirsk, Vladivostok and Omsk. [8][9][10][11][12][13]
In September 2018, Sergei Furgal won Khabarovsk Krai's gubernatorial election, beating the incumbent from the United Russia party in a landslide victory. [5] The Financial Times reported that "voters who flocked to Mr Furgal say they did so not for his or his party’s distinct policies, but as a protest vote against the United Russia incumbent. "[14] In December, President Putin changed the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District from Khabarovsk to Vladivostok. [15]
In September 2019, elections to the Legislative Duma of Khabarovsk Krai resulted in Furgal's party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), to win by a landslide and the defeat of the ruling United Russia party. [16]
On 9 July 2020, Furgal was arrested by the Investigative Committee of Russia and flown to Moscow on charges of involvement in the murders of several businessmen in 2004–2005. [17] He denied the allegations. [18] According to the Liberal Democratic leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, he suggested Sergei Furgal temporarily resign his powers for the period of the investigation, to avoid a "hard scenario". According to him, Furgal was going to come to Moscow to resign a week before his arrest, however, because of the death of his brother, he remained in Khabarovsk. [19] In the case of a conviction, Zhirinovsky promised to seek a pardon for Furgal. [20]
From 11 July 2020, protesters in Khabarovsk for months joined daily to support the now-fired governor Furgal and called for Putin to go. [21]
On 11 July, 10 to 12 thousand people took part in a rally in Khabarovsk according to estimates by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. [7][3] The newspaper Kommersant mentioned an estimate of 30-35 thousand people "according to various sources". [22] The protests are held conjointly with the internet campaign "I am/We are Sergei Furgal". [23]
On 12 July, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia — Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev arrived in Khabarovsk, who assessed the organisation of work of the region's leadership as poor, and said about the protests that "people have the right to express their opinions". [24]
On 15 July, the federal authorities started to use the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic to discourage people from attending the rallies. [25]
On 18 July, the second major rally in Khabarovsk took place. The mayoral office gave an estimate of up to ten thousand protesters. Dvhab.ru estimated between 15 and 30 thousand participants. Kommersant estimated 50,000 participants. The police did not interfere and distributed face masks to the protesters. In Vladivostok, around 500–1,000 people took part in a rally according to Vl.ru. Two activists were arrested. In Komsomolsk-on-Amur, around 1,000 people partook to the rallies. [25]
On 20 July, President Vladimir Putin dismissed Sergei Furgal due to a "loss of confidence". Mikhail Degtyarev, an MP from the city of Samara, who is also a member of the LDPR, was appointed acting governor until next year's election. [26] Protesters reacted negatively to the appointment of Degtyarev who arrived in the region on 21 July. In response to calls to go back to Moscow, Degtyarev said that he would not leave and that someone else would replace him if he did. [27] During his press conference, Degtyarev said that he does not intend to compete with Furgal in the election if he is acquitted and decides to run for governor again. In this case, Degtyarev will "pack up and return to Moscow". [28] Degtyarev suggested, without evidence, that foreign citizens had flown to Khabarovsk to help organise the protests. [29]
On 21 July, two regional lawmakers in Khabarovsk, Pyotr Yemelyanov and Aleksandr Kayan, opted to leave the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia in protest against Furgal's dismissal. [29]
On 25 July, the third major rally in Khabarovsk took place. The mayoral office gave an estimate of 6,500 protesters, while independent estimates gave higher figures, with some sources estimating it to have been the largest one so far or as large as the last rally. The coordinator of Alexei Navalny's headquarters in Khabarovsk, Alexei Vorsin, gave an estimate of 40,000 participants. The executive director of Open Russia, Andrei Pivovarov, gave an estimate of at least 50,000 participants. Kommersant gave an estimate of at least 50,000 participants. Protests in the city were held for the fifteenth day in a row. [30][31] DVhab estimated the number of participants to 15-20 thousand people. [32]
On 28 July, the first arrest was made in Khabarovsk. The owner of the "Furgalmobile" food truck was charged under Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation. [33]
On 1 August, the fourth major rally in Khabarovsk took place. Kommersant estimated the turnout to be no less than in the last two weeks, despite the heavy rain in the first half of the day, however the mayoral office gave an estimate 3,500 people. Other independent estimates ranged from 15 to 50 thousand people. [34] Protests took place in other Russian cities, including Irkutsk, Kazan and Krasnodar. In St. Petersburg and Moscow, dozens were detained. [35] According to The Moscow Times, the protests became increasingly anti-Kremlin in the last couple of weeks, with the authorities starting to crack down as two protesters that week were handed two-week long prison sentences and another two on the eve of Saturday's rally were detained and held overnight. [36]
On 8 August, the fifth major rally in Khabarovsk took place. Witnesses and participants quoted by the press suggested that there were tens of thousands of participants, while the mayoral office gave an estimate of 2,800 protesters.
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Protest_Online Condemnation
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Canadian travellers fined $5,700 each for getting wrong COVID-19 test before returning from U.S.
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Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Copy Url
It was a trip that cost a Vancouver nurse a lot more than she bargained for.
Brittany North, a registered nurse, says after a stressful year-and-a-half working during the pandemic, she needed a break.
“So I booked a trip to L.A. to visit a friend for about a week,” she said.
But just before she returned home, she tested positive for COVID-19, despite being double vaccinated and spending most of her time in California outdoors.
“I ended up getting quite sick for about a week to ten days…I had to quarantine for two weeks while I was there,” she said.
When she recovered, she paid for another COVID-19 test.
The result was negative.
North says her documentation was checked at the Los Angeles airport and she was given the okay to fly home.
“I thought I was following every rule I possibly could,” she said.
In a statement, Air Canada says that “passengers are responsible for ensuring they meet all entry requirements and have all valid travel documents including specific health certificates necessary to enter a country."
"Air Canada provides detailed information on its website and lists the valid tests types for specific destinations,” it continues.
It’s only after she landed in Vancouver that she learned that the kind of COVID-19 test she had taken in the states wasn’t valid in Canada.
“They just told me that test was unacceptable. They would only accept a PCR test,” North said.
She was fined $5,700.
“I was sick to my stomach,” she said.
North told CTV News Vancouver that she took another test once back in Vancouver, and that it was also negative.
“I’m still extremely angry and frustrated.”
It turns out that North isn’t the only traveller who ended up taking the wrong test before entering Canada and was then slapped with a hefty fine.
Roger Iddison, 77, went with his wife Linda to visit their son in Portland, Oregon. The pair live in Missisauga, Ont., but flew through the Vancouver International Airport.
They hadn’t seen their son since 2019.
They thought their tests were in order, before coming home, having asked for a PCR test at a pharmacy in the United States.
“I asked Walgreens for a PCR test. And apparently…the test was wrong,” Iddison said.
When they landed in Vancouver, health officials told them it was the wrong test and they were fined a whopping $11,500.
“I was absolutely flabbergasted,” he told CTV by phone. “For two old folks living on pensions that’s insane.”
He doesn’t think he should have to pay for someone else’s mistake and says they certainly weren’t trying to circumvent the proper process.
“That’s the last thing we would ever want to do is spread COVID-19 in Canada and give it to my fellow Canadians. No way,” he said.
COVID-19 testing rules for travellers are available online but North and the Iddisons didn’t recognize that mistakes had been made until it was too late.
In a statement, Health Canada says it’s the traveller’s responsibility to know the rules but that “all persons issued a ticket for non-compliance have an opportunity to dispute their charges…”
Both North and the Iddisons are disputing their fines and believe officers should use discretion in deciding when a fine should be levied.
North also says she shouldn’t have been allowed on the flight if the test was incorrect.
She says her “vacation” ended up being “extremely stressful and expensive.”
She also wants to warn Canadians that even being double vaccinated doesn’t mean you can’t get sick from COVID-19.
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Organization Fine
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African Lion: National Guard supports continent’s largest military exercise
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TANTAN, Morocco – F-16 Falcon fighter jets streaked by low and fast, while plumes of black smoke from steady artillery fire and dust thrown up by advancing M1A1 Abrams tanks drifted across the desert below as Africa’s largest military exercise reached its peak Friday. Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief, National Guard Bureau, joined Army Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander, U.S. Africa Command; Air Force Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and U.S. Air Forces Africa; and military leaders from the host nation, the Kingdom of Morocco, and eight other participating partner nations to observe the culminating event of the two-week exercise. About 1,000 National Guard members – 253 from the Utah National Guard, Morocco’s partner in the Department of Defense National Guard State Partnership Program, plus two Georgia National Guard battalions – were among the 7,800 service members from 10 partner nations taking part in the multi-national, multi-domain training event. “The warfight is the National Guard’s primary mission, and readiness is one of my highest priorities,” Hokanson said. “The opportunity to participate in African Lion 21 boosts our readiness to fight and improves our interoperability, both within the Joint Force and alongside our international partners.” African Lion demonstrates the legitimacy, responsiveness and commitment of partner forces to the regional security of North Africa. In addition to the participating partners, 20 nations send international observers. Training events include command and control; maritime, air and medical readiness exercises; humanitarian assistance and joint forcible entry. “Our Soldiers and Airmen gain invaluable professional experience by taking part in overseas exercises like this,” Hokanson said. “For many, it also gives them their first exposure to working with international partners. It also replicates the entire mobilize-deploy-conduct operations-redeploy process, which is the best readiness training for our Soldiers and Airmen.” Elements of African Lion are conducted in Morocco and Tunisia, both of which are SPP nations. Other SPP partners, including Senegal, contributed to the exercise. The enduring, almost two-decade Utah National Guard partnership with the Moroccan Armed Forces under the SPP supports AFRICOM priorities by helping to strengthen partner networks on the continent and enhance partner capabilities. “Morocco has shown staunch support for the security cooperation relationship with the Utah National Guard, which reduces our security burdens and makes our populations more secure,” Hokanson said. “The partnership has promoted lasting friendships and deepened understanding and cultural appreciation between the peoples of the United States and Morocco.” There’s a saying in the National Guard: You don’t want to exchange business cards in a crisis. This means building relationships like this is so important before a challenge arises. Traditional U.S. active duty military and State Department assignments last three to four years before personnel rotate to new jobs. Through the SPP, Guard members in the states and territories sustain relationships with partner country officials for decades, through entire careers – a unique resource to help combatant commanders and ambassadors achieve their goals. “Trust is built over time,” Townsend, the AFRICOM commander, told the House Armed Services Committee in his annual testimony in April. “The relationships made while we develop partner capabilities provide America with long-term strategic alliances needed to address future challenges and ensure regional security and prosperity.” The Utah Air National Guard’s delivery of emergency relief supplies within 72 hours of a major earthquake less than a year into the relationship with Morocco helped seal the nascent partnership. Utah and Morocco cooperate on combined arms capabilities, including special forces, attack helicopters, artillery, and fighter jet refueling interoperability. Other exchanges include humanitarian demining, emergency medicine, disaster response, noncommissioned officer development and youth exchanges. Symbolic of just how longstanding the relationship between the U.S. and Morocco is, the American Legation in Tangier was the first overseas American public property. It is the oldest continuous U.S. diplomatic presence and remains the only building on the National Historic Registry located outside of the United States. In 1777, Morocco became the first nation to recognize U.S. independence. Since 9/11, Morocco has been a designated major non-NATO ally, one of two in Africa. Although the traditional map projection familiar to Westerners makes it appear much smaller, Africa is, in reality, larger in land area than the U.S., China, India, Japan and most of Europe combined. The population is expected to top two billion within 30 years, and the continent includes half the world’s arable land, plus still-untapped mineral resources. Hokanson’s visit concluded a nine-day, four-nation trip focused on National Guard readiness, troop visits, and partnership-building, his first overseas travel since he became the 29th Chief of the National Guard Bureau last August, and one of the first series of foreign engagements by a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since the peak of the pandemic. Among those traveling with Hokanson for all or portions of the trip were Senior Enlisted Advisor to Chief Tony Whitehead and Army Maj. Gen. Michael Turley, adjutant general, Utah National Guard. The CNGB also met in Morocco with Army Maj. Gen. Thomas Carden, adjutant general, Georgia National Guard, and in Egypt with Army Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris, adjutant general, Texas National Guard. The CNGB ensures the 443,000 National Guard Soldiers and Airman who serve as the primary combat reserve of the Army and the Air Force are accessible, capable and ready to support our combatant commanders overseas and our communities here at home.
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Military Exercise
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Get ready to witness longest partial lunar eclipse of 21st century. Details here
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The longest partial lunar eclipse of the century is set to occur overnight on November 18-19 when the Moon will slip into Earth's shadow for a couple of hours, according to Nasa. The eclipse will occur earlier or later in the evening depending on the time zone of people witnessing the phenomenon. The duration of the partial lunar eclipse will be about 3 hours and 28 minutes. During a partial lunar eclipse, Moon traverses Earth’s penumbral and umbral shadows. Lunar eclipses can only occur during the Full Moon phase, with a minimum of two and a maximum of five lunar eclipses every year. November’s will be the second and the last lunar eclipse of the year. In May, a total lunar eclipse occurred for a duration of 3 hours and 7 minutes. This time, the eclipse will be visible from any location where the Moon will be above the horizon, according to Nasa, which means people in North and South America, Eastern Asia, Australia and the Pacific Region will be able to see at least part of the eclipse. For those observing the eclipse from US East Coast, it will begin around 2.18am, reaching its peak at 4.02am in the morning. On the US West Coast, it will begin just after 11 pm, peaking at 1 am. “A partial lunar eclipse is on the way, taking place overnight on November 18th and 19th, when the Moon slips into Earth's shadow for a couple of hours. Weather permitting, the eclipse will be visible from any location where the Moon appears above the horizon during the eclipse. Depending on your time zone, it'll occur earlier or later in the evening for you,” wrote Nasa in its monthly update. The longest total lunar eclipse of the century occurred on July 27, 2018, which went on for about an hour 42 minutes.
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New wonders in nature
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2013 Shahbag protests
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On 5 February 2013, protests began in Shahbag, Bangladesh following demands for[13] capital punishment for Abdul Quader Mollah, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment, and convicted on five of six counts of war crimes by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh. [14][15][16][17] Later demands included banning the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party from politics including election and a boycott of institutions supporting (or affiliated with) the party. [18]
Protesters considered Mollah's sentence too lenient, given his crimes. [19][20] Bloggers and online activists called for additional protests at Shahbag and joined the demonstration. [21][22][23]
Ruling party Awami League supported the protests. [24][25] However, main opposition party the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) initially expressed its support for Jamaat-e-Islami, a political ally. [26] But, the BNP cautiously welcomed the Shahbag protest, while warning the government not to make political mileage from a movement demanding capital punishment for war criminals. [27] A counter-protest, questioning the validity of the tribunal and the protest movement and demanding release of those accused and convicted, was called by Jamaat-e-Islami. [28]
During the protests, blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider was killed outside his house. [29] On 1 March, five students of North South University were arrested who 'confessed' involvement in Rajib's killing. [30][31] From the killing of Haidar, his and his fellow bloggers' writing regarding prophet Muhammad made public by Amaar Desh. [32] Therefore, against those bloggers Hefazat-e-Islam was formed. [11]
On 27 February 2013, the tribunal convicted Delwar Hossain Sayeedi of war crimes and sentenced him to death. Jamaat followers protested and there were violent clashes with police. About 60 people were killed in the confrontations; most were Jamaat-Shibir activists, and others were police and civilians. [28]
The movement received considerable criticism in Bangladesh and abroad for encouraging the revival of fascism in the country[33][34][35][36][37][38][39] by the use of slogans inciting violence,[40][41][42] being politically motivated, forcing students of the University of Dhaka to join, blocking the road to hospitals, violating dead bodies,[43][44] and so on. In 1971 Bangladesh was the portion of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan known as East Pakistan. In the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh, East Pakistan fought West Pakistan for nine months. During this period the Indian Army which provided guerrilla training to Mukti Bahini, joined the war on 3 December 1971 in support of the liberation of East Pakistan. Armed conflict ended on 16 December 1971 through surrender of the Pakistani Armed Forces to the joint force of Bangladesh and India, resulting in the formation of the People's Republic of Bangladesh as an independent state. According to the famous Blood telegram from the United States consulate in Dhaka (formerly known as 'Dacca') to the State Department, many atrocities had been committed by the Pakistan Army and its supporter Razakars and Al-Badar militia. [45][46][47][48] Time reported a high-ranking US official as saying, "It is the most incredible, calculated killing since the days of the Nazis in Poland. "[49] Estimates are that one to three million people were killed, nearly a quarter of a million women were raped and more than ten million people fled to India to escape persecution. [50][51]
A paramilitary force known as the Razakars was created by the May 1971 Razakar Ordinance promulgated by Tikka Khan, the governor of East Pakistan. The ordinance stipulated the creation of a volunteer force, trained and equipped by the provincial government. [52] Razakar (Bengali: রাজাকার), originally meaning volunteer, became a derogatory term among Bangladeshis due to the widespread killings of civilians and atrocities committed by the paramilitary during the war. The majority of East Pakistanis supported the call to create a free and independent Bangladesh during the Liberation War. However, Pakistani supporters and members of Islamic political parties, particularly Jamaat-e-islami(JIP) and its east Pakistan student wing Islami Chatra Sangha (ICS, Bengali: ইসলামী ছাত্র সঙ্ঘ, romanized: Islami Chhatro Shônggho), the Muslim League, the Pakistan Democratic Party (PDP) Council and Nezam-e-Islami, collaborated with the Pakistani army to resist the formation of an independent Bangladesh. The students belonging to Islami Chatra Sangha were known as the Al-Badr force; people belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, Muslim League, Nizam-e-Islami and similar groups were called Al-Shams, and the Urdu-speaking people (generally known as Bihari) were known as Al-Mujahid. [53]
After the independence, Bangladesh government locked up many Rajakars and defenders of Pakistan. However, In November 1973 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman issued a general pardon for all people who opposed the independence and helped the Pakistani Army, and eventually all prisoners were let go. [54] However, Rahman banned all kinds of Islamic parties including the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. Eventually the ban was lifted, and under Ershad Jamaat-e-Islami participated in 1986 election. They got 10 seats with 4.6% vote. [55] In the 1991 election, which was the first free and fair election after independence, Jamaat got 18 seats out of 300 and gained 12.2% of vote. [56]
Against Ghulam Azam who was Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami, Jahanara Imam organized the Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee (Committee for Eradicating the Killers and Collaborators of '71),[57] and she become a public face. The committee called for the trial of people who committed crimes against humanity in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War in collaboration with the Pakistani forces. The Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee set up mock trials in Dhaka on 26 March 1992 known as Gono Adalat (People's Court) and symbolically 'sentenced' persons they accused of being war criminals. [58] Imam and others were reportedly charged with treason during the government of Bangladesh Nationalist party. [59] In 1996 election, Jamaat's public support decreased and they got only 3 seats in that election. In 2001 Election, BNP with 3 others parties including Jamaat-e-Islami wins the election. [60] Jamaat got 17 seats. From 2001 to 2003, Amir of Jamat-e-Islami Motiur Rahman Nizami served as the Minister of Agriculture, then as the Minister of Industry from 2003 to 2006. [61] And general secretary of Jamaat Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed served the Ministry of Social Welfare between 2001 and 2006. [62]
Since 2000, there has been growing demands in Bangladesh for justice related to war crimes committed during the 1971 struggle; the issue was central to the 2008 general election. [63][64] The Awami League-led, 14-party Grand Alliance included this issue in its election manifesto. [65] Its rival, four-party alliance (which included the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami) had several leaders alleged to have committed war crimes. [66]
The Grand Alliance won the election (held on 29 December 2008) with a two-thirds majority, based in part on its promise to prosecute alleged war criminals. [67][68][69]
On 29 January 2009 the new Parliament unanimously passed a resolution to prosecute war criminals. [70] The government intended to use the 1973 law: the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act.
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Protest_Online Condemnation
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2015 Eglin Air Force Base helicopter crash
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On March 10, 2015, a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter of the United States Army crashed off the coast of the Florida Panhandle during a training exercise at Eglin Air Force Base,[3] killing all eleven people on board. The helicopter was reported missing during foggy conditions at 8:30 PM. [4] The helicopter was assigned to the 1-244th Assault Helicopter Battalion, based in Hammond, Louisiana. [5]
The UH-60M helicopter was on a night training flight on March 10, 2015 when it disappeared. The Marines on board the helicopter were supposed to be dropped off by the helicopter and make their way ashore to simulate an over-the-beach landing. They had conducted a similar exercise earlier in the day. [6] The helicopter flew into dense coastal fog that night and disappeared,[7] approximately five minutes after takeoff. [8]
There were eleven people on board the helicopter at the time, of whom seven were U.S Marines assigned to a special operations unit and four were U.S Army soldiers and members of the Louisiana National Guard. [5][6] The Black Hawk helicopter was piloted by Chief Warrant Officer 4 (CW4) George Wayne Griffin Jr., 37, and CW4 George David Strother, 44; both were members of the 1st Battalion (Assault) of the 244th Aviation Regiment, a unit of the Louisiana Army National Guard (LAARNG). [8]
The Marines on the helicopter were assigned to Marine Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC) Raiders Team 8231, based at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. [8][9]
The helicopter, assigned tail number 13-20624, was new. Sikorsky installed the engines in August 2014, completed flight tests on the aircraft that December, and maintenance personnel ferried it from NAES Lakehurst in Lakehurst, New Jersey to Hammond in January 2015. At the time of the accident it had approximately 60 hours of flight time. [10]
At approximately 1945 CST, CW4 Griffin was briefed on weather conditions prior to launch; the UH-60M piloted by CW4 Griffin and CW4 Strother (operating under callsign MOJO 69) took off with another LAARNG UH-60M at 2016 CST to perform the training exercise. [1]:3 CW4 Strother was recorded saying "Gee, it's dark as (expletive). That don't help none," shortly after takeoff. [11]:Timestamp 7:35.538 Once MOJO 69 crossed the shoreline, they entered what the investigation later called a Degraded Visual Environment at approximately 173 seconds after takeoff;[1]:4;14 the other UH-60M did not follow MOJO 69 into the fog, choosing instead to turn east and hover. [1]:4 Four seconds after one of the aircrew noted they were over the water, CW4 Griffin noted "Yeah, it's too dark to see the (expletive) water. "[11]:10:05.838
After entering the fogbank, both pilots of MOJO 69 started exhibiting signs of spatial disorientation, according to both the flight data recorder and cockpit voice transmission transcripts;[1]:4 MOJO 69 came to zero knots indicated airspeed and began flying backwards almost immediately after losing visual references. This deviated from the mission path, and CW4 Griffin, the pilot-in-command, failed to announce the deviation, providing evidence that he had become disoriented without realizing it. [1]:14 MOJO 69 turned on their position light and asked the other helicopter's flight crew to put on their position light as well; the other helicopter's crew radioed back that they could not see MOJO 69. [11]:10:10.554–10:36.576 During this time, MOJO 69 flew backwards for approximately 20 seconds before CW4 Griffin announced he was "coming back to the right ... pulling back to the East",[11]:10:22.056 not realizing he had instead turned to the north. [1]:14 As MOJO 69 continued backwards, it turned right about the yaw axis and took a nose-up pitch attitude of 20 degrees. [1]:14
Approximately 56 seconds after the first signs of spatial disorientation, CW4 Strother announced "we climbed up in it" and asked "where's our airspeed? "[1]:14 [11]:10:56.316;10:59.142 Both pilots showed "increasingly erratic flight control inputs" and had "anxious verbal exchanges" at this point:[1]:4 CW4 Griffin commanded rapid climb and descent maneuvers and put the aircraft into a spin. [1]:14 CW4 Strother asked "G-Wayne, what are you doin'? "[11]:11:03.980 and asked him to climb;[11]:11:06.544 CW4 Griffin responded that he was "climbin' up" after approximately twenty seconds[11]:11:26.780 and CW4 Strother warned him about the spin five seconds after that. [11]:11:31.844
Approximately 96 seconds after first showing spatial disorientation, CW4 Griffin asked CW4 Strother to take the controls,[1]:14 [11]:11:36.520 but both pilots were unable to regain control of the aircraft. [1]:4 CW4 Griffin warned CW4 Strother to "watch the collective" twice[11]:11:41.561;11:44.067 and took the controls back 8 seconds after relinquishing them to CW4 Strother. [1]:4 CW4 Strother suggested engaging the autopilot,[11]:11:46.436 but this was not successful as the aircraft was already "outside the required flight parameters",[1]:4 [8] and CW4 Strother first warned CW4 Griffin they were "in a bad right turn",[11]:11:49.653 then to "watch your altitude, attitude G-Wayne attitude, level" in quick succession. [11]:11:55.557
The last recorded cockpit voice transmission was CW4 Strother urging "climb, climb". [11]:12:00.695 MOJO 69 crashed into Santa Rosa Sound,[1]:14 approximately 125 seconds after entering the fog. [1]:4 Both the speed and angle of impact were not survivable. [1]:14
Debris from the crash was found on March 11 at 2 AM around Okaloosa Island. [4] The search for the passengers, which focused on waters east of Navarre, Florida,[4] was hindered by heavy fog in the area. [5] On the morning of March 11, a spokesman for the Eglin Air Force Base said that human remains had been found in the area of the search. [12] The wreckage was later found in 25 feet (7.6 m) of water off the coast of Navarre. [7]
By March 12, the bodies of two soldiers on board the helicopter had been recovered,[13] and by March 17, all 11 bodies from the crash had been recovered and identified. [14]
A later investigation conducted by LAARNG and USSOC concluded that the cause of the crash was spatial disorientation, resulting in the pilots crashing into the Santa Rosa Sound. [15] Contributing causes included the pilots' choice to fly in weather and visibility that did not meet minimum requirements and a breakdown in aircrew communication, both before and during the mission. [1]:15;16
CW4 Griffin had been briefed on March 7 that operations with night vision goggles could be conducted under visual meteorological conditions (VMC) only, establishing minimum requirements for the cloud ceiling [1,000 feet (300 m)] and visibility [3 miles (5 km)]; these requirements were subsequently included and acknowledged on all mission briefing sheets. [1]:3 Contrary to these VMC minima requirements, both helicopters took off in conditions with low clouds and poor visibility;[1]:3 Hurlburt Field, which was the closest weather facility to the accident site, was showing visibility of 1 mile (1.6 km) and a cloud ceiling of 300 feet (91 m) at 1958 and 2058 CST that night. [1]:11 In addition, prior to takeoff, an observer at the drop zone called Hurlburt Field to receive a weather report at 1926 CST, concerned that he could not see the lights of the 300 feet (91 m) tall control tower, which was approximately 2.3 miles (3.7 km) from his position. The observer voiced his concerns about the visibility by telephone to Master Sergeant (MSgt) Thomas Saunders, one of the Marines assigned to fly on MOJO 69 that night. CW4 Griffin stated he was unconcerned, as his flight path would keep him away from the tower and that he had the required ceilings to fly the mission. [1]:12
CW4 Strother and the rest of the MOJO 69 aircrew did not challenge CW4 Griffin's decision to proceed with the mission in the face of deteriorating weather, because of their confidence in CW4 Griffin's judgment and piloting skill. This occurred despite individuals exhibiting trepidation about "the weather and the lack of ambient illumination". In addition, once CW4 Griffin began exhibiting spatial disorientation, the transfer of controls and assistance with interpreting flight instruments "were not adequately executed" and the two pilots were unable to assist each other to flight under instrument meteorological conditions effectively. [1]:16–17
A year after the crash, friends and families of the crash victims participated in the Marine Raider Memorial March, carrying heavy rucksacks over a 770-mile long (1,240 km) course from Florida to North Carolina. Seven teams of two or three people participated; each team marched over a 11-mile (18 km) segment before being relieved by another team for the next segment, with the march scheduled to complete on March 21.
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United States Withdrawal from United Nations Human Rights Council
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The Trump administration has withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council over what the Trump administration calls the Council’s bias against Israel. First, let me point out that the UN Human Rights Council is a deliberative body of representatives of many nations with a variety of opinions and biases. The Human Rights Council doesn’t make decisions, it is the member states (countries) that make the decisions. It is similar in that respect to the United Nations itself and all other deliberative bodies such as the U.S. Congress, the state legislature, and your city council. Within such a body, you hear many opinions, including many you may not like. You try to find like-minded partners in a deliberative body such as the Human Rights Council. One way to ensure the defeat of your point of view is to leave the field to your opponents. The United States has been a forceful voice for human rights in the Human Rights Council, and its withdrawal from that deliberative body diminishes the side that works for more inclusive human rights for all. Withdrawing is not the answer in situations such as this. The appropriate response if the U.S. is concerned about bias from its fellow Council members would be to engage. Part of engaging is listening to the other side to see if there might be something in what they say that makes sense. Are any of the criticisms made by the Human Rights Council regarding the human rights records of the United States and Israel valid? If the nations making the criticisms have really bad human rights records, does that mean that what they are saying about the USA and Israel is 100% wrong? Perhaps their statements could be wrong, but it isn’t the human rights record of the critic that make a statement valid or invalid. It is the truth or falsity of the statement itself. Israel and the USA are not above criticism. Often the USA criticizes other nations because of their police brutality and bigotry. That criticism might be valid even though the USA is also guilty of high levels of police brutality and official bigotry. You often need a friend to point out to you what you can’t see for yourself. You can listen to see if there is truth in what your friend is telling you, or you can storm off in an indignant and childish huff. Our withdrawal from the Human Rights Council under the Trump Administration is childish, and it deprives the United States of the face to face feedback at the Human Rights Council it needs, and deprives the world of the USA in deliberations about global human rights. In 2006, the Human Rights Council was created after its predecessor, the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission, was dissolved for failing to deliver on its mandate to protect rights and for allowing countries with abysmal human rights records to become members. At the time, President George W. Bush refused to join for three years, over concerns that the new body wasn’t much of an improvement. Most activists and U.N. diplomats consider the reconstituted Human Rights Council an improvement over its predecessor. Its 47 members are elected by the U.N. General Assembly, through regional quotas, and serve three-year terms, with no more than two consecutive terms. Because of this formula, countries with human rights records that have been criticized by the U.S. or its allies sometimes end up serving as members. Saudi Arabia, Cuba, China, and Russia are among those that have been members of the Council. In 2012 Syria was nominated in its regional group, even as the Assad regime was violently cracking down on its opponents. Intense lobbying by the U.S. and its allies prevented Syria’s election then. The Human Rights Council periodically reviews the human rights performance of every nation (regardless if they are a member or not). Each nation is reviewed by the member nations of the Human Rights Council every 4.5 years. There is also a shadow report prepared by non-governmental organizations which is often better documented and thorough than those prepared by member governments. Normally, nations publish the findings of these reports to either indicate areas that need improvement or to refute the findings of the Council. Only the U.S. media totally ignores these reports which routinely criticize U.S. racism, mass incarceration, and brutal police behavior. This link lists the 668 recommendations the Human Rights Council has made to the USA. Here are a few examples out of the 668 recommendations: The U.S. withdrew from U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, in October 2017 over allegations that it was anti-Israel and because it had allowed Palestinian Authority to join as a member state. In January 2018, the U.S. announced it would cut funding in half to U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, the U.N. program that provides education and health care for Palestinian refugees. Human Rights Watch issued a statement criticizing the decision to withdraw from the Human Rights Council: “The Trump administration’s withdrawal is a sad reflection of its one-dimensional human rights policy: defending Israeli abuses from criticism takes precedence above all else.” Recently the High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized the U.S. separation of migrant children from their parents. The UN has reported that poverty is increasing in the United States and that levels of bigotry are also on the rise. Do we listen and consider or get angry and leave? Our decision says a great deal of our maturity as a nation. What this decision shows is that, under the Trump administration, the United States does not care about human rights being respected. Bruce Knotts is the Director of the Unitarian Universalist Office at the United Nations. He was born and raised in Southern California. He got his Bachelor’s Degree in History from Pepperdine University and his Master’s Degree in International Education from the Monterey Institute of...
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Southwest Airlines Flight 3472 crash
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Southwest Airlines Flight 3472 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight operating from New Orleans International Airport in New Orleans, Louisiana to Orlando International Airport in Orlando, Florida. On August 27, 2016, the Boeing 737-7H4[a], with 99 passengers and five crew, 12 minutes after departure from New Orleans, was climbing through 31,000 feet and heading east over the Gulf of Mexico when the aircraft's number one CFM International CFM56-7 engine suffered an uncontained engine failure. Debris from the engine punctured the left side of the fuselage causing a loss of cabin pressure and damaged the wing and empennage. Oxygen masks were deployed to passengers while the crew initiated an emergency descent to 10,000 feet. The aircraft then diverted to Pensacola International Airport for a safe landing about 20 minutes later without further incident. While the aircraft sustained substantial damage, there were no injuries. [1]
The aircraft involved was a 16-year-old Boeing 737-7H4 (registration number N766SW), delivered to Southwest in May 2000. [2] The jet was subsequently returned to service and later retired by Southwest in November 2019 to Greenwood–Leflore Airport, Mississippi. [3]
The accident was investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). On September 12, 2016, the NTSB reported their initial findings. [4]
Future investigative work by the NTSB will include 3-D measurements of the contact areas of all the blades, a non-destructive examination of the blade surfaces for cracks, and a review of the engine maintenance records. Parties to the investigation include the Federal Aviation Administration, Southwest Airlines, the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, and CFM International, which is a joint venture between GE Aviation (US) and Safran Aircraft Engines (France). The French Bureau of Investigation and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety has also appointed an accredited representative who is supported by a technical advisor from Safran Aircraft Engines. On March 30, 2020, the NTSB determined the probable cause of the accident as follows: "A low-cycle fatigue crack in the dovetail of fan blade No. 23, which resulted in the fan blade separating in flight and impacting the fan case. This impact caused the fan blade to fracture into fragments that traveled farther than expected into the inlet, which compromised the structural integrity of the inlet and led to the in-flight separation of inlet components. A portion of the inlet struck the fuselage and created a hole, causing the cabin to depressurize. "[5]
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1990 Detroit riot
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The 1990 Detroit riot occurred on June 14, 1990 after the Detroit Pistons defeated the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1990 NBA Finals. The rioting resulted in 8 deaths and is one of the worst sports-related riots in American history. On June 14, 1990, the Detroit Pistons defeated the Portland Trail Blazers 92–90 in Game 5 of the 1990 NBA Finals. The game was played at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland, but over 21,000 Pistons fans watched the game on big screen TVs at The Palace of Auburn Hills, the Pistons' home court. The event at The Palace remained peaceful, with only one arrest occurring. [1]
The game ended at 11:30 EDT and rioting quickly began afterwards. Looting was reported throughout city and at least 124 people were hospitalized for injuries, including 26 who had been shot, two had been stabbed and over a dozen who were beaten in front of riot police. Eight people were killed as well - 10-year-old Keith Brown, 9-year-old Frederick Moore, 15-year-old Alisha Stanfield and 21-year-old Sonny Deon Hogan were struck and killed after being struck by a Ford Thunderbird in front of a convenience store where they were celebrating. 41-year-old Bruce Burdett Thomas of Warren was charged with four counts of second-degree murder in connection with the incident. Several witness described the crash as deliberate. 19-year-old Michael Wilkins was shot and killed after an argument occurred in a parking lot, a 21-year-old man fell off a roof to his death and two other, pedestrians, one of them a 4-year-old boy, were killed in other auto accidents. A total of 141 people were arrested in Detroit.
The rioting spread to suburb areas. In River Rouge, 28 youths were arrested after they smashed the windows of several stores and a police car. In Roseville, a police car was pelted with beer cans and bottles, though no one was arrested.
The Pistons had won the NBA championship the year prior and little violence occurred, though violence occurred after the Detroit Tigers won the World Series in 1984. The rioting was the worst the city had experienced since the uprising of 1967.
This basketball-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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SASB and IIRC merger targets simplified sustainability disclosure
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SASB and the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) are to merge into one organization by mid-2021 with the aim of offering investors and companies a comprehensive corporate reporting framework to drive global sustainability performance. The newly formed Value Reporting Foundation, to be headquartered in London and San Francisco, will advance initiatives by SASB, the IIRC, the CDP charity, the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to work toward a comprehensive corporate reporting system. The merger is expected to simplify sustainability disclosure. ‘Capital markets are hungry for information linked to enterprise value creation, but they cannot easily digest what comes from a fragmented reporting landscape,’ says SASB chair Robert Steel. ‘This merger is an important step toward businesses and investors communicating with clarity and ease about the issues that matter most to financial performance.’ Steel and Richard Sexton of the IIRC will co-chair the new foundation’s board. Former SEC chair Mary Schapiro and IIRC board member Helen Brand will serve as vice chairs. All of SASB’s 45 staff and the IIRC’s 25 employees are expected to remain with the new entity. The Value Reporting Foundation may also integrate other groups focused on enterprise value creation, including the CDSB. The first key initiative to be advanced by the foundation will be its work toward a comprehensive corporate reporting system alongside partners at CDP, CDSB and the GRI. ‘We also believe the two organizations have complementary reach,’ a spokesperson for the IIRC tells Corporate Secretary sister publication IR Magazine. ‘For example, the uptake of integrated reporting in America is not currently strong – around 30 organizations have adopted it, including the likes of PepsiCo, General Electric and JLL – and we hope this merger will strengthen awareness and uptake. Similarly, the IIRC has strong uptake in markets such as Japan, France, Australia and the UK where SASB is seeking to build adoption further.’ Global investors and corporates have called for a simplification of the corporate reporting landscape and for organizations to provide a clear solution for communicating about the drivers of enterprise value. Integrated reporting describes value creation topics and the approach to integrating them in corporate thought and reporting. SASB’s standards are globally applicable and used by companies worldwide: of the 454 companies that have reported SASB metrics up to the end of October, 42 percent are domiciled outside the US. GRI, an independent, international organization that helps businesses and other groups take responsibility for their impacts, co-founded the IIRC and welcomes the merger. Earlier this year, GRI launched a joint workplan with SASB to share best practices and case studies demonstrating how they can be used together. ‘We congratulate IIRC and SASB on their decision to join forces and their support of companies in producing relevant disclosures about sustainability-related value creation,’ says GRI chair Eric Hespenheide. ‘For a sustainable future, companies need to take responsibility for their impacts on the world. Sustainability reporting is the practice by which they disclose their significant economic, social and environmental impacts. This information is critical to inform decisions for a wide range of stakeholders, ranging from employees to policy makers and from customers to investors. ‘The formation of the Value Reporting Foundation represents a significant step toward a better representation of sustainability-related risks in financial reporting.’
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Niterói circus fire
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The Niterói circus fire occurred on December 17, 1961 in the city of Niterói, Brazil. A fire in the tent housing a sold-out performance by the Gran Circus Norte-Americano caused more than 500 deaths. [2] It is the worst fire disaster to occur in Brazil. The Gran Circus Norte-Americano premiered in Niterói on December 15, 1961. It was advertised as the most complete circus in Latin America, with approximately 60 performers, 20 other employees and 150 animals. Circus owner Danilo Stevanovich had purchased a new tent made of nylon and weighing six tons. The circus arrived in Niterói one week before the premiere, and was set up in the Praça Expedicionário in the city center. [3]
With 3,000 people present, and with 20 minutes until the end of the show, a trapeze artist noticed the fire. In a little over five minutes, the circus was completely devoured by the flames. Of all the casualties, 372 died immediately, with the total reaching 503 dead as others succumbed to their injuries. About 70% of the victims were children. The circus tent imported from India had been advertised as being made of nylon, but was actually cotton treated with paraffin wax, a highly flammable material. [4]
The fire was soon claimed to have been caused by arson. Three people were arrested and convicted of starting the fire. Independent investigations[5] and opinions[6] point to electrical problems that were covered up. [4]
Coordinates: 22°53′21.78″S 43°7′41.77″W / 22.8893833°S 43.1282694°W / -22.8893833; -43.1282694
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Mecca fire of 1997
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The Mecca fire of 1997 was a fire that occurred in the tent city near Mecca in Saudi Arabia 15 April 1997, killing between 217 and 300 people. The fire erupted in the overcrowded tent city, Mina, where an estimated two million Muslim pilgrims were gathered on for the first day of the Hajj, the ritualistic pilgrimage to Mecca. The fire erupted at 11:45 a.m. (AST),[1] and was caused by exploding canisters of cooking gas, according to witnesses. The fire was fanned by winds of nearly 40 miles per hour (64 km/h) causing the destruction of an estimated 70,000 tents. Officially, 1,290 were injured and 217 killed, though witnesses and local newspapers claimed at least 300 were killed, many trampled in the panic. Later official reports gave a death toll of 343, no official list of fatalities has been published. [2] Opposition sources claimed over 2,000 deaths had occurred, many from trampling. [3] The fire was fought by three hundred fire engines as well as helicopters, and controlled in three hours. [4][5]
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Famine in Ethiopia as the Tigray Conflict Worsens
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By: Mark Leon Goldberg on June 17, 2021 On June 16th, the UN’s top humanitarian official Mark Lowcock told members of the security council that there is famine in the Ethiopian region of Tigray. Some 350,000 people in Tigray are living in famine conditions with millions more at risk. “We are at a tipping point” Lowcock said. So far, the urgent appeals from the humanitarian community have not been met with commensurate action by the key players in Tigray, including the Ethiopian government. Since November 2020, the federal government of Ethiopia, backed by troops in neighboring Eritrea, have fought a war against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, the TPLF. The TPLF is the dominant political force in Tigray region, but for decades, the TPLF was the dominant political party in the federal government as well. That was until Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018 and effectively sidelined the TPLF. As my guest today Zecharias Zelalem explains, unresolved conflict between the TPLF and the federal government is what lead to the outbreak of civil war. Zecharias Zelalem is a freelance journalist and contributor to Al Jazeera and The Telegraph, among other outlets. We kick off with a discussion about the circumstances that lead to the outbreak of war in November 2020. This includes the delaying of national elections last summer, ostensibly due to COVID. Those delayed elections are now scheduled for June 21, just a few days from now. We discuss the implications of the elections for the trajectory of conflict in Ethiopia. By all accounts, the situation in Tigray is extremely grim and about to get much worse. This conversation does a good job of examining how we go to this point. Transcript Mark Leon Goldberg [00:00:03] Welcome to Global Dispatches, a podcast for the international affairs, foreign policy, global development communities, and anyone interested in a deeper understanding of the world today. I’m your host, Mark Leon Goldberg, Editor of U.N. Dispatch. Enjoy the show. [00:00:25] On June 16th, the UN’s top humanitarian official, Mark Lowcock, told members of the Security Council that there is famine in parts of the Ethiopian region of Tigray. Some 350,000 people in Tigray are living in famine conditions with millions more at risk. “We are at a tipping point,” Lowcock said. So far, the urgent appeals from the humanitarian community have not been met with commensurate action by key players in Tigray, including the Ethiopian government. Since November 2020, the federal government of Ethiopia, backed by troops in neighboring Eritrea, have fought a war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the TPLF. The TPLF is the dominant political force in the Tigray region but for decades the TPLF was the dominant political party in the federal government as well. That was until Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018 and effectively sidelined the TPLF. [00:01:43] As my guest today, Zecharias Zelalem explains, unresolved conflict between the TPLF and the Abiy Ahmed-led government is what led to the outbreak of civil war. Zecharias Zelalem is a freelance journalist and contributor to Al-Jazeera and the Telegraph, among other outlets. We kick off with a discussion about these circumstances that led to the outbreak of war in November 2020. This includes the delaying of national elections last Summer, ostensibly due to Covid. Those delayed elections are now scheduled for June 21st, 2021, which is just a few days from now. And we do discuss the implications of the elections for the trajectory of the conflict in Ethiopia. [00:02:35] By all accounts, the situation in Tigray is extremely grim and about to get much worse. This conversation, though, does a good job of explaining how we got to this point. Today’s episode is supported in part through a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to showcase African voices discussing peace and security issues in Africa. To access other episodes in this series, please visit GlobalDispatchesPodcast.com. And now, here is my conversation with journalist Zecharias Zelalem. Zecharias Zelalem [00:03:16] In November of last year, we saw the break out of hostilities in Tigray between the then-Tigray regional government led by the TPLF, or the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, and the federal government in Addis Ababa. That led to the breaking out of the brutal civil war that has resulted in the deaths of thousands and the displacement of millions, as well as systemic starvation across the region. But the break out of hostilities was actually the culmination of two years of worsening hostilities between the regional and federal governments and an inability by representatives of both governments to solve their many underlying issues amicably or through roundtable talks, resulted in the ongoing conflict that we see today. So on November 4th, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that TPLF forces, Tigrayan regional government forces, had attacked federal army bases in the region and he used that as a pretext to launch an invasion of the region backed by troops from neighboring Eritrea. There is evidence, however, that points to the war being planned in advance. And as I said, this is really the result of years of worsening tensions. And we’re bearing the unfortunate fruits of it -mass rape, massacres, all sorts of human rights violations. Mark Leon Goldberg [00:04:52] So we are speaking just ahead of scheduled national elections that were delayed. And I’m interested to learn from you what role delaying the elections back in 2020 might have had in contributing to this conflict? Or what factor did the fact that the Ethiopian government delayed elections, I believe in the summer of 2020, to the outbreak of conflict in November 2020? Zecharias Zelalem [00:05:25] So when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was ushered into power on the back of popular uprisings in 2018, he had pledged to oversee a transitional government that would pave things for the preparation of Ethiopia’s first-ever free and fair elections. It would be a historic first for Ethiopians. In preparation for this, all sorts of political organizations that had been previously outlawed were decriminalized. Exiled politicians and activists were invited back into the country to take part in, I guess, what was the fledgling democratic process. And there was some reason to be optimistic at the time. [00:06:19] That was in 2018. As things gradually went by, there had been the very slow but noticeable closing up of the political space and setbacks with regards to Ethiopia’s democracy. Suddenly, politicians and members of the opposition that had been freed from prison were being rearrested. There was a clampdown on independent media outlets and this took a very ugly turn for the worse in 2020 when a very famous activist and popular Oromo musician by the name of Hachalu Hundessa, was murdered on June 29th. Following the murder -which Ethiopian forces blamed on members of the political opposition- there were mass arrests of members of the opposition, as well as outspoken critical voices. [00:07:17] And one of the reasons why there had been worsening tensions between members of Ethiopia’s political opposition was because of the government’s announcement that it would postpone elections, citing the Covid-19 pandemic. And most of the political opposition that had reestablished themselves in Ethiopia had done so with the promise that there would be elections scheduled for no later than August 2020. So a lot of them took issue with the decision to postpone the polls and saw them as Abiy, I guess, not remaining firm to his own word. And it also turned a significant section of the Ethiopian population against the Ethiopian government and had many doubting the sincerity of Ethiopia as a democratic -or the Ethiopian government’s democratic aspirations. But the Tigray regional government, it went a step further and announced that despite the announcement by the Ethiopian Parliament that polls would be postponed, that it would go ahead anyway and hold its own regional government elections. So these polls were not recognized by the Addis Ababa-based National Ethiopian Election Board. And it really worsened tensions to the point of no return between the federal government and the regional government in Tigray. The TPLF ended up winning the election in a landslide. Mark Leon Goldberg [00:08:55] Not surprisingly. Zecharias Zelalem [00:08:57] Yeah, not surprisingly, the TPLF prior to their being ousted from Addis Ababa, they were at the helm of government in Ethiopia for about three decades. In which time period, they held about four or five general elections, none of which were ever considered free and fair by observers. Mark Leon Goldberg [00:09:16] It just may be worth noting and worth pointing out that, as you said, for three decades, the TPLF was the dominant political party of the coalition that ran the government of Ethiopia until Abiy Ahmed came to power. Zecharias Zelalem [00:09:32] Precisely. The way the EPRDF coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front -that was composed of multiple political parties- was, in truth, dominated by a single party, the TPLF, run by Tigrayan elites. So this monopoly of sorts of government led to the break out of protests, which ultimately resulted in Abiy coming to power in 2018. But eventually, in Tigray with the holding of rogue elections, it really highlighted the fragile nature of government in Addis Ababa. And I guess for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, it was the point of no return. And within months of those polls, both the Tigrayan regional government and the Addis Ababa-based federal government announced that they would not recognize the other. Push eventually led to shove and we saw on November 4th the break out of the ongoing civil war that is now seven months and counting. Mark Leon Goldberg [00:10:44] Could you describe the trajectory of that civil war over the course of the last seven months and explain where things stand today? Zecharias Zelalem [00:10:56] So for the initial months of the war, the region’s communications were severed. So with no phone and no Internet access, it was really impossible to authenticate some of the accounts, including some of the very harrowing accounts that were coming from the region. In most modern-day coverage of war, you will receive updates -timely updates of which warring faction is in charge or who has taken control of this town, or who has suffered battleground defeats. There was nothing of the sort for months due to the fact that journalists and aid workers were prohibited from reaching the region. And all that journalists had to rely on were accounts from refugees who had fled Ethiopia to neighboring Sudan. So by the time Ethiopian forces captured the Tigrayan capital of Mekele -about three weeks or so into the war- we were unable to verify accounts, for instance, that Eritrean soldiers were involved -something that we would only learn of months later. [00:12:09] We were unable to verify mounting accounts of atrocities committed by all sides other than the November 9th Mai Kadra massacre. We were unable to verify reports of abuses against civilians -rape, looting of property- a lot of these remained allegations and it was impossible to investigate. After November 28th, after the capture of Mekele, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced a victory and he also announced that the war had ended and a phase of rebuilding the region would begin. An interim administration was established in Tigray and the regional government was ousted, officially. However, it is obviously clear to any observer at this point that hostilities never ended. [00:13:11] The TPLF -the Tigray regional government, despite being ousted from its capital city, has transitioned to guerrilla warfare and has been engaged in an insurgency targeting Ethiopian forces as well as allied troops from neighboring Eritrea. And over the course of the past four or five months since the capture of Mekele, fighting has intensified and so have atrocities which we’ve since been able to verify using an array of techniques -the use of satellite imagery, smuggled video and photo evidence that we’ve been able to locate to specific areas in the region. Journalists from major media outlets around the world have been able to paint a very grim but very accurate picture of a war in which state forces are meeting punitive action out against the civilian population in Tigray. And by the time April and May came about, it was very clear the nature of the conflict had become very evident for even the major diplomatic players of the world. And the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments have since come under mounting pressure to cease attacks against civilians, to hold their own troops and commanders to account, and to allow access to the region for NGOs and international aid workers to address the very dire -extremely dire humanitarian crisis in the region which has led to something like 90 percent of Tigrayans needing emergency food aid. So at this moment, it is as grim as it gets. Mark Leon Goldberg [00:15:21] So on that last point- we’re speaking a day after the top UN humanitarian official, Mark Lowcock, addressed members of the UN Security Council, saying that there is famine, ongoing, in parts of Tigray and that it is caused, in part, by Eritrean troops refusing food access and humanitarian access to the population. Can you discuss and explain the role of Eritrean troops in what is otherwise a civil war? I get that, for example, the TPLF, the ruling party of Tigray for many years -that ruled Ethiopia for many years- is an avowed enemy of Eritrea and that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as one of his early moves, sought to make peace with Eritrea. So now, it seems that Eritrean troops are exacting their revenge on their long foe, the Tigrayans, but are doing so in a way specifically designed to inflict harm on the Tigrayan people. Zecharias Zelalem [00:16:36] Yeah, as you pointed out towards the end right there, the Eritrean government has been a foe of the former Tigrayan regional government for years. It dates back to the 1998-2000 Ethiopian-Eritrean Border War in which the then-TPLF-led Ethiopian government fell out with the Eritrean government and then engaged in the very destructive war that led to something like 70,000 people dying. So the two sides have never really reconciled. And Abiy Ahmed coming to power led to the eventual reestablishment of ties between Ethiopian and Eritrean and governments. However, it did not lead to any sort of warming up -sincere warming up- between the TPLF who had by then retreated to Mekele and the Eritrean government. So it was always in the Eritrean government’s interests to see the TPLF be ousted from influence in the region. And it is what’s behind the Eritrean government’s eventual deployment of troops to Ethiopia. [00:17:58] Remember that the Eritrean government’s presence -the Eritrean military’s presence in Tigray-was denied for months by both Asmara and Addis Ababa. Finally, after mounting evidence and after it became impossible to conceal any longer -it was only in March, something like five months into the war- that Ethiopia’s prime minister finally admitted to their presence in the region. But shortly after, he also stated that they would be withdrawing and that their withdrawal had begun with immediate effect. Some three months or so since that statement, Eritrean troops remain firmly entrenched across Tigray. There’s no sign of any of them withdrawing. And they are actually playing a very detrimental role with regards to the region’s humanitarian initiative. Mark Leon Goldberg [00:19:05] I mean, from my perspective, covering the UN for many years, it’s actually quite rare for a senior UN official to so directly call out a UN member state for such harmful action and saying that Eritrean troops are causing famine in Ethiopia right now. Now, Eritrea is sort of something of a rogue state. It doesn’t have many international allies, but it is still notable that the senior UN humanitarian official said such a thing in such a direct way. Zecharias Zelalem [00:19:40] Well, it’s definitely a break away from their modus operandi -I guess the UN’s modus operandi in recent months. Not many people are aware of this, but the UN was actually able to establish without any doubt that Eritrean soldiers were in Tigray by December. This was due to an incident on December 7th outside of a UNHCR refugee camp in Tigray in which UN staff driving towards the camp were shot at by troops manning a checkpoint just outside of the refugee camp. At the time, the Ethiopian government told media outlets that it was its forces behind the shooting and they blamed UN staff for encroaching in areas that they were prohibited from accessing. But what is known is that those were actually Eritrean troops who had fired upon UN staff. And for some reason, the UN staff never shared this bit of information with the rest of the world. It took maybe another month and a half for international journalists to firmly established that Eritrean soldiers were in the region.
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Ballet-loving girl diagnosed with cancer after doctors thought she had 'growing pains'
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By Emily Craig Health Reporter For Mailonline Published: 10:29 GMT, 8 November 2021 | Updated: 13:31 GMT, 8 November 2021 4
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A four-year-old ballet dancer who was wrongly told she had growing pains actually had cancer.
Charlotte Watson, now five, from Brighton, suffered fatigue last July and soon after began suffering from toe pain and loss of appetite.
Her mother Angela West took her to see a doctor in September but claimed medics dismissed her symptoms as just growing pains. Ms West also thought her pain could be down to her ballet classes.
Tests two months later revealed Charlotte had stage four neuroblastoma.
Ms West, a 41-year-old hairdresser, said: 'When we initially found out it was a tumour, I could feel the ground falling from beneath me.
'The treatment started right away which is a gruelling protocol that adults couldn't even deal with.'
Charlotte is about to begin a second round of immunotherapy, and her family are fundraising for her to be part of a vaccine trial that would cut the risk of her cancer coming back.
Charlotte Watson (pictured), now five, from Brighton in East Sussex, experienced symptoms of fatigue in July 2020 and soon after began suffering from toe pain and loss of appetite. Mum Angela West, 41, took Charlotte to see a doctor in September but claimed medics told her it was just growing pains after checking her vitals
Charlotte began suffering from more symptoms — including back pain — last November and was taken to A&E where an ultrasound and biopsy eventually confirmed she had stage four high risk neuroblastoma. Some 100 children in the UK are diagnosed with the rare cancer every year, which develops from nerve cells left behind from a baby's development in the womb, and is most common in youngsters under the age of five
Ms West (centre), who is also mum to eight-year-old Polly (right) as well as Charlotte (left), said: 'When we initially found out it was a tumour, I could feel the ground falling from beneath me. The treatment started right away which is a gruelling protocol that adults couldn't even deal with'
Neuroblastoma is a rare cancer that affects children and usually starts in the abdomen.
Around 100 children, who are typically under five, are diagnosed every year in the UK. The disease affects approximately 800 new children annually in the US.
In around half of cases, neuroblastoma spreads to other parts of the body, particularly the liver and skin.
Neuroblastoma's cause is unclear. There may be a family-history link.
The main symptom is usually a lump in the abdomen, which may cause swelling, discomfort or pain.
If the disease affects the spinal cord, it can lead to numbness, weakness and loss of movement in the lower part of the body.
Treatment depends on how advanced the cancer is and the risk it will return after therapy. Surgery, and chemo and radiotherapy, are commonly used.
Source: Cancer Research UK
Charlotte began suffering from more symptoms — including back pain — last November, just months after she was initially taken to the doctor.
Ms West took her to A&E after her daughter 'woke up screaming in pain', prompting medics to take an ultrasound and biopsy.
Results later showed she had stage four neuroblastoma, which develops from nerve cells left behind from a baby's development in the womb.
Some 100 children in the UK and 800 youngsters in the US are diagnosed with the rare cancer every year, which is most common in under-fives.
Around half of those diagnosed with stage-four neuroblastoma will live for five years after their diagnosis.
Charlotte immediately started treatment, which consisted of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, a stem cell transplant, and immunotherapy.
Discussing her daughter's symptoms when she initially fell ill, Ms West said: 'In July 2020, she was falling asleep at around 4pm and her pre-school teachers started noticing she wasn't eating her lunch which was strange because she's always been a good eater.
'By September, she was complaining about pain in her little toe and I had to carry her from one end of the pier to the other and thought she was just being lazy.
'She does ballet dancing a couple of times a week so we initially put it down to that.
'By November, she had leg and neck pain and I took her to the doctors but her vitals were all fine so we decided it was growing pains.'
Ms West added: 'Towards the end of November, I picked her up from preschool and she said her back really hurt so I thought she might have a UTI.
'She woke up screaming in pain so we took her to A&E but they said she needed her bloods taken and when we took her back to A&E for this, we essentially never came home.'
Scans revealed she had a high-risk neuroblastoma tumour near her adrenal gland.
Charlotte has been undergoing treatment since the beginning of the year and has had her ovaries frozen in the hopes of giving her the chance to have children in the future.
Charlotte went through 80 days of intensive chemotherapy to shrink the tumour, which was unsuccessful, before receiving a second six-week course of another type of chemotherapy.
She underwent stem cell harvesting and cryotherapy before having an operation to remove the tumour.
Ms West said: 'She [Charlotte] does ballet dancing a couple of times a week so we initially put it down to that.'By November, she had leg and neck pain and I took her to the doctors but her vitals were all fine so we decided it was growing pains'
High risk neuroblastoma has a 50 per cent chance of reoccurring. But trials of the Bivalent vaccine, taking place at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York, slashes the relapse rate to 20 per cent. The treatment costs £350,000 and is not yet available in Europe. Ms West, who is also mum to eight-year-old Polly, said she is' frantically fundraising' to reach the target and has set up a Go Fund Me page
Ms West said her daughter subsequently had 'gruelling high dose chemotherapy and stem cell replacement which made Charlotte so very sick'.
She said: 'We endured an eight-week stay at the Royal Marsden [a specialist cancer hospital] where we were on edge and ready to go to intensive care to help her recover from the awful side effects. She pulled through like a champion!
'Radiotherapy and immunotherapy are next to get her through to the end of the treatment which in all will be almost 1.5 years. That's her whole fourth year on earth she's been fighting cancer.
High risk neuroblastoma — when the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes or other parts of the body — has a 50 per cent chance of reoccurring.
Ms West, who is also mother to eight-year-old Polly, is' frantically fundraising' and has set up a Go Fund Me page to support Charlotte take part in a vaccine trial in the US that would cut the risk.
Trials of the Bivalent vaccine, taking place at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York, slashes the relapse rate to 20 per cent.
But the treatment costs £350,000 and is not yet available in Europe.
She added: 'We are in and out of the hospital for appointments, constant blood tests and transfusions.
'It was her fifth birthday when she came home from the hospital.
'We are about to start immunotherapy and again, there's going to be awful side effects and I'm dreading it.
'She's gone from a normal pre-schooler to a five-year-old with a medical vocabulary.'
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Famous Person - Sick
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Gas pipe that should have been replaced years ago overlooked before print-shop explosion
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Southwest Gas said that “The cause of the leak and the subsequent explosion was premature degradation in a certain type of natural gas pipe (Driscopipe 8000)” Aug. 26 in West Chandler. –Photo by Lee Shappell for wranglernews.com
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Southwest Gas said that a type of natural-gas pipe in West Chandler that has a history of premature degradation in desert heat was not replaced in a remediation effort due to a clerical error, contributing to the Aug. 26 print-shop explosion that destroyed the business and seriously injured four men, two of whom remain hospitalized.
The gas pipe at the strip center on the northeastern corner of Ray and Rural roads is Driscopipe 8000, however it had been mislabeled by a Southwest Gas employee and therefore was not replaced because it was not flagged.
An investigation into the explosion by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Chandler fire and police and the gas company showed that the Driscopipe 8000 leading into Platinum Printing had degraded prematurely, contributing to the blast.
Southwest Gas said that the explosion could have been avoided if it had known to replace the faulty pipe. It pointed out that there had been no reports of the rotten egg or sulphury odor that is put into natural gas as a tipoff, and which typically is associated with a gas leak.
“The cause of the leak and the subsequent explosion was premature degradation in a certain type of natural gas pipe (Driscopipe 8000) that was purchased by Southwest Gas between approximately 1980-1999,” Southwest Gas said in a statement.
Hallie Donohue, sister of brothers Dillon and Andrew Ryan, who own Platinum Printing, wrote on their GoFundMe page Sept. 13 that both are out of the hospital.
“Things took a very POSITIVE turn at the end of the week and on Thursday Dillon was transferred to an acute care rehab facility where he continues to get wound care as well as work on his physical healing with different therapies and exercises,” Donohue wrote. “He is doing great and continues to get stronger each day. There is a lot motivating him to get home, so we are hopeful he will get to go home and be reunited with his family very soon!
“We thought for sure Andrew would be transferred to the rehab facility the next day as well, but he ended up getting discharged from the hospital on Friday and got to go home!”
On Sept. 16, Donohue shared that Dillon was released from the care facility and went home on Sept. 15.
Parker Milldebrandt, their lifelong friend and employee, remains in Valleywise Health Arizona Burn Center, as does Glenn Jordan, owner of All-America Eyeglass Repair, which is a couple of suites west of the print shop in the strip center.
On Sept. 6, JeAnnette Miller, organizer of Milldebrandt’s GoFundMe page, wrote that his wife, Sierra, had given birth to a girl, Rilee, who checked in 8 pounds and 18 inches.
“Both Sierra and baby are doing well,” Miller wrote. “Parker is doing great. He had surgery yesterday and it went extremely well. He is continuing to work hard with his physical therapy and is making great strides.”
Dave Hawkins, organizer of Jordan’s GoFundMe page, on Sept. 6 wrote that Jordan was “awake for several days last week and we were able to share the messages of encouragement for him and tell him how much he is loved by all and how many people are pulling for him. He is currently sedated for continued comfort and pain management after undergoing several surgeries.”
While expected to make full recoveries, the four face heavy medical bills during a lengthy recovery process. Anyone who wishes to donate money to help them can go to their GoFundMe pages:
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California wildfire smoke becomes health hazard as cities become world's most polluted
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Smoke masks. Eye drops. No outdoor exercise. That is how Californians have been trying to cope with smoke from wildfires choking the state, but experts say an increase in serious health problems may be almost inevitable for vulnerable residents as the disasters become more commonplace.
According to Berkeley Earth, a non-profit organisation that monitors air quality, California — which has just experienced its deadliest wildfire in its history — now has the most polluted cities in the world.
Oakland, in northern California, was reported to have the worst air quality in the world on Saturday morning (local time).
And San Francisco, Stockton and Sacramento were the world's three "most polluted cities" on Friday morning, according to CNN.
On Friday most schools in those cities were forced to close.
Student Mason West said he could see the particles in the air. "It's kind of freaky to see your whole town wearing air masks and trying to get out of smoke," he said.
"You can see the particles. Obviously it's probably not good to be breathing that stuff in."
The smoke from the fire that decimated the Northern California city of Paradise darkened the skies in San Francisco, nearly 321 kilometres south-west this week.
Michael Northover, a contractor in the city, said the air smelled "like you were camping".
He and his 14-year-old son have contracted sinus infections for the first time, and Mr Northover blamed it on the smoke.
"We're all kind of feeling it," Mr Northover said.
The demand for particle masks skyrocketed in California as the wildfire smoke led to an alarming increase in air pollution.
In response to the crisis, California-based Kelly-Moore Paint Company distributed free particle masks in its local stores until they ran out.
"We tried to provide a little relief by giving out all the masks we had available to those that needed them for free, " the company said on its website.
"The response has been overwhelming and we have exhausted our supply of particle masks." For most healthy people, exposure to wildfire smoke is just an annoyance, causing burning eyes, scratchy throats or chest discomfort that all disappear when the smoke clears.
But doctors, scientists and public health officials are concerned the changing face of wildfires in California is posing a much broader health hazard.
"Wildfire season used to be June to late September. Now it seems to be happening all year round. We need to be adapting to that," Wayne Cascio, a US Environmental Protection Agency cardiologist, said this week.
Dr Cascio wrote earlier this year that a growing frequency of large wildland fires, urban expansion into wooded areas and an aging population were combining to increase the number of people at risk of health problems from fires.
Wood smoke contains some of the same toxic chemicals as urban air pollution, along with tiny particles of vapor and soot 30 times thinner than a human hair, called particulate matter 2.5.
Studies have linked heart attacks and cancer with long-term exposure to air pollution, but the long term effects of wildfires on health has been understudied.
"Very little is known about the long-term effects of wildfire smoke because it's hard to study populations years after a wildfire," John Balmes, a University of California professor of medicine who studies air pollution, said.
Dr Balmes noted increased lung cancer rates had been found in women in developing countries who spend every day cooking over wood fires.
That kind of extreme exposure does not typically happen with wildfires, but experts worry about the kinds of health damage that may emerge for firefighters and residents where these blazes are occurring often.
ABC/AP
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Environment Pollution
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Optus fined $10 million for misleading customers
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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
Optus has been fined $10 million for misleading customers who unknowingly purchased or subscribed to content via the telco's direct billing service.
The Federal Court found the company misled customers who unknowingly bought games, ringtones and other digital content.
It is one of the highest penalties imposed by the court, and matches a fine paid by Telstra last year for similar conduct.
About 240,000 Optus customers have so far been refunded for mistaken purchases to the tune of about $8 million, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) understands.
Another $13 million has gone to third-party providers.
However, given the volume of enquiries, it is likely there are still many affected customers who are yet to receive a refund, the consumer watchdog said in a statement.
Optus admitted it misled customers when it billed them for third-party content mistakenly purchased or subscribed to via its direct carrier billing service (DCB), the ACCC said.
The DCB required just one or two clicks on a web browsed to confirm purchase or subscription.
The ACCC said the telco also admitted it did not properly inform customers that it would directly bill them for content bought via the DCB, even unintentionally.
"In many cases, Optus customers had no idea they were buying anything, and certainly did not need or want the content for which they were being charged," ACCC chair Rod Sims said.
"Optus failed to take appropriate action, choosing instead to continue to charge customers and collect commissions on these sales, even after numerous complaints."
The ACCC said despite receiving more than 600,000 enquiries about the service, Optus failed to put in place appropriate identity verification safeguards.
"We are pleased that the court agreed that this conduct is simply unacceptable, and deserves a significant penalty," Mr Sims said.
The DCB service earned about $65.8 million in commissions since 2012.
Customers were charged about $195 million for the content.
The consumer watchdog took action against the telco in October last year, as the ACCC and Optus made a joint application to the Federal Court seeking a $10 million fine. At the time Optus said that it had stopped its general direct billing service as of late August, but continued to offer it for one-off content. Anyone who suspects they may have been affected should contact Optus.
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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'Understand your risks': Tsunami Preparedness Week kicks off on Vancouver Island
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VICTORIA -- If you are near the coast of Vancouver Island and you just felt an earthquake or were warned a tsunami may be approaching, move to higher ground immediately. That is just one of the messages first responders across the island are sharing during Tsunami Preparedness Week. From April 12 to 16, emergency agencies will be providing tips on how to stay safe if massive damaging waves from a tsunami reach our shores. “The good news is the risk for tsunamis here (in Greater Victoria) is quite low, but it is still a risk, and it is important to know where that risk area is and what to do if it happens,” said City of Victoria emergency programs coordinator Tanya Patterson. “Understand your risks and have a plan on how you will move to higher ground and connect with your family and friends,” she said. Tsunamis are most often caused by large undersea earthquakes that displace massive amounts of water which create a series of large waves. Patterson says some tsunamis can also be caused by coastal landslides. “Here in the Capital Region a number of things can cause a tsunami. Typically, it would be a felt earthquake,” said Patterson. “We have also done some (tsunami) modelling from an earthquake that wasn’t felt, like one in Alaska or Japan, to determine our risk in the region.” Patterson says the purpose of Tsunami Preparedness Week is to encourage people to be aware of the risks of tsunamis and to highlight what people should do in the event of one. Tsunamis caused by distant quakes may take hours to arrive on the shores of Vancouver Island, but those caused by seismic events that originate close by could generate massive damaging waves in minutes. Though the threat from a tsunami may be low, if one were to reach coastal B.C. the consequences would be both catastrophic and deadly. “The number one message for our region is, if you feel a strong earthquake with significant shaking and you are in a tsunami hazard area, you should move to higher ground,” said Patterson. “In our region that may not be very far, because at four metres as the highest elevation you would need to get to, that may just be a few streets over to get away from the water.” Patterson says it is an important message, especially after a tsunami warning was posted in B.C. after a massive quake occurred in Alaska in January 2018. She says the 8.0 magnitude quake and the resulting warning caused some concern for residents across Vancouver Island. “A lot of people didn’t know what to do and unnecessarily panicked and got in their vehicles and drove to the top of Mount Tolmie,” said Patterson. “It actually caused more panic and more issues for first responders by clogging up the roads.” Patterson says by knowing if you live in a tsunami hazard area, having “grab-and-go-bag” of essential supplies, and knowing where to go to reach higher ground, you will increase your chances of staying safe during a tsunami event. Costal communities in B.C. are divided into five tsunami notification zones. Knowing your zone will help when a warning, an advisory or a watch is issued for your area. If a tsunami notification is issued in your zone, it will be broadcast on television, radio and mobile devices through the BC Alert Ready notification system. Some municipalities on Vancouver Island have alerting systems, such as sirens, and may share information on social media platforms or by text message. “If you are in Victoria we would issue a Vic-Alert with a specific map of the hazard areas,” said Patterson. “We would then tell people where to go and how to get there, but you would receive more local specific information from your local alert system.” During Tsunami Preparedness Week the key message is to be ready if a tsunami hits and know in advance how to remain safe.
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Tsunamis
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Chandler explosion caused by human reporting error, prematurely degrading pipe, says Southwest Gas
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Video footage provided by the Chandler Police Department shows the explosion at Platinum Printing on Aug. 26, 2021.
Chandler Police Department, Arizona Republic
A natural gas leak and resulting explosion at a Chandler printing business that left four people injured Aug. 26 was attributed to a human reporting error and a prematurely degraded pipe, according to preliminary findings released Wednesday by Southwest Gas.
Investigators from multiple agencies, including the Chandler police and fire departments, ATF's National Response Team and crews from Southwest Gas found no sign of foul play in the explosion at Platinum Printing near Ray and Rural roads .
The cause was determined to be accidental, not criminal, according to an Aug. 31 Chandler police news release.
For more stories that matter, subscribe to azcentral.com.
The type of natural gas pipe, a Driscopipe 8000 high density polyethylene pipe, used near the business was misidentified by the gas utility's own personnel, according to Southwest Gas spokesperson Sean Corbett.
The misidentification exempted the pipe from remediation efforts made by the company to replace or abandon any pipe sections that were at risk, Corbett said. Southwest Gas is in the process of investigating how that error occurred.
In March of 2012, The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration with the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an advisory about the Driscopipe 8000 pipe and its potential for material degradation.
Specifically, the issue applied to gas pipes between one-half inch to two inches in diameter that were installed in desert-like environments in the southwestern U.S. between 1978 and 1999, according to the DOT website.
A preliminary investigation into the cause of the Chandler explosion found that the Driscopipe 8000 was purchased by Southwest Gas between 1980-1999 and installed in 1999, Corbett said.
Though the degradation in this pipe type has a low risk of occurrence, the pipe is particularly susceptible to leaks under specific conditions, namely, when some pipes are exposed to prolonged periods of no-flow conditions and prolonged elevated temperatures like those encountered in Maricopa County, Corbett said.
Premature degradation was present in the pipe at the scene.
However, Southwest Gas said they received no odor complaints from the print shop or the shopping complex within the last 12 months.
In the Aug. 31 news release, Chandler police said a fuel-air mixture explosion happened at the printing business shortly after 9:20 a.m. Three of the people injured were in the printing business. They include: 29-year-old Dillion Ryan, 39-year-old Andrew Ryan and 29-year-old Parker Mildebrandt.
A fourth person, 58-year-old Glenn Jordan, was inside the eyeglass repair business to the west.
Remediation efforts after 2014 Gilbert explosion
Southwest Gas implemented a multi-year remediation effort to replace or abandon any pipe sections that were at risk after a February 2014 natural gas leak explosion left 39-year-old Jason Nelson severely burned and forced the evacuation of 24 homes on Palomino and Peppertree drives.
Since then, there have been no other reported instances of personal injury or property damage from gas leaks that were caused by the pipe degradation, Corbett said.
A new remediation plan will be implemented to include extensive leak inspections, mobile leak patrols and walking leak patrols of pipes of a similar size installed between 1999-2001, Corbett said.
The remediation has successfully identified pipe leaks for repair before they become hazardous or even noticeable. The plan includes a review of construction records for installations done between 1999-2001 and prioritization of the abandonment of inactive services, Corbett said.
The measures will be put into place to ensure something like this does not happen again in the future, Corbett said.
"We continue to keep in our thoughts those injured and affected by the incident in Chandler and are hopeful for their successful recoveries. We care deeply about those injured in this accident, as well as the people in the communities we serve, and recognize we are accountable for ensuring the delivery of safe and reliable service," Corbett said.
The investigation is ongoing.
Southwest Gas encourages anyone who suspects a gas leak to leave the area immediately and, from a safe location, call 911 and Southwest Gas at 1-877-860-6020.
Indicators of a gas leak can include rotten egg or sulfur-like smells, even if it’s slight or momentary. There might also hissing coming from the ground or from an above-ground pipeline.
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Gas explosion
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Afghanistan crisis updates | September 2, 2021
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The question still remains if many countries across the world will recognise the Taliban government in Afghanistan, and change the foreign policy accordingly. Here are the latest developments: Mullah Hebatullah Akhundzada to be named Supreme Leader The Taliban's top religious leader Mullah Hebatullah Akhundzada as Afghanistan's supreme authority, a senior member of the group has said. “Consultations are almost finalised on the new government, and the necessary discussions have also been held about the cabinet,” Mufti Inamullah Samangani, a senior official in the Taliban's information and culture commission, said on Wednesday. He said the group is all set to announce the formation of the new government in Kabul in the next three days. In the new set-up, 60-year-old Mullah Akhundzada will be the Supreme Leader of the Taliban government, which will follow the pattern of the Iranian leadership. In Iran, the supreme leader is the highest political and religious authority of the country. He ranks above the president and appoints the heads of the military, the government, and the judiciary. The supreme leader has final say in the political, religious and military affairs of the country. “Mullah Akhunzada will be the leader of the government and there should be no question on this,” he said, indicating that the president will work under his oversight. Mullah Akhunzada is the top religious leader of the Taliban and has been serving at a mosque in Kachlaak area of Balochistan province for 15 years. - PTI Pakistan Pakistan shuts key border crossing with Afghanistan Pakistan on Thursday temporarily closed a key border crossing with Afghanistan, apparently due to fear of the influx of refugees eager to leave their homeland after the Taliban seized power last month. Chaman border crossing - the second-largest commercial border point with Afghanistan after the Torkham commercial town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa - has been closed due to security threats, Geo News reported, citing sources. The crossing links Pakistan’s border town of Chaman with Spin Boldak in the Afghan province of Kandahar and is frequented by the Afghan as well as used for trade between the two countries. Thousands of Afghans have been amassing around the crossing to sneak into Pakistan which has already announced that it was not in a position to accept more refugees, according to security officials. Already around 3 million Afghan refugees have been living in Pakistan, some for more than three decades, since the invasion of their country by the erstwhile USSR in 1979. China China reacts positively to Russian plan to hold first 'Extended Troika' meeting in Kabul after Taliban seizes power China on Thursday reacted positively to a Russian proposal to convene a new meeting of the 'Extended Troika' on Afghanistan in Kabul - the first such conference since the Taliban seized power last month. Russia plans to convene a new meeting of the 'Extended Troika' on Afghanistan in Kabul after the resumption of commercial flights, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency Sputnik. The "extended Troika" meeting was earlier held in Qatar on August 11. Talks under the format had earlier taken place on March 18 and April 30. United Kingdom UK says there is scope for dialogue with Taliban The United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary says that although the U.K. won’t soon recognize the Taliban’s government, 'there is an important scope' for dialogue with Afghanistan’s new rulers. In a joint press conference in Doha with his Qatari counterpart, Dominic Raab said he supported the 'engagement' with the Taliban to test the group’s wide-ranging promises. He cited the Taliban’s pledges to protect freedom of travel for Afghans and foreigners, to form an inclusive government and, significantly, to prevent international terrorist groups from using the war-scarred country as a base. Mr. Raab said: “In all of these areas, we will judge them by what they do, not just by what they say.” Qatar Qatar working with Taliban to reopen Kabul airport 'as soon as possible' Qatar is working with the Taliban to reopen Kabul's airport as soon as possible, its foreign minister said on Thursday, urging the hardline Islamists to allow Afghans to leave. More than 123,000 foreign nationals and Afghans fled the country in the airlift operation, but many more are desperate to depart. "It's very important... that the Taliban demonstrate their commitment to provide safe passage and freedom of movement for the people of Afghanistan," Sheikh Mohammed said. Qatar is "engaging with (the Taliban) and also with Turkey if they can provide any technical assistance", he added. Afghanistan Taliban close to forming government as women protest The Taliban on Thursday said that they were close to forming a new government, as dozens of women held a rare protest for the right to work under a new regime that faces enormous economic hurdles and deep public mistrust. The announcement of a cabinet, which two Taliban sources told AFP, may take place on Friday following afternoon prayers. It would come just days after the chaotic pullout of the U.S. forces from Afghanistan, ending America's longest war with an astounding military victory for the Islamist group. Speculation is rife about the make-up of a new government, although a senior official said Wednesday that women were unlikely to be included. Senior leader Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai -- a hardliner in the first Taliban administration -- told BBC Pashto in an interview that while women could continue working, there "may not" be a place for them in the cabinet of any future government or any other top post. In the western city of Herat, some 50 women took to the streets in a rare, defiant protest for the right to work and over the lack of women's participation in the new government. "It is our right to have education, work and security," the protesters chanted in unison, said an AFP journalist who witnessed the protest. "We are not afraid, we are united," they added. Afghanistan Afghan Paralympian makes debut after top-secret evacuation Afghan taekwondo athlete Zakai Khudadadi competed in the Paralympic Games on September 2, becoming the first female Afghan to do so since Athens 2004, after a secret international effort to help her get out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The 22-year-old and her compatriot Hossain Rasouli arrived in Tokyo on August 28 for help to leave Kabul after the Taliban swept to power. -REUTERS International U.K.'s Raab to discuss Afghanistan with Qatar's emir on September 2 British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will on September 2 visit Doha to discuss the situation in Afghanistan with Qatar's emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Mr. Raab's office said. "The prospects of getting Kabul airport up and running and safe passage for foreign nationals and Afghans across land borders (are) top of the agenda," the Foreign Office said in a statement. Mr. Raab will also meet his Qatari counterpart and the British embassy to Afghanistan, which has temporarily relocated to Qatar, his office said. -REUTERS Afghanistan Taliban preparing to reveal new Afghan government amid economic turmoil Afghanistan's Taliban rulers were preparing on September 2 to unveil their new government as the economy teetered on the edge of collapse more than two weeks after the Islamist militia captured Kabul and brought a chaotic end to 20 years of war. Taliban official Ahmadullah Muttaqi said on social media a ceremony was being prepared at the presidential palace in Kabul, while private broadcaster Tolo said an announcement on a new government was imminent. -REUTERS USA 'It looked apocalyptic': Crew describes Afghan departure August 30 night were the five last C-17s to leave the country after a chaotic and deadly airlift evacuation that marked the end of America's involvement in the Afghanistan war. “It just looked apocalyptic,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Braden Coleman, who was in charge of monitoring the outside of his aircraft for artillery fire and other threats. “It looked like one of those zombie movies where all the airplanes had been destroyed, their doors were open, the wheels were broken. There was a plane that was burned all the way. You could see the cockpit was there, and the whole rest of the plane looked like the skeleton of a fish.” “It was just definitely very tense, and we were definitely all on edge watching everything going on to make sure that we were ready,” said Air Force Capt. Kirby Wedan, pilot of MOOSE81, who led the final formation of five aircraft out. -AP International Will run out of food stocks in Afghanistan by end of this month: senior UN official warns The United Nations' food stockpiles in Afghanistan could run out this month and there is a critical need for $200 million to provide food to the most vulnerable, a senior UN official has warned. Deputy Special Representative and Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov said that at least one-third of the conflict-torn country's population currently is “not sure that they will have a meal every day or not. This is what is going on.” “By the end of September, the stocks which the World Food Programme has in the country will be out. We will be out of stock. We will not be able to provide those essential food items because we'll be out of stock," Alakbarov told reporters during a virtual press briefing from Kabul on September 1.
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Regime Change
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Oprah Winfrey to Deliver Commencement Address for L.A. All-Girls Private School
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The Archer School for Girls will mark its 25th anniversary by hosting the mogul at its year-end ceremony.
By Chris Gardner
Oprah Winfrey’s breakneck pandemic schedule has a new entry: Delivering the commencement address on behalf of Archer School for Girls at the L.A. private school’s May 28 ceremony.
Winfrey, who has navigated the pandemic by churning out a series of A-list interviews, managing a portfolio of production deals and content while also readying a new book, is appearing at a milestone moment for Archer as the school celebrates its 25th anniversary. Per a rep for the school, the Archer commencement event will be hybrid with seniors and a limited number of guests welcomed to the Brentwood campus while others will join online.
Archer head of school Elizabeth English said the institution is “deeply honored” by Winfrey’s generosity in speaking to the class of 2021.
“Throughout her career, Ms. Winfrey has set the bar for how authentic storytelling can reveal our common humanity. Her gift for eliciting honest, soulful dialogue has and continues to fundamentally change the world’s perspective on how as human beings we can meaningfully connect. She is a champion for young women’s education and, as the founder of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, a beacon for the best of who we can be,” said English. “The Archer Class of 2021 is beyond excited and grateful to have Ms. Winfrey, a true icon of women’s empowerment, as their commencement speaker, following a year that has called on each of our graduates to dig deep and find that same strength from within.”
Winfrey has plenty of experience speaking to all-girls schools as the mogul operates the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, a boarding school in South Africa. She’s also delivered commencement speeches on behalf of Harvard University, Spelman College, Stanford University and others. Last year, she participated with a long list of celebrities to offer words of wisdom to the graduating class of 2020 as events across the country were sidelined due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Founded in 1995, the Archer School for Girls is a contemporary girls’ school, grades 6 through 12. Forty-six percent of the student body are students of color and come from 75 different zip codes and 154 different feeder schools, per Archer statistics.
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Famous Person - Give a speech
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Cyclone Tauktae passed northwards along the coast of Maharashtra
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On May 15, he turned 51 without any fanfare, and went about his usual work as the chief engineer on board Papaa-305, an accommodation barge anchored at the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s Heera Oil Field, around 70 km off the Mumbai coast. When his colleagues wished him for his birthday, he thanked them politely, and did the same with his family during his regular afternoon phone call with them. The Wi-Fi on the barge allowed Shaikh to have frequent Whatsapp calls with his brother, sister-in-law and their two sons, with whom he lives for four or five months a year, when he is not at sea. Just the previous day, they had all exchanged greetings for Ramzan Eid. On the morning of May 16, Shaikh had a casual phone conversation with his brother, but did not talk about Cyclone Tauktae, the storm that was scheduled to pass northwards along the coast of Maharashtra later that night. “Cyclones are quite common when you are out at sea, so we are used to it,” said Shaikh, a stout man who speaks in short, quick sentences. Shaikh’s father had spent all of his working life as a cook on international ships; his brother too had worked on ships and barges, as an engineer, before setting up a shipping company eight years ago. Shaikh started his own career in 1990 in a marine parts manufacturing workshop in Mumbai, but took up an opportunity to be an offshore diesel mechanic on a ship in 2005. It took him 15 years to rise up the ranks and become a chief engineer, and he has seen dozens of cyclones at sea over the years. “They are usually manageable, but with this one, we did not imagine how bad the storm was going to be,” he said. Rajesh Prasad, a technical worker onboard Papaa-305, first heard about Cyclone Tauktae on May 15, when a supervisor informed him and his colleagues that the storm was not going to impact them, since they were not in its path. “Our supervisor had heard this from the captain, but we were worried because the sea had started becoming a little rough,” he said. Prasad, whose actual name has been withheld on request, is in his twenties. He was the first member of his family to take up a job at sea. In the three years that he had spent working on maintenance projects on the ONGC’s oil fields, he had been trained in swimming, safety and emergency rescue while at sea. But the training was basic, and Prasad had never actually been in a potentially dangerous situation. As the weather worsened on May 16, Prasad found himself grappling with anger, frustration and growing fear. “It was very scary when the cyclone started, but I did not have the authority to do anything,” he said. His supervisor’s assurance that they would be safe proved to be horribly wrong. That night, as Tauktae barrelled up the coast in all its fury, it lashed the barge, causing it to loll violently in the sea. Papaa-305 was an 8,900-tonne, 96-metre long barge – stacked vertically, it would be about 24 floors high. As its eight anchors snapped one by one, it was left adrift in the sea. At 9.45 the next morning, the barge collided with an oil drilling platform nearby, and gradually began to capsize. Sheikh, Prasad and the other 259 men on board were forced to jump into the sea, where waves nearly 10 metres high tossed them around like rag dolls. As they struggled to remain afloat in their life jackets, Shaikh and other men tried holding hands and staying in groups of 10 or 12 people. At 10 am on May 18, after a 36-hour nightmare, Shaikh was hauled to safety during extensive search-and-rescue operations carried out by the Indian Navy. He had severely injured his right knee and was wheelchair-bound for weeks after his rescue. But somehow, he had managed to cling to life. Prasad, too, was rescued by the INS Kolkata, a Navy ship. “I was not injured, but I was freezing and vomiting blood,” he said. “They took me to the ship’s hospital and later gave me a phone so I could let my family know I was safe.” Shaikh and Prasad were among the 186 men from Papaa-305 who survived; 75 died. “I don’t usually like to celebrate my birthday. But that day it felt like I was born again,” said Shaikh. He spoke to Scroll.in in mid-June, seated on a sofa in his small, modest apartment in Mumbra, a densely-populated town in Thane district, north of Mumbai. “I was very lucky,” he said. “But many of my friends were not.” Papaa-305 was not the only vessel caught in the midst of Tauktae on May 16 and 17. It was one among 99 different supply ships, drill ships, barges and tugboats deployed to work at the ONGC’s offshore oil and gas fields in the Arabian Sea. Most of the 99 vessels had moved to safe locations after the India Meteorological Department first issued warnings about an approaching storm on May 13. But six vessels did not, of which two capsized during the storm. One was Papaa-305. The other was tugboat MV Varapradha, which lost 11 out of the 13 men on board. In all, 86 people died – and 86 families were left bereaved – in what has become the deadliest accident in the history of the ONGC, a public sector unit under the union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, and India’s largest producer of crude oil and gas. In statements by the Navy and the ONGC, the dead were described as “BNVs” – Brave Nature’s Victims. But conversations with survivors and crucial email correspondence reveal that the tragedy was entirely man-made and entirely preventable. Two days after his rescue, while Rahman Shaikh was still recovering from his knee surgery at a south Mumbai hospital, he registered a complaint with the city’s Yellow Gate police station blaming Papaa-305’s captain, barge master Rakesh Ballav, for knowingly putting the lives of the 261 people on board in harm’s way. In the first information report filed on the basis of this complaint, the police has made out a case of culpable homicide, naming Ballav “and other related people” as the main accused. Ballav is among the 86 people who died at sea on May 17. Scroll.in was unable to trace his family members. Ballav’s side of the story will never be known, but in the blame game that ensued after the tragedy, he was accused of negligence not just by Shaikh but also by the two major agencies involved in the incident, which have not accepted responsibility themselves: the ONGC and Afcons Infrastructure, the company contracted to carry out maintenance work on ONGC platforms. The ONGC runs three major offshore oil fields discovered in the Arabian Sea in the 1960s and 1970s: Mumbai High, located around 170 km off Mumbai’s coast, Bassein and Satellite Fields, around 80 km to the north-west of the city, and Neelam and Heera Fields, around 45 km to the south-west of the city. Together, these expansive operations contain 12 fixed platforms for exploring and extracting oil and gas, eight moveable oil rigs owned by the ONGC, and 28 rigs hired on contract from other companies. Over 4,000 people work on these offshore assets, of which around a third are employees of the ONGC. Most of the work – particularly the mammoth task of maintaining the infrastructure of the platforms and rigs – is typically outsourced on a contract-basis to an assortment of private companies. These include infrastructure developers, ship owners, ship managers, manpower suppliers and agencies that recruit licensed seafarers. A consortium led by Afcons had been contracted to carry out maintenance work on these oilfields. A company within the Shapoorji Pallonji conglomerate, Afcons brought in a total revenue of over Rs 10,130 crore in 2019-’20. Afcons, in turn, had contracted technical workers like welders, riggers, scaffolders, electricians and engineers from different manpower supply agencies. The main benefit of his job as a technical worker, according to Prasad, was knowing that he would not have to spend most of his salary on accommodation or food. But this benefit came at a steep price. “We have to work 15 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week. And we don’t get any days off when we are at sea,” said Prasad. “None of these things are written in our contract, but they have been followed for years.” Apart from contracting the workforce, Afcons also chartered, or hired, a variety of vessels from ship-owning companies to ferry and house workers and materials. Papaa-305 was an accommodation barge – a large, flat-bottomed floating vessel with living amenities for workers and no engine or propulsion of its own. Such barges are towed and anchored with the help of tugboats – Afcons had assigned one to each barge. Papaa-305 was paired with tugboat Nove, both owned by Durmast Enterprises, a company registered in the island nation of Seychelles and a subsidiary of Mumbai-based firm Ocean Diving Centre. While the technical workers on the barge had been recruited from a Mumbai-based manpower agency named Mathew Associates, the seafaring crew of the two vessels, including captain Ballav and chief engineer Shaikh, were hired for the ONGC project through Papaa Shipping Pvt Ltd, another Mumbai-based subsidiary of Ocean Diving Centre. “Durmast, Papaa Shipping, Ocean Diving – they are all different companies on paper but they are run by the same people,” said Shaikh, who has worked with the companies for the past 15 years. “For different offshore projects my contracts have listed different companies within the group as my employers, but I have always dealt with the same staff, the same HR [human resources] and accounts team.” According to a lawyer who specialises in shipping and maritime matters, this kind of convoluted business structure is common in much of the world’s shipping industry. These include insurance claims by workers and seafarers who may get injured while on a vessel, or by the families of those who die. Shaikh’s contract for the ONGC project named Papaa Shipping Pvt Ltd as the employer, but the agreement was drafted under the letterhead of Udya Shipping Services, a crew management company. The agreement was signed with an illegible signature, accompanied by a seal of Udya Shipping and the words “on behalf of the Employer as agents only”. Such arrangements are common in the shipping industry, said Shaikh, because every shipping company may not have the Recruitment and Placement Services License that is mandatory under Indian law for firms recruiting seafarers. The ONGC’s model of contracting companies that subcontract others is not unique. Such outsourcing has become the norm in India’s public sector companies. A 2014 study by the Indian Staffing Federation found that as much as 43% of the government sector employed contract labour to get its work done. When things go wrong, complex chains of contractual agreements allow various stakeholders to shrug off responsibility for the lives and safety of workers and pin the blame on others. This is exactly what played out in the days after the 86 men died at sea while working, on contract, in oil fields owned by a government-run company. In an interview with television channel Times Now soon after the incident, an ONGC spokesperson claimed that following cyclone alerts and ensuring safety was the responsibility of vessel captains and the consortium of companies contracted to carry out maintenance work at the oil fields. In statements to the media soon after the cyclone deaths, Afcons claimed that the captain of Papaa-305 and its owner Durmast Enterprises were in charge of making decisions about the barge’s safety. Durmast has made no public statements about the incident so far, but in an interview with The Sunday Guardian, officials from Udya Shipping claimed it would be incorrect to blame Ballav, who had 14 years of experience, for the tragedy. On July 2, as part of its investigation into Shaikh’s FIR, the Mumbai Police arrested three onshore employees of Papaa Shipping Pvt Ltd. According to the police, the three senior staffers had ignored weather warnings about the cyclone and went along with the captain’s decision to keep the barge anchored near the oil drilling platform at Heera Field rather than move to safety. The deaths of 11 crew members on tugboat Varapradha are also under criminal investigation by the Mumbai Police. Varapradha, owned by Mumbai-based company Glory Ship Management, was assigned to handle accommodation barge Gal Constructor, owned by Kolkata-based Tirupati Vessel Pvt Ltd. On June 24, the police filed an FIR against Glory Ship Management and its managing director Rajesh Shahi, booking them for culpable homicide based on a complaint by Francis Simon, the acting chief engineer of Varapradha and one of its two survivors. Simon’s allegation is that the tugboat sank because it was an old vessel in a poor condition, and that the owners deployed it even though it was not seaworthy. Running parallel to the police investigations is an inquiry by a high-level committee instituted by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on May 19. The three-member committee, comprising senior bureaucrats from the ministries of shipping, petroleum and defence, is yet to complete its probe to determine who should be held accountable for the May 17 incident. In June and July, Scroll.in had extensive conversations with survivors and senior crew members of the vessels stranded in Cyclone Tauktae. Their accounts of the sequence of events between May 13 and 18 suggest that the blame for failing to prevent the tragedy lies beyond just the captains of the stranded vessels, and extends all the way up to the ONGC and Afcons. The “health and safety” page of the ONGC’s website opens with a popular quote about safety: “All accidents are preventable.” In the aftermath of Cyclone Tauktae, this statement rings with irony. The India Meteorological Department first issued warnings about a tropical storm moving towards southern India in the Arabian Sea on May 13. The next day, as the storm moved towards Kerala with a wind speed of 25 knots, it was named Cyclone Tauktae. Over the next three days, Tauktae intensified rapidly as it moved northwards along India’s western coast, prompting the IMD to upgrade it from a “severe cyclonic storm” to a “very severe” one and finally, at its peak on May 17, an “extremely severe cyclonic storm”. State authorities in Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat responded to the IMD’s red alerts by suspending flights, evacuating coastal residents, pausing all fishing activities and placing military and disaster response forces on standby. The ONGC has maintained that it had immediately alerted everyone at Mumbai High about IMD’s first cyclone warnings on May 13. The ONGC’s fixed installations were asked to go into “sea survival mode” – where all operations are halted in preparation for adverse weather – and 99 floating vessels at the oil fields were advised to move towards safe locations. This, according to the ONGC, was the extent of its role, since operations of many of the vessels were under the charge of Afcons and the companies it had subcontracted. In a statement to the Indian Express on May 21, an ONGC official claimed, “we are not mariners, we are oil and gas experts”. Does the ONGC’s responsibility simply end there? An official within the company claimed that it does. “ONGC can only issue advisories and suggestions about the weather,” the official told Scroll.in on the condition of anonymity. “Afcons had full responsibility for acting on the advisories for all the vessels it had chartered during that time.” According to the official, the ONGC receives regular and detailed weather updates from international meteorological agencies, and the updates are conveyed to all their offshore rigs, installations and vessels every day. “In case of cyclone warnings, all rigs are required to stop work, installations have to secure their operations and vessels are asked to move to a safe zone,” the official said. “We followed all these procedures.” The official clarified that the ONGC’s standard operating procedures for adverse weather do not specify exact safe zones to move to, and that those decisions are left to the vessels. “We are not an agency that can tell them forcefully to go from here to there. The vessels are guided by DG Shipping [the Directorate General of Shipping] and the Navy,” the official said. Amitabh Kumar, the Director General of Shipping, who is one of the three members of the high-power committee inquiring into the incident, declined to answer any queries. “The inquiry is still ongoing, and it will take some time,” Kumar said. “Till then I cannot answer anything.” Rahman Shaikh, however, does not accept the argument that the ONGC is only responsible for issuing advisories. “The oil fields belong to ONGC,” said Shaikh. “If ONGC had simply ordered all the vessels to evacuate its fields, they would have to do it.” A survivor from Gal Constructor, one of the barges stranded during the cyclone, also echoed this view. “ONGC is the master of everything at Mumbai High,” said the survivor, who asked not to be identified. “They can pass any order, and drive any vessel out of their fields. Afcons works under ONGC.” These assertions are particularly significant given that, according to Shaikh, a senior crew member on Papaa-305 had emailed the ONGC seeking advice on May 14, the day after the first weather warnings were issued and almost three days before the cyclone hit the barge. The barge had been anchored right next to an oil rig platform at Heera Field, and when the first weather warnings were issued on May 13, the captain, Rakesh Ballav, decided to move the barge 200 metres away from the platform, to prevent any collisions during the storm. The next morning, the senior crew members convened to take stock of the situation. Sachindra Prasad Singh was the deck officer of Papaa-305. His many tasks included overseeing navigation, handling security equipment and coordinating between different departments on a vessel.
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Shipwreck
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1956 Hawker Hunter multiple aircraft accident crash
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On 8 February 1956 the Royal Air Force lost six Hawker Hunter jet fighters in a multiple aircraft accident. Eight aircraft from RAF West Raynham had been carrying out a 4x4 dogfight exercise at 45,000 feet (14,000 m). Upon completion of the exercise the eight Hunters diverted to RAF Marham but due to bad weather six of the aircraft were lost including one fatality. The eight Hunter F1s from the Day Fighter Leader Squadron of the Central Fighter Establishment departed RAF West Raynham, Norfolk, England at 10:50 to carry out the exercise at 45,000 feet (14,000 m) in the local area. Due to the expected bad weather later in the day the aircraft were scheduled to return to West Raynham overhead by 11:15. By 11:00 the weather at West Raynham had deteriorated with poor visibility[1] and the aircraft were told to divert to nearby RAF Marham for a visual approach. [2]
The visibility suddenly reduced but due to the close proximity of the aircraft to each other it was not possible to complete ground controlled approaches. In the following confusion and with only 10 minutes of fuel remaining, only two aircraft landed successfully. Questions were asked in Parliament about the loss of six aircraft worth £750,000 [4] and the suspicion that the Mark 1 and 2 Hunters "are liable to be deficient in fuel if a crisis arises". [5] Concern was also raised about the carrying out the exercise in the expected weather conditions. [5]
The Board of Inquiry (BoI) reported that the primary cause of the accident was the sudden deterioration in the weather. The board also said it was an error of judgement to divert the aircraft to Marham on the assumption that they could do a visual landing. [2]
The BoI stated that the decision to fly in the weather conditions was proper and reasonable, the pilots were all competent, the aircraft were serviceable and had adequate fuel and endurance for the planned mission. [2]
The Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Fighter Command decided that disciplinary action should be taken against officers in charge of flying operations at West Raynham. One officer was reproved and removed from his job and three other officers were reproved. [2]
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Air crash
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ThreeBridge Solutions and Keyot Announce Merger
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MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ThreeBridge Solutions, a strategic provider of business and IT consulting solutions, and Keyot, a boutique consulting firm specializing in project delivery, workforce transformation and management consulting, announced this week that they have reached an agreement to merge into one organization under the ThreeBridge brand. This merger brings together two strong firms with complementary solutions. While ThreeBridge has mainly focused on IT at Fortune 500 clients across the nation, Keyot has largely serviced the business side of their clients. “We are thrilled to be joining forces with Keyot. Our leaders have collaborated for over a decade, and our two organizations share foundational similarities in our convergent business models, client- and consultant-first mentalities, and maybe most importantly, our company cultures and core values. As the lines between business and IT continue to blur, this merger makes us uniquely positioned to bring our clients more innovative solutions and address their most pressing challenges and initiatives,” says ThreeBridge Founder and CEO Jim Kelly. With the addition of Keyot’s Project to Product and Compliance Remediation expertise, ThreeBridge is better enabled to bring holistic solutions to clients nationwide. “Our ultimate goal is to enable our clients, not to create dependence on us. Most of our clients are going through a transformation, and look to us to lead them through organizational changes. Instead of our services being siloed into just IT or operations, we can now give them exactly what they need by offering collective solutions to their entire organizations,” states ThreeBridge Chief Integrator and former Keyot CEO Laura Gorman. ThreeBridge Solutions is a national provider of talent, training, and advice within their core solutions: Business Transformation, Enterprise Systems, Digital Innovation, Smart Data, and Crew, junior talent development. Nationally, ThreeBridge has 1,000+ consultants across 150 clients, and is growing rapidly by building new capabilities and expanding geographies.
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Organization Merge
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UN humanitarian allocates US$100 million to help people feed themselves
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(New York, 17 November 2020): UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock today allocated US$100 million to help people feed themselves in countries most at risk from the growing hunger epidemic caused by conflict, economic decline, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen will each receive a share of $80 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). An extra $20 million has been set aside for anticipatory action to fight hunger in Ethiopia, where droughts could exacerbate an already fragile situation. The funding has been released alongside a warning that without immediate action, famine could be a reality in the coming months in parts of Burkina Faso, North-east Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen. This would be the first time famine has been declared since 2017 in parts of South Sudan. “The prospect of a return to a world in which famines are commonplace would be heart wrenching and obscene in a world where there is more than enough food for everyone,” said the UN Under-SecretaryGeneral for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock. “Famines result in agonizing and humiliating deaths. They fuel conflict and war. They trigger mass displacement. Their impact on a country is devasting and long lasting. “No one should view a slide into famine as an inevitable side effect of this pandemic. If it happens it is because the world has allowed it to happen. Famine can be prevented. But we have to act in time to make a difference. Right now, more money for the aid operation is the quickest and most efficient way to support famine-prevention efforts.” CERF’s $80 million cash injection will be distributed via cash and voucher programming, one of the most efficient, flexible and cost-effective ways to help people in dire need. It will be targeted at the most vulnerable – especially women and girls, and people with disabilities. Afghanistan, where 3.3 million people face emergency levels of food insecurity – which means they are one step away from famine – will receive $15 million. Burkina Faso will receive $6 million. The numbers of desperately hungry people in that country have nearly tripled since 2019, and more than 11,000 people are already in catastrophic conditions. The Democratic Republic of the Congo will receive $7 million. Northeast Nigeria will receive $15 million. Hunger concerns are high in conflict-affected areas, especially in parts of Borno State where humanitarian access is limited. South Sudan will receive $7 million. A quarter of the population of Jonglei State were projected to reach the brink of famine by July 2020. Yemen will receive $30 million to help feed the millions of people who have been pushed to the edge of famine by five years of conflict. A total of $20 million has been set aside for anticipatory action for food insecurity and drought in Ethiopia. Already high levels of acute food insecurity are likely to be exacerbated by below-average rainfall, civil unrest, growing insecurity, locust infestations, and the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, which includes declining incomes and rising inflation.
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Famine
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Shimla jaundice outbreak
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The Shimla jaundice outbreak is an outbreak of jaundice in the North Indian town of Shimla. [1] The first reported cases of jaundice in Shimla began in December 2015. [2] As of March 2016 the outbreak is still ongoing, and should continue without changes to Shimla's water system. [3] According to official estimates 10 people have died and 1600 have developed the disease. [1] Unofficial estimates put the number of infected at over 10,000, with half of the total families in Shimla having experienced infection. [1][2]
The cause of the outbreak is Hepatitis E contamination in Shimla's water supply, stemming from improperly filtered sewage released into the Ashwani Khud river system. [3] The Hepatitis E virus, commonly contracted from faecal matter, attacks the liver of infected individuals thereby causing jaundice. [4] Contaminated water finds its way into the city's water supply schemes, located downstream from the sewage treatment plants. [3] The problem is exasperated in winter months, when less rainfall leads to less water volume, and therefore higher concentration of the virus. [4]
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Disease Outbreaks
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‘I’m ready to do a backflip’: Ashland man wins $1 million in scratch-off game
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Dennis “DJ” Gifford gets to claim his reward from the Platinum Jackpot, one of the dozens of scratchers available from the Virginia Lottery.(Virginia Lottery) By Samantha McGranahan Published: Nov. 9, 2021 at 1:47 PM EST RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - An Ashland man wins the top prize in a Virginia Lottery scratch-off, and is now one million dollars richer. Dennis “DJ” Gifford gets to claim his reward from the Platinum Jackpot, one of the dozens of scratchers available from the Virginia Lottery. The game features prizes ranging from $10 up to $1,000,000. “I’m 250 pounds, but I’m ready to do a backflip,” said Gifford. “It feels amazing. I can’t calm down!” Gifford bought his winning ticket at Euro Market off of South Washington Highway in Ashland. He said the winning ticket was one of three tickets he had bought that day. “I about had a heart attack where I stood!” said Gifford. The odds of winning the top prize are one in over 1.6 million. The odds of winning any prize are 1 in 3.9 million.
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Awards ceremony
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Julianne Moore’s husband “dislikes” her sex scene | Celebrity
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Federal Court Refuses to Lift Vaccine Obligation | Work Julianne Moore’s husband “dislikes” the sex scene she’s filming. Dear Evan Hansen’s actress is “healthy”, hating the idea that Bart Freundlich (23-year-old kid Caleb and 19-year-old Rive’s father) gets intimate with someone else on the camera. I think. If he’s used to it, he’ll find it “strange.” She states: It’s interesting because I have to say, “It’s literally a job …”. “But I understand it and think it’s healthy. If people feel it’s okay to kiss your wife, it’s a little weird. But yeah, he loves it Is not.” The 60-year-old star always thought she had forgotten her job at the end of the day until her husband pointed out the impact of her character on the wardrobe. She tells your magazine: “Then I did the’Lost World’immediately, and he goes,’Now you’re dressed like a paleontologist and you’re wearing cargo pants.'” Julian had previously married director John Gould Rubin in his early twenties, but now admits that he is too young to take a big step. She said. “I was very young. I remember my mother saying to me,” No, no! ” And, of course, that’s right. “It didn’t take long to think about what I wanted and what I needed.” “Still Alice” stars believe that relationships and marriage require “work” and encourage women of her generation to focus on their careers in the hope that their personal life will settle down. I always felt strange to be taught by. She said. “It was very outdated. You wait for someone or a romantic partner to come in. For me, when I was 31 or 32, I wanted to get married. I want a child. So I also want to invest in it. “Whenever you say you have to work in marriage, people go,’Oh, that shouldn’t be too difficult.’ But it’s a construct. Everyone needs to participate in it. “
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Famous Person - Marriage
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Alberta teens face $1,800 in fines for using unmarked crossing at railway tracks
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Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Copy Url
In two separate incidents Thursday, three Airdrie teens were each slapped with a $600 trespass ticket after using a popular shortcut crossing CP Rail tracks.
Halle Vallance, 15, was coming home from the mall when she was stopped by a CP Rail police officer in an unmarked vehicle and given the ticket.
"So many people cross it that I just didn't think like it was a problem," Vallance says. "And the gate was open. Like, if it was closed I wouldn't have crossed."
A gate in the long fence behind the Airdrie Walmart and London Drugs leads to a short, well-defined path that crosses the double railway tracks.
The shortcut saves nearly two kilometres of walking around the active rail line.
On the west side of the tracks, closest to the residential area, there is a sign next to the wide-open gate, but it wears a heavy coat of black spray paint that appears weathered.
"For nine years we've lived here that (gate) has almost always been open," says Abigail Cornyn, 14.
On Friday people of all ages, including two with a dog, could be seen using the crossing.
Abigail and her sister Madeline Cornyn were on their way to buy school supplies when an officer called them over to the unmarked cruiser.
"So we both gave him our drivers license, and then he said 'is this your first time being arrested?'" 16 year old Madeline says, adding they were afraid they would be taken to jail.
Instead they were given tickets. It was only later they realized how much they were for.
CP Rail confirmed in a statement Friday that the girls were ticketed, also adding an additional 63-year-old was hit with a $600 ticket. The statement went on to say that trespassing on CP Rail property is both dangerous and illegal.
But the Cornyn girls' father, who works in occupational safety, says that the approach is all wrong.
"It's clear this is an established pathway with no signage that this is against the law and no gate in place," Bruce Cornyn says.
Halle's mother says while she expects her daughter will walk around in future, she was upset with what she sees as a heavy-handed approach.
"Six hundred dollars? That does not fit the crime at all," says Shelley Vallance, who says she went to speak to the officer a short time after the ticket was written.
"When I told him that he should have educated the kids, he said, 'I can arrest her and charge her right now.'"
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Organization Fine
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Preparations Underway for East Coast Earthquakes, Tsunamis
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In the scheduled March 17 LANTEX 21 exercise, a powerful 8.8 earthquake will be simulated at 36.0 North, 15.0 West in the North Atlantic; it will send a tsunami towards the North America coast. Image: NOAA Are you and your local officials prepared for a potential destructive tsunami along the US east coast? While most associate tsunami threats with the Pacific basin, as last week’s strong New Zealand earthquakes and Tsunami Watch in Hawaii demonstrated, officials are preparing for the possibility of similar seismic activity in the Atlantic basin that could threaten the U.S. East Coast and the Caribbean by launching two separate drills over the next 2 weeks. On March 11, through the CaribeWave ’21 Tsunami Warning System Exercise, officials will drill for two hypothetical earthquakes. At 9am ET, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center will act as if a 8.0 magnitude earthquake strikes at 18.2 North 75.3 West near Jamaica. At the time time, an even more powerful 8.5 earthquake will strike near the Northern Lesser Antilles at 18.9 North 62.4 West. In the drill exercise, a simulated tsunami striking portions of Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, and portions of Central and South America will be practiced with the first quake, while a broader, more impactful tsunami will be simulated with the second. The second CaribeWave simulation earthquake will trigger a tsunami that’ll radiate out from the Northern Lesser Antilles. During a real tsunami, such a map would only be made available to officially designated Tsunami Warning Focal Points and National Tsunami Warning Centers. Image: NOAA While the CaribeWave ’21 simulations will be sharing earthquake and tsunami advisory and warning information among officials, none of it should be released to the public. However, test messages will have the following text added in the event they do somehow end up in public channels: ...THIS MESSAGE IS FOR TEST PURPOSES ONLY... ...TEST TSUNAMI THREAT MESSAGE TEST... **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE ***** THIS IS A TEST MESSAGE. THIS MESSAGE IS ISSUED FOR INFORMATION ONLY IN SUPPORT OF THE UNESCO/IOC TSUNAMI AND OTHER COASTAL HAZARDS WARNING SYSTEM FOR THE CARIBBEAN AND ADJACENT REGIONS AND IS MEANT FOR NATIONAL AUTHORITIES IN EACH COUNTRY OF THAT SYSTEM. THIS IS A TEST MESSAGE. NATIONAL AUTHORITIES WILL DETERMINE THE APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF ALERT FOR EACH COUNTRY AND MAY ISSUE ADDITIONAL OR MORE REFINED INFORMATION. **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE ***** Days later, on March 17, another significant earthquake and tsunami drill will unfold. Unlike the CaribeWave ’21 event which focuses on preparedness in the Caribbean, the March 17 LANTEX 21 drill is designed to prepare the rest of the North American Coast for tsunami dangers. The March 17 LANTEX21 drill will simulate an even more powerful 8.8 earthquake in the North Atlantic at 8am ET. The quake, centered at a depth of 9 miles at 36.0 North and 15.0 West will drive a potentially destructive tsunami towards the U.S. and Canadian East Coasts. In the LANTEX21 drill, a Tsunami Warning will be “issued” for coastal areas of Newfoundland and Labrador from Cape Ray, Newfoundland to Cape Chidley, Labrador while a Tsunami Advisory will be “issued” for Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the balance of the North American east coast from Cape Ray, Newfoundland to Flamingo, Florida. These earthquake and tsunami drills will help bring awareness to the threats these areas could experience, allowing local officials and residents to be ready when an actual threat arrives. (If any real tsunami threat occurs during the time period of the exercise, the exercise will be terminated.) Tsunamis are giant waves caused by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions under the sea. Out in the depths of the ocean, tsunami waves do not dramatically increase in height. But as the waves travel towards land, they build up to higher and higher heights as the depth of the ocean decreases. The speed of tsunami waves depends on ocean depth rather than the distance from the source of the wave. Tsunami waves may travel as fast as jet planes over deep waters, only slowing down when reaching shallow waters. While tsunamis are often referred to as tidal waves, this name is discouraged by oceanographers because tides have little to do with these giant waves. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) are providing the framework for the LANTEX21 tsunami exercise, which is being conducted to assist tsunami preparedness efforts throughout the Atlantic region. Recent earthquakes and their associated tsunamis, such as those in Samoa (2009), Haiti (2010), Chile(2010, 2015), and Japan (2011) attest to the importance of proper planning for tsunami response. Similar recent exercises in the Pacific and Caribbean Basins have proven effective in strengthening preparedness levels of emergency management organizations. This exercise will provide simulated tsunami alert messages from the NOAA/NWS National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) for the eastern coasts of Canada and the United States as well as Puerto Rico and the US/British Virgin Islands. Active tectonics and historic seismicity in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake source zone (GB = Gorringe Bank, AP = Abyssal Plain, LTV = Lower Tagus Valley; the arrows indicate the rotation of the Africa Plate). Source: AIR The area where the simulation will occur is not a stranger to violent tsunami-generating earthquakes. The Africa-Eurasia plate boundary extends from the Mid-Atlantic ocean ridge triple junction near the Azores eastward to the Strait of Gibraltar. Here, the Africa plate rotates counterclockwise relative to the Eurasia plate at a rate of about 4 mm/year. While that motion is relatively slow compared to other active plate boundaries found elsewhere around the world, several large magnitude earthquakes have occurred here. In 1755, there was a 7.6 magnitude quake there; in 1816, a magnitude 7.6 quake struck here; in 1969, a 7.9 earthquake struck here. A modeled tsunami from the simulated LANTEX21 earthquake would impact the east coast of North America, with some areas impacted more than others. The model indicated a significant tsunami along the Canadian and Caribbean coasts, but with less impact elsewhere. Every earthquake has different characteristics, so what’s modeled in this simulation may be very different when a real earthquake does strike this region in the future. During the simulated LANTEX21 tsunami event, test Tsunami Warning and Tsunami Advisory messages will be issued for residents of the U.S. East Coast, eastern Canada, and the Caribbean. As with the CaribeWave’21 endeavor, these bulletins shouldn’t make it out to the public. However, in some previous disaster exercises, such emergency bulletins were accidentally shared with the public. Just last week, a Tornado Warning alert was accidentally shared with hundreds of thousands of people via emergency cell phone alerts during a drill there . People shouldn’t be alarmed by any test messages; as with CaribeWave’21, LANTEX21 messages should be marked that it’s a drill and only a test message. Tsunami Warning A tsunami warning is issued when a tsunami with the potential to generate widespread inundation is imminent, expected, or occurring. Warnings alert the public that dangerous coastal flooding accompanied by powerful currents is possible and may continue for several hours after initial arrival. Warnings alert emergency management officials to take action for the entire tsunami hazard zone. Appropriate actions to be taken by local officials may include the evacuation of low-lying coastal areas, and the re-positioning of ships to deep waters when there is time to safely do so. Warnings may be updated, adjusted geographically, downgraded, or canceled. To provide the earliest possible alert, initial warnings are normally based only on seismic information. Tsunami Advisory A tsunami advisory is issued when a tsunami with the potential to generate strong currents or waves dangerous to those in or very near the water is imminent, expected, or occurring. The threat may continue for several hours after initial arrival, but significant inundation is not expected for areas under an advisory. Appropriate actions to be taken by local officials may include closing beaches, evacuating harbors and marinas, and the repositioning of ships to deep waters when there is time to safely do so. Advisories are normally updated to continue the advisory, expand/contract affected areas, upgrade to a warning, or cancel the advisory. This will be the first LANTEX drill since the COVID-19 global pandemic. LANTEX20, and PACIFEX20, the Pacific-based tsunami drill, was scrubbed in 2020 due to pandemic fears. However, the CaribeWave ’20 exercise went on as scheduled on March 19, 2020. LANTEX and CaribeWave were held in 2018, 2016, and 2016 too.
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Tsunamis
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2006 Beach Handball World Championships
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The 2006 Beach Handball World Championships are a ten-team tournament in both men's and women's beach handball, held in the Petrobras Arena at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between 15 November and 19 November. [1] This is the second edition of the event. Matches are played in sets, the team that wins two sets is the winner of a match. When teams are equal in points the head-to-head result is decisive. Brazil win the championship gold medal in both genders. [2]
November 15, 2006
November 16, 2006
November 17, 2006
November 15, 2006
November 16, 2006
November 17, 2006
November 17, 2006
November 18, 2006
November 18, 2006
November 18, 2006
November 18, 2006
November 18, 2006
November 19, 2006
November 19, 2006
November 15, 2006
November 16, 2006
November 17, 2006
November 15, 2006
November 16, 2006
November 17, 2006
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November 18, 2006
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November 18, 2006
November 18, 2006
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November 19, 2006
November 19, 2006
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Sports Competition
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1971 San Fernando earthquake
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The 1971 San Fernando earthquake (also known as the Sylmar earthquake) occurred in the early morning of February 9 in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in southern California. The unanticipated thrust earthquake had a magnitude of 6.5 on the Ms scale and 6.6 on the Mw scale, and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). The event was one in a series that affected Los Angeles county in the late 20th century. Damage was locally severe in the northern San Fernando Valley and surface faulting was extensive to the south of the epicenter in the mountains, as well as urban settings along city streets and neighborhoods. Uplift and other effects affected private homes and businesses. The event affected a number of health-care facilities in Sylmar, San Fernando, and other densely populated areas north of central Los Angeles. The Olive View Medical Center and Veterans Hospital both experienced very heavy damage, and buildings collapsed at both sites, causing the majority of deaths that occurred. The buildings at both facilities were constructed with mixed styles, but engineers were unable to thoroughly study the buildings' responses because they were not outfitted with instruments for recording strong ground motion, and this prompted the Veterans Administration to later install seismometers at its high-risk sites. Other sites throughout the Los Angeles area had been instrumented as a result of local ordinances, and an unprecedented amount of strong motion data was recorded, more so than any other event up until that time. The success in this area spurred the initiation of California's Strong Motion Instrumentation Program. Transportation around the Los Angeles area was severely afflicted with roadway failures and the partial collapse of several major freeway interchanges. The near total failure of the Lower Van Norman Dam resulted in the evacuation of tens of thousands of downstream residents, though an earlier decision to maintain the water at a lower level may have contributed to saving the dam from being overtopped. Schools were affected, as they had been during the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, but this time amended construction styles improved the outcome for the thousands of school buildings in the Los Angeles area. Another result of the event involved the hundreds of various types of landslides that were documented in the San Gabriel Mountains. As had happened following other earthquakes in California, legislation related to building codes was once again revised, with laws that specifically addressed the construction of homes or businesses near known active fault zones. The San Gabriel Mountains are a 37.3 mi (60.0 km) long portion of the Transverse Ranges and are bordered on the north by the San Andreas Fault, on the south by the Cucamonga Fault, and on the southwest side by the Sierra Madre Fault. The San Bernardino, Santa Ynez, and Santa Monica Mountains are also part of the anomalous east–west trending Transverse Ranges. The domain of the ranges stretches from the Channel Islands offshore to the Little San Bernardino Mountains, 300 miles (480 km) to the east. The frontal fault system at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains extends from the San Jacinto Fault Zone in the east to offshore Malibu in the west, and is defined primarily by moderate to shallow north-dipping faults, with a conservative vertical displacement estimated at 4,000–5,000 feet (1,200–1,500 m). [8]
Paleomagnetic evidence has shown that the western Transverse Ranges were formed as the Pacific Plate moved northward relative to the North American Plate. As the plate shifted to the north, a portion of the terrane that was once parallel with the coast was rotated in a clockwise manner, which left it positioned in its east–west orientation. The Transverse Ranges form the perimeter of a series of basins that begins with the Santa Barbara Channel on the west end. Moving eastward, there is the Ventura Basin, the San Fernando Valley, and the San Gabriel Basin, with active reverse faults (San Cayetano, Red Mountain, Santa Susana, and Sierra Madre) all lining the north boundary. A small number of damaging events have occurred, with three in Santa Barbara (1812, 1925, and 1978) and two in the San Fernando Valley (1971 and 1994), though other faults in the basin that have high Quaternary slip rates have not produced any large earthquakes. [9]
The San Fernando earthquake occurred on February 9, 1971, at 6:00:41 am Pacific Standard Time (14:00:41 UTC) with a strong ground motion duration of about 12 seconds as recorded by seismometers,[10] although the whole event was reported to have lasted about 60 seconds. [6] The origin of faulting was located five miles north of the San Fernando Valley. Considerable damage was seen in localized portions of the valley and also in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains above the fault block. The fault that was responsible for the movement was not one that had been considered a threat, and this highlighted the urgency to identify other similar faults in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The shaking surpassed building code requirements and exceeded what engineers had prepared for, and although most dwellings in the valley had been built in the prior two decades, even modern earthquake-resistant structures sustained serious damage. [11]
Several key attributes of the event were shared with the 1994 Northridge earthquake, considering both were brought about by thrust faults in the mountains north of Los Angeles, and each resulting earthquake being similar in magnitude, though no surface rupture occurred in 1994. Since both occurred in urban and industrial areas and resulted in significant economic impairment, each event drew critical observation from planning authorities, and has been thoroughly studied in the scientific communities. [12]
Prominent surface faulting trending N72°W was observed along the San Fernando Fault Zone from a point south of Sylmar, stretching nearly continuously for 6 miles (9.7 km) east to the Little Tujunga Canyon. Additional breaks occurred farther to the east that were in a more scattered fashion, while the western portion of the most affected area had less pronounced scarps, especially the detached Mission Wells segment. Although the complete Sierra Madre Fault Zone had previously been mapped and classified by name into its constituent faults, the clusters of fault breaks provided a natural way to identify and refer to each section. As categorized during the intensive studies immediately following the earthquake, they were labeled the Mission Wells segment, Sylmar segment, Tujunga segment, Foothills area, and the Veterans fault. [13][14]
All segments shared the common elements of thrust faulting with a component of left-lateral slip, a general east–west strike, and a northward dip, but they were not unified with regard to their connection to the associated underlying bedrock. The initial surveyors of the extensive faulting in the valley, foothills, and mountains reported only tectonic faulting, while excluding fissures and other features that arose from the effects of compaction and landslides. In the vicinity of the Sylmar Fault segment, there was a low possibility of landslides due to a lack of elevation change, but in the foothills and mountainous area a large amount of landslides occurred and more work was necessary to eliminate the possibility of misidentifying a feature. Along the hill fronts of the Tujunga segment, some ambiguous formations were present because some scarps may have had influence from downhill motion, but for the most part they were tectonic in nature. [13]
In repeated measurements of the different fault breaks, the results remained consistent, leading to the belief that most of the slip had occurred during the mainshock. While lateral, transverse, and vertical motions were all observed, the largest individual component of movement was 5 ft 3 in (1.60 m) of left lateral slip near the middle of the Sylmar segment. The largest cumulative amount of slip of 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 m) occurred along the Sylmar and Tujunga segments. The overall fault displacement was summarized by geologist Barclay Kamb and others as "nearly equal amounts of north–south compression, vertical uplift (north side up), and left lateral slip and hence may be described as a thrusting of a northern block to the southwest over a southern block, along a fault surface dipping about 45° north. "[15]
The USGS commissioned a private company and the United States Air Force to take aerial photographs over 97 sq mi (250 km2) of the mountainous areas north of the San Fernando Valley. Analysis revealed that the earthquake triggered over 1,000 landslides. Highly shattered rock was also documented along the ridge tops, and rockfalls (which continued for several days) were the result of both the initial shock and the aftershocks. Few of the slides that were logged from the air were also observed from the ground. The greatest number of slides were centered to the southwest of the mainshock epicenter and close to the areas where surface faulting took place. The slides ranged from 49–984 feet (15–300 m) in length, and could be further categorized as rock falls, soil falls, debris slides, avalanches, and slumps. The most frequently encountered type of slide was the surficial (less than 3 feet (0.91 m) thick) debris slides and were most often encountered on terrain consisting of sedimentary rock.
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Earthquakes
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'Heartbreaking' Madagascar is wake-up call to climate crisis
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This picture made available by the World Food Program on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021, shows a woman using a tiny amount of water she bought at a kiosk in Tsihombe, Androy Region, Madagascar. Hundreds of thousands of lives are at risk in Madagascar, the only place in the world right now where "famine-like conditions" have been driven by climate not conflict. (Alice Rahmoun/ WFP via AP) ROME -- The drought-stricken island nation of Madagascar is a "wake up call” to what the world can expect in coming years due to climate change, the head of the United Nations' food aid agency said Tuesday. David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Program, told The Associated Press in an interview that what's happening in the south of the Indian Ocean country is “the beginning of what we can expect” to see as the effects of global warming become more pronounced. “Madagascar was heartbreaking,” Beasley said, referring to his recent visit there. “It's just desperate.” Some 38 million people worldwide were displaced last year because of climate change, leaving them vulnerable to hunger, according to Beasley. A worst--case scenario could an see that number sore to 216 million people displaced due to climate change by 2050. Some 38 million people worldwide were displaced last year because of climate change, leaving them vulnerable to hunger, according to Beasley. A worst--case scenario could an see that number soar to 216 million people displaced due to climate change by 2050. That's the year many industrialized nations - but not China, Russia or India - have set as their target for achieving carbon neutrality, meaning reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the point where they can be absorbed and effectively add zero to the atmosphere. When Beasley, a former South Carolina governor, took the World Food Program helm in 2017, the top reason for people being on the brink of starvation was man-made conflict, followed by climate change, he said. But since then, climate change has been eclipsing conflicts as the bigger driver in displacing people and leaving them not knowing where their next meal will come from. Last year, about 38 million, he said, were displaced “strictly because of climate shocks, climate change,” Beasley said. “I would like to think this is the worst-case scenario - 216 million people by 2050 that will be migrating or displaced because of climate change,” he said. According to updated WFP figures released Tuesday, close to 30,000 people on Madagascar will be one step away from famine by the end of the year, and some 1.1 million already suffer from severe hunger. The island is struggling with exceptionally warm temperatures, drought and sandstorms. Crops have wilted, and harvests are scarce. People have taken to eating cactus leaves, which usually are cattle fodder, the UN food agency said. “Madagascar is not an isolated incident,” Beasley said. ”The world needs to look to Madagascar to see what is coming your way and (to) many other countries around the world.“ He pointed out that Madagascar, a country of 27 million people, accounts for only the tiniest fraction of greenhouse gas emissions in global terms. “What did they do to contribute to climate change?” he asked rhetorically. The World Food Program has been supplying some 700,000 people on the island with food and supplemental nutritional products for pregnant and nursing women and children. In Ethiopia, by contrast, famine is man-made, caused by conflict. The World Food Program estimates that 5.2 million people are in need of of emergency food assistance in Tigray, Ethiopia's embattled northern region. United Nations officials have warned in recent weeks that more than 400,000 people could face starvation and death if humanitarian aid isn't delivered quickly, but hardly any aid can get to those who desperately need to eat. The Tigray forces say they are pressuring Ethiopia's government to lift a months-long blockade on their region of around 6 million people, where basic services have been cut off and humanitarian food and medical aid denied. Beasley says the WFP has been “messaging to all sides, including the Ethiopian government, the leadership, that this is a crisis”' needing immediate access for food aid. But “we're not making headway,” he said. “We're not able to get (food aid) trucks in or get fuel in. We're not even able to get the cash to the people we need to pay,” Beasley told the AP. As a result, Tigray's people “have to be dying at unprecedented numbers, but we can't get the access we need,” he said. “It's a disgrace.” He said the WFP should be moving in 30 trucks of day loaded with food, and another 70 full of medicine and other humanitarian assistance. “We're not even getting 10% of that in trucks a day,” the agency director said. For many of Tigray's people, Beasley said, it has come down to “either die or migrate.” Paradoxically, Afghanistan's new Taliban rulers have allowed WFP access to food distribution centers and schools where many teachers are going unpaid, and protected WFP warehouses, while international donors haven't been supplying sufficient funding, Beasley said. “You run into the issue of donors (who) do not want to be seen in any way as aiding or abetting or supporting the Taliban,” Beasley said. In Afghanistan, 22.8 million people - half of the population - face acute food insecurity, or are “marching toward starvation,” as Beasley put it. Conflict and drought combined to create that impoverished nation's food crisis. The dire situation will grow even more critical starting in January, when the WFP's food stocks for Afghanistan will run low, if more donors don't come through. “That price tag is $230 million a month feeding them” at only partial rations, Beasley said, adding: that “there are 8.7 million people in Afghanistan knocking of famine's door,.” The UN agency was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Men dig for water in the dry Mandrare river bed in Madagascar on November 9, 2020. (Laetitia Bezain/AP via CNN) This picture made available by the World Food Program on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021, shows a water distribution center in Ankilimanondro, Madagascar. Hundreds of thousands of lives are at risk in Madagascar, the only place in the world right now where "famine-like conditions" have been driven by climate not conflict. (Tsiory Andriantsoarana/ WFP via AP) Men dig for water in the dry Mandrare river bed in Madagascar on November 9, 2020. (Laetitia Bezain/AP via CNN) This picture made available by the World Food Program on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021, shows a water distribution center in Ankilimanondro, Madagascar. Hundreds of thousands of lives are at risk in Madagascar, the only place in the world right now where "famine-like conditions" have been driven by climate not conflict. (Tsiory Andriantsoarana/ WFP via AP) Advertisement
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Famine
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Waihi miners' strike
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The Waihi miners' strike was a major strike action in 1912 by gold miners in the New Zealand town of Waihi. It is widely regarded as the most significant industrial action in the history of New Zealand's labour movement. It resulted in one striker being killed, one of only two deaths in industrial actions in New Zealand. At the time of the strike, the labour movement in New Zealand was expanding rapidly. The New Zealand Federation of Labour (known as the "Red Fed"), which was linked to the Socialist Party, was gaining considerable support from the working class, and the Waihi Trade Union of Workers, to which many miners belonged, was part of the Federation. Disputes between the union and the large Waihi Goldmining Company were frequent. Miners had many grievances regarding their working conditions and often downed tools and walked off the site in response to accidents in the mine (falls, broken limbs, crushing, brusings and even the occasional fatality). A more insidious killer than the accidents was miners' phthisis, dust on the lungs. Because of 'miners complaint' as it was known, men who started mining at 16 would be lucky to reach 40. The company offered no compensation for miners and long before the strike (1906) there was a feeling among them that
there were too many accidents, too many maimings, too many deaths... Miners would ask themselves bitterly what they were dying for. The answer seemed to be: for themselves, £2/8s. a week, just enough to feed and clothe their families; for the shareholders in the Waihi Gold Mining Company, a quite fabulous flow of unearned income. [1]
In May 1912, a number of stationary engine drivers who rejected the Federation of Labour's strong positions established a breakaway union. Although the Waihi Goldmining Company claimed to have no involvement in the breakaway union, saying that it was a matter of union politics, many workers believed that the Company was attempting to split the union, and called a strike. The local police chief reacted cautiously to the action, but Police Commissioner John Cullen ordered a strong response, dispatching additional police. Two months later,[when?] the conservative Reform Party came to power — the new Prime Minister, William Massey, declared that he would strongly oppose the "enemies of order". Several other mines around the country were affected by the action at Waihi, with miners downing tools in support of the Waihi miners or with their own claims against the harsh working conditions. At Reefton, in the South Island, this led to a lock-out of workers in June and July 1912. [2]
The police buildup in Waihi continued until an estimated 10 percent of New Zealand's police force was present. Around 60 strikers were arrested and jailed. Anger among the strikers grew, and the Federation of Labour gradually began to lose control to even more radical groups, such as the Industrial Workers of the World organisation. [citation needed]
In October, the Company was able to re-open the mine with non-union workers ("scabs"). The union workers reacted angrily, and the new workers were attacked with stones. Tensions between the union and non-union workers were very high — the union workers saw the newcomers as threatening their livelihoods and as being traitors to the working class, while many of the newcomers felt they had little choice but to take what work they could find, and resented the attacks and condemnation. [citation needed]
The violence gradually escalated, with union workers on one side and non-union workers and police on the other. The greatest level of violence came on 12 November, known as "Black Tuesday". A group of armed non-union workers and police attacked the union hall, which was defended by a small group of union workers (also armed). Thomas Johnston, a non-union worker who had come to the mines after his market garden in Auckland was bankrupted, was shot in the knee, and a police constable (Gerald Wade) was shot in the stomach. The shots were fired by Fred Evans, a radical unionist. Evans himself was struck by Constable Gerald Wade and later died of his injuries. Soon afterwards, the strikers broke ranks, with many fleeing Waihi altogether. [3]
Evans was later held by the hardliners up as a hero and a martyr, with Bob Semple saying that Evans had been "doing his duty and should have shot more of them". Despite this, however, many people in the union movement actually moderated their positions after the strike[citation needed] — it had, after all, failed to achieve its goals. The strike also contributed to unity in the New Zealand labour movement — the Socialist Party, which had backed the strike, moved towards merger with the more moderate United Labour Party, which had not. The resultant Social Democratic Party later formed the basis of the modern Labour Party. [citation needed]
A pamphlet The Tragic Story of the Waihi Strike was co-written by Harry Holland, Robert Samuel Ross and Francis Edward O'Flynn (O'Flynn wrote under pseudonym Ballot Box). The imprisoned strike leaders including Bill Parry were released in November against security of £1600; the bond was later found to have been put up by brewer Ernest Davis, who was a major source of funds for the Labour Party for half a century. [4]
In late 2016, the play 'Scarlet and Gold' told the story of the Waihi strike. [5]
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Strike
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Tsunamis claim hundreds of thousands over past century
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Over a quarter-million people have been killed in tsunamis over the past century, according to the data compiled by Anadolu Agency. According to the UN, which marks Nov. 5 as the World Tsunami Awareness Day, dozens of tsunamis -- Often triggered by submarine earth slides and volcanic eruptions -- have occurred in the past 100 years, killing hundreds of thousands. In 2004, the western Indonesian coastline was devastated by a 9.1-magnitude earthquake and tsunami towering nine meters (29.5 feet). The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake that hit 14 countries, claiming 230,000 lives and causing damages of $10 billion. In 2011, a 9-magnitude earthquake occurred 29 kilometers (18 miles) below the Pacific Ocean, causing tidal waves towering 10 meters (33 feet) that pounded eastern Japanese shores. Over 16,000 people were killed in the Toohoku region and about half a million others were forced to take shelter. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant suffered damage and radioactive steam leaked into the air after another massive wave the same year. Total damage is estimated to be over $300 billion in Japan. Earthquake-prone countries and regions such as Japan and Chile have always been under threat of tidal waves throughout the course of time. For instance, the 7.6-magnitude earthquake of 1896 in Japan triggered a tsunami reaching 38 meters (125 feet) in length and killed 22,000. In 1868, about 25,000 people were killed in Chile after it suffered a deadly 8.5-magnitude earthquake in the country’s north. The Krakatoa volcanic eruption of 1883 in Indonesia led to the death of 40,000 people due to tidal waves towering 37 meters (121 feet). Historical records suggest that tens of thousands of people were killed in Japan due to tsunamis in 1771, 1707, 1586 and 1498 whereas Portugal had its share in 1755. Risk in Turkey Located on the North Anatolian Fault, Turkey is another tremor-prone country which has lost many to earthquakes. In a conference on disasters in 2018, geologist Sukru Ersoy said about 125 tsunamis occurred in Turkey over the course of the past 3,000 years. Pits in the Sea of Marmara, located in Turkey's northwest, have formed over a kilometer (3281 feet) deep, he said, adding that these had the potential of triggering tidal waves in the event of a 6.5-magnitude earthquake.
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Tsunamis
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Trump withdraws US from Trans-Pacific Partnership
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WASHINGTON — President Trump wasted no time on Monday carrying out a central campaign pledge by scuttling the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, one in a number of executive orders he issued. “We’ve been talking about this for a longtime,” Trump said as he signed the order in the Oval Office. “Great thing for the American worker.” The trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim nations was negotiated by former President Obama and became a major issue in the 2016 presidential campaign, with even Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton renouncing a deal she had previously supported. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who always against the deal, praised Trump, saying it’s “time to develop a trade policy that helps working families, not just multinational corporations.” “I am glad the Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead and gone,” the Independent from Vermont said. “For the last 30 years, we have had a series of trade deals … which have cost us millions of decent-paying jobs and caused a ‘race to the bottom’ which has lowered wages for American workers.” But Sen. John McCain condemned the decision to ditch the agreement saying it only increases China’s influence in the region. China was not part of TPP, but has been pursuing its own trade pact with others countries in the Pacific. “President Trump’s decision to formally withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a serious mistake that will have lasting consequences for America’s economy and our strategic position in the Asia-Pacific region,” the Republican from Arizona said. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump dumped the deal because the “agreement is not in the country’s best interest.” He said Trump’s decision sends a “strong signal that the Trump administration wants free and fair trade around the globe,” adding that the US would pursue bilateral trade agreements with other countries that were part of the pact. The president also signed orders freezing most federal government hiring, excluding the military, and reinstating a ban on federal money for international groups that provide abortions. Congress never adopted the controversial trade pact. The TPP was aimed at eliminating most tariffs and other trade barriers among the US, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Vietnam and half a dozen other countries around the Pacific. Trump has also taken aim at NAFTA, a trade agreement that took effect in 1994 between Mexico, Canada and the US. He has said he will begin re-negotiating that agreement when he meets with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to get better terms for the US or will withdraw from it.
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Withdraw from an Organization
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Debris in swollen Hawkesbury River causing problems for fishers and boaties
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Boaties and fishers are continuing to dodge debris submerged in the Hawkesbury River following last month's floods.
The maximum speed on most of the river was reduced to 15 knots as authorities worked to remove larger objects, including furniture, parts of caravans and chemical drums.
That restriction will be lifted on Wednesday, but Transport for New South Wales Maritime Services is urging boaties to continue navigating with caution.
Jason Davidson, a commercial fisher near Spencer on the Central Coast, said he and his father resumed trawling for prawns about a week ago and that heavy items have been tearing their nets.
"The biggest worry for the trawling is the amount of random objects that have been washed away and drifted down the river and then sunk," Mr Davidson said.
"If they get tangled in our nets that's a big problem.
"My Dad got half a fibreglass boat … so that destroyed his net and took him out of work for a bit.
"I caught a plastic bulk container with a metal cage around it, and also aluminum sheeting and a garbage bin."
Mr Davidson said the debris that fit on his boat was taken to the tip.
"You're wasting your time while you're trawling — the time it takes to untangle it," he said.
"It takes longer to sew the holes [in the nets]."
Transport for New South Wales Maritime senior boating safety officer for the Hawkesbury Broken Bay region, Darryl Lennox, said the debris was "dangerous and excessive".
"A lot of this debris is floating just under the surface," Mr Lennox said.
"There's caravans, there's fridges, there's lots of bits of firewood, there's bikes.
"Everything you can possibly think of is basically floating down the system.
"You'll see a couple of branches just under the water but there's a whole tree floating semi-submerged in the system.
"If you do hit one of these semi-submerged items, you're going to cause a fair bit of damage to your vessel.
"Your vessel will stop very quickly, so you can cause damage to the persons within the boat.
"You'll throw them out of the seat, you'll throw them against the windscreen.
"We don't want people to have any injuries as a result of any of this debris."
Mr Lennox said his agency was one of many helping to assess and clear the debris.
Adam Gilligan, the regional director of regulatory operations at the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA), said he was concerned by potential contamination in waterways.
"We've seen a number of things along the Hawkesbury and also along the coast … like drums of chemicals that we've worked with Fire and Rescue to make sure they're secured and removed as quickly as possible," he said.
The EPA said an estimated 145 tonnes of flood debris has been removed from the Hawkesbury shorelines.
Search any location in Australia to find nearby active incidents
Stay up-to-date with local coverage on ABC Radio, the emergency broadcaster
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Environment Pollution
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Comair Flight 5191 crash
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Comair Flight 5191, marketed as Delta Connection Flight 5191, was a scheduled United States domestic passenger flight from Lexington, Kentucky, to Atlanta, Georgia, operated on behalf of Delta Connection by Comair. On the morning of August 27, 2006, at around 06:07 EDT (10:07 UTC),[2]:1 the Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet 100ER crashed while attempting to take off from Blue Grass Airport in Fayette County, Kentucky, 4 miles (6.4 km) west of the central business district of the city of Lexington. The aircraft was assigned the airport's Runway 22 for the takeoff but used Runway 26 instead. Runway 26 was too short for a safe takeoff, causing the aircraft to overrun the end of the runway before it could become airborne. It crashed just past the end of the runway, killing all 47 passengers and two of the three crew. It was the second-deadliest accident involving the CRJ-100/-200; two years earlier, China Eastern Airlines Flight 5210 claimed 53 lives. [3]
The flight's first officer James Polehinke was the pilot flying at the time of the accident and was the sole survivor. [4][5][6] In the National Transportation Safety Board's report on the crash, investigators concluded that the likely cause of the crash was pilot error. [7]
The flight was marketed under the Delta Air Lines brand as Delta Connection Flight 5191 (DL5191) and was operated by Comair as Flight 5191. It was identified for air-traffic control and flight-tracking purposes as Comair 5191 (OH5191/COM5191). The flight had been scheduled to land at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport at 7:18 a.m. The aircraft involved was a 50-seat Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-100ER, serial number 7472. [8] It was manufactured in Canada and was delivered to the airline on January 30, 2001. [2]:14–15
The captain was 35-year old Jeffrey Clay. He had 4,710 flight hours, including 3,082 hours on the CRJ-100. [2]:8–11
The first officer was 44-year-old James Polehinke. Prior to his employment by Comair, Polehinke worked for Gulfstream International as a captain. He had 6,564 flight hours, including 940 hours as a captain and 3,564 hours on the CRJ-100. [2]:11–14
Analysis of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) indicated that the aircraft was cleared to take off from Runway 22, a 7,003-foot (2,135 m) runway used by most airline traffic at Lexington. [9] However, after confirming the takeoff clearance for Runway 22, Captain Clay taxied onto Runway 26, a much smaller and unlit runway that was not authorized for commercial use,[10] and turned the controls over to First Officer Polehinke for takeoff. [2] The air traffic controller was not required to maintain visual contact with the aircraft; after clearing the aircraft for takeoff, he turned to perform administrative duties and did not see the aircraft taxi to the runway. Based upon an estimated takeoff weight of 49,087 pounds (22,265 kg),[11] the manufacturer calculated that a speed of 138 knots (159 mph; 256 km/h) and a distance of 3,744 feet (1,141 m) would have been needed for rotation (increasing nose-up pitch), with more runway needed to achieve liftoff. [12] At a speed approaching 100 knots (120 mph; 190 km/h), Polehinke remarked, "That is weird with no lights" referring to the lack of lighting on Runway 26 – it was about an hour before daybreak. [2]:15[13] "Yeah", confirmed Clay, but the flight data recorder (FDR) gave no indication that either pilot had tried to abort the takeoff as the aircraft accelerated to 137 knots (158 mph; 254 km/h). [14]
Clay called for rotation, but the aircraft sped off the end of the runway before it could lift off. It then struck a low earthen wall adjacent to a ditch, becoming momentarily airborne,[13] clipped the airport perimeter fence with its landing gear and smashed into trees, separating the fuselage and flight deck from the tail. The aircraft struck the ground about 1,000 feet (300 m) from the end of the runway. [11] Forty-nine of the 50 people on board perished in the accident; most of them died instantly in the initial impact. [15] The resulting fire destroyed the aircraft. [2]:7
All 47 passengers and two of the three crew members on board the flight died. Comair released the passenger manifest on August 29, 2006. [17]
Most of the passengers were American citizens from the Lexington area, ranging in age from 16 to 72. They included a young couple who had been married the previous day and were traveling to California on their honeymoon. [18]
A memorial service for the victims was held on August 31, 2006 at the Lexington Opera House. [19] A second public memorial service was held on September 10, 2006 at Rupp Arena in Lexington. [citation needed] The Lexington Herald-Leader published a list of the victims with short biographies. [20]
The Flight 5191 Memorial Commission was established[by whom?] shortly after the crash to create an appropriate memorial for the victims, first responders and community that supported them. The commission chose the University of Kentucky Arboretum as its memorial site. [21][22][23]
The Flight 5191 Memorial, created by Douwe Blumberg, consists of a sculpture of 49 stainless steel birds in flight over a base of black granite. [24]
James Polehinke, the first officer, suffered serious injuries, including multiple broken bones, a collapsed lung and severe bleeding. Lexington-Fayette and airport police officers pulled Polehinke out of the wreckage. He underwent surgery for his injuries, including an amputation of his left leg that confined him to a wheelchair. Doctors later determined that Polehinke had suffered brain damage and had no memory of the crash or the events leading up to it. [25][26][27][28] In May 2012, Polehinke filed a lawsuit against the airport and the company that designed the runway and taxi lights. [29]
The estates or families of 21 of the 47 passengers filed lawsuits against Polehinke. In response, Polehinke's attorney William E. Johnson raised the possibility of contributory negligence on the part of the passengers. When asked by the plaintiffs' attorney David Royse, who criticized the statements, to explain what that meant, Johnson replied that the passengers "should have been aware of the dangerous conditions that existed in that there had been considerable media coverage about the necessity of improving runway conditions at the airport. "[30]
At the time when Johnson submitted the contributory negligence defense, he had not yet been able to speak to Polehinke. By the time that newspapers reported on the court documents, Johnson said that he had already informed Royse that he would withdraw the argument.
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Air crash
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TBI Agents Investigating Officer-Involved Shooting in Cumberland County
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Updated 12/12/21 at 9:45am: The deceased individual has been identified as David Denman Talbert (DOB 05/07/1966) of Cookeville.
At the request of 13th District Attorney General Bryant Dunaway, TBI special agents are investigating the circumstances that led to the shooting of a man during an altercation with a deputy of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department Friday night.
Preliminary information indicates that around 9 p.m. Friday, dispatchers received a report of a pick-up truck traveling eastbound in the westbound lane of I-40 near mile marker 311. A Cumberland County deputy responding to the area found the vehicle unoccupied, on the shoulder of the interstate. Another deputy located the driver standing on the outside lane of the interstate, and told him to show his hands. Initial information from the scene indicates the man brandished a handgun and ran towards the deputy. The deputy fired at the man, striking him. The individual was pronounced deceased at the scene. No officers were injured in the incident. The identity of the man who was shot is being withheld at this time pending notification of relatives. The Tennessee Highway Patrol Critical Response Team provided assistance during this incident.
TBI agents are working to independently determine the set of events leading to the shooting, including collecting evidence and conducting interviews. Throughout the process, investigative findings will be shared with the district attorney general for his further review and consideration.
The TBI acts as facts-finders in its cases and does not determine whether the actions of an officer were justified in these types of matters. That decision rests with the district attorney general requesting TBI’s involvement.
The TBI does not identify the officers involved in these types of incidents, and instead refers questions of that nature to the respective department to answer as it sees fit.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate
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1956 riots in Iraq
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In 1956, riots took place in Iraq in support of Gamal Abdel Nasser during the Suez Crisis, and in opposition to political prisoners held by the regime of King Faisal II of Iraq. Communists and Nationalists took to the streets in Najaf, and soon after the protests spread to Mosul and Sulaymaniyah. In November, 2 demonstrators were killed and another wounded. In December, the riots spread to Hayy. The riots ended after they were dispersed by the police. [1]
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Riot
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China Southern Airlines Flight 3456 crash
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China Southern Airlines Flight 3456 (CZ3456/CSN3456) was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport to Shenzhen Huangtian Airport (now Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport). On May 8, 1997, the Boeing 737 performing this route crashed during the second attempt to land in a thunderstorm. [1]
The flight number 3456 is still used by China Southern and for the Chongqing-Shenzhen route but now with the Airbus A320 family or Boeing 737 Next Generation aircraft. [2]
The aircraft was a Boeing 737-31B registered as B-2925 and with serial number 27288. The aircraft was delivered to China Southern on February 2, 1994, and had recorded over 8,500 hours before the crash. The aircraft was powered by 2 CFM International CFM56-3C1 turbofan engines. [1][3][4][5]
The captain in command was 45-year-old Lin Yougui (Chinese: 林友贵), he had logged more than 12,700 hours of total flying time, including 9,100 hours as Radio Operator and 3,600 hours as a pilot. The first officer was 36-year-old Kong Dexin (孔德新), he had logged over 15,500 hours of total flying time, of which 11,200 hours as flight engineer and 4,300 hours as a pilot. [1]
The weather reported by Shenzhen Airport from 17:00 of 8 May to 02:00 of 9 May was: "170 degrees wind at 7 metres per second (14 kn; 25 km/h; 16 mph) with rain, visibility 6,000 metres (20,000 ft), overcast at 1,500 metres (4,900 ft), variable winds at 15 metres per second (29 kn; 54 km/h; 34 mph), thunderstorm may appear." At 18:00, on 8 May, a severe weather warning was issued: "report to airports, air traffic controls and airline companies: Thunderstorm with strong winds will appear, all departments including the crew who will be taking off should be notified." At 21:33, the weather recorded was 290 degrees wind at 7 metres per second (14 kn; 25 km/h; 16 mph), visibility 2,000 metres (6,600 ft), showers, low clouds at 210 metres (690 ft), cumulonimbus at 1,200 metres (3,900 ft), temperature at 23 °C (73 °F). [1]
On May 8, 1997, Flight 3456 took off from Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport at 19:45 local time (UTC+8), expected to arrive Shenzhen Huangtian Airport at 21:30. At 21:07, the Shenzhen Airport approach controller cleared the flight to the approach of Runway 33. At 21:17, the Tower informed the crew "heavy rain on final, advise when spotting the runway". At 21:18:07, the crew stated they have established ILS approach. At 21:18:53, the crew advised ATC that they spotted the approach lightings, and the controller cleared the aircraft to land. The controller was able to see the landing light of the plane, but it was not clear due to the rain. At 21:19:33, the aircraft touched down on the south of the runway, bounced three times, damaged the aircraft's nose gear, hydraulic systems and flaps. The crew decided to go around. [6]
The aircraft made a left turn while climbing up to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft). The crew were asked to turn on the transponder to show the ATC their position, but the secondary surveillance radar did not receive any signal from the aircraft, indicated the transponder was off. At 21:23:57, the crew informed the ATC they were on the downwind side, and requested other aircraft to clear off the airspace for Flight 3456's landing. At 21:23:40, the crew declared an emergency and requested to clear the approach again. At the time, the main warning, hydraulic system warning and the gear warning were all triggered in the cockpit. At 21:24:58, the crew asked for a full emergency airfield support. The aircraft then turned around, reported will land towards the south, which was approved. At 21:28:30, the aircraft skidded off the runway, broke into three pieces and caught on fire, killing 33 passengers and 2 crew members. [1][7]
The first landing attempt was toward north. Debris from the nose gear was found scattered near the southern end of the runway, indicating the left front tyre had exploded during the first touch down. Fallouts including rivets, metal sheets, rubber tube and retaining clip could also be found on the runway surface. The second landing attempt was toward south. A clear surface scratch from the fuselage was found 427 metres (1,401 ft) from the runway threshold. The aircraft disintegrated after rolling approximately 600 metres (2,000 ft) across the runway and burst into flames. The central part of the fuselage and the trailing edge of the right wing received the most severe burning damage. The front section of the fuselage was 12 metres (39 ft) long with nose pointing north, partially damaged, showing rolling and rotating trace but no signs of burning. A large amount of mire was filled in the deformed cockpit. The rear section was relatively intact, and was the only section not destroyed. [1]:5.2 The left main gear and the right engine were scattered on the left side of the runway. [1]:2
On May 9, 1997, News at 6:30, a national news show aired at TVB Jade, provided a casualty list for the accident. [8]
In June 2007, an audio recording reputed to be the last 12 min. 27 sec. recorded by the cockpit voice recorder of Flight 3456 was leaked on the Internet. According to an expert from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the recording is unlikely to be fake. [9]
(Auto pilot disengaged)
(GPWS warning: GLIDE SLOPE!) (1st ground contact)
(GPWS warning: TERRAIN! PULL UP!) (2nd ground contact)
(3rd ground contact)
(EFIS Master Warning: configuration damage)
(EFIS hydraulic system alarm)
(GPWS warning: WIND SHEAR!) (Landing gear warning)
(The CVR got 2 seconds of damaged recording)
(Flaps warning)
(GPWS warning: SINK RATE! PULL UP!) (Sound of impact)
(End of recording)
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Air crash
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