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2018 Pretoria Convair 340 crash
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On 10 July 2018, a Convair 340 owned by Dutch aviation museum Aviodrome crashed during a trial flight in Pretoria, South Africa. The aircraft suffered an engine fire moments after takeoff[3] and crashed into a factory building as the crew attempted to return it to Wonderboom Airport. [4]
The aircraft, a Convair 340 registered ZS-BRV, was originally delivered to the United States Air Force (USAF) in 1954 as a C-131D. [5] It was retired from USAF service in 1987 and was stored for five years before its conversion for civilian use and operation by several companies, eventually being acquired by Rovos Air (the aviation division of South African rail operator Rovos Rail), which began using the aircraft for luxury safari trips in South Africa in 2001. [5][6] The aircraft was retired in 2009 and sat unused until May 2018, when Rovos Air donated it to Dutch aviation museum Aviodrome. [7] The museum had the aircraft restored and painted in the colours of Martin's Air Charter, a Dutch air charter company that operated Convairs in the 1950s (still operating in 2018, as cargo airline Martinair); and plans were made to fly the aircraft to the Netherlands through eastern Africa and central Europe, departing on July 12. [7]
The aircraft was operating a test flight in preparation for its delivery flight. Shortly after takeoff, the aircraft's left engine began trailing brown smoke. [5] Footage taken from inside the aircraft shows the engine began to vibrate and fire trailed from its exhaust. [3] The pilots immediately initiated a return to Wonderboom Airport, but were unable to complete the manoeuvre and the aircraft crashed into a factory approximately 2 km (1.2 mi) from the airport at about 4:30 pm local time. [4] The flight engineer was killed in the crash. The pilot in command succumbed to his injuries about 18 months after the accident. [8]
The aircraft was carrying 16 passengers and had a crew of three: two pilots and a flight engineer. The two pilots were Australian; the captain was a retired Qantas A380 senior check captain. The co-pilot was a check-and-training captain for the airline's fleet of Airbus A380s. [9] Both men were members of Australia's Historical Aviation Restoration Society (HARS) and had previously flown another former Rovos Air Convair aircraft to HARS' home base at Illawarra Regional Airport south of Sydney in 2016; and each had over 30 years' flying experience in various aircraft types. [10] The flight engineer was South African and was killed in the accident. The pilot in command succumbed to his injuries about 18 months later. [4]
The Accident and Incident Investigations Department of the South African Civil Aviation Authority began an investigation, and pledged to have an initial report within 30 days of the crash. [9]
A preliminary report was released in August 2018. It said the pilots did not follow the prescribed checklist procedures when they discovered an engine had caught fire. Recovered video footage from the cockpit showed the captain was the pilot flying, while the first officer was doing the radio work. The footage also showed the licensed aircraft maintenance engineer (LAME) operating the engine controls. Further, “during taxi, takeoff and flight, until moments before the crash, one of the passengers was seen standing in the cockpit area behind the LAME. “The GoPro also shows that the pilots were not sure if they had retracted the landing gears, as they can be heard asking each other whether the gears are out or not. It also shows that though the pilots and LAME were informed of the left engine fire, they were asking each other which engine was on fire,” the preliminary report reads. The GoPro footage also showed that “at no stage did the pilots or the LAME discuss or attempt to extinguish the left engine fire, as the left engine fire extinguishing system was never activated”. The preliminary report noted the aircraft was certified for operation by two pilots and it was “not clear why the LAME was allowed to operate the engine controls during the operation of the aircraft” and noted “crew resource management in the cockpit was found lacking”. [11]
The South African Civil Aviation Authority released its final report on 28 August 2019. In the report it indicated that the probable cause of the accident was poor maintenance of the engines and multiple mistakes by unqualified pilots, such as continuing the flight after the left engine had caught fire. Early indications of the engine fault were misdiagnosed by maintenance personnel as an instrument reading erratically. [1]
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Air crash
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Austin Arts & Music festival latest event canceled due to COVID-19 while others resume
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by: Chelsea Moreno AUSTIN (KXAN) — Organizers of the Austin Arts and Music Festival announced Sunday that the event has been canceled due to COVID-19, though they promised ticketholders access to future events. The event’s planners, expecting to bring concerts, artists and a car show to Typhoon Texas Sept. 25-26, sent a press release saying they “are grieved and saddened” to cancel the weekend plans due to “heightened COVID restrictions.” It’s the latest of event cancelations in the Austin area due to the coronavirus. Most recently, Austin’s annual Pecan Street Festival, Bat Fest and Austin Pride were all canceled due to COVID-19 concerns in the community. The City of Austin also updated their permitting for special events on Aug. 30 with enhanced strategies to mitigate the spread of the virus. The event application process was going to require an enhanced version of the health and safety form to be completed. But while some have been canceled, other large events have been allowed to go on. The Austin Chronicle’s Hot Sauce Festival is happening Sunday from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Far Out Lounge and Stage in south Austin. The event is an annual fundraiser, benefitting the Central Texas Food Bank. Live performances, hot sauce makers and other vendors were expected to spread out across the venue. Guests were asked to wear a mask and to social distance. Capacity is also being limited. Also this weekend, thousands were expected to attend a two-day wine, food and music festival at the Long Center. The Long Center is not a city-run facility.
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Organization Closed
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Massive solar storm Within Next Decade May Crumble Internet Infrastructure: Study
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Solar storm consists of powerful eruptions of mass and energy from the sun. (Credits: Twitter via Bengali News18) The universe is the equilibrium between order and chaos. The life that exists in it is surrounded by phenomena and events that could disrupt the flow of survival to a great extent. A solar storm is one such phenomenon that poses a grave threat to the people living on earth. Solar storm consists of powerful eruptions of mass and energy from the sun. The eruptions appear from the burning ball of gas as flares, sunspots, and coronal mass ejection (CME). However, solar storm is a rare occurrence and can be considered as a black swan event. Such an event occurred in 1859 called the ‘Carrington Event,’ which led to a major disruption in electrical infrastructure and then again in 1921, which was comparatively a milder solar storm. But researchers believe that this black swan event can again occur in a decade. A study by Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, University of California, Irvine, suggests that a major solar storm can hit earth within the next decade, and the chances of it happening range from 1.6-12 percent. It indicates that the chances of a massive solar storm are likely, and it will severely affect the internet infrastructure under the sea, including power grids and gas pipelines, says Wired. With the ejection of highly magnetized particles from the sun towards the earth, the magnetic fields on earth can go highly erratic and induce powerful electric currents. These currents have the capability to destroy long-distance internet cables laid under the sea that acts as a backbone of the internet being used across the world. The storm could also affect the communication satellite leading to a catastrophic turn of events since the entire world today depends on the internet. According to the study, the least affected continent will be Asia, since it gets its internet from Singapore as the hub. It is estimated thatin a solar storm event, a day in the United States without the internet can cost up to $7 billion per day. Evidence of Solar-driven Change on Moon Discovered by Scientists: What it Means Why Do Astronauts Need to Wrap Up Manned Mars Mission in 4 Years? The world is still struggling with the black swan event of 2020, and now this study has left doors ajar for another black swan event. Do you think the world is ready for a massive solar storm?
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New wonders in nature
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Nigeria Airways Flight 825 crash
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On 20 November 1969, Nigeria Airways Flight 825,[1] a Vickers VC10 aircraft, crashed while on approach to Lagos International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria killing all 87 people on board. Nigeria Airways Flight 825 was en route from London to Lagos with intermediate stops in Rome and Kano. With its undercarriage down and its flaps partially extended, the VC-10 struck trees 13 kilometres (8.1 mi; 7.0 nmi) short of runway 19. The aircraft crashed into the ground, an area of thick forest and exploded. [2]
All 76 passengers and 11 crew on board were killed. Flight 825 was the first ever fatal crash involving the Vickers VC-10 as well as the deadliest accident or incident. [3][4]
Immediately after the crash three automatic weapons were found in the wreckage. To counter a rumour that a fight between a prisoner and two guards caused the crash, a ballistics expert
was consulted. It was learned none of the weapons had been recently fired. [5]
The cause of the crash could never be determined with certainty, the flight recorder was not working at the time of the crash,[6] but that it was most probably due to the flight crew being unaware of the aircraft's actual altitude during the final approach and allowing the aircraft to come below safe height when not in visual contact with the ground. [4] Fatigue may have also been a contributing factor. [7]
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Air crash
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Man Nabbed For Orange County Bank Robbery, Carjacking
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A man has been arrested for allegedly robbing an Orange County bank after a pursuit with state police. Dutchess County resident Leonard Dolson, age 45, of Beekman, was arrested around 9:42 p.m., on Friday, March 19, after state police in Orange County assisted the Village of Goshen Police Department with a bank robbery on Main Street in the village of Goshen, said Trooper Steven Nevel. Following the robbery, state police were provided with a description of the suspect and the vehicle used. Troopers learned that the suspect vehicle, a Honda Civic, was stolen via a carjacking from the city of Newburgh at approximately 3:30 p.m. the same day, Nevel said. At around 9:42 p.m. troopers located the vehicle at Long Mountain Circle. Troopers attempted to stop the vehicle, but Dolson refused to stop, Nevel added. The vehicle continued south in the northbound lanes on the Palisades Interstate Parkway. Northbound traffic was stopped with the assistance of multiple Rockland County police agencies. The vehicle eventually cut across the median and continued south in the southbound lanes exiting at exit 14 onto Willow Grove Road, where it stopped in the middle of the road and Dolson fled on foot down an embankment and into a ravine, Nevel said. A trooper along with two Stony Point police officers caught Dolson as he was running through a stream. During the foot pursuit, the trooper saw Dolson dump money in the woods, Nevel said. The money was secured and turned over to the Village of Goshen Police Department. During the pursuit, two troopers were injured and were taken to Nyack Hospital where they were treated and released. Dolson was extradited by the scene from the bottom of the ravine and transported to Nyack Hospital where he was charged by the state police and then handed over to Village of Goshen Police. Dolson was charged with criminal possession of stolen property and reckless endangerment. He was later additionally charged with DWI, reckless driving, and fleeing a police officer.
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Bank Robbery
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UAE ramps up space ambitions with Arab world’s first Moon mission
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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has announced plans to send a compact rover named Rashid to study the Moon in 2024, marking an intensification in the small nation’s spacefaring ambitions. If Rashid is successful, the UAE could become only the fourth country to operate a craft on the Moon’s surface, and the first in the Arab world. The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in Dubai says its in-house teams will develop, build and operate the 10-kilogram rover, which is named after the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, who ruled Dubai at the UAE’s creation in 1971. The team will hire an as-yet unannounced space agency or commercial partner to carry out the launch and landing, the riskiest part of the mission. If successful, Rashid would be one of several rovers made by private firms and space agencies that are set to populate the Moon by 2024. For a country with just 14 years’ experience in any kind of space exploration — and which this year launched its first interplanetary orbiter on a journey to Mars — building a rover presents a host of fresh challenges. The relatively simple rover will have six scientific instruments, including four cameras. “They’re not biting off more than they can chew at this stage,” says Hannah Sargeant, a planetary scientist at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK. “I think they’re actually being quite smart about it.” Rashid will have just one-tenth of the mass of China’s Chang’e-4, the only currently active lunar rover. The UAE craft will include an experiment to study the thermal properties of the Moon’s surface, providing insights into the composition of the lunar landscape. Another experiment will study the make-up and particle size of lunar dust in microscopic detail, says Hamad Al Marzooqi, project manager for the lunar mission at the MBRSC. Rashid’s most exciting instrument is a Langmuir probe, says Sargeant. A first on the Moon, this will study the plasma of charged particles that hovers at the lunar surface, caused by the streaming solar wind. This environment electrically charges dust in a process that is little understood, she says. Surface-based experiments to understand the charged environment are essential, because the conditions make lunar dust stick to surfaces, which could be dangerous for future crewed missions, she adds. “It’s really sharp, tiny grains that get everywhere, that stick everywhere and can be hazardous to astronauts if they inhale a lot.” Rashid will land at an unexplored location at a latitude between 45 degrees North or South of the equator on the Moon’s near side. This allows for easier communication with Earth than would be the case for a far-side probe, and should also mean a landing that is less rocky than one in the Moon’s polar regions. The precise location, however, has yet to be selected from a shortlist of five. The mission is scheduled to last at least one lunar day — around 14 Earth days — and Rashid could travel anywhere from a few hundred metres to several kilometres. The team is hoping the craft will also last through the equally long lunar night, when the temperature drops to around −173 °C. Previous rovers often carried a heat source. But overnight survival will mean developing new technology for a diminutive rover, says Adnan Al Rais, programme manager for the UAE’s long-term initiative to settle humans on the red planet, known as Mars 2117, which also encompasses lunar exploration. He declined to reveal the Rashid mission’s budget, but said that all scientific data would be openly available to the international community. The Emirates Lunar Mission is the first of a series of missions that are intended as a platform for developing technologies, says Al Rais. The technologies will eventually support missions to the Martian surface, and address food, energy and water-security challenges back home, where natural resources can be similarly scarce. “It’s challenging, but as you know we love challenges here in the UAE,” says Sara Al Maeeni, an engineer on the Rashid’s communication system. Rashid’s low weight also means it can fly on a commercial lander, which could reduce the mission’s overall cost. Being small and light means “it’s faster in development and easier to find a lift to the lunar surface”, says Al Marzooqi. This will allow the UAE to send frequent missions to the lunar surface, with a variety of locations and scientific objectives, he adds. The UAE Space Agency is just 6 years old. The country’s satellite programme is only 14 years old, and the nation awarded its first PhD in any field just 10 years ago. It rapidly became a spacefaring nation through a policy of hiring international academic and industry partners to help build and design missions, while training home-grown engineers. Although the country now has expertise in satellites, orbiters and remote-sensing instruments, a robotic mission will require new skills — in building the rover’s mechanical structure, and its heating and communication systems. Particularly challenging will be sending signals across the 384,000 kilometres to Earth with only the limited power and antenna length of a lightweight rover, says Al Maeeni. The rover team at the MRBSC has been working on the project for around two years, and is designing Rashid based on previous successful probes. They also plan to model and hone a series of rapid prototypes, says Al Marzooqi. Unlike the country’s Hope Mars mission, which was largely built in the United States by both US and Emirati engineers, Al Marzooqi stresses that the entire lunar rover will be developed in the UAE. However, it will still involve international partnerships, he says. That Rashid will get to the Moon is not a given. So far, only Chinese, Soviet and US space agencies have landed spacecraft safely on the Moon, and no private company has yet succeeded. More than 20 landers have crashed; India’s 2019 Chandrayaan-2 mission was the most recent to do so. And although the mission’s 2024 date coincides with Artemis — an international NASA-led return of humans to the Moon — the Emirates Lunar Mission will go ahead even if Artemis stalls, adds Al Rais. “Our plans are totally independent.” The next few years could see a flurry of rovers and landers as a precursor to the Artemis project. NASA plans to pay companies to fly scientific and technical experiments to the Moon beginning in 2021, while the European Space Agency, China, India, Israel, Japan and Russia are among the nations planning to send landers or rovers in the next five years. “Everyone is rushing to go to the Moon, and we want to be a key contributor to these international efforts,” says Al Marzooqi.
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New achievements in aerospace
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1 hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning in DC
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A person in D.C. has been hospitalized Tuesday with carbon monoxide poisoning after an incident involving a power washer.
DC Fire and EMS said someone was using a gasoline-run power washer in an unventilated basement.
Carbon monoxide built up in the basement, seriously injuring the person, officials said.
The incident occurred in a building with other businesses inside on New Hampshire Avenue Northwest. The building was evacuated, but nobody else was injured.
The carbon monoxide level in the building is now back to normal.
Thomas Robertson
Thomas Robertson is an Associate Producer and Web Writer/Editor at WTOP. After graduating in 2019 from James Madison University, Thomas moved away from Virginia for the first time in his life to cover the local government beat for a small daily newspaper in Zanesville, Ohio.
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Mass Poisoning
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FBI Nashville investigating bank robbery in Spring Hill, reward offered
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SPRING HILL, Tenn. (WZTV) — Officials with FBI Nashville are investigating a bank robbery that happened in Spring Hill on Friday afternoon. According to the Spring Hill Police Department, the suspect walked into First Citizens National Bank on Wall Street around 12:05 p.m. and demanded money from the teller at gunpoint. Police said the suspect left the bank with an undisclosed amount of cash. Witnesses told police the bank robbery suspect is described as a male approximately 5'8" and 140 pounds. (Photo: Spring Hill Police Department) No one was injured during the heist. Witnesses told police the suspect is described as a male approximately 5'8" and 140 pounds. He was carrying a bright pink bag. He also had a wrist tattoo. There is no reported vehicle description. The bank is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Investigators with FBI Nashville will be taking over the case.
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Bank Robbery
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o
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BEIRUT Nearly a week of fighting between Kurds and Arab rebels in northern Syria risks opening a new front in the already bloody battle for control of the country, underscoring the complexity of a conflict that threatens to ignite sectarian and ethnic tensions across the region.
Efforts were underway Wednesday between the leadership of the rebel Free Syrian Army and Kurdish representatives in Turkey to negotiate an end to the clashes, in which scores of hostages have been seized and more than 40 fighters on both sides killed.
But the eruption of violence exposed little-noticed frictions that have been building between the mostly Arab Syrian opposition forces seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian Kurds, who increasingly see the revolt as an opportunity to extend their long-standing aspirations for the autonomy and perhaps independence of Kurdish areas across the region.
“This is setting the stage for a conflict that is going to come,” said Joost Hiltermann, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the International Crisis Group. And unless Syria’s already divided opposition takes steps to address Kurdish aspirations in a meaningful way, chances are high that a wider Arab-Kurdish war could follow any regime change in Damascus, he said.
The clashes have been small compared with the unchecked battles engulfing the country between the rebels and Assad loyalists. The opposition Local Coordination Committees said at least 104 people were killed Wednesday, many in airstrikes the government is increasingly relying on to try to crush the revolt. A bomb killed seven near the Sayeda Zeinab shrine, an important Shiite religious site on the edge of Damascus. Iraqi Shiites have warnedthat damage to the shrine could draw them deeper into the battle for Syria. The Kurdish-Arab fighting only adds a new dimension to a conflict that risks embroiling Syria’s neighbors, including Turkey, which has expressed growing alarm at the assertiveness of Syria’s Kurds since Assad’s army withdrew from northeastern Syria in August, effectively giving Kurds control over the area.
The fighting first flared Friday after what appears to have been a misunderstanding between the Free Syrian Army units battling to drive government forces out of the northern city of Aleppo and the main Syrian Kurdish militia, which has steadily been asserting its control over Kurdish areas across the north.
Free Syrian Army rebels had entered the Kurdish neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh the previous day under what they said at the time was an agreement with the military wing of the Kurdish movement PYD, or Democratic Union Party, which is allied with Kurdish militants across the border in Turkey.
On Friday, Kurds staged demonstrations against the rebels, fearing that their presence would invite retaliation from the government in the form of airstrikes and artillery barrages. The two sides give conflicting accounts of exactly how the fighting flared, but a video posted online by a Kurdish news channel makes clear that shots were fired at the demonstrators, prompting retaliation by the PYD that ended only after 30 rebels and 15 Kurdish fighters were killed and the rebels were ejected from the neighborhood.
Two days later, the hostilities spilled into the northern area of Aleppo province from which government forces were driven out by rebels months ago. An exchange of the hundreds of hostages seized by both sides in the Aleppo clashes soured after one of the Kurds was returned dead, bearing marks of torture inflicted by the rebels. Opposition fighters in the border town of Azaz fired shells at the nearby Kurdish village of Qastal Jendo. Early Wednesday, PYD fighters ambushed rebel fighters near the rebel-controlled Turkish border crossing of Bab al-Salameh, killing one and injuring two.
Compounding the complexity of the fight, however, are splits within both sides, which raise questions about whether the violence can be contained.
Col. Malik al-Kurdi, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army in Turkey, called the attacks on Kurds a “mistake” and said the units involved, which he refused to name, do not fall under the control of the mainstream rebel leadership.
Kurds say that fighters from the extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra, suspected of adherence to the ideologies espoused by al-Qaeda, started the shooting in the city of Aleppo and that another rebel unit that does not fall under the Free Syrian Army’s command, the Northern Storm Brigade, launched the attacks on the Kurdish village from the rebel-controlled town of Azaz.
Abu Louay al-Haleb, a spokesman for the rebels in Azaz, accused the Kurdish militia of seeking to exploit rebel gains in the north to press their independence demands. “It is obvious what is happening,” he said. “The Free Syrian Army is about to finish the battle of Aleppo and the PKK is trying to occupy the area to create their future country,” he said, referring to the militant Kurdish rebel group that has been waging war against Turkey for decades.
The Syrian Kurdish movement, however, has cast the attacks as a plot fomented by Turkey to crush Kurdish aspirations “and eliminate the relative freedom enjoyed by the Kurdish people in Western Kurdistan,” a reference to the northeastern areas of Syria that have recently fallen under Kurdish control.
But Kurdish allegiances are also sharply divided between the PYD and the more moderate Kurdish National Council, which has sought an accommodation with the Syrian opposition. Tensions now are building among Kurds over approaches to the Syria conflict, said Kawa Youssef of the Kurdish Youth Movement, a moderate group sympathetic to the Syrian opposition.
“This is turning into a very big problem,” he said, warning of the risk that Kurds may also fight among themselves.
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Armed Conflict
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China plans to send its first crewed mission to Mars in 2033 and build a base there
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China plans to send its first crewed mission to Mars in 2033 as it continues to boost its space ambitions in a battle with the U.S. The world’s second-largest economy is planning regular crewed missions to the Red Planet. Wang Xiaojun, head of the state-owned China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, outlined the country’s Mars plans for the first time this month at a space conference in Russia, according to the academy. It comes just weeks after China landed a remote-controlled rover called Zhurong on Mars, making it the only country after the U.S. to do so. Wang said the first step in China’s plans is to use robots to explore Mars to sample its surface and help select a place to build a base. The next stage would be to send astronauts up to Mars to build a base station there. Then China wants large-scale Earth-to-Mars cargo missions. China has earmarked 2033, 2035, 2037, 2041 and 2043 for such missions and said it will explore technology to fly astronauts back to Earth. A roundtrip to Mars would have a flight time of “hundreds of days,” the academy said. The revelation of China’s Mars goals come after a string of successful space missions. China has begun construction of its own space station and earlier this month sent the first astronauts up there. It was the first time China sent a crewed mission to space since 2016. Earlier this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke to the astronauts, congratulating them and highlighting how the country’s space ambitions are supported from the top. Space is an area China wants to lead as part of a broader technology battle with the U.S.
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New achievements in aerospace
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2018 Japan floods
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In late June through mid-July 2018, successive heavy downpours in southwestern Japan resulted in widespread, devastating floods and mudflows. The event is officially referred to as Heisei san-jū-nen shichi-gatsu gōu (平成30年7月豪雨, "Heavy rain of July, Heisei 30") by the Japan Meteorological Agency. [1] As of 20 July, 225 people were confirmed dead across 15 prefectures with a further 13 people reported missing. [2] More than 8 million people were advised or urged to evacuate across 23 prefectures. [3] It is the deadliest freshwater flood-related disaster in the country since the 1982 Nagasaki flood when 299 people died. [4]
Approximately 54,000 members of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, police and firefighters searched for the people trapped or injured in landslides and flooding triggered by the heavy rain, while the Japanese government set up a liaison unit at the crisis management center of the prime minister's office to gather information. [5]
On 28 June 2018, a seasonal Meiyu front extending west from a non-tropical low near Hokkaido became stationary over Japan. Multiple rounds of heavy rain occurred in the subsequent days, primarily in northern Kyushu. [6] On 3 July Typhoon Prapiroon brought heavy rains and winds to southwestern Japan. [7] The surge of moisture brought north by the typhoon interacted with and enhanced precipitation along the front in Kyushu, Shikoku, and western and central Honshu. [6] Enhanced rainfall extended as far west as Okinawa Prefecture. [8] Large swathes of these areas saw 10-day rainfall accumulations in excess of 400 mm (16 in). [6] Deadly floods began on 5 July, primarily in Kansai region which was struck by a deadly earthquake three weeks prior. [9] Accumulations peaked at 1,852.5 mm (72.93 in) in Shikoku. [6]
Multiple areas saw their greatest one-hour and three-day rainfall totals on record. [7] Some areas were hit by more than 1,000 mm (39 in) of rain, prompting the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) to issue emergency heavy rain warnings[note 1] for eight prefectures: Okayama, Hiroshima, Tottori, Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Hyogo, and Kyoto. [10][11] This marked the largest issuance of these warnings since their implementation. An official at the JMA described the event as "heavy rain at a level we've never experienced". [10]
The torrential rain caused landslides and flash flooding, with water levels reaching 5 m (16 ft) in the worst hit areas. [11] Motoyama, Kōchi, saw 584 mm (23.0 in) of rain between 6 and 7 July. [12] One town in Kōchi measured 263 mm (10.4 in) of rain in two hours. [13] Mount Ontake observed its greatest three-day rainfall on record at 655.5 mm (25.81 in). [7] Although the Yura River remained within its banks in northern Kyoto Prefecture, an embankment built after Typhoon Tokage in 2004 prevented runoff from flowing into the river. This inadvertently led to flooding in Maizuru after the flood gate was closed. [14]
As the rain lessened on July 9, high temperatures reaching 30 °C (86 °F), coupled with some 11,200 households without electricity, raised concerns over heatstroke and unsafe drinking water. [15]
Hiroshima prefecture alone had 1,243 mudslides in 2018, which is more than the entire nation's total in an average year. Ehime had 419 in 2018, results were not broken down by month, but its inferred that most of these were during this major event. [16]
Throughout the affected areas at least 225 people died in various flood-related incidents,[2] primarily due to mudslides, landslides and vehicles being swept away by the flood waters. [18] Many of the dead had ignored evacuation orders, and chose to stay in their homes despite repeated warnings. [19] Police received numerous reports across the country of people trapped in homes buried by landslides, of people being swept away by swollen rivers, and from people trapped in cars. At least ten people were buried inside their homes in Higashihiroshima; rescuers were able to confirm seven survived but remained trapped as of 7 July. [20]
By 7 July no bullet trains were running west of Shin-Osaka Station and the West Japan Railway Company officials were uncertain when the trains would be running again. [21] The widespread cancellation of trains stranded numerous travelers; some bullet trains were utilized as temporary hotels. [20] Some automakers (Mitsubishi Motors & Mazda Motor) halted production as the rain and flooding disrupted the companies' supply chains and risked the safety of workers. [19] Other companies such as Daihatsu and Panasonic suspended operations at plants until debris was cleared and the water receded from the factories. [15] The Asahi Aluminium Industrial Company plant in Okayama exploded on July 6, after workers had evacuated during the flooding. [22]
Delivery companies Sagawa Express Co. and Yamato Transport Co, with cargo service Japan Freight Railway Co. reported that some of their shipments into and out of the affected areas have been either reduced or suspended. Regional supermarkets have also been affected, with outlets closed or hosting shortened service hours due to delivery delays and/or product shortages. [23]
Japan sustained tremendous damage; losses reached an estimated ¥1.09 trillion (US$9.86 billion). Damage to agriculture, forestry, and fishery industries reached ¥629 billion (US$5.69 billion). Losses to public infrastructure, including levees, railways, and roads, amounted to ¥465 billion (US$4.21 billion). [24]
Prime Minister Shinzō Abe released a statement ordering ministers to "make an all-out effort" to rescue victims. [11] Abe called for an emergency disaster meeting on 8 July, the first such meeting by the government since the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes. [25] Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, reported that the government had set up a task force which was coupled with 2 billion yen ($18 million) to hasten delivery of supplies and other support items for evacuation centers and residents in the region. [23]
Approximately 54,000 personnel from police departments, fire departments, the Self-Defense Forces, and the Coast Guard were deployed across affected areas to rescue stranded people. [25] Evacuations were ordered for 2.82 million and advised for a further 4.22 million people in 23 prefectures at the height of the storms. [26] Japanese soldiers patrolled the neighborhoods during the storms and at the end, knocking on doors and inquiring whether residents were safe or in need of aid. [22]
Helicopters and boats were utilized by rescuers to retrieve individuals trapped on rooftops and balconies. Social media have been employed to let authorities and family and friends know about the individuals' conditions. One woman from Kurashiki, Okayama tweeted "Water came to the middle of the second floor.
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Floods
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U.S. Embassy in Liberia
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This week, September 22-24, Deputy Chief of Mission Joel Maybury and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission Director Jim Wright toured various U.S. Government-funded development projects in Margibi, Bong, and Nimba Counties. During the trip, they met with local government officials, community leaders, beneficiaries of USAID-supported projects, and exchange program alumni.
Throughout the visit, the U.S. delegation highlighted the COVID-19 vaccination campaign and encouraged all leaders and institutions to emphasize the importance of vaccination to protect the population against COVID-19. Dr. Rachel Idowu, country director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), joined DCM Maybury and Director Wright at Phebe Hospital to deliver this message. Vaccinating people against COVID-19 is a top priority for the United States Government, which provided Liberia over 300,000 doses of the J&J vaccine via COVAX and in coordination with the Africa Union and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. Embassy delegation made its first stop in Margibi at the Kakata Rural Teacher Training Institute to observe a training of school principals and vice principals under the USAID-funded Read Liberia activity. This training is part of a phased transition of the improved early grade reading model from USAID support to full ownership by the Ministry of Education.
In Bong, DCM Maybury and his team visited various institutions that will benefit from the USAID-funded Ganta-Gbarnga Grid Extension project, including Cuttington University and Phebe Hospital. It will provide more than 2,000 households, local businesses, and various institutions in the Suakoko area access to reliable and affordable electric power.
The U.S. Embassy delegation also toured the Bong County Service Center in Gbarnga. As in all other counties, the center provides citizens with important government documents and services, such as marriage and birth certificates, business permits, and land deed registration. Before the establishment of the county service centers, people in all 15 counties had to travel to Monrovia for these documents and services.
In Nimba, DCM Maybury and Director Wright toured the Sanniquellie Water Treatment Facility, one of three urban water treatment plants rehabilitated and constructed with USAID support to provide more than 30,000 Liberians access to safe drinking water. The other two plants are in Robertsport, Grand Cape Mount County, and Voinjama, Lofa County. In addition to visiting the water treatment plant, they observed ongoing work to expand water distribution to Sanniquellie residents by connecting private homes and businesses to the main pipelines.
From Sanniquellie, the team traveled to Karnplay, also in Nimba, to visit local clinics benefiting from various USAID-funded activities, including the construction of a water tower and distribution network, a solar electrical system, and water, sanitation, and health (WASH) facilities.
DCM Maybury said he was inspired by the many conversations he had with local officials, community leaders, and other Liberians in Margibi, Nimba, and Bong. He remarked how important it is to “further strengthen the enduring partnership between the United States and Liberia and ensure local ownership and long-term sustainability” of U.S.-supported development activities in the three counties.
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Diplomatic Visit
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2011 Van earthquakes
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The 2011 Van earthquakes occurred in eastern Turkey near the city of Van. The first earthquake happened on 23 October at 13:41 local time. The shock had a Mww magnitude of 7.1 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). [5] It occurred at a shallow depth, causing heavy shaking across much of eastern Turkey and lighter tremors across neighboring parts of the South Caucasus and Levant. According to Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency on 30 October, the earthquake killed 604 and injured 4,152. At least 11,232 buildings sustained damage in the region, 6,017 of which were found to be uninhabitable. The uninhabitable homes left as much as 8,321 households with an average household population of around 7.6 homeless in the province; this could mean that at least around 60,000 people were left homeless. The other 5,215 have been damaged but are habitable. [7][8][9] A separate earthquake within the same earthquake system happened on 9 November at 21:23 local time (19:23 UTC). 40 people were killed and 260 people were injured in the 9 November earthquake. The magnitude 7.2 (Mww) Eastern Highlands earthquake occurred inland on 23 October 2011 at 13:41 local time (EEST), centered about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) north-northeast of Van, Turkey and at an estimated focal depth of 7.2 kilometres (4.5 mi). Its focal region and much of easternmost Turkey lie towards the southern boundary of the complex zone of continental collision between the Arabian Plate and the Eurasian Plate, beyond the eastern extent of the Armenian and Asia Minor fault zones. Part of the convergence between these two plates takes place along the Bitlis-Zagros fold and thrust belt. [10] The earthquakes's focal mechanism indicates oblique thrust faulting, consistent with the expected tectonics in the region of the Bitlis-Zagros Fault Zone, where thrust mechanisms dominate. [11][12]
The size of the rupture has been estimated as 60 km x 20 km, consistent with the observed distribution of aftershocks, on a WSW-ENE orientated fault plane with a dip of about 35°. An offset of about 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) has been estimated at 10–15 kilometres (9.3 mi) depth but there is no visible rupture of the ground surface. The rupture lasted for about 50 seconds. [13]
Due to its great intensity and shallow depth, the earthquake produced significant ground motions across a large area. Violent shaking measuring MM VIII on the Mercalli scale occurred in Van, although widespread strong to severe (MM VI–VIII) shaking was observed in many smaller and less populated areas around the epicenter. [5] Lighter but well-felt ground motions (MM V–III) spread much farther across the region, extending into surrounding countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel and Syria. [5][14][15]
There have been 1,561 aftershocks above magnitude 2.0 as of 30 October. The highest magnitude aftershock came at 11:45 pm Local on 23 October, with a MI 5.7 and Mw 6.0. The number of aftershocks reported in ranges as follows:[7]
556 ranging from magnitude 2 to 3;
832 ranging from magnitude 3 to 4;
108 ranging from magnitude 4 to 5; and
7 ranging from magnitude 5 to 6. In the first five months there were 9,367 aftershocks with magnitudes in the range 1.5 to 5.8. [16]
The earthquakes affected much of eastern Turkey, demolishing hundreds of buildings and burying numerous victims under the rubble. Erciş, a town near Van, was hardest hit by the violent shaking; at least 55 destroyed buildings, 45 fatalities, and 156 injuries occurred in the town alone. [17] Most of the buildings collapsed along the town's main road and were residential, raising the possibility of a higher death toll. In smaller villages near the epicenter, the shaking demolished almost all the brick houses. [18]
In Van city center, at least 100 people were confirmed dead, and 970 buildings collapsed in and around the city. [19] About 200 inmates escaped after the walls of a prison succumbed to the shaking, although 50 were quickly recaptured. [18] The Van Ferit Melen Airport was damaged, but contradictory reports were given: According to NTV, airplanes were diverted to the neighboring cities, while according to the Anatolia News Agency, the earthquake did not disrupt the air traffic. [20][21] The natural gas, water, power, and communication systems in Van were all reported affected and in function again within 24 hours after the earthquake. [12]
Twenty-four hours following the main shock the death toll stood at 264 but estimates were ranged up to a thousand. [22] As of 25 October, rescue and aid efforts are still ongoing, as many as 40,000 people are believed to be homeless due to the considerable number of collapsed or damaged buildings. Multiple news reports on 27 October suggest up to 2300 are injured with many still caught under rubble but this figure increased to over 4100 by 30 October. [8][23] Latest figures suggest that casualties exceeds 604 and an estimated 2200 buildings are damaged or destroyed in the affected areas. [7][8] The death toll was caused primarily from building collapse in urban areas. [12]
As of 23 October, The Turkish government had responded the disaster with 1,275 personnel, 174 vehicles, 290 health officials, 43 ambulances, and 6 air ambulances. Local people also joined the rescue action, some using their bare hands. [24] Survivors and opposition politicians have criticized the crisis management of the government. [25]
On 27 October Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency announced that 13 million TL (around $7 million US) has been sent so far in terms of emergency relief efforts. Another 8.6 million TL (just under $5 million US) has been donated via charity so far. There are now a total of 3,826 search and rescue officers, 904 medical personnel, 18 search dogs, 651 construction equipment and vehicles, including 146 ambulances, 7 rescue choppers (air ambulances), 46 generators, 77 projectors, 95 portable toilets, 37 mobile kitchens, 3,051 kitchen sets, 6,359 catalytic stoves and a mobile oven in the disaster area. 25,185 tents sent by Turkish Red Crescent Society were distributed. 10 collective shelter tents, 60 prefabricated houses, 90 Mevlana Transitional Houses(translation needed) houses have also been erected. 109,986 blankets, 1,150 quilts and 5,109 sleeping bags have also been distributed. 3 meals a day are being provided with distribution of hot meals food etc. Also 30 field tents have been set up for public services and psychosocial trauma support. [26]
As of 27 October, in some sites, rescue work had been stopped where attention was turning to the needs of the survivors,[27] however, there were still survivors found and saved from the rubble on the same day and thereafter. [28][29] The government had announced that tents will be delivered to those whose homes were deemed unsafe rather than whoever lined up asking for one.
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Earthquakes
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The Indonesian government and rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (Gam) have signed a peace deal aimed at ending their nearly 30-year conflict
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The Indonesian government and rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (Gam) have signed a peace deal aimed at ending their nearly 30-year conflict. Representatives from each side signed the official document in Helsinki.
"This is the beginning of a new era for Aceh," said former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who mediated the talks. "Much hard work lies ahead."
Efforts to end the conflict resumed after the tsunami in December, which destroyed vast swathes of Aceh.
In the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, big screens were set up in the main mosque so that people could witness the signing.
Locals have also begun two days of prayers in support of the peace process, in the hope that this time it really does signal the start of a new chapter for their beleaguered province. "I can't predict what will happen now," said local school teacher Nassruddin. "I only know we want to see an end to the fighting, we want prosperity, and to feel safe," he told the Associated Press.
15,000 people have died in more than 29 years of conflict between the government and the rebels in Aceh.
After the two sides had signed the peace deal on Monday, Mr Ahtisaari said: "We are witnessing here today the culmination of a peace process, which led to a memorandum of understanding between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement."
"We are here to try to make history," said Indonesian Justice and Human Rights Minister Hamid Awaluddin, at the signing ceremony. "Let's not make the bitterness of the past destroy our future."
In Aceh, people prayed that this time the peace would last
Malik Mahmud, the head of the Gam delegation, also spoke of a more peaceful Aceh.
"This peace process has required a leap of faith from Gam," he said. "It is a leap of faith we have taken to give the people of Aceh the opportunity to build a brighter future."
But he added: "It would be naive not to recognise there are many challenges. We know the real hard work remains ahead of us."
Under the agreement, whose details were only released on Monday, the rebels have put to one side their demand for full independence, accepting instead a form of local self-government and the right eventually to establish a political party. In turn, the Indonesian government has agreed to release political prisoners and offer farmland to former combatants to help them reintegrate into civilian life.
Gam rebels have been fighting for an independent state
A human rights court will be established, as will a truth and reconciliation commission.
Non-local Indonesian troops and police will leave Aceh, and Gam revels will disarm, in a process which will be overseen by a joint European Union and Asean monitoring team. During his speech to mark the signing, Malik Mahmud said that pro-government militias in Aceh must also be disarmed.
"It is difficult to believe police will take arms from them," he said, adding that the international monitoring team will need to ensure this requirement is enforced.
Gam estimates there are 10,000 such militia troops active in Aceh.
The BBC's Jakarta correspondent, Rachel Harvey, says that while the signing of the deal is undoubtedly a step forward, the first real test is likely to come in one month's time, when rebels are supposed to start handing in their weapons.
Previous peace deals have fallen apart and on the ground there is still deep mistrust between the two sides. But there does now seem to be a real political will to make this agreement work, our correspondent says.
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Sign Agreement
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COVID-19 tracker: New cases in Tokyo drop to lowest for a month
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Aug 30, 2021 The daily number of new coronavirus infections in Tokyo came to 1,915 on Monday, the lowest figure since 1,429 new cases on July 26, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Meanwhile, a total of 12 new fatalities were reported among infected people in the Japanese capital on the day. The dead were in their 30s to 90s. Tokyo’s daily infection total fell by 532 from a week earlier, down for the eighth consecutive day. The seven-day average of daily infections stood at 3,708, down 20.4% from the previous week. The number of severely ill COVID-19 patients under the metropolitan government’s criteria fell by nine from the previous day to 287. Of the people found positive for the coronavirus in Tokyo on Monday, 545 were in their 20s, 369 in their 30s and 318 in their 40s. Those aged 65 or over accounted for 97. Across Japan, a total of 13,638 people were newly confirmed with the coronavirus on the day. The nationwide figure stood below 15,000 for the first time in two weeks. Kanagawa Prefecture confirmed 1,719 cases and Osaka Prefecture saw 1,605 cases, while Aichi Prefecture reported 1,509 cases. Saitama Prefecture marked 1,106 cases and Chiba Prefecture recorded 1,030 cases. The country’s death toll from the coronavirus climbed by 46. According to the health ministry, the nationwide number of severely ill COVID-19 patients rose by five to 2,075, rewriting its record high for the 18th straight day. The cumulative number of novel coronavirus infection cases in Japan, including among cruise ship passengers and crew members, rose 153,953 from a week before to stand at 1,460,046 as of 10 a.m. Monday. The rise was slightly smaller than the preceding week’s 157,498, with the pace of increase falling for the first time in 10 weeks. Saitama Prefecture followed Tokyo, Osaka and Kanagawa prefectures to see its cumulative number of coronavirus cases surpass 100,000. Japan confirmed 19,314 new coronavirus infection cases Sunday, falling below 20,000 for the first time in six days. On Sunday, 50 fatal cases were reported across the country. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.
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Disease Outbreaks
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Philippine authorities evacuated dozens of peoplefrom areas near Taal volcano
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MANILA (BLOOMBERG) - Philippine authorities evacuated dozens of people from areas near Taal volcano, a tourist attraction 65km south of the capital, after it recorded increased seismic activities. About 60 residents of Taal island were moved to safer ground, the Philippine Coast Guard said on Twitter. Authorities are targeting to evacuate about 200 people from two towns, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported. Taal recorded 98 tremor episodes lasting five to 12 minutes in the past 24 hours, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said in a Feb 16 report. The area is placed under the lowest alert level where sudden steam-driven explosions, volcanic earthquakes and minor ash fall can occur. One of the Philippines' most active and dangerous volcanoes, Taal erupted in early 2020, killing dozens of people and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to safety.
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Volcano Eruption
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Driver of prison transport vehicle charged in fatal crash in central North Dakota
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The driver went through a controlled intersection "disregarding cross traffic on a high-speed road which caused a crash to occur," court documents said. 3:54 pm, Sep. 24, 2021 × . MCCLUSKY, N.D. — The driver of a prison transport vehicle that was involved in a fatal crash in Sheridan County on Aug. 4 has been charged with reckless endangerment. Geraldine M. Miller, 58, of Towner, North Dakota, has been summoned to appear in Sheridan County District Court on the Class A misdemeanor charge on Nov. 3. Court records did not list an attorney for her. The crash occurred at a rural intersection west of Goodrich, North Dakota. It was a collision between a van carrying two people and a Pierce County prison transport SUV driven by Miller that carried a federal inmate and one other guard besides Miller. The vehicle Miller was driving was northbound on North Dakota Highway 14 when it failed to stop at a stop sign and collided with a van that was westbound on North Dakota Highway 200, according to a North Dakota Highway Patrol report filed in court. A passenger in the van, Philemena Evenson, 81, of Tacoma, Washington, was ejected from the vehicle and died as a result of her injuries, the patrol report said. Miller drove through a controlled intersection "disregarding cross traffic on a high-speed road which caused a crash to occur," court documents said. The van was headed west to Turtle Lake, while the prison transport SUV was driving from Bismarck to Rugby, the patrol said.
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Road Crash
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Warrant: Lead defense attorney in former nurse murder case charged with soliciting prostitute during trial
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TYLER, Texas (KETK) – The lead defense attorney for William Davis, the former CHRISTUS nurse who was sentenced to death for killing several patients, was allegedly caught trying to solicit a prostitute during the month-long trial. Former CHRISTUS nurse convicted of murder moved to death row unit in Livingston According to judicial records, Phillip Hayes was arrested Friday, Nov. 5, and released after posting a $2,000 bond. However, an arrest warrant obtained by KETK News reveals that an undercover deputy for the Smith County’s Sheriff’s Office posing as a prostitute made contact with Hayes in a text message. The warrant says that the sheriff’s office “posted advertisements on a website commonly used for human trafficking and prostitution.” Hayes began to text the undercover officer on Oct. 5 between 3:13 p.m. and 5:59 p.m. This would have been the sixth day of testimony for the prosecution . Detectives identified Hayes by searching his telephone number through law enforcement databases. It also revealed that he drove a 2020 black Land Rover Defender. William Davis sentenced to death for killing patients at Tyler hospital The warrant alleges that Hayes texted the officer to meet at a predetermined location at 6 p.m. and agreed to pay $110. The warrant did not specify where he asked to meet. Deputies took Hayes into custody and took him away for an interview. The department decided that since Hayes was in the middle of the trial, an arrest warrant would be issued at a later date. Davis was convicted of capital murder by a Smith County jury on Oct. 19 and he was sentenced to death on Oct. 27. A call to Smith County District Attorney Jacob Putman’s office for comment has not been returned as of this writing.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release
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Actress demands R13 million house from world-renowned SA DJ in divorce lawsuit
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Pretoria - A house of at least R13 million, R1.5m for furniture, R80 000 a month maintenance for their two children and R50 000 a month for herself for the next five years.
These are some of the demands made by a well-known actress in the divorce proceedings against her world-famous DJ husband.
While the DJ’s name is known to the Pretoria News, a Johannesburg judge who issued a judgment following the couple’s legal wranglings, only referred to the case as M vs M.
This is because the Divorce Act precludes divorcing couples embroiled in legal proceedings, of being identified.
The wife told the Johannesburg High Court that apart from the other run-of-the-mill expenses her husband must foot, she also wanted another car – of the same standard as the one she has now – on the fifth anniversary of their divorce.
But their divorce has been stalling for some time, as the couple cannot see eye to eye on some of the issues.
The wife instituted divorce proceedings in 2019. The estranged couple agree that their marriage has broken down, but cannot agree on the financial aspects of the split.
Apart from her other demands, the wife also wants the husband to pay her medical, dental, hospital surgical, ophthalmic, orthodontic and prescribed pharmaceutical expenses, for five years from the date of divorce.
While the husband accepted liability for maintaining the children and some other expenses, he is, among others, objecting to the amount she is claiming for the children as well as the maintenance she is demanding for herself for the next five years.
The wife said in court papers her husband was an extremely wealthy individual, earning up to R100 million per annum. This is not disputed by the husband, who also admits that the children should reside with his wife, as he “travels the world to pursue his profession as a world-class disc jockey”.
It is said the husband is considered the second richest musician in Africa.
The parties entered into a customary marriage in community of property in May 2011. In January 2017, they entered into a civil marriage.
Before entering into the civil marriage, they concluded an antenuptial contract in which they, among others, agreed that upon dissolution of the marriage, the husband would pay to the wife an agreed amount of R4m in complete discharge of all his patrimonial obligations to the respondent, including spousal maintenance. The wife, who is disputing the legality of the antenuptial, told the court she wanted to appoint a forensic auditor to undertake a forensic investigation of the respondent’s offshore and local assets.
She also wanted a comprehensive investigation to determine the value of the “joint estate” that, according to her, still exists between the parties and in which she is entitled to share.
She is also disputing the validity of the civil marriage.
Judge PA Meyer said the issues could not be determined at this stage, as the wife must first be given the opportunity to investigate her husband’s financial affairs through a forensic accountant, if she wanted to.
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Famous Person - Divorce
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NSW crash kills woman and two children
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Police are investigating a vehicle crash on NSW Central Coast that killed a woman and two children. A woman and two children have been killed and three other children injured after a four wheel drive plunged down an embankment on the NSW Central Coast. The Toyota Prado was being driven by a woman with five children on board late on Tuesday night when it left Wisemans Ferry Rd at Central Mangrove and rolled down an embankment, hitting a tree. A driver who was travelling on Wisemans Ferry Road shortly after the crash alerted emergency services. Police say they are investigating if the 37-year-old man may have hit one of the children who was on the road and he was taken to hospital for mandatory testing. The 32-year-old driver of the Prado and two children - a six-year-old girl and ten-year-old boy - died at the scene. A further three children - boys aged one, five, and nine - were treated at the scene before being airlifted to John Hunter Hospital where they remain in stable conditions. Inquiries are continuing the circumstances surrounding the crash and a report will be prepared for the coroner.
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Road Crash
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Disappearing West Beach sand could be replaced with coarser import, expert says
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Replenishing West Beach with coarser sand quarried from onshore will help stop it drifting north, an expert says, as the SA Government prepares to return 100,000 cubic metres to overcome erosion and sand drift.
The West Beach and Henley Beach South shorelines have increasingly receded since European settlement, a result of changes to sand drift that were exacerbated at the turn of the century when the Adelaide Shores and Holdfast Shores marinas were developed.
The Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI) announced in a government-funded report at the weekend that about 500,000 cubic metres of sand had disappeared from West Beach since the late 1990s — a rate that had accelerated since about 2011.
Dunes have eroded and sand from West Beach and Henley Beach South has been drifting towards the north end of Grange, Semaphore and North Haven.
The Government on Sunday promised to return sand from the Semaphore South breakwater to West Beach over the next two years while it considered a longer-term approach to the coastline's problems, which also include pollution from the Torrens Outlet and dying seagrass.
Victor Gostin, a retired University of Adelaide associate professor in geology and sedimentology, said one of the problems was the sand was very fine and became suspended when storms hit.
"It just lifts up and moves around like a slurry and doesn't stick around for very long.
"It's a very temporary solution and expensive to boot."
He said there were deposits of coarser sand available onshore in South Australia that would stay in place longer than the finer sand accumulating at Semaphore.
"I'm not an economist and they [the Government] need to check how it's done to see if it's worthwhile having a better quality of sand ... but that might be part of their longer-term solution," Dr Gostin said.
DHI suggested three long-term options to overcome the coastline's sand drift.
This included what DHI called "mass nourishment", where 1.8 million cubic metres (m3) of sand would be carted to West Beach, Henley Beach South and north of the Torrens Outlet.
It is expected to re-orientate the drift of sand and supply beaches to the immediate north with 100,000m3 a year for three years.
Another option is called "ongoing replenishment" and would involve carting more than 500,000m3 per year to West Beach and Henley Beach South for four years, before carting 100,000m3 per year for three-and-a-half years to West Beach. DHI said it could be delivered via trucks or by installing infrastructure to pump the sand from north to south through a system expected to last some 25 years.
A smaller, "interim management" option is to extend the West Beach rock wall, cart in 100,000m3 of sand to the Torrens Outlet and Henley Beach South, and supply 30,000m3 each summer to create a "seasonal beach in front of West Beach Parks".
DHI said the sand could either be brought in from "sources outside the beach system" or be trucked back from where it has been accumulating further north.
Environment Minister David Speirs said the long-term options would be considered over the coming months.
"To begin to address the report's findings and help West Beach, the immediate priority is to cart sand to replenish the eroding West Beach," he said.
"The report makes it clear that even if recent management activities were to be maintained, dune erosion would continue around West Beach and Henley Beach South and progressively move north.
"We will therefore be moving away from these activities."
Sand carting is scheduled to start on October 15 and will cost the Government $1 million over two years.
The Government has also allocated $1 million into researching the best long-term methods for beach replenishment, as well as tackling the marine impact caused by sediment and pollutants in stormwater runoff.
Stormwater and flushing from the Torrens Outlet has been creating a dark stain of nutrient-rich water that regularly stretches north from West Beach and past Grange Beach.
Beaches in Adelaide's west suffered from the worst pollution residents could remember after the city's lake was flushed to reduce blue green algae in 2016.
Friends of Gulf St Vincent treasurer Val Wales said the "brown tide" was becoming more frequent.
"One of the things with the Gulf [water] is it circulates rather than go out to the larger ocean, and it's quite shallow," she said.
"It takes a long time for ill effects like dredging or stormwater to move out."
Environment Protection Authority SA issues beach alerts when the pollution is deemed unsafe for swimmers and signs have been installed to warn beachgoers against entering discoloured water.
In the 2015-16 warmer months, there were at least five warnings issued at Henley Beach.
Last year there were nine alerts released between October 3 and December 19 across the city's metropolitan beaches, while three alerts were issued this year during February and March at Glenelg and at Christies Beach.
Dr Gostin said the pollution had led to the growth of algae that settled on seagrasses and "smothers it".
"A lot of the pollution contains nitrates and fertiliser-type things that help to promote the algae," he said.
"In the past, the seagrass used to grow quite close to the shoreline, and now, because of coastal pollution, it's died back and moved into deeper waters.
"That's bad news again because once you've removed the seagrass, it allows the storms to pick up the sand and move more of it along the shore."
An Environment Department spokesperson said there were short and long-term projects in place to manage and improve Torrens Outlet pollution.
He said "water-sensitive urban design" throughout the catchment, such as wetlands, had been constructed, and governments were working with landholders in the upper catchment to restrict the inflow of nutrients.
Other measures included stormwater harvesting and river recovery projects.
"The wider community can also help by composting, picking up after their dogs and popping rubbish in the bins, to not litter the streets," the spokesperson said.
He said positive signs had been recorded after a rare pouched lamprey fish was found in the River Torrens during 2008.
"Fish are a good indicator of changes in the environment," the spokesperson said.
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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Kristin Cavallari Wants to Get Married Again After Jay Cutler Divorce, Chase Rice Dates: Revelations
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Opening up. After announcing her divorce from Jay Cutler in April 2020, Kristin Cavallari has focused on her new normal as a single mom — and even started to date again earlier this year. More than a year later, she hopes to walk down the aisle again someday.
The Uncommon James founder, 34, posted via Instagram Story for her followers to “ask me a question” on Sunday, October 10. Social media fans certainly weren’t shy as they asked the reality TV personality about her life post-divorce, her kids — Camden, 9, Jaxon, 7, and Saylor, 5, whom she shares with the NFL athlete, 38 — and her various lifestyle choices.
After a few softball questions about her beauty preferences, her favorite meals, her biggest turnoff in a man (“insecurity”) and how many times she’s been in love (“three”), the Very Cavallari alum revealed that she hasn’t given up on marriage despite her divorce .
The California native knows she “will” get married again , though isn’t in a rush “whatsoever.”
“I’m really enjoying being alone right now,” she wrote via Instagram. “I’ve done the work I’ve needed to do for the past year and a half and I’m finally getting to a place of potentially being ready for a relationship but not quite yet.”
Cavallari is currently dating, but she assured followers that it isn’t serious.
“In a general sense, yes, I have been,” the Little James founder wrote in one slide. “No one serious though — I’ve just been having fun. I haven’t wanted a boyfriend. But I’m currently not dating anyone.”
The Nashville resident’s latest confession comes months after Us Weekly confirmed that she was seeing country singer Chase Rice .
“ It’s still very new , but they really like each other,” a source told Us in August. “They’ve been spotted around Nashville on a couple of dates, she’s been to one of his shows and they’re taking things slow. Kristin thinks Chase is a really sweet and fun guy.”
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Famous Person - Divorce
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Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 9560 crash
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Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 9560 was a repositioning flight from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow to Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg. On 28 July 2002, the Ilyushin Il-86 aircraft operating the flight crashed after take-off from Sheremetyevo. [1] 14 of the 16 crew members on board (and the only occupants of the aircraft) were killed, making the crash the deadliest aviation accident involving the Ilyushin Il-86. [2]
The aircraft involved was a 21-year-old Ilyushin Il-86 registered as RA-86060, (factory no. 51483203027, serial no. 027) The aircraft was produced by the Voronezh Aircraft Manufacturing Company (VASO) on 29 October 1983 and was delivered to Aeroflot on 23 November the same year. The aircraft was then transferred to Pulkovo in 1992. The aircraft was powered by four Kuznetsov NK-86 turbojet engines and had flown 18,363 hours up until the day of the accident. [3]
The flight crew comprised:
10 flight attendants were on board and two engineers were also on board. After a chartered return flight between Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sochi, the flight took off from Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow at 15:25 MSK, bound for Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg with 16 crew members on board. According to Vadim Sanjarov, the Administrative Director of Sheremetyevo Airport, the plane took off at a speed of 350 km/h (220 mph; 190 kn) and began to climb normally. Two seconds after takeoff however, both horizontal tail stabilizers suddenly moved to the full-up trim position. The pilots did not have time to rectify the situation and use the backup stabilizer control. According to various sources, the plane fell from a height of 200 or 600 m (660 or 1,970 ft), with decreased engine power. [4][5][6][7]
The aircraft then banked left, stalled, and crashed into the ground, exploding and bursting into flames on impact. However, one of the flight attendants stated that there was no explosion. [4] 14 of the 16 crew members, including all four flight crew members, both engineers, and 8 of the 10 flight attendants, were killed. The two survivors were flight attendants Tatiana Moiseeva and Arina Vinogradova. [4]
The accident was investigated by the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC). [8] Investigators considered how the horizontal tail stabilizers switched to the nose-heavy position, which caused a steep angle during takeoff, causing the aircraft to enter a stall and crash. [4][5][9]
The version of failure of one of the aircraft engines was also expressed. According to her, due to the lack of cargo and passengers, engine speed exceeded the permissible rate, which led to its breakdown. Flight attendant Arina Vinogradova stated that the aircraft encountered turbulence before the crash. [4] Although shaking could be a sign of exceeding the maximum allowable angle of attack and loss of speed, which immediately preceded the stall. Weather conditions and ornithological conditions at the time of the disaster were normal. [4]
The IAC was unable to determine the cause of the accident. It could also not determine how the stabilizers switched to the nose-up position. One version stated that it was caused by pilot error. The IAC temporarily suspended the Il-86's type certificate. [10]
According to Vladimir Kofman, the Chairman of the Commission for the investigation of aviation accidents, a post-crash analysis of 2,000 flights of the ill-fated aircraft revealed frequent flight safety violations, including improper use of the stabilizers. [11]
Nine of the victims were buried in a communal grave in St. Petersburg. At crash site, a cross was installed. The cross nameplate that lists the names of all the victims.
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Air crash
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Oakey residents fear contaminated groundwater from aviation base may have impacted town water supply
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There are growing fears in the southern Queensland Darling Downs community of Oakey that chemicals in the town's groundwater have also affected the town water supply.
However, the council said it was impossible.
The Defence Department has chosen not to pay for further blood testing for residents affected by a contamination issue at its Oakey aviation base, where a toxic firefighting foam has leached into the groundwater.
Residents have been avoiding drinking from their bores for years but the Toowoomba Regional Council has confirmed groundwater was mixed with the clean town supply between 2008 and 2012.
The council said a reverse osmosis plant filtered out toxins.
Former Oakey resident Kathryn Cherry said locals were fearful while they remain untested.
"There's every possibility that I've put my children at risk," she said.
"What are you drinking, what are you exposing everyone to and why won't they test anyone?"
The health effects of the PFOS and PFOA chemicals remain unclear.
Oakey town water now comes from Toowoomba.
Meanwhile, the federal Health Department said mothers affected by the Oakey contamination issue should not avoid breastfeeding.
Updated United States guidelines said such chemicals could be passed on through breast milk.
The department said it was not recommending people stop breastfeeding because the benefits far outweighed any potential risk.
)
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Environment Pollution
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2012 Quebec student protests
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The 2012 Quebec student protests (movement) were a series of student protests led by student unions such as the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, and the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec against a proposal by the Quebec Cabinet, headed by Liberal Premier Jean Charest, to raise university tuition from $2,168 to $3,793 between 2012 and 2018. [1] As part of the protest movement, a series of widespread student strikes were organized, involving half of Quebec's student population by April 2012. [2] A third of Quebec students continued to participate in the strike by its 100th day,[3] while a quarter million had participated during its peak. [4] Other students continued to attend their courses. [5]
Left-wing groups endorsed the student protests, which evolved into generalized demonstrations against the provincial government. Opposition parties (Parti Québécois, Québec solidaire, Option nationale), workers unions (Confédération des syndicats nationaux, Canadian Union of Public Employees) and many groups demonstrated alongside the students in April and May 2012. [6]
On May 18, the Government passed Bill 78, an emergency law forbidding picketing or protest near university grounds, and requiring police approval for large public protests anywhere in Quebec. The law was mainly repealed by the Marois government in September 2012[7] and expired in 2013. [8][9][10]
In the Fall of 2012, with a new school term beginning, student participation in the strikes and demonstrations dwindled. The Quebec nationalist Parti Québécois was later elected as minority government and halted any tuition increases in line with its campaign promises. [11]
These protests are sometimes named Maple Spring,[12] from the French: Printemps érable which alludes to French: Printemps arabe (Arab spring) as well as the maple tree which symbolizes Quebec and Canada. [13]
In the 1960s, the provincial government took over responsibility for higher education. Changes included the creation of a separate pre-university college level, a publicly funded college system, and providing universities enough funding so that it would be affordable to anyone who wanted to attend. [14] These changes in education access gave birth to a Quebec middle class and transformed the possibility of upward mobility in the province. [15]
As a result of the Quiet Revolution, university tuition fees in Quebec were frozen at C$540 per year from 1968 to 1990. In 1994, annual tuition rose to C$1668, after which it was frozen until 2007, when it grew by C$100 per year until 2012, making it C$2168. Overall, tuition increased an average of C$37 per year or 300% between 1968 and 2012, not including other fees that are paid to universities (e.g. administration fees, student service fees, etc.). [16] The overall cost living inflation (as measured by an aggregate inflation index commonly used by Canadian economists) rose 557% from 1968 to 2012,[17] meaning that C$540 in 1968 was roughly equivalent to about C$3,545 in 2012. At the time, Quebec maintained the lowest tuition fees in Canada. [18][19]
The province's student associations have a mandatory membership and dues structure. These associations depend on the size and level of the institution. [20]
In smaller colleges and universities, strikes will be campus wide, but at larger schools they usually happen by department so the entire campus is rarely shut down. For example, if engineering students voted to strike, the picket lines would focus only on engineering students. [20]
Student associations usually call for strikes over local issues and set a limited time period. The student strike movement persists in Quebec because it is one of the only places where student associations hold regular general assemblies. [20]
Most student strikes in Quebec won at least a partial victory. [20] These previous student strikes demanded free tuition, democratic administration of the universities, the expansion of French instruction and facilities, elimination of more stringent aptitude tests, and an increase in bursaries. [21]
In March 2011, Quebec decided to pursue planned five year tuition increases, prompting protests from student groups, and the occupation of the office of the Finance minister. [2]
In July, student leaders accused police of brutality and repression against protesters, whose numbers swelled to 30,000 by November, leading to the occupation of McGill University's administrative building. [2]
CLASSE (Coalition large de l'Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante, or “broad coalition of the Association for Student Union Solidarity”) was founded, and announced the intention to strike. A few weeks later, the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) and the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) stated they would also strike. [22]
The strike officially began on February 13, 2012, with students at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and University Laval voting massively in opposition to augmentation of university tuition fees. [23] Beginning late February 2012, nine per cent of Quebec students, or 36,000 students, went on strike, using a square red flag for protest. [2]
On February 23, students were pepper-sprayed by police after occupying Montreal's Jaques Cartier bridge. On March 7, 2012, during a sit-in demonstration blocking front of the Loto-Québec (lottery) head office, police deployed tear gas and flash-bang grenades against over 1,000 protesters. [2] One student named Francis Grenier had his eye seriously wounded by what he and other demonstrators stated was a flash-bang grenade launched by police. [24] According to the student's father, police investigators sought to demonstrate the wound was caused by a snowball. [24] Students begin to wear patches over their left eyes in solidarity with Grenier. During the morning rush hour on March 20, 150 student demonstrators blocked the Montreal-bound entrance ramp to the Champlain Bridge in Brossard using concrete blocks. [25] Upon the arrival of Sûreté du Québec police officers, the protesters fled through the streets of Brossard to coaches waiting for them at Terminus Panama. When officers arrived at the Terminus, they surrounded the buses and arrested around 100 demonstrators. Each was identified and fined C$494. [25]
On March 22, an estimated 200,000 people came together for a massive peaceful protest in downtown Montreal. [2] At its peak, the parade stretched up to 50 blocks. While there was no violence, the police confiscated sticks carried by some participants. [26] By this time, over 310 000 students (out of 400 000 in the province) were on strike. [27]
On March 27, protesters block access to the Quebec Liquor Board offices as students begin to target economic symbols. On April 2, the outside of Line Beauchamp's office is painted red. This building becomes a popular rallying point at marches.
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Protest_Online Condemnation
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Bourbon Rhode Survivor Secures ‘Substantial Compensation’ Over 2019 Shipwreck
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Bourbon Rhode. Photo courtesy Bourbon A surviving crew member of the lost offshore tug Bourbon Rhode has secured ‘substantial compensation’ for the ordeal, the International Transport Workers’ Federation said Monday. The sinking of the Bourbon Rhode was a major story in 2019. The Bourbon Offshore tug, with 14 crew on board, sank in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on September 26, 2019 during a voyage from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria to Georgetown, Guyana after experiencing heavy weather from category 4 Hurricane Lorenzo. Three of the vessel’s crew members were subsequently rescued from a life raft. The bodies of another four were recovered and seven were never found. Searchers also located an overturned fast rescue craft from the vessel. One of the survivors was Ukrainian seafarer Yevgeniy Nikolov. He sustained injuries in the incident and has been unable to return to working at sea. But working with the Marine Transport Workers’ Trade Union (MTWTU) of Ukraine, he was able to obtain “a substantial amount in compensation.” “I can say for sure: I turned to the right place,” said Nikolov, while speaking to cadets and fellow MTWTU seafarers. “You listened to me, looked into my problem and did everything to help. I am grateful for everything that has been done for me and my family and I will gladly share my experience with other seafarers.” MTWTU Chairman Oleg Grygoriuk described how they were able to help the injured seafarer and win his claim. “We were quite radically minded discussing the strategy, given that the company kept ignoring open negotiations for one and a half years. However, it is noteworthy that the company acted quickly as soon as it found out that Yevgeniy’s interests were represented by the MTWTU,” said Grygoriuk. “It’s no coincidence that when employers such as this hear that a seafarer has the backing of the ITF union family, and us, the only maritime ITF affiliate in Ukraine,” Grygoriuk added. Join the 74,257 members that receive our newsletter. Have a news tip? Let us know. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) has deployed a team of investigators following last month’s fire on the containership ZIM Kingston off of Victoria, British Columbia.
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Shipwreck
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2014 Kangding earthquake
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The 2014 Kangding earthquake struck Kangding County, Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, China, with a moment magnitude of 5.9 on 22 November. [6] The earthquake killed five and injured 54 people. After the quake, the power and communication have not been interrupted, according to the local officials. [7] As of 20:40 (UTC+8) on November 22, 2014, there is a power outage in five villages of Tagong Township (塔公乡). [8] There is no major damage was reported in the town of Kangding, where CCTV, the official media, video showed residents strolling the town's streets, looking up at the steep surrounding hillsides and talking on their cellphones. [9][10] About 100 vehicles were trapped by a landslide on a highway connecting Sichuan and Tibet, and Chengdu-Kunming Railway was also halted in the area while workers checked on damage to the line. [9][11]
As of 19:20 (UTC+8) on November 22, the government received 16 reports about this earthquake from 16 townships. There are three houses collapsed and one house damaged. [3][4]
Sichuan Province launched the response of prevent disaster after the quake. [12] Ya'an City has sent five ambulances and 30 health care personnel to Kangding at 18:00 (UTC+8) on November 22. [13]
Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and President of China, said "to emphasized the need for quick action". [14] Li Keqiang, Premier of the State Council of China, has been response this quake, also said "to emphasized the need for quick action". [15]
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Earthquakes
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Taliban Making ‘Strategic’ Military Gains In Afghanistan As Foreign Forces Pull Out
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Since the start of the international military withdrawal on May 1, the Taliban has seized strategic districts near the capital, Kabul, overrun military sites, and besieged towns and cities across Afghanistan. The Taliban’s early military gains have fueled fears that it could topple the Western-backed Afghan government and its battered security forces once all foreign forces depart by September. It is unclear if the militant group is attempting a forcible takeover of Afghanistan or just trying to boost its leverage in deadlocked peace talks aimed at striking a permanent cease-fire and power-sharing arrangement. Intra-Afghan talks that began in September have made little progress, hampered by deep mistrust, militant violence, and a huge gulf between the Taliban and Afghan representatives on key issues. In a further blow, the insurgents last month backed out of a high-level international peace conference hosted by Turkey. Observers say U.S. President Joe Biden's April decision to pull out the remaining 3,500 American troops in Afghanistan without setting any conditions has removed any incentive for the Taliban to pursue real peace. Around 7,000 other NATO forces are also departing with the U.S. troops. In the wake of Biden’s decision, the Taliban immediately intensified attacks on provincial capitals, district centers, and large government military bases. “In a maximalist sense, the Taliban wants a total military victory,” says Tamim Asey, the head of the Institute of War and Peace Studies, a Kabul-based think tank. “In a minimalist sense, once the Taliban has tested government forces and realized that a total military victory is not within reach then it will use violence as leverage to secure further concessions at the negotiation table,” adds Asey, a former Afghan deputy defense minister. ‘Fall Of Districts’ The militants have launched major offensives in both the country’s north and south. There has also been an uptick in deadly suicide bombings striking urban areas that have been blamed on the Islamist group. An Afghan man lies at a hospital after clashes between the Taliban and Afghan security forces in Laghman Province, east of Kabul, on May 24. During the past month, the Taliban has seized control of at least four districts across Afghanistan: in Jalrez and Nerkh in the central province of Maidan Wardak, Dawlat Shah in the eastern province of Laghman, and Burka in the northern province of Baghlan. The militants also briefly overran the Baghlan-e Jadid district in Baghlan and the Almar district in northwestern Faryab Province. Maidan Wardak is only 40 kilometers from Kabul and considered a gateway to the capital. Several key highways to the country’s central and southern provinces also go through Maidan Wardak. “The fall of districts is nothing new, but the Taliban’s attacks on select strategic districts in the southern and eastern provinces surrounding Kabul is significant,” says Asey. “The Taliban has adopted a strategy of striking economic and military choke points around major Afghan cities. This is intended to cut off cities from the rest of the country and eventually seize them.” Chances For Peace In Afghanistan Recede As Deadly Taliban Attacks Spiral Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense Of Democracies (FDD) and editor of the Long War Journal (LWJ), which tracks militant groups, says the Taliban is laying the groundwork for a “big push” to retake the country by force once all foreign forces leave. “The Taliban can mass more forces in the field once U.S. airpower is gone,” says Roggio. “The Taliban is going to push to take large areas of the south and east, secure the passage to Kabul, maintain pressure on provinces surrounding the capital, all the while continuing to fight in the north and west to keep Afghan forces occupied.” Around 24 percent of Afghanistan’s 398 districts are in government hands, the Taliban commands some 22 percent, and the rest are contested, according to the LWJ. The LWJ’s “living map,” based mostly on media reports, is the only publicly available source that tracks district control in Afghanistan. NATO no longer assesses territorial control, and the Afghan government has classified its own data. Afghan security officials present arrested members of the Taliban on the outskirts of Ghazni on May 29. The Afghan government controls the capital, Kabul, provincial capitals, major population centers, and most district centers. The Taliban -- which controls more territory than any other time since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 toppled it from power -- commands large swaths of the countryside. ‘Demoralization’ In some cases, the Taliban has seized military bases and district centers after fierce clashes with Afghan security forces, who have complained about overdue salaries, shortages of ammunition, and delays in sending air and ground reinforcements. In other cases, the militants have seized control of military posts and districts without firing a bullet. In a growing trend, the Taliban, with the help of local elders, has negotiated the surrender of hundreds of Afghan soldiers and national police in the provinces of Laghman, Maidan Wardak, and Baghlan in recent weeks. An Afghan security official stands guard at a check point in restive Laghman Province on May 25. Such actions have allowed the militants to stock up on weapons, ammunition, and equipment. It has also been a propaganda coup for the Taliban, which has boasted of an impending victory in its recent statements. Last week, the Taliban briefly entered Mehtarlam, the capital of Laghman Province, after government forces deserted several outposts protecting the city. The Taliban was pushed out but later showed off weapons and equipment allegedly left behind at the outposts. More than 100 military personnel were arrested for negligence and moved to Kabul. “The fall of these districts is due to demoralization, bad leadership, and dwindling resources and air support,” says Asey. “This is augmented by Taliban influence operations in which local elders and religious leaders are used to convince Afghan forces to surrender or defect.” As Afghan Talks Stall, Former Fighters On Both Sides Hope For Resolution Morale among government forces has reportedly sunk since the announcement of the full international military withdrawal. Observers say the military exit will severely weaken Afghanistan’s security forces, which have relied heavily on U.S. air support, intelligence, and logistics to keep the Taliban at bay. The United States has pledged to continue funding the 273,000-strong Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police. Washington has also said Afghan forces will receive military backing from U.S. bases and ships located hundreds of miles away -- the so-called "over the horizon” support. But it is unclear if U.S. drones and war planes will aid Afghan forces fighting the Taliban or focus on counterterrorism missions against Al-Qaeda and Islamic State militants in Afghanistan. “The Afghan military has been steadily losing ground to the Taliban even while U.S. forces were in country,” says Roggio. “Now, there is little the U.S. can do to help except for on the margins.” Frud Bezhan Frud Bezhan is acting editor for Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan in the Central Newsroom at RFE/RL. Previously, he was a correspondent and reported from Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Turkey. Prior to joining RFE/RL in 2011, he worked as a freelance journalist in Afghanistan and contributed to several Australian newspapers, including The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
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Regime Change
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2 teens die from apparent carbon monoxide poisoning in East Naples park
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Two teens are dead after being found unresponsive inside a car Wednesday evening in a Collier County park. Investigators believe the deaths were accidental, potentially the result of the car’s modified exhaust system.
The Collier County Sheriff’s Office said a park ranger at Sugden Regional Park called deputies for a suspicious car, a 2014 Dodge, that had been parked and running and had its lights on for about an hour. He was unable to see inside due to the dark tint on the windows and didn’t get a response when he knocked on the window. When a deputy responded, he found the two teens unresponsive inside the vehicle and smelled a strong odor of exhaust fumes.
The 18-year-old male driver and his 17-year-old female passenger were pulled from the car. Medics pronounced the male dead at the scene, and CPR was performed on the female before she was taken to NCH Downtown Baker, where she was pronounced dead a short time later.
An examination of the vehicle determined that its exhaust system had been modified, according to investigators.
“Autopsies are pending to determine a cause of death but preliminary observations by deputies at the scene indicate that the deaths may have resulted from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning related to a modified exhaust system on the vehicle,” CCSO said.
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Mass Poisoning
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Arrest made following Stockman Bank robbery on Grand Ave.
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UPDATE: AUG. 3 AT 6:16 P.M. An arrest has been made in connection to the robbery that occurred at the Grand Avenue Stockman Bank on Thursday, July 29. Members of BPD's Street Crimes Unit arrested 44-year-old John Smith Jr., from Roundup, without incident in Billings on Tuesday. Smith was arrested for Robbery, Felony Criminal Possession of Dangerous Drugs and a Probation Violation Warrant, according to a release from BPD.
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Bank Robbery
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1931 Zangezur earthquake
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The 1931 Zangezur earthquake occurred on April 27 at 20:50:45 local time with a moment magnitude of 6.5. The earthquake was located in the Zangezur Mountains near the boundary between southwestern Armenia and Azerbaijan's exclave, the Nakhichivan Autonomous Republic. Both territories were part of the Soviet Union at that time. [3]
The Pambak-Sevan-Sunik Fault extends in the NW–SE direction. The fault can be traced continuously for 400 km and consists of four major segments. The 1931 Zangezur earthquake was located in the area of the Sunik-Zanghezour segment, which is about 120 km long. [4]
The earthquake was located near the border between the Syunik Province of Armenia (Zangezur is an alternative name for the region of Syunik Province) and the Nakhichivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan. Up to 2,890 were reported dead. [3] In Armenia, 57 villages were destroyed or heavily damaged in the Sisian-Goris area and in Azerbaijan, 46 villages were destroyed or seriously damaged in the Ordubad area. [5] In another source it was reported that the earthquake destroyed 254 villages. [6] In southeastern Armenia, the historical Tatev Monastery was damaged. The MSK-64 intensity reached IX (Destructive) in Shamb and VIII (Damaging) in Jougha. [7] The Museum of History in Sisian has some photos taken after the town was hit by the earthquake. [8]
There was a period of increased earthquake activity in Armenia and its neighboring republics between 1911 and 1956 and the 1931 event was one of the strongest. It released about half of the total energy of all the earthquakes occurring in the Caucasus region near the Caspian Sea in that period. [9]
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Earthquakes
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Southern Madagascar urgently need increased food aid
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Antananarivo/Paris, 17 May 2021 – An immediate and massive increase in food aid is urgently needed for people in southern Madagascar, says international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), whose teams in the region are witnessing an exceptionally severe malnutrition crisis which in some places borders on famine. “We’re seeing totally destitute people who have literally nothing to eat and are teetering on the edge of survival,” says Julie Reversé, MSF operations coordinator in Madagascar. “Some have had to sell their cooking utensils and don’t even have containers to fetch water.” In some villages in Amboasary district in Anôsy region, MSF teams have found an average of 28 per cent of children under five are acutely malnourished, one-third of whom have severe malnutrition and are therefore at high risk of death. According to recent figures released by Madagascar’s nutrition surveillance system, UN agencies and similar organisations operating in the region, 74,000 children across the southern region of Madagascar are acutely malnourished, 12,000 of whom have severe malnutrition – an increase of 80 per cent compared to the last quarter of 2020. Almost 14,000 people in Amboasary, one of the worst affected districts, are now considered to be starving. “One alarming indicator is that the 2,200 people treated by MSF for acute malnutrition since the end of March include children under five, but also adolescents and adults,” says Reversé. A unique combination of factors has plunged southern Madagascar into this crisis. The worst drought in 30 years has wreaked havoc on agriculture; sandstorms caused by deforestation have covered much of the arable land in sand, even destroying food sources such as cactus fruit, normally eaten as a very last resort; and COVID-19 has had a spillover effect on the island's economy. Related to the ensuing food shortages are a reported rise in attacks, hold-ups and thefts of livestock, property and food. Other factors include a surge in malaria infections and a lack of access to healthcare and drinking water, which have exacerbated the health situation still further. Due to a lack of resources, food distributions by the World Food Programme (WFP) and other aid organisations are limited to half-day rations, while some affected villages are receiving no food aid at all. This is all the more worrying as access to food is likely to be an even bigger issue in the coming months, with little or no harvest expected in June and the onset of the lean season in October. Getting aid to the people who need it is challenging. The island’s geography brings its own specific constraints and the semi-arid southern regions have many remote villages and few paved roads. It takes at least three days to drive from the capital Antananarivo to the main town in Amboasary district, and from there it can take many hours along tracks and trails to reach the most remote villages. In addition, in mid-March the authorities introduced restrictions on entering Madagascar and travelling within the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Hundreds of thousands of people in southern Madagascar rely almost entirely on food aid,” says Bérengère Guais, MSF’s head of emergency operations. “A substantial effort – not only financial, but also logistical and human – is vital to ensure regular deliveries of food rations in sufficient quantities over a period of several months. Travel must be made easier for aid workers by ensuring regular flights to enter and move around the country. An entire population, spread across vast, remote areas with very little infrastructure, is in desperate need of life support. The clock is ticking.” Since late March 2021, MSF teams have been screening and treating people for acute malnutrition and providing basic medical services through mobile clinics in Amboasary district. MSF teams are also working to improve people’s access to drinking water by distributing jerry cans, repairing hand-operated pumps and treating and transporting water drawn from the river. MSF teams are currently gearing up to launch food distributions and scale up inpatient treatment for patients with severe acute malnutrition and associated medical complications.
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Famine
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2018 UY Aviation King Air C90 crash
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On 28 June 2018, at about 1:15 pm, a Beechcraft C90 King Air aircraft chartered from UY Aviation Pvt Ltd with the registration VT-UPZ crashed at Jagruti Nagar in the suburb of Ghatkopar in Mumbai. [2] The 12-seater aircraft carried 4 people, including the pilot. All people on board plus one person on the ground were killed. A further three people on the ground were seriously injured. [1]
As a result of the crash, a fire broke out in the built-up area. Local firefighters and police responded to the accident. [6][7]
The aircraft had departed from Juhu Aerodrome for a test flight. Five people lost their lives in this accident; 2 pilots, 1 Technician, 1 Aircraft Maintenance Engineer, and 1 civilian. [8] [9]
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Board released the final investigation report in Dec 2018. The probable cause of the accident as per the report was a stall caused by lack of situational awareness due to spatial disorientation triggered by deteriorating weather, a transition from ILS(IMC) to visual flying (Partial VMC) and unexpected bank owing to differential engine power. The report indicts the Indian DGCA for violation of regulations in granting the Air Operator Permit. The aircraft VT-UPZ was previously owned by the Uttar Pradesh government. In 2014, the aircraft had an accident[10] in Allahabad in which there was substantial damage, but the DGCA investigation termed it as a minor incident. Taking advantage of this report, the certificate of airworthiness was not cancelled. Over the next decade, the aircraft changed ownership and was transported to Mumbai where the repair work was carried out under the supervision of the DGCA. Capt. Amit Singh FRAeS an aviation safety and human factors blogger carried out a detailed independent analysis of the accident and submitted the report to the Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, India. [11] Capt. Amit Singh has stated that the AAIB investigation is manipulated and does not correctly identify the cause of the accident, therefore, needs an investigation by a court of inquiry. The investigation has completely shielded the operator who was granted an Air Operator Permit by the Indian DGCA without having filled the mandatory post of the Chief of Safety. As per the technical report, both engines malfunctioned in flight probably due to which the aircraft crashed.
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Air crash
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6 workers injured in gas explosion
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Nashik: An explosion of a gas cylinder at an industrial unit in Satpur on Saturday evening resulted in six workers suffering serious burn injuries. The workers were rushed to the Nashik civil hospital for treatment.
Pradeep Pardeshi, head of the Fire Brigade Centre at Satpur, said, “The explosion took place at around 5.45 pm. We received a call about a minute later after which we rushed to the concerned company in a matter of two minutes. With the help of a police team, the six workers were rushed to the Nashik civil hospital for treatment.”
Pardeshi said that, at the time of the explosion, some 17 workers were working at the unit. However, the other workers did not suffer any injuries.
Senior inspector of the Satpur police station Kishore More said that soon after the incident the police rushed to the spot and assisted the personnel from the fire brigade in the rescue work. Since oil had spread in the industrial unit, the firemen used sand to douse the fire, which was done in a matter of a few minutes.
The company is engaged in manufacturing hydraulic pumps.
The injured persons have been identified as Devidas Pawar, Chandrakant Nimse, Sural Pekhle, Sham Kumar, Lakhan Pande and a person named Murari.
PI More said that the situation was under control.
Fire personnel said that there was heavy damage of the company in the explosion. Fire officials said that the company is a small size unit.
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Gas explosion
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Locusts threaten to compound hunger crisis in Ethiopia's Tigray region
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Locusts spotted in Ethiopia's Tigray region have raised fears of crop-destroying swarms like those that ravaged East African countries last year, including Kenya, above. AFP Locust swarms forming in northern Ethiopia are threatening to aggravate an already severe food shortage faced by millions of people in the Tigray region after nearly a year of civil war, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has said. A report published last week by the Food and Agriculture Organisation said the crop-destroying insects, first spotted in mid-September in the north-eastern Afar region, are likely to have spread to neighbouring Tigray and Amhara. “We are extremely concerned about the possible impacts of desert locusts on northern Ethiopia’s upcoming cereal harvest season,” Cyril Ferrand of the FAO’s Eastern Africa resilience team told The National. “People in the region can ill afford to lose one grain of the already reduced harvest.” Tigrayan refugees wait in line to receive food from Muslim Aid at Hamdeyat Transition Center near the Sudan-Ethiopia border, eastern Sudan, on Wednesday. AP The war is likely to hinder measures to combat the locust swarms in Tigray, where destruction of crops and food stocks has left hundreds of thousands of civilians facing starvation. The US estimates that 900,000 people are facing famine in the region. A study by the World Peace Foundation reported between 50 and 100 hunger-related deaths a day in Tigray. Aid agencies say Tigray needs more than 100 lorries of food aid daily. But only a fraction of that is reaching the region, with the Ethiopian government accused of blocking deliveries. Ethiopia this month expelled seven UN aid officials for “meddling” in the country’s internal affairs. The expulsion came after UN aid chief Martin Griffiths urged the government to lift a three-month blockade on lorries entering Tigray. On Friday, the UN said it was suspending its flights to the regional capital, Mekelle, after the government launched air strikes on a reported rebel target in the city as a plane carrying aid workers was preparing to land. People displaced by fighting in Ethiopia's Tigray region live in temporary shelters in the town of Shire. Photo: Zecharias Zelalem Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the country’s military into Tigray, alongside allied troops from neighbouring Eritrea, in November 2020 after ambushes on federal army bases by Tigrayan forces. The US and civilians in Tigray have accused Ethiopian and Eritrean troops of atrocities, including rape, in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Eritrean soldiers in particular are accused of preventing farmers from ploughing their land, looting cattle and setting fire to grain silos. The violence has displaced more than two million people, leading to much of the region’s farmland being uncultivated. “Our estimates indicate that around half of all arable land in Tigray went unplanted due to the security situation,” Mr Ferrand said. “The harvest could be 40 per cent below baseline.” Debrom, 43, a farmer from La'ilay Maychew district, about 30 kilometres south of the Eritrean border, told The National he fled his village last December and was living in a camp for displaced Tigrayans in Sudan’s Al Qadarif region. “I fled my land because soldiers were killing everyone they saw and didn’t differentiate between civilians and fighters,” said Debrom, whose full name has been withheld for his safety. “I got out alive, but Eritrean soldiers killed many of my friends and family who stayed behind,” he said. When asked how many farmers are likely to have remained in his village, he said: “If they weren’t killed, they have probably joined [the Tigrayan rebels], or they might have made it here to Sudan like me.” Ethiopia is still recovering from the locust swarms that ravaged crops in East Africa last year and left millions across the region needing food aid. A farmer walks through a swarm of desert locust in the eastern Kenyan city of Meru. The infestations devastated 23 countries across East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia in 2020, with Kenya suffering its worst locust swarms in 70 years. AFP Mr Ferrand said the scale of locust breeding in Tigray this year was not clear as the conflict made it impossible to conduct exhaustive land surveys. The new swarms could be more devastating than last year's, said Emnet Negash, a doctoral student at Ghent University’s department of geography. “It’s from upon hatching from eggs through the larvae period and prior to becoming adults that locusts consume food the most,” he said. “Much of last year’s swarms were hatched in Yemen and in remote areas of the Afar region where crop production is not the main economic means. Most arrived in Ethiopia as adults, relatively past their feeding prime. “The current swarms, however, are all being formed in Ethiopia, including in parts of the Tigray and Amhara regions, meaning that they will consume far more than last year’s swarms did.” The student, who worked at the Tigray Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development until 2018, said breeding locusts had been spotted in seven districts of Tigray and their appearance could not come at a worse time. “Under the current circumstances, last year's harvest largely ran out at the beginning of the rainy season [around June]. Ahead of the maturation of cereal crops in October, farmers resort to growing lean-season crops like maize and vegetables that can grow quickly and supplement their dishes during the food supply gap in September. "This year, however, the conflict has caused a severe, noticeable dearth of corn crops. This has worsened this year’s hunger gap. Locust swarms will arrive when people are at their lowest point.” Despite the seriousness of the situation, there is little sign of urgency in Addis Ababa, where government officials tend to play down the crisis. Last month, the deputy head of the National Disaster Risk Management Commission, Aydrus Hassan, told state media outlets that no one in Ethiopia was at risk of starvation, echoing comments made by Mr Abiy in June. The threat of US sanctions, mounting diplomatic pressure and criticism, including a stinging indictment of Mr Abiy's actions by former UN aid chief Mark Lowcock, have so far not moved Ethiopian authorities to allow aid deliveries to Tigray. Meanwhile, the civil war rages on, with government forces launching a new offensive last week to dislodge Tigrayan fighters from entrenched positions in the neighbouring Amhara region.
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Insect Disaster
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'A clumsy, inadequate and unAustralian situation': French Ambassador departs Canberra over submarine spat
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France's Ambassador to Australia has delivered a scathing assessment of the federal government's diplomacy as he departs for Paris, describing it as "clumsy, inadequate and unAustralian".
Ambassador Jean-Pierre Thebault was recalled to France in the early hours of Saturday morning with senior ministers furious at Australia's decision to scrap a $90 billion submarine contract.
Shortly before leaving Canberra, Mr Thebault said he was "very, very sad" to be leaving and compared Australia's treatment of France to "a stab in the back".
"I think this has been a huge mistake, a very, very bad handling of the partnership – because it wasn't a contract, it was a partnership that was supposed to be based on trust, mutual understanding and sincerity," Mr Thebault said.
"I would like to run into a time machine, if possible, and be in a situation where we don't end up in such an incredible, clumsy, inadequate unAustralian situation."
Mr Thebault said people-to-people relations between France and Australia were strong and would remain so.
Are you wondering why there's so much fuss about Australia's decision to acquire nuclear submarines? We've broken it down for you.
Senior French officials have accused Australia of deliberately keeping the country in the dark before announcing it would procure nuclear-powered submarines from the US and the UK, describing that as a "breach of confidence".
The diplomatic spat is now threatening to spill over into Australia's trade relationship with Paris. Australia is currently negotiating a free trade agreement with the European Union.
When referencing the negotiations France's European Affairs Minister, Clément Beaune, told broadcaster France 24: "I don't see how we can trust our Australian partners."
Director of Research at the foreign affairs think tank Lowy Institute, Hervé Lemahieu, said those comments have "sent a degree of alarm around Canberra".
"It's unclear what extent Paris speaks for Europe on this issue, there are the economic self-interests of 26 other members states to take on board here," Mr Lemahieu told the ABC.
"But France is a powerful member state within the EU and could play a complicating role in arriving at an agreement and it could complicate the accession process of the free trade agreement."
A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said Australia regrets the recall of Mr Thebault, which was an incredibly rare diplomatic step between allies.
"Australia values its relationship with France, which is an important partner and a vital contributor to stability, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. This will not change," the spokesperson said.
"Australia understands France's deep disappointment with our decision, which was taken in accordance with our clear and communicated national security interests.
"We look forward to engaging with France again on our many issues of shared interest, based on shared values."
Last month the Australian government signed a $50 billion contract with the French company DCNS to build 12 new submarines.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the Australian and US ambassadors were recalled on request from President Emmanuel Macron, adding the decision was "justified by the exceptional seriousness of the announcements" made by the new AUKUS alliance between the US, Australia and the UK.
Mr Le Drian said the cancellation of the deal constituted "unacceptable behaviour between allies and partners, whose consequences directly affect the vision we have of our alliances, of our partnerships and of the importance of the Indo-Pacific for Europe".
Federal Labor is calling on the Government to repair the diplomatic relationship with France.
"This isn't the first time Mr Morrison has blindsided an international partner or failed to do the diplomatic leg work before an announcement," Shadow Foreign Minister Penny Wong told the ABC.
"The Morrison-Joyce Government must outline what steps it is taking to repair this important relationship."
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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Tear Up Agreement
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Georgian, North Macedonian presidents sign visa free agreement: ‘we are making new history for our countries’
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Georgian and North Macedonian presidents met in Skopje earlier today and signed two agreements.
Georgian and North Macedonian presidents have signed the visa liberalisation agreement between the two countries earlier today in Skopje, during the first official visit of Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili to North Macedonia.
The Agreement on Visa Exemption signed between ???????? and ???????? is a historic step in our bilateral relations. It’s meant to promote people-to-people contacts between our two friendly countries. It’s also a signal to our business communities that the doors of cooperation are open!
An agreement has also been signed for cooperation in the culture field.
North Macedonian President Stevo Pendarovski has stated during a joint press conference that ‘we are making new history for our two friendly nations.’
This is a historic, high-level visit which will further strengthen the ties between Georgia and North Macedonia,” Pendarovski said.
He stated that the new agreements will create a legal basement for tourism and economic cooperation.
With this signing of the Memorandum on Cooperation in Culture, Tbilisi and Skopje acknowledge that our ties are not just political. They are rooted in common European values of #tolerance, of #freedom.
Pendarovski said that despite a two-year diplomatic relations Georgia and North Macedonia have much to share ‘because we follow common foreign strategies.’
Zurabishvili stated ‘it's a big honour I became the first president of Georgia who visited Skopje on an official visit.’
She said that along with occupation issues in Georgia and the illegal conviction of Georgian citizen Zaza Gakheladze by the Russian-controlled occupation forces,regional and Ukrainian issues have also been discussed during the meeting with Pendarovski.
There is the only way to react to the escalation in the region. The NATO June 14 summit messages should be clear. This would be important both for Georgia and Ukraine, Zurabishvili said.
Zurabishvili is also scheduled to meet with North Macedonian PM and parliament speaker.
In January-April of 2021, revenue from foreign tourism decreased by 77.5% year-on-year in Georgia, says Galt & Taggart, an investment banking and investment management services company in Georgia.
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili has paid her first official visit to North Macedonia earlier today. Now Zurabishvili and North Macedonian President Stevo Pendarovski are holding a face-to-face meeting. The presidents are scheduled to sign a visa liberalisation agreement between the two countries and a memorandum of cooperation in culture following the meeting.
Georgian officials have welcomed North Macedonia becoming the 30th member of NATO. President Salome Zurabishvili said the enlargement “of this great family” strengthens international security.
Georgia and North Macedonia, which has actually become the 30th member of NATO, have signed an agreement regarding the establishment of diplomatic and consular relations.Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani congratulated Macedonia on the end of dispute with Greece regarding its name and the signing of the accession protocol with NATO.
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Poison centers in Pennsylvania see an increase in ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine exposures
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The state’s two poison centers are treating more Pennsylvanians for ivermectin exposure after misinformation has led some to believe the anti-parasitic drug can cure COVID-19.
In the 19 months since the first coronavirus case was confirmed in Pennsylvania, there have been 29 ivermectin exposures documented at the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia poison centers, which cover the western and eastern portions of the state respectively. Though an admittedly small number, it’s a significant increase from the 11 cases that occurred in the 19 months before the pandemic began.
Toxicologist Dr. Michael Lynch of the Pittsburgh Poison Center cautioned against inferring too much over these data as the impact is small, though “clearly" a trend.
Of the 29 post-COVID exposures, 10 occurred between Aug. 12 and Sept. 30.
There's also been a nationwide increase — the National Poison Data System reports that between the beginning of 2021 and Oct. 3, there were 1,609 ivermectin exposures. That's more than triple the number from the same time period in 2020.
The actual number of ivermectin incidents in Pennsylvania could be higher as many people might not seek medical care. Even if they do, their case might not be reported to the poison centers.
Ivermectin is one on a growing list of substances that people are taking off-label to treat or prevent COVID infections, though doing so provides no therapeutic benefit in regard to the coronavirus. Some of these home remedies are even deadly.
An analysis last year from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that U.S. deaths related to the anti-malaria drug chloroquine and a variant, hydroxychloroquine, “nearly quadrupled” in the first half of 2020. During that time President Trump promoted the chemical as a treatment for COVID. Studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine has no benefits as a COVID treatment .
Between August 2018 and February 2020, there were just nine pre-COVID hydroxychloroquine exposures, according to Pennsylvania poison center data. From March 2020 to September 2021 there were 29 exposures. However many of these recent cases were accidental, which Lynch suspects is related to increased availability of the chemical in people's homes.
In contrast to chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin presents a lower risk.
“Where [ivermectin] gets more dangerous is when people take a whole lot of it. You know like in a veterinary formulation, for instance,” said Lynch. “Or you take more of even a human formulation of it than we would normally recommend, and then [you] are more likely to have adverse effects.”
There is concern that people are buying ivermectin that’s meant for livestock from farm supply stores, and then taking it themselves. Doses intended for cows and horses are far too concentrated for humans. And as the Cleveland Clinic notes, animal ivermectin contains ingredients that "aren’t evaluated for use in people ."
The Pennsylvania data do not reflect how much ivermectin patients ingest, or where they acquire it. However, only post-COVID ivermectin patients reported adverse symptoms like vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain. This might indicate recent exposures involve larger quantities of the drug.
People who consume significant amounts of ivermectin might experience neurological issues such as seizures, coma and even death. New Mexico public health officials suspect two people died last month from ivermectin overdoses.
Notably, the poison center data show that six of Pennsylvania’s post-COVID ivermectin exposures were in children; none of the pre-COVID exposures involved kids. It’s not known how these pediatric cases occurred.
“I suspect that probably some people are giving it to their children if they truly believe that it's something that could prevent COVID, which it doesn't,” said Lynch. “But I'm not aware that that's something that’s happening a lot.”
But Lynch wonders if many of these pediatric ivermectin cases are the result of curious youngsters getting into things they shouldn’t.
After all, there has also been a 53% increase in hand-sanitizer exposures since COVID prompted a surge in the product’s sales. Many of these incidents involve young kids who are intrigued by sanitizers that are scented or brightly colored with sparkles, remarked Lynch. “A good rule of thumb is whatever is around, kids will get into.”
Another emerging COVID-related trend that worries Lynch is the recent social media posts of people inhaling hydrogen peroxide through nebulizers . Doing so risks injury to the mouth, throat and lungs, as hydrogen peroxide is a caustic agent. The state’s poison centers documented 635 exposures post-COVID, which is a 9% increase.
Instead of taking dangerous drugs and chemicals, Lynch urged people to use clinically validated interventions such as the vaccines, which “are very safe and effective.”
“It has nothing to do with an opinion, those are just the facts,” he said. “We want people to understand when you’re doing these other things, you’re exposing yourself to risk without benefit.”
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Mass Poisoning
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The U.S. Withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council
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By Richard Falk | Jun 22, 2018 | News & Analysis, Palestine, Politics, US | 6 | The Trump administration's withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council, and the plainly bogus pretext for it, tells us more about the US than the UN body. Explicitly focusing on alleged anti-Israel bias, the U.S. withdrew from further participation in the UN Human Rights Council. The only internationally credible basis for criticizing the HRC is its regrettable tendency to put some countries with the worst human rights records in leading roles, creating genuine issues of credibility and hypocrisy. Of course, such a criticism would never be made by the U.S. as it could only embarrass Washington to admit that many of its closest allies in the Middle East, and elsewhere have lamentable human rights records, and, if fairly judged, the U.S. has itself reversed roles since the year 2000, itself slipping into the category of the most serious human rights offenders. In this regard, its ‘withdrawal’ can be viewed as a self-imposed ‘suspension’ for falling short when it comes to the promotion and protection of human rights. Undoubtedly, the U.S. was frustrated by its efforts to ‘reform’ the HRC according to its views of the UN agency should function, and blamed its traditional adversaries, Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, along with Egypt, with blocking its initiative. It also must not have welcomed the HRC High Commissioner, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, for describing the separation of children from their immigrant parents at the Mexican border as an “unconscionable” policy. In evaluating this latest sign of American retreat from its prior role as global leader, there are several considerations that help us understand such a move that situates the United States in the same strange rejectionist corner it now shares with North Korea and Eritrea: — The fact that the U.S. withdrawal from the HRC occurred immediately after the Israeli border massacre, insulated from Security Council censure and investigation by a U.S. veto, is certainly part of political foreground. This consideration was undoubtedly reinforced by the HRC approval of a fact-finding investigation of Israel’s behavior over prior weeks in responding to the Great Return March border demonstrations met with widespread lethal sniper violence. — In evaluating the UN connection to Palestine, it needs to be recalled that the organized international community has a distinctive responsibility for Palestine that can be traced all the way back to the peace diplomacy after World War I when Britain was given the role of Mandatory, which according to the League of Nations Covenant should be carried out as a ‘sacred trust of civilization.’ This special relationship was extended and deepened when Britain gave up this role after World War II, transferring responsibility for the future of Palestine to the UN. This newly established world organization was given the task of finding a sustainable solution in the face of sharply contested claims between the majority Palestinian population and the Jewish, mainly settler population. This UN role was started beneath and deeply influenced by the long shadow of grief and guilt cast by the Holocaust. The UN, borrowing from the British colonial playbook, proposed a division of Palestine between Jewish and Palestinian political communities, which eventuated in the UN partition plan contained in General Assembly Resolution 181. This plan was developed and adopted without the participation of the majority resident population, 70% non-Jewish at the time, and was opposed by the independent countries in the Arab world. Such a plan seemed oblivious to the evolving anti-colonial mood of the time, failing to take any account of the guiding normative principle of self-determination. The Partition War that followed in 1947 did produce a de factor partition of Palestine more favorable to the Zionist Project than what was proposed, and rejected, in 181. One feature of the original plan was to internationalize the governance of the city of Jerusalem with both peoples given an equal status. This proposed treatment of Jerusalem was never endorsed by Israel, and was formally, if indirectly, repudiated after the 1967 War when Israel declared (in violation of international law) that Jerusalem was the eternal capital of the Jewish people never to be divided or internationalized, and Israel has so administered Jerusalem with this intent operationalized in defiance of the UN. What this sketch of the UN connection with Palestine clearly shows is that from the very beginning of Israeli state-building, the role of the international community was direct and the discharge of its responsibilities was not satisfactory in that it proved incapable of protecting Palestinian moral, legal, and political rights. As a result, the majority of Palestinian people have been effectively excluded from their own country and as a people exist in a fragmented ethnic reality. This series of events constitutes one of the worst geopolitical crimes of the past century. Rather than do too much by way of criticizing the behavior of Israel, the UN has done far too little, not because of a failure of will, but as an expression of the behavioral primacy of geopolitics and naked militarism; —The revealing stress of Ambassador Haley’s explanation of the U.S. withdrawal from the HRC makes no attempt whatsoever to refute the substantive allegations of Israeli wrongdoing, but instead gives almost total attention to quantitative factors such as the ‘disproportionate’ number of resolutions compared with those given to other human rights offenders. This is not surprising as any attempt to justify Israeli policies and practices toward the Palestinian people would only expose the severity of Israel’s criminality and the acuteness of Palestinian victimization. The U.S. has also long struggled to be rid of so-called Item 7 of the Human Rights Council devoted to human rights violations of Israel associated with the occupation of Palestinian territories, which overlooks the prior main point that the UN is derelict in its failure to produce a just peace for the peoples inhabiting Mandate Palestine. —Withdrawing from international institutional arrangements, especially those positively associated with peace, human rights, and environmental protection has become the hallmark of what be identified as the negative internationalism of the Trump presidency. The most egregious instances, prior to this move with regard to the HRC, involved the repudiation of the Nuclear Program Agreement with Iran (also known as the JCPOA or P5 +1 Agreement) and the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Unlike these other instances of negative internationalism this departure from the HRC is likely to hurt the U.S. more than the HRC, reinforcing its myopic willingness to do whatever it takes to please Netanyahu and the lead American Zionist donor to the Trump campaign, Sheldon Adelson. Only the provocative announcement of the planned unilateral move of the American Embassy to Jerusalem last December was as explicitly responsive to Israel’s policy agenda as is this rejection of the HRC, both initiatives stand out as being contrary to a fair rendering of American national interests, and hence a show of deference to Israel’s preferences. Despite this unabashed one-sidedness the Trump presidency still puts itself forward as a peacemaker, and promised to produce ‘the deal of the century’ at the proper moment, even enjoying the backing of Saudi Arabia, which seems to be telling the Palestinians to take what is offered or shut up forever. Knowing the weakness and shallow ambitions of the Palestinian Authority, there is no telling what further catastrophe, this one of a diplomatic character, may further darken the Palestinian future. A diplomatic nakba might be the worst disaster of all for the Palestinian people and their century-long struggle for elemental rights. — It should also be observed that the U.S. human rights record has been in steady decline, whether the focus is placed on the morally catastrophic present policies of separating families at the Mexican border or on the failure to achieve acceptable progress at home in the area of economic and social rights despite American affluence (as documented in the recent report of Philip Alston, UNHRC Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty) or in the various violations of human rights committed in the course of the War on Terror, including operation of black sites in foreign countries to carry on torture of terror suspects, or denials of the tenets of international humanitarian law (Geneva Conventions) in the administration of Guantanamo and other prison facilities. — It is also worth noting that Israel’s defiance of international law and international institutions is pervasive, flagrant, and directly related to maintaining an oppressive regime of occupation that is complemented by apartheid structures victimizing Palestinian refugees, residents of Jerusalem, the Palestinian minority in Israel, and imprisoned population of Gaza. Israel refused the authority of the International Court of Justice with respect to the ‘separation wall’ that back in 2004 declared by a near unanimous vote of 14-1 (U.S. as the lone dissent) that building the wall on occupied Palestinian territory was unlawful, that the wall should be dismantled, and Palestinians compensated for harm endured. There are many other instances concerning such issues as settlements, collective punishment, excessive force, prison conditions, and a variety of abuse of children. In conclusion, by purporting to punish the Human Rights Council, the Trump presidency, representing the U.S. Government, is much more punishing itself, as well as the peoples of the world. We all benefit from a robust and legitimated institutional framework for the promotion and protection of vital human rights. The claim of an anti-Israeli bias in the HRC, or UN, is bogus, the daily violation of the most basis rights of the Palestinian people is a tragic reality. This is all we need to know. This article was originally published at RichardFalk.WordPress.com on June 22, 2018.
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Withdraw from an Organization
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Two domestic violence support organizations merge: Here's what that means for Rochester
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Two Rochester-area domestic violence support organizations announced merger plans Tuesday to "expand staff clinical expertise and mental health services." The merger of Willow Domestic Violence Center and RESOLVE of Greater Rochester, Inc. "creates (an) unparalleled continuum of survivor services and prevention efforts in Greater Rochester," according to a release from the organization. The new group will continue to be known as Willow Domestic Violence Center. The longtime collaborators formally merged on July 1. The paperwork has been submitted to the state and will hopefully take effect in early 2022. The organizations said the merger builds on the strengths of each group. Here's what the merger means for those in Monroe County: “Survivors often face challenges on their journey to safety, and their needs are unique and varied, especially with increased demand while recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic,” Willow president and chief executive officer Meaghan de Chateauvieux said in a release. "This merger is a strategic partnership to ensure Willow’s community response continues to be agile, seamless, and comprehensive while honoring the legacy and expertise of RESOLVE.” RESOLVE interim CEO Mary Whittier said the goal is to create a "seamless survivor experience." She said the group is "small but mighty" in an email to supporters. Whittier will work as a consultant through Aug. 1. "Many of our clients are involved with Willow, and many of Willow's clients are involved with RESOLVE," Whittier wrote in an email. "Because we have complementary services, the best decision for survivors and their families, donors, funders, and the community as a whole, is to formally merge as one organization to become Willow Domestic Violence Center. In other words, 1+1=3. We will be stronger together for those who need us most." All RESOLVE employees were offered roles within the new organization. Willow will take over RESOLVE's current counseling space in Penfield while maintaining its current facilities. Willow, which was founded in 1979, offers services for nearly 15,000 people each year. RESOLVE launched in 1998 and focuses on therapeutic treatment services. Its core programs follow the survivor transition model and clinical work with 150 clients per year. The merger was shepherded by the United Way synergy fund, "which lends technical assistance and reorganizational support for non-profit mergers and strategic affiliations," a release stated. It also saw the launch of Deaf IGNITE at Willow last August by integrating services for deaf domestic violence survivors under the Willow umbrella. Contact Will Cleveland at wcleveland@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @willcleveland13.
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Kosovo becomes member of UEFA, paves way for FIFA application
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By Brian Homewood
3 Min Read
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Kosovo was accepted as a member of UEFA on Tuesday, becoming the 55th member of European football’s governing body despite strong opposition from neighbouring Serbia, from which it declared independence in 2008.
A member of the Kosovo media team celebrates outside the convention centre where the European football group UEFA admitted Kosovo as its newest member in Budapest, Hungary, May 3, 2016. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh
Twenty-eight of UEFA’s members, the minimum necessary, voted in favour of Kosovo and 24 against after a long and sometimes heated discussion at UEFA’s Congress.
The decision opens the way for Kosovo to join global football body FIFA, at a vote next week, and take part in the 2018 World Cup qualifying competition.
Kosovo President Hashim Thaci wrote on his Facebook page: “Kosovo in UEFA! The best news for countless fans in our republic. Now we will play in international championships, some games will be won some will be lost but no one will ever keep us out from green fields.”
It was not immediately clear whether FIFA would allow Kosovar players who have already played for another national team to switch nationalities.
FIFA rules do not allow players to change allegiance but there has been speculation that it could allow a one-off for Kosovo. This would have a big impact on Switzerland and Albania both of which have contingents of players with Kosovar roots.
In Switzerland’s case, that includes some of their top players like Granit Xhaka, Xherdan Shaqiri and Valon Behrami.
Slideshow ( 3 images )
“We have asked FIFA the question in a very direct way and we would like to receive a clear answer but before we do I can’t say anything about this,” said UEFA legal director Alasdair Bell.
Albanian FA president Armand Duka said he supported Kosovo’s bid in any case. “We have players of Kosovar origins and might be afraid of losing them, but this is not the issue,” he told the Congress.
Before the vote, Serbian FA president Tomislav Karadzic had urged the Congress to reject the application, saying it was a case of politics interfering with sport.
“This is a political, not a footballing proposal,” he said. “It would create tumult in the region and open a Pandora’s box throughout Europe.”
“Football must not cross the particular line of changing the borders of any country and accepting the self-proclaimed Kosovo republic would be crossing such a line.”
Although Serbia does not recognise Kosovo as a sovereign state, it signed an accord in 2013 aimed at settling relations as a condition for its own progress towards European Union membership.
UEFA statutes say that membership can be granted to any football association “based in a country which is recognised by the United Nations as an independent state.”
But Bell said a literal reading of that article “would not make sense from a legal point of view.”
“The United Nations has no competence to recognise states; states recognise states; you are either a member of the UN or not, the fact you are not a member of the UN does not mean you are not a state; this is a legal matter,” he added.
Kosovo were allowed to play friendlies with restrictions by FIFA in 2014 and have met several teams including Haiti and Turkey.
Additional reporting by Zoran Milosavljevic in Belgrade, Fatos Bytyci in Pristina and Marton Dunai; Editing by Hugh Lawson
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Socceroos striker’s message to Arnold: ‘I’ll be ready if you need me’
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Socceroos striker Adam Taggart has handed Australia coach Graham Arnold an early Christmas gift by declaring he’s on track to return to action early in the New Year after recovering from knee surgery. The target man has missed Australia’s last two World Cup qualifiers - the largely toothless draws against Saudi Arabia and China - his absence keenly felt at the pointy end where his presence as both finisher and creator was sorely missed. Though in the midst of a mini-goal drought himself before suffering a torn meniscus playing for his J1 club Cerezo Osaka six weeks back, Taggart’s calmness on the ball, robust physicality and ability to hold possession and bring teammates into play made him close to indispensable for Arnold. Back in his hometown of Perth to continue his rehab under the watchful eyes of Socceroos fitness staff headed by conditioning guru Andrew Clark, Taggart, 28, declared the operation a success and a January return to action a realistic target. “I’m looking to make myself available in January - it just depends what Arnie is thinking. But I’ll be as ready as I can be,” said Taggart, who sustained the injury soon after scoring his first J1 goal for Cerezo against Nagoya at the end of October. “I’d have had a couple of weeks of pre-season (before the next qualifier against Vietnam in Melbourne on January 27). “I’m starting to get going now and by then I should be fairly fit. Whatever happens I’ll be ready for it.” With Australia now relegated to third in Group A with four games left - a point behind Japan and five adrift of the Green Falcons - an automatic qualifying spot for Qatar 2022 is in grave jeopardy. “We have two massive games coming up (against Vietnam and away to Oman five days later),” Taggart told FTBL. “I want to be a part of it is this group of Socceroos are special. “Apart from this camp just gone I’ve been heavily involved and any game means a lot to me especially these big ones coming up.” Taggart, with six goals in 15 appearances for Australia, believes Australia can clamber from their current predicament and still pip Japan for the second qualifying spot, with the top two still to meet and 12 points still up for grabs. He acknowledged that in addition to his the absence, being stripped of orchestrators Tom Rogic and Aaron Mooy for the last two games - plus the devastating ACL suffered by defender Harry Souttar - has dealt a hammer blow to Arnold. “These players are massive for us and you’re always going to miss them,” he said. “We had that great run of 11 successive wins, whether it was doing it ugly or nice, and we’ve lost that little bit over the past couple of matches. “But I’ve got all the confidence in the world we will bounce back. Arnie has an unbelievable mentality and he instils that in everyone. “For me, he’s an unbelievable gaffer. Yes we’ve had a rough couple of games but everybody loves him and have the upmost respect for him. “He always gives us a clear game plan we just have to carry it out. “It’s always hard in camp when you have so little time to prepare - but that's no excuse. We just need to concentrate on performing well. “There are huge matches coming up also against Japan at home and Saudi away (in March) but that’s what you want as a footballer. “As difficult as it is there are opportunities for special moments to be had. “We’ve had some difficult results but we have keep a strong mentality and make sure we win at all costs. “There are still plenty of chances to make sure we finish in the top two. We just need to focus on winning the last four games. The ball is still in our court. “Of course there’s pressure because the whole country is watching. It means a lot to everyone.”
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Famous Person - Recovered
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It's official, US withdraws from World Health Organization
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President Donald Trump withdrew from the WHO after criticizing the organization’s response to the initial outbreak of the coronavirus in China. The withdrawal decision, which can come into effect as early as July 6, 2021, was widely denounced by health officials. July 8, 2020 The Trump administration has formally notified the United Nations of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, although the pullout won't take effect until next year, meaning it could be rescinded under a new administration or if circumstances change. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said he would reverse the decision on his first day in office if elected. The withdrawal notification makes good on President Donald Trump's vow in late May to terminate U.S. participation in the WHO, which he has harshly criticized for its response to the coronavirus pandemic and accused of bowing to Chinese influence. The move was immediately assailed by health officials and critics of the administration, including numerous Democrats who said it would cost the U.S. influence in the global arena. Mr. Biden has said in the past he supports the WHO and pledged Tuesday to rejoin the WHO if he defeats Mr. Trump in November. "Americans are safer when America is engaged in strengthening global health. On my first day as president, I will rejoin the WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage," he said. Mr. Trump is trailing Mr. Biden in multiple polls and has sought to deflect criticism of his administration's handling of the virus by aggressively attacking China and the WHO. The withdrawal notice was sent to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday and will take effect in a year, on July 6, 2021, the State Department and the United Nations said on Tuesday. The State Department said the United States would continue to seek reform of the WHO, but referred to Mr. Trump's June 15 response when asked if the administration might change its mind. "I'm not reconsidering, unless they get their act together, and I'm not sure they can at this point," Mr. Trump said. Mr. Guterres, in his capacity as depositary of the 1946 WHO constitution, "is in the process of verifying with the World Health Organization whether all the conditions for such withdrawal are met," his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said. Under the terms of the withdrawal, the U.S. must meet its financial obligations to the WHO before it can be finalized. The U.S., which is the agency's largest donor and provides it with more than $450 million per year, currently owes the WHO some $200 million in current and past dues. On May 29, less than two weeks after warning the WHO that it had 30 days to reform or lose U.S. support, Mr. Trump announced his administration was leaving the organization due to what he said was its inadequate response to the initial outbreak of the coronavirus in China's Wuhan province late last year. The president said in a White House announcement that Chinese officials "ignored" their reporting obligations to the WHO and pressured the organization to mislead the public about an outbreak that has now killed more than 130,000 Americans. "We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engaged with them directly, but they have refused to act," Mr. Trump said at the time. "Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating the relationship." The withdrawal notification was widely denounced as misguided, certain to undermine an important institution that is leading vaccine development efforts and drug trials to address the COVID-19 outbreak. The Republican chairman of Senate health committee, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, said he disagreed with the decision. "Certainly there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it," he said. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned the move. "The President's official withdrawal of the U.S. from the World Health Organization is an act of true senselessness," she said in a tweet. "With millions of lives at risk, the president is crippling the international effort to defeat the virus." And the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, said calling Mr. Trump's "response to COVID chaotic and incoherent doesn't do it justice. This won't protect American lives or interests – it leaves Americans sick and America alone." UN Foundation President Elizabeth Cousens called the move "short-sighted, unnecessary, and unequivocally dangerous. WHO is the only body capable of leading and coordinating the global response to COVID-19. Terminating the U.S. relationship would undermine the global effort to beat this virus – putting all of us at risk." The ONE Campaign, which supports international health projects, called it an "astounding action" that jeopardizes global health. "Withdrawing from the World Health Organization amidst an unprecedented global pandemic is an astounding action that puts the safety of all Americans and the world at risk. The U.S. should use its influence to strengthen and reform the WHO, not abandon it at a time when the world needs it most," ONE president Gayle Smith said.
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Withdraw from an Organization
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Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen Sets Olympic Record in Wild 1500m Final
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The 20-year-old American was part of a crazy final at Tokyo's Olympic Stadium that featured six runners shattering the previous Olympics mark to beat.
Watch all the action from the Tokyo Olympics live on NBC
Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen took home gold with a 3:28.32 mark, beating Kenyan Abel Kipsang's Olympic record (3:31.65) set at Thursday's semifinals. Timothy Cheruiyot of Kenya earned silver with a 3:29.01 time and Great Britain's Josh Kerr followed with a 3:29.05 mark for bronze.
Kipsing finished fourth on Saturday with a time of 3:29.56 and Spain's Adel Mechaal placed fifth at 3:30.77.
For reference, American Matthew Centrowitz won the event at the 2016 Rio Olympics with a time of 3:50.00. That time would have trailed the last-place finisher of Saturday's final, Spain's Ignacio Fontes, by over 11 seconds.
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Break historical records
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Iran nuclear deal: Trump pulls US out in break with Europe allies
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US President Donald Trump says he will withdraw the US from an Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran.
Calling it "decaying and rotten", he said the deal was "an embarrassment" to him "as a citizen".
Going against advice from European allies, he said he would reimpose economic sanctions that were waived when the deal was signed in 2015. In response, Iran said it was preparing to restart uranium enrichment, key for making both nuclear energy and weapons.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said: "The US has announced that it doesn't respect its commitments.
"I have ordered the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran to be ready for action if needed, so that if necessary we can resume our enrichment on an industrial level without any limitations."
He said he would "wait a few weeks" to speak to allies and the other signatories to the nuclear deal first.
"If we achieve the deal's goals in cooperation with other members of the deal, it will remain in place," he said.
The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) curbed Iran's nuclear activities in return for the lifting of sanctions that had been imposed by the UN, US and EU.
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Mr Trump had previously complained that the deal only limited Iran's nuclear activities for a fixed period; had failed to stop the development of ballistic missiles; and had handed Iran a $100bn (£74bn) windfall that it used "as a slush fund for weapons, terror, and oppression" across the Middle East.
"It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of this deal," Mr Trump said.
"The Iran deal is defective to its core."
Former President Barack Obama, who signed the deal on behalf of the US three years ago, called Mr Trump's announcement "misguided".
The US Treasury said economic sanctions would not be reimposed on Iran immediately, but would be subject to 90-day and 180-day wind-down periods.
In a statement on its website, it said sanctions would be reimposed on the industries mentioned in the 2015 deal, including Iran's oil sector, aircraft exports, precious metals trade, and Iranian government attempts to buy US dollar banknotes.
US National Security Advisor John Bolton is reported as saying that European companies doing business with Iran will have to finish within six months or face US sanctions.
Analysis by Jonathan Marcus, BBC defence and diplomatic correspondent
With a stroke of his pen President Trump has jeopardised the one agreement - good or bad -that seeks to constrain Iran's nuclear ambitions. He launched a scathing assault on the deal and its deficiencies, but he offered no alternative policy to put in its place. He has put US diplomacy on a collision course with some of Washington's closest allies.
And some fear that he may have brought a new and catastrophic regional war in the Middle East that much closer.
France, Germany and the UK - whose leaders had tried to change Mr Trump's mind - have said they "regret" the American decision. The foreign ministry of Russia, another signatory, said it was "deeply disappointed". The European Union's top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, said the EU was "determined to preserve" the deal.
Former President Obama said on Facebook that the deal was working and was in US interests.
"Walking away from the JCPOA turns our back on America's closest allies, and an agreement that our country's leading diplomats, scientists, and intelligence professionals negotiated.
"At a time when we are all rooting for diplomacy with North Korea to succeed, walking away from the JCPOA risks losing a deal that accomplishes - with Iran - the very outcome that we are pursuing with the North Koreans," he said.
The United Nations secretary general's spokesman said Antonio Guterres was "deeply concerned" at the announcement and called on the other signatories to abide by their commitments.
But Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he "fully supports" Mr Trump's "bold" withdrawal from a "disastrous" deal.
And Saudi Arabia, Iran's regional rival, says it "supports and welcomes" Mr Trump's moves towards pulling out of the deal.
The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) saw Iran agree to limit the size of its stockpile of enriched uranium - which is used to make reactor fuel, but also nuclear weapons - for 15 years and the number of centrifuges installed to enrich uranium for 10 years. Iran also agreed to modify a heavy water facility so it could not produce plutonium suitable for a bomb.
In return, sanctions imposed by the UN, US and EU that had crippled Iran's economy were lifted.
The deal was agreed between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, UK, France, China and Russia - plus Germany.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, and its compliance with the deal has been verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
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Tear Up Agreement
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Roof collapses at salt mine; two miners missing
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and last updated 2020-12-14 18:10:27-05
UPDATE: Two miners are missing after a roof collapse in the Avery Island salt mine.
We've received the following statement from Cargill:
Early this morning, Cargill’s Avery Island salt mine experienced a roof collapse. We have two employees who remain unaccounted for at this time and we are working with local first responders and the Mine Safety and Health Administration who are onsite to respond to this emergency. All 16 other employees working that shift have been evacuated with no injuries reported. The facility has been shut down to allow a complete investigation of the incident and ensure the safe operations of our facility.
KATC's Eman Boyd is at the Avery Island mine and will have more on the incident.
Records at the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration show about 50 citations issued at the Avery Island Mine for alleged violations of federal safety and health standards for mines over the course of 2020.
Those records show inspections carried out in February, March, April, May, June, September, November and December of this year.
The most recent citation, issued on December 3, was for "ground conditions that create a hazard to persons shall be taken down or supported before other work or travel is permitted in the affected area. Until corrective work is completed, the area shall be posted with a warning against entry and, when left unattended, a barrier shall be installed to impede unauthorized entry."
Other citations over 2020 were issued for violations regarding firefighting equipment, danger signs, safety equipment, safety defect processes and parking procedures for equipment.
The mine was cited for at least four times recently for violation of a regulation that requires maintenance of "self-rescue" equipment for miners. The regulation requires that a self-rescue device be available for every person in the mine.
Fines were levied for all of the citations issued prior to November, with most of them identified as closed. Two of the citations are listed as delinquent; they were issued to Master Drilling USA. Only a few of the citations were issued to Master Drilling; almost all of them were issued to Cargill Deicing Technology.
Copyright 2020 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Mine Collapses
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Mexicana Flight 704 crash
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On 4 June 1969, Mexicana Flight 704, a Boeing 727-64 airliner registered XA-SEL, crashed near Salinas Victoria, some 20 miles north of the city of Monterrey. All 79 people on board were killed. Flight MX-704 departed Mexico City, bound for Monterrey, at 07:02 local time. The flight was uneventful until approach, when the crew began descending at a vertical speed of 1500–1600 ft / min (460–490 m / min) at an airspeed of 250 knots. During its approach to Del Norte International Airport, the crew contacted the landing controller and requested weather conditions and traffic information. The dispatcher reported that the weather over the airport was cloudy with a lower boundary of 500 feet (150 m) with haze, light raining, and no other aircraft in the airport zone. The crew asked if the radio beacon at Cienega de Flores was operating, and received word that it was not functioning due to an electrical power outage. Flight 704 then reported that, for some reason, they received a signal similar to the signal from this beacon. The crew then reported the airport in sight, and began to carry out the final approach. This was the last transmission from the aircraft. [1][2][3]
The aircraft collided with Cerro del Fraile and broke up, killing all 79 people on board. [3][4] The crash was the deadliest aviation accident on Mexican soil until Mexicana Flight 940, another Boeing 727, crashed on 31 March 1986, killing all 167 people on board. [1]
The aircraft involved was a two-year-old Boeing 727-64 registered XA-SEL (factory - 19256, serial - 355) The aircraft's maiden flight was on 6 January 1967. On 17 January, the aircraft was delivered to Mexicana de Aviación (later re branded as Mexicana), where it was named Azteca de Oro. [5] The aircraft was powered by three Pratt & Whitney JT8D-7B turbofan engines. [1]
The captain was Guillermo García Ramos, a World War II veteran. He was experienced in both military and commercial aviation. He had 15,000 flying hours on commercial aircraft. The first officer was Carlos de Iturbide Magallón. The flight engineer was Alfonso Navarro Mazzini. [citation needed]
Notable passengers on the flight included Mexican tennis star Rafael Osuna, the architect Jorge González Reyna and politician Carlos A. Madrazo. [2]
The Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (SCT) investigated the accident and determined the pilot did not follow the proper landing approach path. The official report states in part that "the pilot flew over the VOR of Monterrey (VHF Omnidirectional Range or Omnidirectional Radiofaro VHF) without reporting to the land station to then turn to the right and then another to the left in continuous descent keeping course of 260º until crashing with the Cerro de los Tres Picos when it was still turning smoothly to the left and bearing a 232º course." The investigating board was unable to determine the reason for such a deviation, since the last few minutes of the recording were absent from the cockpit voice recorder. It was also not possible to determine which radio beacon the fight had been receiving, as the airport radio beacon at that moment stopped working due to loss of electrical power. [2]
Since well-known Mexican politician Carlos Madrazo was on board, there were also hypotheses regarding political assassination, which cannot be refuted or proved due to insufficient evidence. [2]
Some Mexican media, such as Uno TV, have argued that the accident was a premeditated, political assassination act, since politician Carlos Madrazo was in the aircraft when it crashed. [6] In an interview with Revista Proceso in Mexico, writer Patricia Rosas Lopategui also argued that the crash was a political assassination targeting Madrazo. [7]
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Air crash
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UTair Flight 120 crash
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UTair Flight 120 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Tyumen to Surgut, Russia. [1] On 2 April 2012, the ATR-72 turboprop aircraft operating the flight crashed shortly after take-off from Roschino International Airport, killing 33 of the 43 people on board. [2] Investigation carried out by the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) revealed that the aircraft had not been de-iced prior to its take-off, even though it had been parked for hours in snowy condition. The crew of the flight were aware that ice and snow had accumulated on the aircraft, but decided not to de-ice it. [3]
Flight 120 departed Tyumen, the largest city and the capital of Tyumen Oblast, to Surgut, a major city in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug with 39 passengers and 4 crew members on board, on 07:33 local time (01:33 UTC). The weather was "snow-mixed rain" at the time and the temperature was at around 0 °C. At around 600 ft, the autopilot was engaged and the flaps were retracted. [3]
Almost simultaneously with the completion of flap retraction, the First Officer expressed surprise, and the Captain was recorded asking "what is this?" The aircraft began an uncommanded roll to the right, while the First Officer asked "what's this buffeting?" The crew immediately disengaged the autopilot. Within 3 seconds, the angle of the roll reached 40 degrees. The crew counteracted the right roll by applying ailerons and rudder, but were unable to counteract the subsequent left roll. [4][3]
As Flight 120's movement became more erratic, it also began to lose its altitude. As intermittent stall warnings appeared, the crew appeared increasingly confused; when the Captain asked the First Officer to report their situation to the tower, the First Officer replied with "Report what? Shit! What's the failure?" in a tone suggesting high levels of stress. At a left bank of 55 degrees and a nose-down angle of 11 degrees, the plane then crashed onto an open field near the runway at 07:34 local time (01:34 UTC) and burst into flames. The aircraft broke into several pieces. The accident occurred at about 1 nautical mile (2 km) south west of the end of the main runway, near the village of Gorkovka. [5] There were initially 31 fatalities (all four crew members and 29 of the 39 passengers) and 12 survivors from the 43 people on board. [4][5][6] They were taken to the hospital in Tyumen. [4] Two of the survivors later died of their injures, bringing the death toll to thirty-three and the number of survivors to ten. [2] The Interstate Aviation Committee confirmed this as the official toll in the final report. [3]
The accident aircraft was an ATR 72-201,[7] manufactured by the French-Italian ATR and registered in Bermuda as VP-BYZ. [4] The aircraft, msn 332, was manufactured in 1992 and first flew on 20 October of that year. It was delivered to TransAsia Airways on 16 December 1992 and subsequently served with Finnair and Aero Airlines before entering service with UTair Aviation in July 2008. [8]
Flight 120 was carrying 39 passengers and 5 crew members. UTair had sold 40 tickets for the flight, but a passenger from Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug failed to arrive on time. [9] Nikolay Medvedev, a member of the board of Surgutneftegaz, was among the passengers. [10]
The Captain of the flight was 27-year old Sergey Sergeevich Antsin. He had completed his flight training in Ulyanovsk Civil Flying School and graduated in 2008, subsequently employed by Utair on the same year as a First Officer. He had accrued a total flying experience of 2,602 flight hours, of which 2,522 hours were on the ATR-72. He had also flown a Yakovlev Yak-18 and an Antonov An-26. [3]
The co-pilot was identified as 23-year old Nikita Vitalievich Chekhlov. He had attended Krasnokutsk Civil Flight School in Krasnokutsk, Ukraine and graduated in 2008, later employed by Utair on the same year. He had accrued a total flying experience of 1,825 hours, of which 634 hours were on the ATR-72. In 2009, he had completed his ATR-72 training in Sabenavita Training Center in Lithuania. [3]
Officials said investigators were focusing on the possibility of a technical malfunction as an eyewitness reported seeing smoke coming from the plane's engines as it came down. The aircraft's flight data recorder was recovered in good condition. [9]
The Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) released their final report on 16 July 2013. They determined the cause of the accident to be that the aircraft departed without having been de-iced, despite the crew having noticed the presence of ice during taxi. Under the conditions of the flight, the wing flap retraction should have occurred at 160 knots; instead, the crew retracted them at 139 knots, which is approximately the speed at which flap retraction would be performed under normal conditions. Immediately after flap retraction, the plane began exhibiting unusual behavior, though the crew seemed to have trouble identifying the problem, with the first officer sounding increasingly stressed as the situation developed. The situational stress may have contributed to the failure to apply appropriate recovery procedures. An engineering simulation concluded that the airplane was not contaminated enough by ice as to be unrecoverable; had the crew applied forward pressure on the control column and extended the flaps back to 15 degrees, the plane would have recovered after losing just "300-400 ft" of their pre-stall altitude. The pilots seemed preoccupied with the banking and buffeting of the airplane, and were pulling back on the control column until impact. The report also identified a number of contributing factors that had to do with the airline's safety and training deficiencies. [5]
In November 2015, the court sentenced mechanic Andrey Pisarev and maintenance manager Anatoly Petrochenko to five years and one month in prison. Captain Sergey Antsin who died in the crash was also found guilty of the accident.
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Air crash
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United Mine Workers coal strike of 1919
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The United Mine Workers coal strike of 1919 saw coal miners strike for over a month, from November 1 to December 10, 1919, for better wages. 1919 in the United States saw the country undergoing the First Red Scare a period marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism, due to real and imagined events; real events included the Russian Revolution and anarchist bombings. At its height in 1919–1920, concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and the alleged spread of communism and anarchism in the American labor movement fueled a general sense of concern. Add to this was the ongoing steel strike of 1919, an attempt by the weakened Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers (AA) to organize the United States steel industry in the wake of World War I. The strike had begun on September 22, 1919. The United Mine Workers under John L. Lewis announced a strike for November 1, 1919. [1] They had agreed to a wage agreement to run until the end of World War I and now sought to capture some of their industry's wartime gains. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer invoked the Lever Act, a wartime measure that made it a crime to interfere with the production or transportation of necessities. The law, meant to punish hoarding and profiteering, had never been used against a union. Certain of united political backing and almost universal public support, Palmer obtained an injunction on October 31[2] and 400,000 coal workers struck the next day. [3] He claimed the President authorized the action, following a meeting with the severely ill President in the presence of his doctor. [3] [4] Palmer also asserted that the entire Cabinet had backed his request for an injunction. That infuriated Secretary of Labor Wilson who had opposed Palmer's plan and supported Gompers' view of the President's promises when the Act was under consideration. The rift between the Attorney General and the Secretary of Labor was never healed, which had consequences the next year when Palmer's attempts to deport radicals were frustrated by the Department of Labor. [5]
On November 2, 1919, the Great Falls Daily Tribune published that around 394,000 bituminous miners out of a total of 615,000 employed by the coal industry were on strike. [6] The miners on strike were based in the following states:[6]
Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, protested that President Wilson and members of his Cabinet had provided assurances when the Act was passed that it would not be used to prevent strikes by labor unions. He provided detailed accounts of his negotiations with representatives of the administration, especially Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson. He also argued that the end of hostilities, even in the absence of a signed treaty, should have invalidated any attempts to enforce the Act's provisions. [7] Nevertheless, he attempted to mediate between Palmer and Lewis, but after several days called the injunction "so autocratic as to stagger the human mind. "[8] The coal operators smeared the strikers with charges that Lenin and Trotsky had ordered the strike and were financing it, and some of the press echoed that language. [9] Others used words like "insurrection" and "Bolshevik revolution". [9] Eventually Lewis, facing criminal charges and sensitive to the propaganda campaign, withdrew his strike call, though many strikers ignored his action. [10] As the strike dragged on into its third week, coal supplies were running low and public sentiment was calling for ever stronger government action. The final agreement came on December 10. [11] [12] The deal amounted to a 14% wage increase as well as an appointment of an investigatory commission to continue the exploration of the wage issue. [13] The agreement was signed by John L. Lewis, John Brophy and other officials, and called on the miners to return to work. [13]
Notes
References
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Strike
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Uba riots of 1937
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The Uba riots of 1937 or simply the Mauritian riots of 1937 refers to an outbreak of riots and civil disturbances that broke out amongst small scale sugar cane growers on the island of Mauritius in August 1937. The riots led to the death of 4 people with an additional 6 people being injured.
Uba refers to a variety of Saccharum sinense sugarcane commonly cultivated by small hold owning cane growers and labourers at the time who initiated the riots due to an unexpected reduction in the price sugar mills were prepared to pay for the cane.
Large sugar estates sold off less productive land to better-off Indian Mauritians from the 1870s onward forming a class of small land owners who came to be known as Sirdars. The Sidars used family labour to make their sugar plots profitable. The Sidars also acted as middlemen between sharecropping rural workers and the Franco-Mauritian elite that owned the large Sugar Cane estates. This created a distance between labourers and the land owning elite who ran the Sugar Mills resulting in a lack of any mechanism for the cane labourers to raise grievances with their employers. The owners of the large sugar plantations held a very strong political position within the local government of Mauritius. Both due to their economic power and because the British colonial government was concerned about aggravating pro-French sentiment amongst Franco-Mauritians during the 1800s. Fearing that they would agitate either for independence or to become a French colony again as advocated by the Retrocessionist Movement or Retrocession Movement which was active at that time. This further prevent labour reform on the island and aggravated the difficult working conditions of the sugar can labourers.
To help address this issue and improve overall working conditions for rural labourers the Mauritian Labour Party (MLP) was founded on the 23 February 1936 by Dr Maurice Curé and Emmanuel ‘Jacques’ Anquetil.
Many small scale farmers planted the hardier but less productive Uba variety of sugarcane. Although Uba produced more cane by weight it also had a lower sucrose content than traditional varieties of sugarcane meaning that the mills would produce less refined sugar from it. Since the growers of sugarcane were paid by weight the sugar refineries experienced lower profits whilst the growers were paid more per harvest. In July 1937, at the beginning of that year's sugarcane harvest, the sugar refineries announced that they would only accept Uba cane for fifteen percent less than regular sugarcane. This combined with the depressed state of the sugar market internationally put great economic strain on growers.
Following the announcement of the fifteen percent reduction in the Uba cane price labourers on the Rich Fund estate asked the Sirdars or managers to intervene to raise the price. After getting no satisfaction the labourers went on strike and caused a number of minor disturbances. Due to similar strikes in Trinidad at the time the British government in Mauritius initially sought a conciliatory approach whilst the Labour Party held rallies calling for political and economic reform. By mid-August the strikes had spread to other sugar estates across the island. The government sought to negotiate with the sugar refineries to increase the price of Uba cane but a few estates refused. One of the estates that refused to increase the price,] the Union-Flacq estate owned by Rajcoomar Gujadhur, became the target of arson attacks and property damage. This along with a suggestion by the police to deal with their own security lead to the stockpiling of weapons on the estate.
On the 13 August 1937 around 200 small planters and labourers marched towards the refinery at Union-Flacq. On their way they had overturned trucks, cut telephone wires and set fire to sugarcane fields at L’Unité. At Bel Etang they overturned tramways.Armed staff at the refinery met the demonstrators who then attempted to storm the facility. Fearing for their personal safety the staff fired on the demonstrators. The encounter resulted in the deaths of 6 protesters and wounding 4 more. The protesters dispersed whilst setting fire to surrounding sugar cane fields. Word spread and protests lasted for an additional two weeks across the island.
Following the 1937 Uba riots and the Hooper Commission of Enquiry in 1938 the local British government repealed the ban on labour unions, created a framework for collective bargaining, and setup the Mauritian Department of Labour whilst also creating institutions to help arbitrate grievances between employers and labourers. The legalising of labour unions in addition to the other reforms also greatly enhanced labour conditions. The incident also led to the democratisation of agricultural extension and research services to small scale sugarcane farmers. Thereby increasing their access to technology and improving their long term economic standing.
About a year after the 1937 Union Flacq massacre dockers in Port Louis also went on strike in September 1938, thus crippling the island's only port and its economy.The Moody Commission of Enquiry of 1943 which was instigated following the Belle Vue Harel Massacre also highlighted the inadequate remuneration and conditions of those working in the Mauritian sugar industry.
The deadly 1937 protest had a significant impact on the Labour Party (Mauritius) which had been formed a year earlier. The dockers' strike of September 1938 in Port Louis prompted Governor Sir Bede Clifford to declare a state of emergency. Labour Party leaders Sahadeo, Curé and Anquetil also became targets of the British colonial administration. Dr Curé was placed under house arrest, Anquetil was deported to Rodrigues and Pandit Sahadeo was placed under house arrest for almost 2 weeks. Despite Anquetil's exile and the house arrest of Sahadeo and Curé the profile of the Labour Party was greatly enhanced helping to create the conditions for it to join forces with the IFB and CAM to form the first governing alliance (Independence Party (Mauritius) of an independent Mauritius 30 years later in August 1967.
The martyrs of the Uba Riots and massacre of 13 August 1937 were commemorated by Mauritian singer Siven Chinien in his song 1937 L'année Memorable which was released in his 1970s album Ratsitatane, Conscience Noire.
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Riot
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Kelly Clarkson Sells Farmhouse She Custom-Designed With Ex Brandon Blackstock: See Inside $8.24M Mansion
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Some people wait a lifetime for a home like this. But Kelly Clarkson is selling the mansion she custom-designed with estranged husband Brandon Blackstock.
The eight-bedroom house in Encino, California, was bought by the Voice coach, 39, in June 2018 while she was married to Blackstock. The duo, who tied the knot in 2013, split in 2020 with Clarkson officially filing divorce papers in June of that year. The divorce is set to be finalized in January 2022.
The farmhouse-style home had plenty of room for their family with over 10,000 square feet. The exes share daughter River, 7, and son Remington, 5, and Blackstock, 44, is also father to teenagers Savannah, 19, and Seth, 14, from a previous relationship.
The mansion, which Clarkson bought for $8.5 million, was custom-built in 2018 and features uniquely distinctive wood panels on the exterior as well as black window frames and garage doors.
Inside the house — beyond the tall privacy fence enclosing the property, of course — is a spacious living area. The kitchen and living room have an open floor plan with three kitchen islands, two with black granite countertops and one with a wood surface for casual dining.
The comfy living room features a fireplace and sliding barn doors that open up to a formal sitting area. A sunroom also features a couch and TV, providing plenty of places to kick back and relax. For a more formal affair, there is a separate dining room, which shares a glass wall with a temperature-controlled wine room.
There is plenty to keep residents busy with at Clarkson’s former California farmhouse. There is a home theater, game room and fitness center. Just in case the main house is feeling crowded, a two-story guest house sits on the property with two bedrooms and a full kitchen.
The large backyard is secluded with trees and fences to maintain privacy. The lawn gives kids plenty of space to run around, but a glass fence around the pool and barbecue area keeps any little ones from jumping in without supervision. The outdoor area includes a full kitchen, complete with wood burning pizza oven and two islands, as well as a lounge area, pool and hot tub.
Clarkson’s house was listed by Chris Corkum and Linda Brende of Compass and the buyer was represented by Craig Knizek at The Agency.
She’d been trying to sell the house since filing for divorce last year. The Texas native, who is now legally-single, listed the property at nearly $10 million in summer 2020, but she ultimately ended up selling for a little less than what she paid for the property.
The “Miss Independent” singer has been making a lot of real estate deals in recent months. She sold her 20,000-square-foot Nashville mansion for $6.3 million after the property spent four years on the market, Architectural Digest reports.
She also bought a significantly smaller house in Toluca Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles for $5.445 million in June. The latest purchase is only about 5,000 square feet, but the five-bedroom, seven-bathroom home has plenty of room for the single mom and her kids.
The singer would like to get rid of her Montana properties as well. In her divorce documents, Clarkson called the ranch a “financial burden,” but Blackstock testified that he wanted to leave the entertainment industry to become a full-time rancher.
While Clarkson won the ranch, Blackstock must pay to maintain the ranch. The court docs, obtained by Us Weekly in August, added that if Blackstock fails to pay the $81,000 in maintenance costs each month, the Kelly Clarkson Show host can file another motion to sell.
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Famous Person - Divorce
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2010 Fox Glacier FU-24 crash
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On 4 September 2010, a modified Fletcher FU-24 aeroplane on a parachuting flight from Fox Glacier Aerodrome, New Zealand, crashed shortly after take-off, killing all nine people on board. [1][2]
The subsequent investigation concluded that the most significant factor contributing to the accident was the weight and balance configuration on the accident flight, which resulted in the aircraft's center of gravity being located beyond its rear limit, leading to loss of control immediately after lift-off. [3] After the report was released, additional inquiries identified problems with the way that the accident investigation had been conducted, leading to public criticism. Responding to the public pressure, the commission that investigated the accident reviewed the circumstances and findings of the original investigation, and released an amended report that acknowledged that the true cause of the crash could not be determined, in part due to mishandling of the original investigation. As a result, new policies were implemented to improve the quality, transparency, and expertise of air accident investigations in New Zealand. The pilot had already completed nine parachuting operations that day, before stopping for lunch. [4](p1) At 1:20pm (local time, UTC+12), after the aircraft was refuelled with about 160 litres of fuel, the pilot and passengers – four skydiving instructors and four tourists – boarded the aircraft. [4](p1)
Eyewitnesses reported the aircraft's take-off roll appeared to be normal, but after lifting off the ground it continued pitching upwards until it was almost vertical. At around 350 feet, the aircraft rolled to the left so the nose was pointing down, and dived towards the ground. The aircraft was observed to be pulling out of the dive, but impacted with the ground at 1:25pm at an almost vertical angle and burst into flames, killing all nine on board. [4](p1)
The pilot and three of the instructors were New Zealanders; the other instructor and one of the tourists were Australian; the other three tourists were an Irishman, an Englishman and a young German woman. [5][6][7]
It was the worst aircraft crash in New Zealand in 17 years. [1][8]
The aircraft was a single-engine Fletcher FU-24, a type manufactured in New Zealand and usually used for aerial topdressing. The accident aircraft had been modified in 1998 by replacing the original piston engine with a Walter M601 turboprop engine. [4](p2) After being purchased by Skydive New Zealand in early 2010, the aircraft was further modified to carry out parachuting operations and re-entered service in this configuration in July, two months before the accident. [4](pp2-3)[9]
A week after the crash, on 11 September the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) issued an emergency airworthiness directive (AD), applicable to all FU-24s engaged in parachuting operations. [10] The AD limits the number of people that can be carried in the rear of the aircraft; and requires accurate determination of passenger weights and of the CofG. [10] In February 2011, the company that manufactured the aircraft released statements critical of the practice of putting larger, more powerful engines in its aircraft, stating that the change could have been a factor in the Fox Glacier and other fatal accidents. [11]
New Zealand's Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) investigated the accident. [4] In an interim report released in November 2010, the investigators found that the aircraft was five kilograms overweight, and that the seating arrangement of the passengers in the aircraft negatively affected its center of gravity. [9] The TAIC investigators also noted that the passengers were not secured with restraints and that further examination was needed to determine whether that was an additional factor in the crash. [9] Because each passenger had not been individually weighed, an estimate of the total weight of the passengers, weight, and fuel was used in the commission's calculations. [4](p3) The interim report did not contain any analysis, or conclusions, and noted that the findings, analysis, and conclusions of the final report may differ. [4](pvii)
The TAIC released its final report in May 2012. [12] The report concluded that "The most likely reason for the crash was the aeroplane being excessively out of balance [which] created a tendency for the nose to pitch up". [13](p17) It also stated that the aircraft probably became airborne too early and at too low an airspeed to prevent an uncontrollable pitch up. [13](p17) It also said that the extreme pitch angle made it improbable that the unrestrained sky divers could have prevented themselves from sliding back to the tail of the aircraft, increasing the weight balance issues. [13](p18) It pointed out flaws in the management of the conversion of the aircraft for skydiving purposes, and documentation errors had not been noticed by the CAA, which approved the modifications. [11] The commission assigned the blame for the crash to the pilot, the company that operated the plane, the firm that modified the aircraft into a skydiving configuration, and the Civil Aviation Authority. [12]
In August 2012, a coroner's inquest into the deaths of the occupants of the aircraft was held in Greymouth, and was streamed live on the Ministry of Justice website. [14] A Fletcher test pilot and an engineer provided expert testimony at the inquest that raised doubts about the conclusions reached in the TAIC's final report. [13](p5) The coroner's final report, released in May 2013, was critical of the way that the investigation had been conducted by the TAIC, and challenged the conclusions reached in the commission's final report. [15] The investigators had ordered the wreckage of the aircraft to be buried only three days after the accident, which prevented any further investigation into possible mechanical failures or inadvertent pilot errors that may have led to or contributed to the crash. [15] The coroner's report felt that it was unlikely that there was any load shift in the aircraft, and that although weight and balance issues may have contributed to the accident, it was likely that some other unknown factor caused the crash. [15]
After the publication of the coroner's report, investigators from the TV3 Third Degree series became interested in profiling the story. [13](p5) Enlisting the help of a private forensic engineer and air accident investigator, the television investigators dug up the wreckage of the aircraft that had been buried shortly after the accident, and conducted flight tests in a similar aircraft. [13](pp5,24) In a report televised on TV3 on March 26, 2014, the program cast serious doubts on the investigation that had been performed by the TAIC. [16] Among other flaws, the reporting was critical of the fact that the wreckage of the aircraft had been buried on the orders of the TAIC before key components, including the control stick and cables, could be examined by investigators. [17] The private forensic engineer said, “I would think on the evidence we have available, that a control system failure of some sort is likely". [17] After the reports, members of the New Zealand aviation industry and relatives of the victims raised concerns about the TAIC's findings. [13](p6) In April, in response to the media reports, the TAIC announced that it would take a second look at its investigation into the crash. [18] It said that it would involve several consultants, including a metallurgist, in the review. [11]
In 2015, an independent review of the commission's investigation and report found that the conclusions reached by the TAIC were "probably wrong". [19] It said that because the wreckage of the aircraft had been buried shortly after the accident, the ability to find the true cause of the crash was limited. [19] It announced that additional funding had been sought for the Commission to enable the hiring of additional investigators, and that at least two investigators would be deployed when investigating future accidents. [20](p1) It also announced changes in its investigative policy, including the removal of all evidence from an accident site and securing it during the duration of the investigation, the greater use of external experts, increased transparency, and increased training of investigators. [20](p2) MP Phil Twyford said the report revealed "appalling incompetence" on the part of the TAIC, saying, "This is unbelievable mickey-mouse conduct by an agency that's charged with investigating some of our most serious transport accidents". [19] The head commissioner of the TAIC said that an apology to the families of the victims would not be necessary, although some of the families disagreed, saying "We were totally expecting an apology. When we heard her come out yesterday and say very little has changed and they won't be apologising at all, it just stinks of arrogance. "[19] A New Zealand First spokesman said the incident was embarrassing for New Zealand and could affect its reputation as an adventure-tourism destination, and a Green Party spokesperson said, "The commission probably owes the family a serious apology and, if they are unwilling to issue that apology, I definitely think that the minister should be pulling them up.
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Air crash
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Georgia Weightlifter Breaks World Record to Conquer Men's Super Heavyweight Class
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Georgian strong man Lasha Talakhadze broke his own world record to retain the title in the men's heaviest weight class at the Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday with a combined lift of 488 kg. Talakhadze, who won a gold at the 2016 Rio Games in the same category, lifted 223 kg for the snatch and 265 kg for the clean and jerk to also break his own world records in the two categories. "I feel pretty good — I have just gained a second Olympic gold medal and of course I have also set another world record," Talakhadze said through an interpreter. "We were for a long time looking forward to the Olympics and to win this gold." His total was 47 kilos more than Iran's Ali Davoudi, who took silver in the men's +109 kg class. Syria's Man Asaad took the bronze with 424 kg. Talakhadze dominated the field from the beginning. He was the last lifter to start both the snatch and the clean and jerk, and made three consecutive attempts for each. In his third snatch, Talakhadze initially called for 221 kg, one kilo shy of his world record. Crowds cheered when he increased the weight to 223 kg — and made the lift. He chose to lift 265 kg in his third clean and jerk, one kilo more than his world record, without hesitation. The sound of camera shutters echoed throughout the arena as he made the attempt and succeeded again. Talakhadze, who becomes the first Georgian athlete to win multiple Olympic gold medals in any sport, aims to compete in the Paris Games in 2024. The sport is facing the risk of removal from the Games over persistent doping issues. Talakhadze said that offenders should get what they deserve but that the sport should be included in the Paris Games. "Those who deserve punishment should be punished and weightlifting should remain in the program," he said.
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Break historical records
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Israeli sentenced to 9 months community service for killing Arab
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Aryeh Schiff was convicted of manslaughter for killing Mohammad al-Atrash in what he claimed was self-defense, but the court rejected these claims. Published: NOVEMBER 9, 2021 10:59 Updated: NOVEMBER 9, 2021 15:05 A gavel in a court of law The Beersheba District Court on Tuesday sentenced Israeli Arye Schiff to nine months of community service for shooting and killing an Israeli-Arab that broke into his car last November, Walla reported. Schiff was sentenced in a plea bargain over his role in killing Mohammad al-Atrash, who the defendant claimed had been trying to steal his car and that he therefore acted in self-defense. The plea bargain and sentencing follow his conviction in July , where the court rejected his claims of self-defense. In fact, the prosecution said security-camera footage of the incident showed that Schiff was in no danger and was not even in his car when the car thieves arrived. The prosecution had originally sought a sentence of 4-6 years in prison, but the plea deal averted that, Walla reported. Dozens had come out to the courtroom to support Schiff, including Religious Zionist MK Itamar Ben-Gvir. "Aryeh Schiff should receive a medal, not be prosecuted – and certainly not receive a sentence of community service or prison," Ben-Gvir said in response to the verdict. Itamar Ben-Gvir head of the Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”) Party attends preparations for the new Knesset on April 5. (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM) "The ruling sends a message to the residents of the South that they must not defend themselves, or else they will face charges and imprisonment. The huge gap between the sentence and the long prison sentence the prosecution demanded shows the racist treatment shown to Jews forced to defend themselves." Also coming out against the verdict – saying that it was too lenient – was Meretz MK Mossi Raz. "The sentence given to Aryeh Schiff is an embarrassment," Raz said in a statement. "It's important for everyone to feel safe in their own homes, but we must never allow it to become normalized that citizens can take the lives of others into their hands. I can't help but think that if Schiff was an Arab, his punishment would have been far more severe." But others welcomed the verdict. "After many long months of public struggle, we are glad public pressure succedded," the right-wing NGO Im Tirtzu said in a statement. "There was no need at all to convict Aryeh, but at least the judge understands well that a very clear message must be conveyed that a citizen is allowed to defend himself against criminals. It will take a long time to restore the Negev's security, but at least Aryeh Schiff can have his life back." Clashes soon erupted outside the courtroom between Schiff's supporters and local Bedouin residents, notably when Ben-Gvir arrived. As the MK came to the court, the Bedouin residents began shouting at him, calling him a racist. Ben-Gvir replied that "We came to support and say that Aryeh Schiff is the hero of Israel, and it is time to bring order to the South," adding that, "if the Police had been a deterrent in the South, Schiff would not have had to shoot the burglar." Other members of the Israeli Right have voiced their support of Schiff in the past. “The indictment against you should not have been filed, and having been filed, it should be withdrawn,” then-public security minister Amir Ohana told Schiff in March. “As usual, and despite conventional thinking, the problem is not the law or the wording of the law," he said. "The problem is those interpreting the law. They are giving the law a restrictive interpretation until it is effectively negated," which is generally how the issue of self-defense is treated. "They give themselves the power to fill up or empty the substance of a law.”
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence
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William Booth Memorial Home fire
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The William Booth Memorial Home fire occurred on 13 August 1966 at the William Booth Memorial Home for destitute and alcoholic men in Melbourne, Australia. With 30 dead, it remains the nation's deadliest building fire. [1]
The fire started on the third floor after a boarder knocked over an illegal heater. [2] The fire smoldered for several hours in room #1 and exploded after a fellow boarder opened the room's door. A backdraft and flashover ensued, and fire and smoke engulfed the third and fourth floors. [2] Most of the 30 men who died were caged in their chain-link fencing-covered rooms and had no time to escape. [citation needed]
The Salvation Army staff delayed their call to the Melbourne Fire Brigade in the mistaken belief they could control the fire. Due to the late arrival of the ambulance service the fire fighters were tied up in resuscitating the victims, delaying the rescue attempts.
On the 50th anniversary, 13 August 2016, a plaque was laid where the original building once stood. The ceremony was conducted by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade's Acting Deputy Chief Fire Officer Robert Purcell and Major Brendan Nottle from The Salvation Army. The plaque was paid for by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. [7]
A service was then held at The Salvation Army Temple on Bourke Street. It was led by Major Brendan Nottle and replicated the service of 50 years ago which remembered the 15 deceased who were unclaimed by relatives.
A mini documentary was made by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (Melbourne) featuring interviews with the fire fighters and footage of the conflagration. [10] A Movietone News clip was produced after the fire. [11]
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Fire
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Post-Napoleonic depression
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The post-Napoleonic depression was an economic depression in Europe and the United States after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. In England and Wales, an agricultural depression led to the passage of the Corn Laws (which were to polarize British politics for the next three decades), and placed great strain on the system of poor relief inherited from Elizabethan times. [1]
Also, after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, a brief boom in textile manufacture in England was followed by periods of chronic industrial economic depression, particularly among textile weavers and spinners (the textile trade was concentrated in Lancashire). [2] Weavers who could have expected to earn 15 shillings for a six-day week in 1803, saw their wages cut to 5 shillings or even 4s 6d by 1818. [3] The industrialists, who were cutting wages without offering relief, blamed market forces generated by the aftershocks of the Napoleonic Wars. [3]
At the same time, the Corn Laws (the first of which was passed in 1815) exacerbated the situation. They imposed a tariff on foreign grain in an effort to protect English grain producers (agricultural landowners). The cost of food for working people rose as people were forced to buy the more expensive and lower quality British grain, and periods of famine and chronic unemployment ensued, increasing the desire for political reform both in Lancashire and in the country at large. [4][5]
In Ireland, wheat and other grain prices fell by half, and alongside continued population growth, landlords converted cropland into rangeland by securing the passage of tenant farmer eviction legislation in 1816, which led, because of the Irish workforce's historic concentration in agriculture, to a greater subdivision of remaining land plots under tillage and increasingly less efficient and less profitable subsistence farms. [6][7]
In Scotland, the depression ended in 1822. [8]
Samuel Jackson of Pennsylvania theorised that the Panic of 1819 and resulting depression in the United States were caused by the post-Napoleonic depression, holding that the end of the Napoleonic wars had led to the collapse of export markets and resulting underconsumption. [9]
This economic history-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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Financial Crisis
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Suspect in Chesterfield bank robbery arrested
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CHESTERFIELD, Va. (WWBT) - A suspect in a Chesterfield bank robbery has been arrested by police. Robert L. Burton, 54, of Chesterfield was arrested after robbing the Atlantic Union Bank at 11101 Hull Street Road on Jan. 16. At 9:35 a.m., Burton entered the business, approached a teller, displayed what appeared to be a handgun and demanded money. Upon receiving the cash, the suspect fled the scene in a vehicle. An officer was able to locate the vehicle nearby. Burton was arrested and has been charged with robbery and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony in relation to the robbery of the Wells Fargo bank branch at 10831 Midlothian Turnpike.
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Bank Robbery
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Sohag train collision
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On 26 March 2021, two trains collided in the Tahta district of the Sohag Governorate in Egypt. [2] Eighteen people were killed and at least 200 others were injured. [3] The incident was initiated by an unidentified person or persons intentionally triggering the emergency brakes on the leading train which was then hit by the following train. [4]
Egypt's railways have a record of poor equipment maintenance, neglect, and bad management. [5] The government records nearly 11,000 accidents on rail lines between 2008 and 2017, including a high of 1,793 in 2017. In 2018, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi stated that the country's government lacked the 250 billion EGP (14 billion USD) in funds required to address all the problems within the rail system. [6]
The collision occurred in the Tahta district of the Sohag Governorate, approximately 460 km (290 mi) south of the capital city of Cairo. The Egyptian Ministry of Transportation has said passengers in the front train, heading from Luxor to Alexandria, pulled the emergency brakes while in transit between the stations of El Maragha and Tahta. This caused the train to come to a stop, where it was then hit from behind by a second train that was heading from Aswan to Cairo,[1][7] which destroyed two carriages and caused a third to overturn. [5] Initial death tolls were given at 32, which was revised down to 19 and later to 18. [3]
Seventy-four ambulances were dispatched to treat passengers. [7]
Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced that the families of victims killed in the crash would be given compensation of 100,000 EGP (6,000 USD) and lifetime pensions. [8]
On 11 April 2021, Egypt's prosecution service declared that nobody was at the controls of one of the trains when they both collided. In addition, one of the train drivers had deactivated the automatic train control system (ATC) in order to move faster, while an assistant of the stationary train was under the influence of tramadol, and a control tower guard had used cannabis. [9]
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Train collisions
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1967 Marburg virus outbreak in West Germany
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The 1967 Marburg virus outbreak in West Germany was the first outbreak of Marburg virus disease. [1] It started in early August 1967 when 30 people became ill in the German towns of Marburg and Frankfurt and later two in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia). [2] The infections were traced back to three laboratories in the separate locations which received a shared shipment of infected African green monkeys. [3] The outbreak involved 25 primary Marburg virus infections and seven deaths, and six non-lethal secondary cases. [2]
In early August 1967, patients with unusual symptoms indicating an infectious disease were admitted to the university hospitals in Marburg and Frankfurt. The first patients were treated in their homes for up to 10 days, even though the illness was described as beginning suddenly with extreme malaise, myalgia, headache, and a rapid increase in body temperature to as high as 39?C (102.2?F) or more. Although the clinical symptoms were not very alarming during the first 3C4 days, additional symptoms and signs appeared at the end of the first week. The patients were therefore admitted to a hospital. In some cases, patients died from severe hemorrhagic shock on the day after hospital admission. Severe hemorrhagic shock occurred in about 25% of patients. All patients who died had hemorrhagic shock. The first infections occurred in laboratory workers who were conducting necropsies on imported African green monkeys. [4]
The incubation time of Marburg virus disease could only be estimated retrospectively, after the source of infection and the date of exposure were known. Incubation ranged from 5 to 9 days, with an average of 8 days. The ratio of primary to secondary infections was 21:3 in Marburg, 4:2 in Frankfurt, and 1:1 in Belgrade. Three cases of secondary infection resulted from inadvertent needle-stick inoculations; in one case, a pathology technician cut himself on the forearm with a knife during a postmortem examination. Airborne transmission between humans did not occur, as indicated, for example, by the instance of a young man who slept in the same bed with his brother only a couple of days before he died; the brother did not develop disease and was seronegative for Marburg virus disease six months later. [3]
The origin of the outbreaks was investigated at the same time as the microbiological studies. Early on in the investigation, it was realized that the patients in Marburg were employees of Behringwerke, a producer of sera and vaccines. The patients in Frankfurt were employees of Paul Ehrlich Institute, a control institute of sera and vaccines. While the primary case in Belgrade was an employee involved in testing of live vaccines. All the patients at the three locations had contact with blood, organs, and cell cultures from African green monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops). The monkeys' organs were used to make kidney cell culture for the production and safety testing of vaccines. [3]
The separate outbreaks were traced break to a shared shipment of infected green monkeys. Generally, shipments of green monkeys went directly from Uganda to Frankfurt. However, because of the Six Day War (5C10 June 1967), this shipment of monkeys was rerouted through London, where they were placed in animal storage because of a strike at the airport. After a two day delay, the monkeys were shipped to Frankfurt, and then to the laboratories in Frankfurt, Marburg, and Belgrade in June and July. The subsequent processing of the monkeys for cell culture at the three locations led to the laboratory-related outbreaks. The monkeys were believed to have been infected in Uganda, although infection from other animals in storage in London was also possible. [3]
The Marburg virus disease made reappearances in other countries in 1975, 1980, 1987, 1990, 1998C2000, 2004C05, 2007, 2008, 2017 and 2021. The seven deaths out of the 31 initially diagnosed infections during the 1967 Marburg virus outbreak represent a case fatality rate of 23%. The 32nd case was diagnosed retroactively via serology. [5]
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Disease Outbreaks
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2012 Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach strike
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In 2012, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) went on strike at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in the U.S. state of California. The strike was due to issues over labor contract negotiations between port employers and the ILWU's Local 63 Office and Clerical Unit (OCU), which represents about 800 clerical workers at the ports. In 2010, the existing labor contract with the OCU expired, and the union and employers disagreed on the terms of a new contract. The main issue regarded job security, with the union accusing the employers of excessive outsourcing and the employers countering that the union was featherbedding. Negotiations would continue for over 2 years. On November 27, about 70 OCU members went on strike, with the number of strikers expanding over the following days. About 10,000 longshoremen at the ports, also ILWU members, honored the strike action and refused to cross the picket lines, shutting down over half of the terminals at the ports. Some estimates claim that the strike was causing approximately $1 billion per day in losses, though this figure has been debated. The strike ended on December 4, with both sides agreeing to a tentative labor contract. While this contract was ultimately rejected by the union in February 2013, the union accepted a different contract later that same month. The Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach, both located in the Greater Los Angeles area, together constitute the largest port complex in the United States,[1] handling approximately one third of the container shipping in the country[2] and 40% of the country's total imports. [3][4] In the early 2010s, about 800 clerical workers at these facilities were members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 63 Office and Clerical Unit (OCU). [5][6] Additionally, approximately 10,000 longshoremen at the ports were also represented by the ILWU. [7] On June 30, 2010,[8][7] the labor contract between the OCU and employers at the harbor expired, with the two entities negotiating a new contract. However, the two sides disagreed over the contents of the contract, with the union arguing for greater job security, alleging that the employers were trying to outsource the clerical jobs, which was denied by the employers. [6] OCU president John Fageaux alleged specifically that 51 permanent positions at the port had been eliminated over the previous 5 years, with the companies planning to eliminate an additional 76 positions. [8] The port employers countered that the union was engaging in featherbedding. [9][3] Negotiations would continue for the next two years without results. [6]
On November 27, 2012, about 70 clerical workers at the Port of Los Angeles,[10] all OCU members, went on strike. [5] The union members worked for APM Terminals, a company that operates Pier 400 at the port. [5] Longshoremen at the pier, also members of the ILWU, honored the strike action and as a result, the port was shut down. [5] Later that day, an arbitrator stated that the longshoremen should not honor the strike, but the longshoremen continued to do so, appealing the arbitrator's ruling to a senior arbitrator. [6] Picketing also commenced at the port. [8] The following day, the strike expanded, shutting down 6 of the 7 terminals at the Port of Los Angeles and 3 of the 6 terminals at the Port of Long Beach. [6] Following this, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sent a letter to both the union and representatives for the employers, urging them to resume negotiations. [11][12] Speaking to the Associated Press that same day, a spokesperson for the Port of Los Angeles stated that the strike was "not crippling the port by any means". [1] However, a report by KPCC on November 29 stated that there were 18 cargo ships in the area that were docked and not being serviced. [13] That same day, the Los Angeles Business Journal stated that U.S. Representatives Judy Chu, Janice Hahn, and Grace Napolitano (all members of the Democratic Party) had voiced their support for the striking workers,[11] while Bloomberg News stated that the National Retail Federation was asking U.S. President Barack Obama to intervene in the labor dispute and also claimed that, if the strike continued, ships originally intended for the ports may instead divert to other ports along the West Coast, significantly increasing shipping costs. [2] By that time, three ships had already diverted, with two traveling to the Port of Oakland in California and one traveling to the Port of Ensenada in Mexico. [11] On the night of November 29, the two sides returned to contract negotiations. [9]
On December 2, following four consecutive days of negotiations, Villaraigosa sent a letter to the employers and union urging them to seek out mediation to resolve the dispute. [14] Around this same time, estimates put the economic impact of the strike at almost $1 billion per day,[15][16] a figure disputed by international economist Jock O'Connell. [14][17][4][18] The following day, the mayor held a meeting between the two sides to discuss an end to the dispute, and on December 4, the Associated Press reported that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that the president was watching the situation closely. [19] On December 4, Villaraigosa announced that both sides had agreed to Federal mediation, with a union representative stating that the strike would still continue. [20] By this point in the strike, 17 ships originally bounded for the twin ports had been diverted to other ports. [21] Later that night, around 10:30 p.m., Villaraigosa announced that both sides had agreed to end the strike, with workers returning to work the following day. [16] The agreement included a proposed labor contract that would require subsequent ratification by the union, with both sides optimistic that the contract would be approved. [22] Details of the contract were not made public. [23] The deal, which was set to last until 2016,[22] was reached shortly before Federal mediators arrived. [24] At 8 days, this strike was the longest one at the ports since a 10-day long labor dispute in 2002. [16]
In February 2013, however, the tentative contract was rejected by the union, raising concerns over possible continuing strike action. [25][26] However, by February 20, the union voted to approve a new contract between the OCU and employers. [27]
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Strike
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Fish, yabbies and aquatic life dead after 'toxic' herbicide treatment in irrigation channel
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Mal Johnson is not happy. The Cohuna farmer has spent the past few days cleaning up dead fish and plants from an irrigation channel on his property in northern Victoria.
"I walked up onto the channel bank, looked into the water and there was just a foot-wide stream of fish, all dead," Mr Johnson said.
The Torrumbarry Irrigation Channel was injected this week with the toxic herbicide Acrolein to get rid of weeds that are blocking up the system that provides water to more than 100 farming properties in the region.
"I've walked up here several times in the last few days, and I go home and say why? Why does this keep on happening to our environment? It's just not fair," Mr Johnson said.
Goulburn-Murray Water (GMW) notified irrigators about the herbicide treatment and told them not to use water from the channels for 72 hours afterwards.
But three days later, Mr Johnson is still removing dead fish from the water.
"This channel is meant to be safe to use today," he said. But he's concerned that the dead fish and plants in the water may cause botulism in cattle.
GMW assistant manager Tim Nitschke said the water was safe for use.
"I'm extremely confident that it is safe," he said.
"There have been many, many studies done on this product. We've also done multiple and extensive water quality testing programs to demonstrate that," he said.
Mr Nitschke said fish kills were to be expected during the herbicide treatment, but there was no alternative.
"Acroelin is our last resort," he said.
"We don't use it as our 'go-to' product, but it's something we use when we have no other options."
But ecologist Damien Cook said Acrolein is an outdated herbicide from the 1960s and is killing endangered species like the growling grass frog.
"It was once described as the most common species of frog — now there's only one population that we know of in the area," Mr Cook said.
"One of the reasons it's declined is herbicide use, and chemicals in the environment. "The frog has gone from being one of the most common species to now being endangered."
Mr Cook said although the Torrumbarry Channel was an artificially constructed irrigation network, the channels remained an important habitat for aquatic life along the Murray-Darling Basin.
"This area was rich in floodplains and had a lot of aquatic life, but the system has been modified and a lot of animals have actually moved into the channels," he said.
But Kerang farmer Geoff Kendell said the weeds are causing headaches along the channels and need to be removed.
"Goulburn-Murray Water will ring us up and say 'What's wrong? You're supposed to be having 20 megalitres coming out of the channel, and you're only getting three out,'" he said.
"It's the weed that's causing the problem."
But Mr Kendell said GMW should have taken a proactive approach, rather than a reactive one.
"They should have dried the channels and the creeks out in winter and allowed the frost to kill most of the weeds," he said.
Mr Nitschke said that idea was under consideration.
"GMW is definitely looking at de-watering our network more regularly," he said.
"There are losses associated with that, but we're trying to find that right balance — making sure we still provide irrigation water to our farmers so that they can produce food and fibre."
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Environment Pollution
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Another NYS Fair concert canceled due to Covid; hours extended on Fridays and Saturdays
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Updated: Aug. 28, 2021, 7:43 a.m. | Published: Aug. 28, 2021, 7:26 a.m. A crowd watches The Spinners performing at the New York State Fair's Chevy Court on Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2021. Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com 472 By Geoff Herbert | gherbert@syracuse.com New York State Fair officials announced several changes Friday, including another concert cancellation and extended hours on the final two weekends. The Oak Ridge Boys canceled a performance scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 31, at Chevy Court “due to a recent outbreak of positive COVID-19 cases within The Oak Ridge Boys touring organization, and out of an abundance of caution.” None of the band members have tested positive for the coronavirus, but the Country Music Hall of Fame group said a 14-day quarantine is necessary because of the “close-knit environment of touring.” Central New York country band Whiskey Hollow Rush will replace the Oak Ridge Boys at Chevy Court on Tuesday at 2 p.m. It’s at least the second NYS Fair concert to be canceled due to Covid. Noah Cyrus dropped out of performing on Sunday (Aug. 29) after one of her crew members tested positive for the virus; The Pickle Mafia will take over her 2 p.m. time slot on the Chevy Park stage. “I won’t risk or compromise anyone’s safety, nor can I do my show without my full team. Stay safe and get vaccinated,” said Cyrus, a Grammy-nominated singer and the younger sister of Miley Cyrus. Covid-19, which has seen a surge in recent weeks due to the more contagious delta variant, has also forced concert cancellations at the nearby St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at Lakeview. KoRn axed a show at the St. Joe’s Amp this past week after singer Jonathan Davis tested positive for Covid, and Florida Georgia Line canceled its tour entirely due to Covid concerns. Meanwhile, Great White canceled tonight’s NYS Fair appearance with Vixen due to an illness that is unrelated to Covid, according to the band’s Facebook page . Vixen, an all-female glam metal band, will perform entirely themselves at 7 p.m. (Saturday, Aug. 28) at Chevy Court. Officials also announced that New York State Fair hours will be extended to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. The fairgrounds and buildings open daily at 11 a.m. and close at 10 p.m. most days. The Midway stays open an extra hour until 11 p.m. On Labor Day, the last day of the fair, everything closes at 9 p.m. Today (Saturday, Aug. 28) will feature another change: Food trucks are returning to the New York State Fair, but will not be a competition this year. According to a press release , the food trucks will offer $3 samples of signature offerings around Chevy Court from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
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Organization Closed
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IMA Establishes Sustainable Business Management Global Task Force
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This multi-stakeholder engagement initiative will work towards strengthening ESG frameworks and policies in the Middle East region Middle East: IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants) announced today the establishment of a Sustainable Business Management Global Task Force (IMA.SBM.GTF) to speak on behalf of the management accounting profession, accountants, and finance professionals in business. This comes as governments, regulators, and standard setters debate the future of accounting and a range of new corporate reporting requirements. “Just about all of the emphasis today with respect to sustainable business is on external ESG reporting,” said Brigitte de Graaff, CMA, CSCA, Chair of the IMA.SBM.GTF. “While this is important, it is not the whole story. We want to lead by emphasizing the role of management accounting and finance in facilitating the building of resilient, sustainable businesses. We aim to be the voice of the profession to make sure management’s perspective in these significant changes to accounting are not overlooked but prominent.” Highlighting the role of the task force in the Middle East region, Hanadi Khalife, Senior Director, MEA & India Operations at IMA said, “Companies in the UAE are stepping up their efforts to put ESG frameworks and policies in place to establish the country as a global sustainability leader. The task force will be involved in multi-level engagement with the government, regulatory bodies, and relevant organizations to provide a purview of the global management accounting community. This initiative will definitely set a benchmark in populating the best and most sustainable practices across the business communities and is fully aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).” “IMA is uniquely positioned to address the critical role of the profession in building sustainable businesses. We continue to aim at supporting this in a way that would build value for all stakeholders, promotes trust and facilitates meaningful action,” said Shari Littan, IMA Director of Corporate Reporting Research and Policy. As one of its primary objectives, the Task Force is defining a set of fundamental principles for building a successful and sustainable accounting ecosystem. In fully supporting the formation of the task force, Jeff Thomson, IMA President and CEO, said, “As the world continues to change, so too must business change to focus more holistically on sustainable business management for long term value creation. IMA is making the case that sustainable business is good business in a complex, uncertain, and multi-stakeholder environment. We’ve shown the world accountancy for the 21st century — how the CMA certification is different because the body of knowledge emphasizes strategic thinking, analytics, decision making, and business leadership across an organization for both tangible and intangible value creation.” The Task Force will look to: Advocate on behalf of the profession before governments, regulatory authorities, and other organizations on sustainable business management and the perspectives of accountants and financial professionals in business. Educate IMA members and the global business community on the role of accounting and finance professionals with respect to sustainable business information and management. About IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants): IMA® is one of the largest and most respected associations focused exclusively on advancing the management accounting profession. Globally, IMA supports the profession through research, the CMA® (Certified Management Accountant) and CSCA® (Certified in Strategy and Competitive Analysis) programs, continuing education, networking, and advocacy of the highest ethical business practices. Twice named Professional Body of the Year by The Accountant/International Accounting Bulletin, IMA has a global network of about 140,000 members in 150 countries and 350 professional and student chapters. Headquartered in Montvale, N.J., USA, IMA provides localized services through its four global regions: The Americas, Asia/Pacific, Europe and Middle East/India.
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Organization Established
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Transcript of Biden’s Speech on Climate Change and Hurricane Ida
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“The nation and the world are in peril,” President Biden said after touring storm damage in New York and Jersey. “And that’s not hyperbole. That is a fact.”
The following is a transcript of President Biden’s remarks about climate change and Hurricane Ida after he toured damage from the storm in neighborhoods in New York and New Jersey on Tuesday.
Chuck, thank you very much. As the old joke goes, my father were here, he’d say thank you, and my mother were here, she would say, “Who are you talking about?”
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This is an offer for a Basic Digital Access Subscription. The Basic Digital Access Subscription does not include e-reader editions (Kindle, Nook, etc.), NYT Games (the Crossword) or NYT Cooking. Mobile apps are not supported on all devices. These offers are not available for current subscribers. Other restrictions and taxes may apply. Offers and pricing are subject to change without notice.
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Famous Person - Give a speech
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Murray cod fish kills 'every week' have graziers concerned about depleted state of lower Darling River
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Murray cod fish kills 'every week' have graziers concerned about depleted state of lower Darling River
As heated debate about water policy continues, fish are continuing to die in the dwindling lower Darling River.
While the deaths are not on the scale of the mass fish kills seen over summer, farmers say native Murray cod are still perishing in shrinking residual pools.
Authorities have already warned of the likelihood of further large fish kills as the weather warms up.
"Each weekend I find up to about a dozen fish [dead]," said lower Darling grazier Wayne Smith.
He lives on Karoola Station, a property with about 40 kilometres of Darling River frontage between Menindee and Pooncarie in far west New South Wales.
He said he had been monitoring a short stretch of the river and was frequently finding dead fish floating in isolated pools.
Earlier this week he pulled out five dead Murray cod.
"It's nothing compared to what was at Menindee, but it's still hard to look at when you spend all your life on the river," he said.
"You spend half your life trying to catch one, and now there's three floating right in front of you."
Menindee resident Graeme McCrabb said dozens of native fish had died below Weir 32 at Menindee in recent weeks after becoming trapped in depleting pools of water.
He said the system was in even worse condition this year than last summer, with flows very unlikely anytime soon.
"There'll be thousands of cod die. There's just nothing that can stop that now," Mr McCrabb said.
Menindee is not used to being the centre of attention, but has found itself thrust into the spotlight.
"Those fish are stressed, there's a lot less water, there's no way of getting away from the fact that we're going to have more fish kills.
"You just have to think they're going to be bigger than last year."
Mr Smith agreed it was likely there would be even bigger fish kills coming, but said there would also be a huge number of deaths before then.
"If you do the count over the 100km of river, or 400km of river that there is at the moment that's battling, you're going to get a lot of fish that are going to die probably between now and summer," he said.
"It's going to be a slow burn, I'd call it. But it's definitely going to build."
It is a concern shared by government authorities.
"The extended dry conditions and diminishing flows within rivers presents significant risks for native fish populations throughout the Murray-Darling Basin," a spokeswoman for the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) said.
"The record low levels of rain continue to pose risks for one of inland NSW's most productive recreational fisheries."
The DPI said it was working with State Government agencies to look at what could be done to protect native fish populations and mitigate the risks as dry conditions continue.
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Rob Vertessy, the chair of an independent scientific study of the mass fish kills over summer, said environmental water being strategically released could be of great assistance.
"There's very little water left in the northern basin, but there would be other parts of New South Wales — say the Murrumbidgee Valley — where there may be some environmental water that could be used strategically to help maintain some flow in the river system," he said.
Professor Vertessy also believed the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was the best way forward.
"It was forged after a very long period of consultation, scientific analysis, and it's been gradually implemented, slower than we would like, but nonetheless it's already showing benefit," he said.
"I can't understand why anyone would say it's untenable."
However, Mr Smith said authorities had managed the Darling River poorly, contributing to the current situation.
"There's a drought on top of that as well. The drought has only really affected [the river] in the last six months."
The DPI said fish deaths should be reported to the Fishers Watch Phoneline on 1800 043 536.
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Environment Pollution
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2014 Armenian Mil Mi-24 shootdown crash
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On 12 November 2014, an Armenian Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter (NATO reporting name "Hind") was shot down by Azerbaijani Armed Forces during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, killing all three crew members. According to the Armenian side, the helicopter belonged to the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army and was participating in the week-long joint Armenian-NKR Unity 2014 military exercises in the disputed region. A statement released by Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry claimed the helicopter belonged to the Armed Forces of Armenia[1] and was preparing to attack Azerbaijani positions in the Aghdam district. This was dismissed by Armenian and NKR defense ministry officials, who stated that the helicopter was not armed and did not enter Azerbaijani airspace. [2]
According to British analyst Thomas de Waal, it was shot down "in the no-man's land between the two armies" and added that the helicopter "was not attacking Azerbaijani positions but had apparently broken into an informal five-kilometer no-fly zone the two sides had agreed on. "[3]
The Azerbaijani serviceman who shot down the helicopter, Ilkin Muradov, was awarded the 3rd degree medal "For Distinguished Military Service" and a valuable prize. [1]
Analyst Thomas de Waal described the shootdown as "the worst military incident in more than 20 years since the cease-fire. "[4] On the same day, footage appeared in the Azerbaijani media purporting to show the moment of the shootdown. Two Mi-24s are seen flying parallel to the line of contact, as the launch of a surface-to-air missile, identified as an Igla-S MANPAD, is heard off screen and one of the helicopters is struck and crashes to the ground. [5]
After the shootdown, Armenian side claimed that Azeri forces continued firing at the crash site, preventing Armenian forces from retrieving the bodies for several days. On 22 November 2014, according to Armenian side, units of Armenian special forces successfully recovered the bodies of the three Armenian pilots, along with parts of the helicopter. During the operation, the Armenian side claims that two Azeri soldiers who tried to prevent the recovery of the remains of the pilots were killed. The Armenian side did not sustain any casualties. [6] The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry rejected the Armenian side's claims about carrying out the "special operation" on this territory. According to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, these territories are fully under the control of the Azerbaijani armed forces. Azeri military experts on aviation flights have stated that video materials showing bodies, provided by the Armenian side, are actually carefully edited materials. [7]
"Hay Zinvour", the official newspaper of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia confirmed that three deceased crew members were trained at Military-Aviation Institute in Yerevan. [8] The three killed officers, according to the Armenian side, were buried with full military honors on November 25 in Yerevan's Yerablur military cemetery. [9][10] A day earlier their bodies were placed at the Saint Sarkis Church in Nor Nork District for a farewell ceremony which was attended by President Serzh Sargsyan, Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan, Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan and other officials. [11][12]
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Air crash
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ET To Become Full Member Of Non-Aligned Movement
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East Timor To Become Full Member Of Non-Aligned Movement
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb. 6 (AP)--East Timor will join the Non-Aligned Movement of developing nations when leaders meet at a summit in Kuala Lumpur later this month, officials said.
East Timor, which became the world's newest nation in May after centuries of Portuguese colonial and 24 years of brutal military rule by Indonesia, would become the movement's 115th member, said Malaysian organizers of the Feb. 20-25 meeting.
"Timor will be joining NAM as a full member on the first day of the summit," Foreign Ministry Secretary-general Ahmad Fuzi Abdul Razak was quoted Friday as saying by the New Straits Times newspaper.
He said the East Timor delegation was expected to be led by President Jose Xanana Gusmao, who would be among more than 50 leaders to attend the summit.
The Non-Aligned Movement was formed during the Cold War by mostly smaller developing countries as a vehicle to maintain neutrality between the U.S. and Soviet Union.
Now boasting 114 members, the movement's Kuala Lumpur summit will be one of the biggest international gatherings in Asia this year and comes as international debate rages about a U.S.-led war in Iraq and security fears about terrorist strikes.
Malaysia will deploy 8,000 security guards and military helicopters during the summit, when some major roads in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's largest city, will be closed.
Malaysian armed forces chief Gen. Mohamad Zahidi Zainuddin said Thursday that numerous bulletproof luxury cars had been ordered to ferry government leaders during the summit, and drivers were receiving special training at Malaysia's Formula One Grand Prix track, the Bernama national news agency reported.
"After the Sept. 11 incident, the security situation has changed," Mohamad was quoted as saying. "There are some heads of state who are classified as high-risk, so we provide bulletproof cars."
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Join in an Organization
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Bukken Bruse disaster crash
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The Bukken Bruse disaster was the crash of a flying boat during its landing on 2 October 1948. The Short Sandringham was on a Norwegian domestic flight from Oslo and was landing in the bay adjacent to Hommelvik near the city of Trondheim. The disaster killed 19 people;[1] among the survivors was the philosopher Bertrand Russell. The flying boat was a Short Sandringham, registration LN-IAW and named Bukken Bruse after the fairy tale "The Three Billy Goats Gruff". The aircraft, operated by Det Norske Luftfartsselskap (now a part of Scandinavian Airlines System) was en route from Oslo's Fornebu Airport. The weather in the area of the landing was poor at the time, and the sea in the bay of Hommelvika was foaming white. When the Sandringham was about to touch down on the water, it was hit by a wind gust; the pilots lost control and the right wing float broke off as it hit the water. The aircraft rolled over to the side and its nose ploughed into the water. The fuselage rapidly filled with water. Of the 45 people on board, 19 perished. [1] The survivors were all in the smoking compartment at the back of the cabin, near the emergency exit. [citation needed]
The 76-year-old philosopher Bertrand Russell was on the flight on his way to give a lecture to the local student society. He was seated at the rear of the smoking compartment. In an interview with Trondheim newspaper Adresseavisen the day after the crash, he said that he was uncertain of what was happening after the jerk until the aircraft tipped over and water rushed in. In his autobiography he wrote that he had made sure to get a seat in the smoking compartment before the flight, saying that "If I cannot smoke, I should die". Russell was hospitalized in a Trondheim hospital. [2]
The investigation found that the crash was caused by the pilot's loss of control during his attempt to land the Sandringham in a crosswind and rough seas with limited space available. [1]
Coordinates: 63°25′05″N 10°47′33″E / 63.4181°N 10.7925°E / 63.4181; 10.7925
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Air crash
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Northern lights potential Saturday night; breezy and chilly Sunday
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A G3 (Strong) Geomagnetic Storm Watch is in effect for 30 – 31 October, 2021, following a significant solar flare and Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from the sun that occurred around 11:35 a.m. EDT on Oct. 28. Analysis indicated the CME departed the Sun at a speed of 973 km/s and is forecast to arrive at Earth on 30 October, with effects likely continuing into 31 October. When the CME approaches Earth, NOAA’s DSCOVR satellite will be among the first spacecraft to detect the real time solar wind changes and SWPC forecasters will issue any appropriate warnings. Impacts to our technology from a G3 storm are generally nominal. However, a G3 storm has the potential to drive the aurora further away from its normal polar residence and if other factors come together, the aurora might be seen over the far Northeast, to the upper Midwest, and over the state of Washington. Cloud cover may obscure our northern lights viewing in many areas (including the Twin Cities) for several hours Saturday evening. Here’s NOAA’s NAM forecast model depiction of cloud cover from 6 p.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Sunday:
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New wonders in nature
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PFAS blamed for animal deformities and millions of dollars in losses to farmers
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The heartbreak of watching thousands of fish grow with twisted spines and deformed skulls has taken Greg Semple to a "pretty dark place, mentally".
The owner of Murray Cod Hatcheries in the south-western New South Wales town of Wagga Wagga took over the business in 1996.
"It's all been downhill since then," Mr Semple said.
"In the spring-summer breeding season in 1996, we produced 1.2 million healthy native fingerlings in just one hectare of ponds.
"Other ponds were being used to grow tons of food-sized fish.
"By 2005, though, we were struggling to produce any healthy fish at all and we've run at a loss ever since."
The 63-year-old blames PFAS contamination from the nearby Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Base.
Investigations by the Department of Defence have confirmed PFAS is leaving the base through the stormwater network, which drains into wetland near the Murray Cod Hatcheries.
Mr Semple believes the chemicals leached into the surface and bore water used at the hatchery, where he still lives, and ruined his fish stocks.
And experts agree.
Ian Rae, an expert on chemicals in the environment at the University of Melbourne and an environmental advisor to the United Nations, said Mr Semple's was the worst case of real damage caused by PFAS contamination he had seen.
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"The examples that have turned up around the country have largely been from monitoring," Dr Rae said.
"So, people have known of these chemicals washing down local streams and into the groundwater but there have been very few cases where you could actually demonstrate there was a problem coming from that.
"This is the worst one I've seen."
Although still a fully licensed fish hatchery, Mr Semple made the tough decision last year to shut down the business after half a century of operation for safety and financial reasons.
"I've worked it out and I believe I will have lost $120 million because of PFAS contamination — and that figure is based on scientific and industry evidence," he said.
"To come to that figure, I've taken into account the devaluation of the business and the devaluation of the resale value of the property."
Mr Semple is currently building his case against the Department of Defence and will look at taking action to recover his losses in the coming months.
Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, are a group of synthetic chemicals that have been used in firefighting foams since the 1970s.
These chemicals have contaminated groundwater, surface water, sediments and soil at 28 Department of Defence sites around the country, including the RAAF Base in Wagga Wagga.
Defence started phasing the chemicals out in 2004 and has undertaken a national review of their impact on the environment around the bases.
Their investigation into the impact around Wagga's RAAF Base found the risks to residents living nearby were relatively low, and an Expert Health Panel Report also investigating the potential impacts of PFAS had similar findings.
It found limited or no evidence to link exposure to human disease or an increased risk of cancer, but also said health effects could not be ruled out and that exposure should be minimised as a precaution.
That plays heavily on Mr Semple's mind.
"My own health, and that of others who have spent time here, is always a concern," he said.
"PFAS screening tests costs between $550 and $600, and should be considered basic health research, in my opinion.
"Other communities affected by PFAS contamination, like Williamtown, Katherine and Oakey, have been granted voluntary blood testing but my requests to the Department of Defence for government-funded blood testing have been denied and I know requests by other affected residents in Wagga have also been denied.
"But I guess, once I get those results, what do I do with them? "There's nothing I can do now — I've already had high exposure for long periods of time."
A Defence spokesperson said Community Support Packages, which included voluntary blood testing as well as mental health and counselling services, were being offered in investigation areas where the extent of PFAS contamination and the human exposure pathways were well understood.
"Given the different circumstances of each site, the Australian Government will consider where an extension of the Community Support Package arrangements, including voluntary blood testing, is required on a site-by-site basis, as further evidence becomes available."
The spokesperson added that blood testing was not recommended for individuals.
"On an individual level, blood testing for PFAS isn't recommended as there is insufficient evidence for a medical practitioner to be able to tell a person whether their blood level will make them sick now or later in life," they said.
"It is also unable to tell you if any current health problems are related to the PFAS levels found in your blood or guide clinical management."
Having seen the physical changes in his fish stocks, and the animals living on his and neighbouring properties since he moved in, has not eased Mr Semple's concerns.
"A lot of things have gone weird around here," he said.
"We've had fish with an extra fin and some silver perch had what's called axe head, which means they develop with depressed skulls. Basically, their skull hasn't formed properly.
"Far more had stunted, shortened bodies and what looked like scoliosis and spina bifida, and tens of millions died as embryonic young.
"Those fish that managed to survive had poor reproductive success and died when still quite young.
"I've been doing this my whole life and to see that happen to my fish, it's taken me to a pretty dark place mentally."
It was not just Mr Semple's fish that developed abnormalities over the years.
"We had a race horse brood mare that appeared to become infertile and a pedigree stock horse that went blind after delivering a severely undersize foal," he said.
"Nanny goats, mares and miniature cattle have had reproductive problems and looked bloated with distended udders, so much so that vets thought they were pregnant and ready to give birth but they weren't."
Defence's investigations have only considered whether a risk of exposure to PFAS existed for animals in contaminated areas, not what that exposure could do to them.
"The ecological risk assessment is screening only and does not seek to assess potential effects of PFAS on specific species," a Defence spokesperson said.
It did find the risk of exposure to land animals coming into contact with soil in PFAS-contaminated areas was acceptable, and that there was only a potential risk of exposure for aquatic animals in direct contact with impacted surface water as well as for birds and mammals that consumed aquatic animals from impacted waterways.
Since 2017, Mr Semple has worked with engineers and scientific researchers contracted by the Department of Defence to test the extent of PFAS contamination in the water used at Murray Cod Hatcheries.
He had PFAS levels in his aquatic animals tested by the contractors and found levels in their flesh to be up to 103 times that considered the assumed safe standard for eating finfish in Australia.
The groundwater was found to have 65 times the amount of PFAS toxicity currently considered acceptable for Australian drinking water and the PFAS readings in some of the surface water were 101 times the provisional assumed safe levels for agricultural use.
Other detailed water testing completed in 2017 also found there was no significant level of any other environmentally toxic chemical at the fish hatchery.
The Department of Defence has said the PFAS concentration detected in water at the Murray Cod Hatcheries were the highest detected in off-base locations as part of their investigations in Wagga Wagga.
"However, it's important to note that Defence has been advised that the surface water in the ponds and the groundwater bores at Murray Cod Hatcheries are not currently used as a source of drinking water," a Defence spokesperson said.
"The Human Health and Ecological Risk Assessment did not identify unacceptable exposure risks from incidental contact with water at the hatcheries.
"Incidental contact may occur when washing hands or wading in the pools for maintenance activities."
But Mr Semple said the advice given to him by Defence, the NSW Environmental Protection Authority, and the Department of Health escalated following the water testing.
"At first I was told not to drink or use the bore water or to eat foods produced or washed in it," Mr Semple said.
"Then I was told to avoid contact with the water altogether.
"It's a bit hard to run a hatchery when you can't touch the water."
A spokesperson for the Department of Defence said placing fish in clean water could eliminate PFAS concentrations from their systems.
"The Human Health and Ecological Risk Assessment refers to published studies of PFAS depuration in various fish and crustacean species and notes that when placed in clean water, the time taken to remove PFAS from their systems ranges from hours to weeks depending on the species," they said.
"The assessment indicates that there should not be any exposure risks in relation to consumption of fish and crustaceans, assuming these were placed in a PFAS-free environment for at least two weeks.
"Depuration studies on the species produced at the Murray Cod Hatcheries would be needed to confirm actual depuration rates."
Mr Semple had not attempted depuration of his fish but said the process would take much longer than two weeks.
"The only freshwater fish studied in detail have been American bluegill sunfish and studies with that species found depuration of PFAS concentrations from the flesh takes 152 days," he said.
"The PFAS levels found in some of the native fish at Murray Cod Hatcheries were around 103 times the safe level so, if you apply the American findings, it would take in excess of eight years of depuration for them to reach an assumed safe level."
Mr Semple conducted his own controlled fish breeding trials in 2008 and 2017 using perch larvae supplied by the NSW Department of Primary Industries.
"The larvae held in Murray Cod Hatcheries' surface and bore water died within days," he said.
"Controls held in town and river water had high survival rates.
"The birth defects and diminished fish stocks and reproductive capacity mirrored the scientific findings published overseas on fish and ecosystems exposed to PFAS concentrations, even those with far lower levels than found here."
The University of Melbourne's Dr Ian Rae said the impacts described at Murray Cod Hatcheries were "classic symptoms of poisoning with PFAS".
"These are developmental toxins so they don't actually kill organisms in the way some toxins do but they ruin their development, which means they may not have eggs or the eggs may be at a very low concentration or they may be deformed in some way," Dr Rae said.
"And when new fish are born, they may have serious developmental problems, their organs may not be properly developed or there may be a very low yield of new fish.
"Given the evidence from the hatchery, I think it's a classic example of PFAS poisoning."
Julie Mondon, an associate professor of aquatic ecotoxicology at Deakin University, agreed that PFAS contamination was likely to be to blame for the abnormalities reported at the hatchery but added that it was difficult to prove a clear cause-and-effect.
"Without the benefit of knowing what other pollutants have been present prior to the 2017 findings, it can't be definitively claimed that PFAS has been responsible," Dr Mondon said.
"However, there is a strong weight of evidence suggesting that the presence of the suite of chemicals detected in 2017 and the concentrations at which they were detected, both in the environment and in the fish, would correlate with the significant health issues evident.
"Secondary fins and severe spinal curvature in the fish, in particular, are indicative of chemical toxicity response.
"The evidence of decreased reproduction rate and decreased reproduction in offspring indicates an intergeneration toxicity.
"This is not an unusual characteristic of these types of chemicals but often not well-documented due to the time involved in assessing one generation's response through to the next."
Dr Mondon also said the abnormalities were occurring at a much higher rate than would normally be expected in a fish breeding environment.
"In an aquaculture breeding program, it is expected that some abnormalities across the population might occur, not necessarily spinal curvature, but at a very low percentage and certainly not to the extent described by the owner of Murray Cod Hatcheries," she said.
"If a significant number are showing gross deformity then chemical poisoning is the most likely culprit causing these mutations."
Both experts agreed that it was also possible that chemical contamination might be responsible in the case of the cattle, horses and goats around Mr Semple's property.
"The bodies of those animals are quite different and will manage the toxins better than fish, but there's still likely to be effects," Dr Rae said.
"Still, I don't think Mr Semple needs to go on doing any more experiments. There's enough evidence there to be satisfied that these chemicals are the cause of the problem."
Mr Semple was still a long way from taking any official steps towards remediation for his estimated $120 million loss.
"This was one of the best hatcheries in the country and now we're out of commercial operation," he said.
He said he was waiting for the Department of Defence to publish its PFAS Management Area Plan for Wagga RAAF Base, due in the coming months, which will outline the department's plan to manage, monitor and reduce the risks of PFAS exposure at and around the base.
"I'm waiting to see if the government will accept the nine recommendations proposed in the parliamentary inquiry into the management of PFAS contamination before taking further action," he said.
"But how do you compensate for half a person's working life?"
A Defence spokesperson said the Department would welcome a claim from Mr Semple, if he believed "the Commonwealth is liable" for his losses.
"The Commonwealth is always open to receiving claims directly from individuals and businesses who have suffered a loss or injury and consider the Commonwealth is liable," the spokesperson said.
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Environment Pollution
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Flu vaccines delayed by supply shortages as medics fear outbreaks amid COVID-19
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Influenza vaccines are expected to be supplied at a slower pace in Japan this season than a year earlier, due in part to a worldwide shortage of ingredients, health ministry officials have said. Although Japan did not see a seasonal flu outbreak last year, some experts are concerned that novel coronavirus and flu infections may spread simultaneously this winter. They are calling on people to get vaccinated against influenza and implement thorough infection prevention measures. According to the ministry, flu shots for around 51.3 million to 55.8 million people will be supplied in the country this season. The total amount of flu vaccine to be supplied this season is expected to be less than that last season, but roughly the same as in a usual year. Approximately 14,000 people are estimated to have caught flu last season, compared with 10 million to 20 million in an average year and fewer than 0.2% of some 7,285,000 in the 2019 to 2020 season. The National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) has concluded that a flu outbreak did not occur in Japan last winter. On the other hand, experts are finding it difficult to predict whether flu will sweep through the country this season. In June, the Japanese Society for Vaccinology warned that the country's medical system could be overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic if there is an outbreak of influenza at the same time, especially advising older people, infants and expectant mothers to get vaccinated against flu. "Simultaneous outbreaks of the novel coronavirus and flu did not come last year, although we had expected that to happen," NIID head Takaji Wakita said at a news conference last week. "It's very difficult to predict the outbreak situation this season," he added. "There is a possibility that influenza will spread this season as the number of people susceptible to flu is seen rising among various age groups following the absence of an outbreak last season," said Takashi Nakano, a professor at Kawasaki Medical School, calling on people to consider getting vaccinated against flu. "Infectious diseases other than COVID-19 and flu also tend to spread in the winter," he said, urging people to continue taking infection control measures. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.By subscribing, you can help us get the story right. Many scholars point to a variety of explanations for the sudden end of the fifth wave, but one research group says the coronavirus variant may have actually destroyed itself.
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Disease Outbreaks
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1970 Spantax Convair crash
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On 5 January 1970, a Convair 990 Coronado operated by the Spanish airline Spantax crashed shortly after take-off from Stockholm Arlanda Airport, killing five of the ten people on board. The aircraft was earlier that evening about to fly to Mallorca with Swedish travelers, but at take-off the number 4 engine developed a fault. The take-off was aborted and the aircraft returned to the gate and the passengers were allowed to leave the aircraft. Later in the evening it was decided to perform a three-engine ferry flight to Zürich for an engine-change. [2] On board were three crew members and seven passengers. There was a strong wind and -27 °C at the airport. [3]
At 22:24 hours the aircraft started its take-off roll on runway 19. During the take-off roll, the nose yawed to the right. This was corrected by retarding number 1 engine power from 85% to 80-60%. The aircraft rotated at 134 knots with 27 degrees flaps. While climbing, the aircraft banked 4-6 degrees to the right and the airspeed suddenly dropped to 10 knots below V2 (145 knots). The aircraft contacted some treetops, banked 10-15 degrees and crashed 1,800 meters from the point of lift-off. [1] The plane ploughed a long road in the woods and broke into several pieces. The cockpit was separated from the rest of the fuselage and was wedged between tree trunks and hard frozen ground and tilted 45 degrees to the left. [3]
First officer Miguel Granado was sitting to the right and became trapped when the seat pushed forward and both legs were caught up under the instrument panel. His right lower leg was broken and angled. His left foot was tightly pinched as well as his left calf and achilles tendon. Askew under the pilot was one of the aircraft maintenance engineers, trapped with multiple rib fractures. Granado held, without gloves, his hands on one of the fuselage pipes and tried to keep himself up and thereby relieve pressure on his friend's chest. Both hands received severe frostbite. [3]
The captain escaped with minor contusions and was able to break free and get out. Aware of the risk of being motionless at these low temperatures, he walked around and tried to keep the body heat up and thereby escaped with minor frostbite on the hands and feet. They searched in the prevailing darkness and powder snow for the Emergency Locator Transmitter and could, after it was found, call for help. [3] What the crew did not know was that there was a house where a family, asleep and oblivious to the accident, only a hundred meters from the crash site. The family later woke up when a police helicopter flew low over their house. [4]
Four hours after the accident the emergency response located the plane. First officer Granado who was trapped, had to wait over eight hours in the bitter cold before he was free. [3] At the time of the accident, disaster preparedness at Arlanda was minimal. An ambulance was stationed at Löwenströmska lasarettet in Upplands Väsby 10 km south, but had no radio installed. Staff were sent out in white robes, and clogs on their feet to help the survivors. [5][6] Five people, including a Swedish flight attendant, died in the cold weather. [7]
The Swedish Accident Investigation Authority summarized the interacting factors of the accident:[3]
The group within the Swedish Accident Investigation Authority that investigated the emergency response pointed out certain deficiencies in the search and rescue systems, which later resulted in a reorganization. [3]
The Spantax accident was one of the events that caused the Swedish health care to develop both the disaster medical preparedness and equipment. [8] They also began to set up emergency plans. [5]
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Air crash
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Justice News
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Fayetteville Home-Health Services Company Agrees to Settle False Claims Act Allegations Related to Death of a Veteran
Raleigh, N.C. – A home-health services company based in Fayetteville, North Carolina, has agreed to pay $45,486.76 to settle civil False Claims Act allegations related to allegedly fraudulent billings for purported work by a recently convicted felon under their employ.
Professional Family Care Services, Inc. (“PFCS”) provides, among other things, home-health services to patients in southeastern North Carolina, including to veterans of the United States Armed Forces. During 2015 and 2016, PFCS billed the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) for home-health services purportedly provided to W.R., an Army veteran, even though, at that time, W.R. was actually residing with the company’s employee, Certified Nurse Aide Tracey McNeill. The evidence showed that PFCS based its billing for those services on falsified timesheets provided by Ms. McNeill, who failed to provide both the time and quality of care required under the VA program. In some instances, Ms. McNeill submitted blatantly inconsistent timesheets indicating that she was providing services to W.R. and another patient at the exact same times.
After several months living with Ms. McNeill and while purportedly receiving home-health services provided by Ms. McNeill through PFCS, W.R. had to be admitted to the hospital with severe bedsores. Evidence showed that he was extremely malnourished, and he ultimately died within a few days of his admission.
Nevertheless, PFCS submitted fifteen separate claim forms seeking payment from the VA for services purportedly provided by Ms. McNeill to W.R. between October 2015 and December 2016, resulting in payment by the VA of $11,273.92. The federal False Claims Act, however, mandates that the government recover three times the damages caused by the fraud, plus civil penalties for false or fraudulent claims. PFCS agreed to pay $45,486.76 to resolve the claims.
Earlier in 2021, Ms. McNeill was convicted of wire fraud for her misconduct related to W.R., was sentenced to 12 months and 1 day in federal prison, and was ordered to pay over $90,000 in restitution.
“The home-health services provided to the veteran by his supposed care-giver were deplorable,” said United States Attorney Michael F. Easley, Jr. “Our veterans should be honored and respected for their service, not abused for others’ financial gain. The United States will always pursue justice for them, and for the programs in place to help support them. This case, on both the criminal and civil side, embodies that unwavering commitment.”
It should be noted that the civil claims resolved by settlement here are allegations only, and that there has been no judicial determination or admission of liability. PFCS cooperated fully in resolving these claims.
Assistant United States Attorney John E. Harris represented the United States in this civil action. The Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) assisted in this investigation.
Court documents and information about the criminal case against Ms. McNeill are located on the website of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina or on PACER by searching for Case No. 5:20-cr-000474-D.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate
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2000 East Coast Aviation Services British Aerospace Jetstream crash
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On 21 May 2000, a British Aerospace BAe-3101 Jetstream 3101 operated by East Coast Aviation Services (known operationally as Executive Airlines) crashed into mountainous terrain in Bear Creek Township, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The plane was carrying 17 professional gamblers returning home from Caesar's Palace Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, along with 2 crew members. It was chartered by Caesar's Palace (New Jersey). All 19 passengers and crews on board were killed instantly. An investigation was conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board. It found that while the aircraft was approaching Scranton International Airport, it ran out of fuel. The investigation found that the crews were supposed to refill the aircraft with a total of 180 gallons of fuel. Instead, they refilled with 90 gallons. Although the final report concluded that fuel exhaustion was the cause of the crash, it was not received warmly by some relatives of the victims. Several of them filled lawsuits against Executive Airlines and British Aerospace. Executive Airlines chief executive Michael Peragine questioned the NTSB report, claiming that it dismissed several other factors that might have been beneficial to the investigation. [1]
The crew initially was supposed to take a flight from Farmingdale, New York to Atlantic City, New Jersey at 09:00 local time. However, the crew later received a phone call from the Executive Airlines' owner and CEO detailing that they had been assigned another flight to Wilkes-Barre, with a return flight to Atlantic City later in the day. Ninety gallons of fuel was added to the aircraft, and it departed for Farmingdale at 09:21 local time with 12 passengers on board, under command of Captain Cam Basat. It arrived at Atlantic City International Airport at 09:49. [2]
The second leg of the flight was from Atlantic City to Wilkes-Barre. This flight segment was flown by the same crew, with First Officer Gregory MacVicar as pilot flying. No fuel was added on this flight segment. The plane departed Atlantic City at 10:30 with 17 passengers on board. It was cleared to fly at 5,000' above mean sea level. [2][3]
As the flight neared Wilkes-Barre, the crew established contact with the approach controller for clearance, which was granted. The crew was given a radar vector for an ILS approach. Their first attempt to land, however, was not successful. [2] The crew executed a missed approach, and started a second approach with another ILS radar vector. [4]
At 11:23, the crew declared an emergency and indicated they had an "engine failure". The crew was given yet another radar vector by the air traffic controller. At 11:25, as the aircraft was descending through 3,000', the controller warned that the minimum vectoring altitude (MVA) was 3,300' within the sector. [2][5]
The controller also read out the weather condition in the vicinity, and informed the crew about the location of nearby highways, suggesting that they could make an emergency landing. The crew declined, and asked for a radar vector to the airport. As the radar vector was given to the crew, the flight disappeared from the radar screen. Communications between the crew and the controller, however, continued. [2]
At 11:27, the crew reported that they had "gotten back the left engine now", and radar contact was re-established. However, a few seconds later the crew reported that they had lost both engines. The controller informed them that the Pennsylvania Turnpike was right below them, and requested they "let [ATC] know if you can get your engines back". There was no further radio contact. [2][5]
Emergency crews were notified at 11:30, and began searching for the crash site. The wreckage was found at 12:45 p.m local time. There were no survivors. In response to the crash, the airport fire department was turned into a makeshift encampment for the relatives of the victims. [2][5]
The pilot flying on the crash leg was First Officer Gregory MacVicar, age 38. At the time of the accident, he had accumulated 1,282 total flying hours, of which about 742 hours were in the Jetstream 3101. He joined Executive Airlines on November 9, 1998. [2]
The pilot monitoring was Captain Cam Basat, age 34. He joined Executive Airlines in 1998 as a part-time pilot. At the time, he was a full-time pilot for Atlantic Coast Airlines. At the time of the accident, the captain had accumulated about 8,500 flying hours, including about 1,874 hours as pilot-in-command in the Jetstream. [2]
The plane involved in the accident was a British Aerospace Jetstream 3101, registered as N16EJ. It was delivered by British Aerospace on 1988 as N851JS. Executive Airlines purchased the airplane on October 28, 1996, from Fairchild Dornier. Its registration was changed to N16EJ on September 1997.
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Air crash
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LISBON REFERENDUM:SOME 20 per cent of the people who voted to ratify the Lisbon Treaty last year did so
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LISBON REFERENDUM:SOME 20 per cent of the people who voted to ratify the Lisbon Treaty last year did so because they thought it would be good for the economy, taxes, jobs or funding from the EU, a new report has found.
The figure was 17 percentage points higher than in 2008, when only 3 per cent voted Yes because it would be good for the economy.
Attitudes and Behaviour in the Second Referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon also found only 8 per cent of those surveyed said they voted Yes because the Government, political parties, business leaders or the media were in favour.
The report was released to coincide with the first anniversary of the Irish vote to accept the Lisbon Treaty, on October 2nd, 2009.
It was the second time Ireland voted on the treaty after rejecting it on the first occasion in May 2008.
Prepared by the Geary Institute and the school of politics and international relations at UCD, the report was based on a survey commissioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs and carried out by Millward Brown Lansdowne in November 2009. The data was compared with a survey carried out after the first referendum.
The report found only 1 per cent of those who voted in favour of accepting the treaty were influenced by the additional guarantees on taxes, neutrality and the permanent commissioner obtained by the Government after the initial defeat.
It found 42 per cent of people who voted Yes believed the EU was good for Ireland and 40 per cent felt voting Yes was “the right thing to do”.
The report said the short answer to the question as to how the Yes side won the second referendum was that its 2008 vote remained remarkably solid and it managed to persuade one in four of those who had voted No to switch.
Despite a high rate of persistent abstention, the Yes side also succeeded in mobilising in its favour the votes of one-sixth of those who had abstained in 2008.
One of the main attitudes that influenced voter choice in the second referendum was the belief that Irish membership of the EU was a good thing, the report found.
The “second ingredient was the economy and specifically the belief that the Yes vote would result in an improvement in Ireland’s economic prospects”.
The report also found it was helpful that domestic politics, “specifically the extensive unpopularity of the incumbent Government”, had only a limited effect on voter choice.
Knowledge of the EU did not affect voter choice in the way it had done in the first referendum.
The referendum process was inherently challenging, the report concluded. The best preparation for the challenges was “enhanced deliberation and debate about European issues on a continuing basis and certainly before, not after, referendum battle is joined”.
Speaking yesterday, Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said it was clear most Irish people believed the EU was good for Ireland and our economic wellbeing was linked to it.
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Sign Agreement
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Niue joins Asian Development Bank as latest member
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Niue joins Asian Development Bank as latest member
3 years ago Editor
Niue has become the Asian Development Bank’s latest member.
The Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank has approved the membership of Niue as the bank’s 68th overall member and 49th from the Asia and Pacific region.
The Asian Development Bank is an international development finance institution dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through assisting its members and partners by providing loans, technical assistance, grants, and equity investments to promote social and economic development.
“We welcome Niue as ADB’s newest member. This new relationship will bring Niue into the development community and help ADB to work closely on building and strengthening economic growth that benefits all Niueans,” said ADB President Takehiko Nakao.
The Niuean Government applied for membership in the Asian Development Bank last year where the Premier traveled to Manila, Philippines to hold talks with board members and the ADB President.
The Premier has stated if the application is successful, this is a historical step for Niue. The Government had applied two times before and were unsuccessful in both times.
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Join in an Organization
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2020 University of Illinois Hospital strikes
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The 2020 University of Illinois Hospital strikes were the result of a breakdown in contract negotiations between labor unions and hospital management over salaries, staffing levels, and access to personal protective equipment. The background for both strikes stemmed from negotiations over labor contracts between the Chicago-based hospital and two unions, the Illinois Nurses Association (INA) and Local 73 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The unions had been negotiating for new contracts for several months and had held over 70 bargaining sessions with hospital management, but despite this, no agreement could be concluded between the parties. In mid-September, both unions declared their intent to strike, citing unfair labor practices. The INA strike started on September 12, with Local 73's strike commencing on September 14. These were the first strikes at the University of Illinois Hospital in 46 years. Both strikes involved several hundred workers from each union, though court rulings limited the total number of union members allowed to strike by several hundred. Goals shared by both unions included increased staffing, increased pay, and greater access to personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. On September 19, the INA announced an end to their strike, stating that progress had been made towards new contract agreements. On September 23, the SEIU came to a tentative agreement on a new contract, with their strike ending the following day. That same day, the INA announced a tentative agreement with the hospital. In early October, membership of both unions voted to accept the new contracts. On August 24, 2020, a three-year labor contract between the Illinois Nurses Association (INA) and the University of Illinois Hospital (UIH) in Chicago was set to expire. [1] In the leadup to the expiration, over 20 bargaining sessions were held between the union and hospital regarding a replacement. [2] A deal between the two groups was not reached by August 24, and subsequently the contract was extended to September 7. [1] The biggest issue regarding the negotiations pertained to nurse-to-patient ratios, with union representatives demanding limits to the total number of patients a single nurse must be responsible for. [1][2][3] Additional issues were related to higher pay and the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the COVID-19 pandemic. [4][5] A September 2020 article in the Chicago Sun-Times reported that approximately 270 UIH workers had contracted COVID-19 by that time,[6] with In These Times reporting that at least four UIH workers had died from the virus. [7] Multiple sources reported that the hospital was resistant to changing policy on nurse-to-patient ratios, arguing that having set ratios does not work. [2][4][8] However, the president of the INA refuted this, stating, "We have two decades of research to support that having adequate nurses at the bedside, will prevent falls, will prevent infections, will prevent deaths, in a hospital mind you. "[1][2]
On August 19, INA members at UIH voted for a seven-day strike,[6][9] with 995 nurses in favor and 12 against. [10] On September 2, citing unfair labor practices,[10] they filed a notice ten days in advance of their intent to strike on September 12. [6][11] At the time of the announcement, the INA released a statement saying, "Barring a breakthrough in negotiations between nurses and the University of Illinois Hospital, more than 1,300 nurses will begin a seven-day strike at 7 a.m. on Saturday, September 12th". [11] On September 8, the board of trustees for the University of Illinois system filed a lawsuit with the Circuit Court of Cook County to prevent the strike from occurring, claiming that, because of the important services provided by the hospital, the strike "would constitute a clear and present danger to the health or safety of the public. "[12] While the judge did not prevent the strike from occurring, on September 11 (the day before the strike was scheduled to commence), a temporary restraining order was granted against some select nurses, preventing them from striking. [1] The ruling barred 525 nurses who worked in intensive care units out of concern that it would jeopardize the safety of the patients there. [2] As a result, while initial estimates stated that 1,300[2] or 1,400[1] nurses would go on strike, the actual number of strikers was estimated at over 800. [2] That same day, union representatives and hospital officials engaged in a 14-hour long bargaining session which ended at an impasse. [6]
Around the same time that issues between the INA and UIH were coming to a head, the hospital was undergoing contract negotiations with Local 73 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which included many clerical, maintenance, and technical workers for the hospital. [13] An article published by the Chicago Sun-Times in late September claimed that the SEIU and hospital had participated in over 50 bargaining sessions over the course of several months at that point. [14] On September 3, citing unfair labor practices,[15] SEIU Local 73 submitted a notice ten days in advance of their intent to strike. [13] The notice came after the union reported that 94% of the workers voted to approve a strike action. [15] At the time of the announcement, Local 73 members had been working without a contract for about a year. [16] According to the union, their demands included instituting a base pay of $15 per hour, increasing the availabilities of masks and N95s, and protections against outsourcing, among other issues. [15] As with the INA, the hospital attempted to block strike action from occurring, and on September 11, a restraining order, similar to the one for the INA, prevented approximately 300 SEIU members in critical care operations from participating. [17]
The strike began on September 12, with 800 nurses walking out. [1][2] It was the first walkout the UIH had experienced in 46 years. [18] Starting at 7 a.m., strikers joined a picket line outside the hospital in the Near West Side, with U.S. Representative Jesús "Chuy" García showing support for the strikers by wearing a blue polo shirt and a University of Illinois at Chicago alumni hat. [6] Despite unfavorable weather conditions, the picketing lasted until 10 p.m.[19] That same day, in a story aired by WLS-TV, union officials accused UIC of preparing to bring in strikebreakers. [19] On September 14, at 6 a.m., members of the SEIU Local 73 went on strike. [17][20] 1,700 members were from the UIH in Chicago, while a total of approximately 3,800 SEIU members went on strike at UIH facilities in Champaign, Chicago, Peoria, and Rockford. [17] An article in Labor Notes published several days later stated that the Local 73 strike was timed to coincide with the INA strike, and a representative for Local 73 expressed delight in "standing in solidarity" with the INA strikers. [18] At a joint rally that same day, political activist Jesse Jackson spoke in support of the strikers,[20] and the next morning, he joined the picket lines. [4] Later that day, negotiations resumed between INA and hospital representatives. [4] On September 18, strikers marched in Downtown Chicago from Millennium Park to the Illinois Governor's offices at the James R. Thompson Center to call on support from Governor J. B. Pritzker. Additional protesting continued in the Illinois Medical District. [21]
On September 19, after several days of striking, the INA ended their strike action, with nurses returning to work that day. [16][22][23] According to INA representatives, union and hospital officials had been meeting every evening for the previous week in an attempt to come to an agreement. [16] However, at the time of the strike's end, there was no contract agreement reached between UIH and the INA.
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Strike
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Coral Bay shipwreck dates to around 1720, other wrecks possible
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A Virgin Islands board is debating if adding a shipwreck in Coral Bay to a registry of historic places would protect the site or open it to exploitation. A shipwreck believed to date to the 1720s has been confirmed in Coral Bay off St. John, and the St. Thomas-St. John Historic Preservation Committee discussed possible preservation efforts during a meeting Tuesday. “It is significant, it’s old. ... It’s in good preservation,” said archaeologist David Brewer. Committee member David Knight Sr. said he received a “completely unsolicited” letter from Save Coral Bay President David Silverman, who is lobbying to have the site added to a historic register, which prompted the discussion. Silverman said he is concerned the wreck could be impacted by the Summer’s End Group, which is planning a marina in the bay. Brewer said he had previously convinced the developer to remove a set of finger docks from their plans that would have overlapped the wreck. “They’ve agreed to remove them, but in the designs, they’re still there,” Brewer said. Ultimately, the Army Corps of Engineers will need to grant final approval for the marina plans before construction can commence, and Brewer said the V.I. State Historic Preservation Office, which is under the Department of Planning and Natural Resources, “doesn’t have a dog in this fight.” The group Diving with a Purpose and the dive team from the Society of Black Archaeologists dove on the wreck over the summer in conjunction with local authorities, and there are more seafloor “anomalies” yet to be investigated, Brewer said. Archaeologists frequently use glass bottles to help “date” a site, because glass blowing and molding techniques have evolved rapidly and sizes, shapes and styles of bottle can be unique to a specific period or even decade. Brewer said an “onion” bottle dating to approximately 1720 was found in the wreck, “near to the time of the enslaved workers’ insurrection — successful insurrection, I might add.” An analysis of the wreck has not been completed and the nationality of the ship is unclear, but it’s “definitely European,” Brewer said. Committee member David Knight Sr. said the Danes kept meticulous records which may yield more information about the wreck. A cursory review of historic records and his own notes pointed to several possibilities, including ships that wrecked in Coral Bay Harbor during hurricane and storm events, such as a brigantine from Rhode Island, and a Guinea Company ship. The wreck of the Santa Monica in Round Bay is on the National Registry of Historic Place and “these sinkings predate the Santa Monica by 50, 60 years, so I think there’s a lot of work to be done, I’ve only scratched the surface,” Knight said. Brewer said he’s very concerned that publicizing the wrecks will lead to destructive tourists diving on the sites, or wannabe treasure hunters tearing the wrecks apart to look for nonexistent loot. “These guys were good and salvaging these wrecks. They were damn good at it,” Brewer said, but people may try to dive on them anyway. “We just don’t give out this information. We just don’t do it. And putting it on the registry, that’s exactly what you’re doing; you’re giving it away.” Knight strenuously disagreed, and committee chair Pamela Montegut said that “we’re going to do what we can to keep people from diving on these things, but unfortunately we have to sometimes talk about things to do the greater good.” Silverman said diving in Coral Bay is “not for the faint of heart” as the area is filled with murky silt and hurricane debris. He clarified that he doesn’t want to “pinpoint the location” of shipwrecks, but rather to “delineate the area and where they’re likely to be, and require an extra modicum of care when any sort of development is proposed within that area.” Brewer said that, “we are probably never going to raise that wreck,” as “it’s way too big of an operation.” However, “we will do a complete excavation of the wreck and the mud and the slime will be sucked off and the artifacts will be recovered,” he said. “And then we’ll probably put it to bed” with plastic sandbags designed to last a century, to protect the site for future archaeologists to explore.
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Shipwreck
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Lunar eclipse 2021: Super blood moon will occur today; when and where to watch it in India
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Lunar eclipse 2021: Super blood moon will occur today; when and where to watch it in India Total Lunar Eclipse (Blood Moon) 2021 will start at 2:16 pm IST and will be at its peak at around 4:49 pm IST. We are going to witness a spectacular lunar show this month. The year's first total eclipse will coincide with a super “blood” moon. It will take place on 26 May. A lunar eclipse or a Chandra Grahan occurs when the moon moves into the Earth’s shadow and light from the Sun cannot fall on the moon. A total lunar eclipse is also called the Blood Moon because of the reddish tinge that appears on the moon during an eclipse. This phenomenon happens because the light from the Earth’s sunrise or sunset falls on the surface of the moon. As the light waves are stretched out, they appear red in colour, explains Space.com. This will be the first Blood Moon since 21 January 2019. A total lunar eclipse or a Chandra Grahan is also called the Blood moon because of the reddish tinge that appears on the moon during a eclipse. The total eclipse will last about 15 minutes as Earth passes directly between the moon and the sun. But the entire show will last five hours, as Earth’s shadow gradually covers the moon, then starts to ebb. The eclipse will be at its peak at around 4:49 pm IST. It will start at 2:16 pm IST and between 4:41 pm IST to 4:56 pm IST, the surface of the moon will be completely covered by Earth’s umbra. This is the time when it will be visible. Unlike a solar eclipse, there’s no harm in looking at an eclipsed moon. The Super Blood Moon will be visible to people in South America, North America, Asia, Australia, Antarctica, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. From India, for a small period of time, the eclipse will be visible from the northeastern parts of India (except Sikkim), some parts of West Bengal, some coastal parts of Odisha and Andaman and the Nicobar Islands. There will be two lunar and two solar eclipses this year. A partial lunar eclipse will take place on 19 November. The ending of the partial phase of which will be visible for a very short span of time just after moonrise from extreme northeastern parts of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. The next total lunar eclipse will be May 2022. When the moon gets in between the sun and the Earth, it causes a solar eclipse. The solar eclipses will occur on 10 June and 4 December in 2021.
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New wonders in nature
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Santiago Canyon Fire
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The Santiago Canyon Fire of 1889 (previously called the Great Fire of 1889) was a massive wildfire in California, which burned large parts of Orange County, Riverside County, and San Diego County during the last week of September 1889. [3] The fire reportedly started in Fremont Canyon, a canyon close to what today is Irvine Lake. [4] Until 2018, it was possibly the single largest wildfire in the recorded history of California,[1][2] with at least 300,000 acres (1,200 km2) of land burned. [3] In mid-August 2018, the Ranch Fire in the Mendocino Complex Fire surpassed the Santiago Canyon Fire's assumed acreage. [5][6]
Assistant Regional Forester (USFS) L.A. Barrett, who wrote a 1935 report on California wildfires, said of it: "I was living in Orange County at the time and well remember the great fire reported herein from September 24 to 26. Nothing like it occurred in California since the National Forests have been administered. In fact in my 33 years in the Service I have never seen a forest or brush fire to equal it. This one covered an enormous scope of country and burned very rapidly. "[non-primary source needed]
Conditions leading up to the 1889 fire included a much longer and more severe annual drought than usual, with rains largely ceasing in March and less than 0.4 inches (1 cm) of precipitation being recorded for the 5½ months prior (records from the National Archives). This was coupled with multiple katabatic wind events (known as “northers” or Santa Anas) that month, one of which occurred about 10 days prior and likely added to the dryness of fuels. Temperatures during the week prior remained high and were coupled with several severe fires in San Diego County in which “at least 10,000 acres [40 km2] have burned over, a dwelling house consumed and other property destroyed”. [7]
In addition to the Santiago Canyon Fire, there were several other significant fires fanned by the same gale force Santa Ana winds in San Diego and San Bernardino counties. The Santiago Canyon Fire was the largest and has been estimated as being greater than 308,000 acres (1,250 km2). [1] Another wildfire in San Diego County at the time has been estimated to have been greater than 60,000 acres (240 km2). [8] The Orange County fire burned through areas of chaparral and coastal sage scrub, as well as a number of farm fields in the Santa Ana Valley, where farmers attempted to control the fire by plowing ahead of it. [9] A detailed analysis of the fire can be found in an article by Keeley and Zedler. [1]
USFS Regional Forester L.A. Barrett (1935), in reference to the size stated that "Nothing like it occurred in California since the National Forests have been administered. In fact in my 33 years in the Service I have never seen a forest or brush fire to equal it." Since his career included the 1932 Matilija Fire, which was over 220,000 acres (890 km2), it can be inferred that the wildfire was much larger than 220,000 acres. [1] A thorough study of newspaper accounts suggests it was on the order of 310,000 acres (1,300 km2), but some reports indicate that the Santiago Canyon Fire may have reached a size of 495,000 acres (2,000 km2), especially if it had merged with other large wildfires that were concurrently burning in San Diego County. [1] Other estimates have claimed a smaller size. [2]
One of the first reports of the fire was delivered by telegraph. Riverside Daily Press and Tribune reported on the fire by telegraph as follows:
By Telegraph. Mountain Fires! Fires Near Santa Ana. Los Angeles, Sept. 25. - A special to the Tribune from Santa Ana says the mountains for about twenty miles [32 km] east of that city were on fire last night. The fire originated in Santiago cañon, in a sheepherder’s camp, and as the wind was blowing a perfect gale from off the desert the mountains were soon red with the angry flames. About 50,000 sacks of barley, threshed and unthreshed, on the San Joaquin ranch, invites the flames from the surrounding hilltops. [10]
Daily San Diegan described the extent and damage wrought by the fire:
The Fires. Reported From Nearly all Sections of the County. Reports from different sections of the county show that last week’s fires were widespread. For two days there were over thirty miles [48 km] of burning brush on the westside of Santa Rosa Range, and thousands of sheep are supposed to have lost their lives in the conflagration. In the Aliso District, near Encinitas, the fire raged several days, resulting in a heavy loss of crops to the farmers in that section… the most extensive fires for years have been raging on the Santa Margarita ranch. A bridge on the line of the California Southern railway, below Temecula, was burned as the result of forest fires. Fires near Julian burned considerable timber and did other damage. [7]
Daily Courier reported on the events of the Santiago Canyon Fire and other nearby wildfires in Southern California:
Fires in Three Counties. During the past three or four days destructive fires have been raging in San Bernardino, Orange and San Diego severely. Mr. Warren Wilson, who arrived from San Diego yesterday, says it is a positive fact that two or three thousand sheep were burned near Santa Ana, while great quantities of grain in the bag, fencing, hay, etc., have been destroyed. So far, no human lives are reported lost. A fatality seems to follow this ill-omened year of 1889. Fire and flood and earthquake shocks have marked this year for their own. It is a year of disasters, widespread destruction of life and property – and, well, a year of horrors. [11]
Many reports about the fire's size and impact were made that were supposedly false. [4]
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Fire
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Pandemic could cause famines of 'biblical proportions'
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Over 2.5 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding the scope of their nations' outbreaks. Since the first cases were detected in China in December, the United States has become the worst-affected nation, with more than 823,000 diagnosed cases and at least 44,805 deaths. Tuesday's biggest developments: Here's how the news developed Tuesday. All times Eastern. Quest Diagnostics will begin testing blood samples for COVID-19 antibodies, the commercial laboratory company announced Tuesday. Antibody tests can indicate who has been exposed to novel coronavirus and recovered, which is considered a crucial step in reopening the economy. Quest is using two tests that can detect the presence of antibodies by 14 days after symptoms start. It has completed independent validation studies on both tests, the company said. Depending on demand, Quest expects to have test results within one to two days of collecting the blood sample. The company plans to expand its laboratory capacity from 70,000 tests per day by the end of this week to 150,000 tests a day by early May at more than 20 laboratories nationwide. The company, which also processes COVID-19 tests, serves about half of the physicians and hospitals in the U.S., according to its CEO Steve Rusckowski. President Donald Trump expounded on his decision to suspend immigration to the U.S., saying it would last 60 days during the White House’s daily press briefing Tuesday. Any extension will be "based on economic conditions at the time," he added. It will apply to those seeking legal permanent residency, or green cards, and not those entering the U.S. on a temporary basis, the president said. "We want to protect our U.S. workers," Trump said at the briefing. "This pause on new immigration will also help to conserve vital medical resources for American citizens." In a late-night tweet announcing the plan on Monday, the president said he would carry out the directive through an executive order. The Senate unanimously approved a $484 billion deal Tuesday afternoon that includes funds for small businesses, hospitals and testing. The agreement will add another $310 billion to the Paycheck Protection Program, a small business loan program that ran out of money last week. The deal also adds $75 billion to hospitals, $60 billion to the Small Business Administration’s disaster relief fund and $25 billion to COVID-19 testing. The House is expected to vote on the package on Thursday. President Donald Trump pushed for passage of the deal on Twitter, saying, "I urge the Senate and House to pass the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act with additional funding for PPP, Hospitals, and Testing." ....to State/Local Governments for lost revenues from COVID 19, much needed Infrastructure Investments for Bridges, Tunnels, Broadband, Tax Incentives for Restaurants, Entertainment, Sports, and Payroll Tax Cuts to increase Economic Growth.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2020 ....to State/Local Governments for lost revenues from COVID 19, much needed Infrastructure Investments for Bridges, Tunnels, Broadband, Tax Incentives for Restaurants, Entertainment, Sports, and Payroll Tax Cuts to increase Economic Growth. The coronavirus pandemic could soon double hunger, causing famines of "biblical proportions" around the world by the end of the year, the head of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday. Beasley warned that analysis from the World Food Programme, the U.N.'s food-assistance branch, shows that because of the coronavirus, "an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020. That’s a total of 265 million people." He said there are no famines yet, but warned, "If we don’t prepare and act now -- to secure access, avoid funding shortfalls and disruptions to trade -- we could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months." Beasley said in "a worst-case scenario," famine could strike about three dozen countries. He noted that in 10 of those countries, at least 1 million people are already on the verge of starvation due to other conditions, like conflict. Tune into ABC at 1 p.m. ET and ABC News Live at 4 p.m. ET every weekday for special coverage of the novel coronavirus with the full ABC News team, including the latest news, context and analysis. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told MSNBC he thinks his meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House Tuesday was "productive," following a war of words between the two leaders. "This is not about anyone's emotions," Cuomo told MSNBC, describing the tone of the conversation at "very functional and effective." Cuomo said he wanted a face-to-face conversation with Trump to talk about his main concern: testing. "We need help from the federal government to make the supply chain work," Cuomo told MSNBC. "I also spoke to the president about the need for the states to get funding," Cuomo added. In New Jersey, the coronavirus death toll has reached 4,753, Gov. Phil Murphy said Tuesday. While over 92,000 people have been diagnosed, the state is seeing decreases in the number of new hospitalizations, Murphy said. "For now, we have to do things like keeping our parks closed," the governor said, adding they can't risk undoing the good that has been done so far. "That's why our schools are still closed and will be," he continued. "We are not going to open our schools back up until we are convinced by the science and medical professionals that doing so would be safe for students, for staff." When schools reopen, Murphy said "we will not hesitate to require additional protections, things like face coverings, or certain configurations of classrooms, if we believe by doing so we will make our schools even safer." "I understand the concern felt by so many parents what their kids are missing by having the schools closed," Murphy said. "We just can't rush this." Officials in hard-hit Albany, Georgia, are concerned after Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday he's lifting some of the state’s restrictions on businesses, including hair and nail salons, starting this Friday. Albany Mayor Bo Dorough said Tuesday that the lifting of restrictions should be gradual. "Social distancing cannot be maintained in a barber shop, in a beauty shop or in a nail salon," Dorough said. "The governor, in addition to receding the shelter in place order, essentially precluding your local officials from taking action to protect the citizens of this community," the mayor said. "A community where 15 funerals were held just last weekend." "I pray that the number of Georgians who are infected and die will not increase significantly in the coming weeks as a result of the lifting of these restrictions," Dorough said. With Massachusetts in the midst of a rise in coronavirus cases, Gov. Charlie Baker announced Tuesday that schools will stay closed through the end of the school year. "We know that the lack of child care for many families has created an unanticipated burden and it’s hard to look after young children and balance the demands of working at home, but maintaining this structure is the best way to keep our kids and our providers safe from the spread of this insidious disease," he explained. "There were a lot of mixed feelings in the education community on whether or not to go back. But we have got to do this right, and we have got to respect the virus," Baker added. Massachusetts' death toll has climbed to 1,566. Over 39,000 people had been diagnosed as of Monday. "The data shows we are still very much in the grip of the pandemic," Baker said. The United Kingdom will begin trials of a vaccine developed at Oxford on Thursday, U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Tuesday. If it works it will be made available to the British people as soon as possible, he said. The U.K.'s death toll has reached 17,337, according to the Department of Health and Social Care. The U.K. has the fifth highest death toll, behind the U.S., Italy, Spain and France. Over 129,000 people in the U.K. have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was released from the hospital after receiving treatment. A fourth TSA employee has died from COVID-19. Victor Chung, a Miami International Airport supervisory TSA officer, worked for the agency for over 17 years. He died on Sunday, the TSA said. "Victor was known to his colleagues as a compassionate leader, always willing to support officers in need, whether financially or by donating his leave to others who were in need," TSA officials said in a statement. As of Tuesday morning, 459 TSA employees have tested positive for COVID-19, the agency said. Of those,110 have recovered and 4 have died. Beginning April 27, Spain will ease some lockdown restrictions for children under the age of 14, Spanish government spokesperson Maria Jesus Montero said. Children will be allowed to accompany a parent who is leaving the house for a specific, essential task. But it will be the responsibility of the adult to ensure that children follow social distancing guidelines and avoid playground and parks where close contact may not be avoided. Spain's death toll has climbed to 21,282. Over 204,000 people have been diagnosed. Spain's state of emergency, which was implemented on March 14, has been extended to May 9. In New York state, 481 people succumbed to the coronavirus on Monday, including 29 people in nursing homes, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday. Cuomo, who banned elective procedures when the pandemic struck, announced Tuesday that he will now allow elective outpatient treatment in counties and hospitals without significant risk of a surge in the near future. Cuomo said testing will be the focus of his conversation with President Donald Trump later on Tuesday at the White House. Cuomo said there isn't enough material for the test kits and he needs federal help. New York City -- the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic -- is "seeing definite progress" overall, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday. On Sunday, 204 people were admitted to hospitals for suspected COVID-19 -- down from 212 on Saturday. Additionally, 857 patients were in intensive care units on Sunday, only slightly up from 853 patients on Saturday. Thirty-five percent of the people tested citywide were positive Sunday. On Saturday, 34% of those tested were positive. "Let's keep with it," de Blasio said. "It'll take some time, but we can do it." De Blasio announced Tuesday that New York City is starting its own strategic reserve program to hold vital medical equipment and supplies for any future wave of the pandemic, without having to rely on the federal government. The reserve will include face shields, surgical gowns, test kits and bridge ventilators. Once the social distancing restrictions have been lifted, the city will throw the "biggest and best" parade to honor and thank the "heroes" of the pandemic and mark "the beginning of our renaissance," the mayor said. On Monday, de Blasio announced all parades and other nonessential permitted events for June were canceled. Among the annual June events in New York is the LGBTQ Pride March, which would have been celebrating its the 50th anniversary this year. No decision has been made on 4th of July celebrations in New York City. Nashville Mayor John Cooper won't extend the current stay-at-home order past April 30, he told ABC News anchor Amy Robach on Tuesday. Davidson County, which includes Nashville, has 1,936 confirmed cases as of Tuesday morning. The mayor mandated a stay-at-home order early on in the pandemic, even before the state's governor issued one. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced Monday that the "vast majority" of businesses in 89 of the state's 95 counties can reopen on May 1. The governor said his administration will work with the remaining six counties -- which includes Nashville -- "as they plan their own reopen strategies." Cooper said he hopes that reopening the lively city will increase consumer confidence. "We’re excited to get restarted," he told ABC News. "We're with COVID for a long time. We’re going to have to learn how to live with it ... let’s get back to work." To the protesters rallying around Nashville, Cooper said, "It’s their right to protest and it's our right to keep people safe." "I hope you’re social distancing appropriately," he cautioned. More than 50 journalists have contracted the novel coronavirus in Mumbai, India. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the governing civic body of Mumbai, tested 171 journalists working in the field and reporting on the health crisis in the city, and at least 53 tested positive for COVID-19. Most of the infected journalists -- cameramen, photographers and reporters -- don't show any symptoms, according to the Mumbai Press Club. All those who tested positive are now in quarantine and being looked after by local health authorities. The Mumbai Press Club has called on Maharashtra state's chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray, to take "immediate steps to safeguard our lives and profession." "It must be pointed out that as Mumbai City locked down to face the challenge of the coronavirus, these field journalists even today continue to stand by their duty, filing their reports, taking photographs and recording videos in the most hazardous locations," the Mumbai Press Club wrote in an open letter Monday. "Most media houses have shut their offices and have not provided any protective gear, or special insurance to these frontline personnel. However, they continue to demand reports and visuals and expect the journalists to move around the city risking life and limb." Indian Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar said his ministry would issue an advisory to all media organizations to ensure precautions are being taken. "It is shocking that more than 50 journalists of electronic media, particularly camera persons, have been found corona positive in Mumbai," Javadekar tweeted Monday.
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Famine
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Lebanon fuel tank explosion kills 28, overwhelms hospitals
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Vehicles burn outside the reported home, where the exploded fuel tank was placed, in the village of Tlel in Lebanon's northern region of Akkar on August 15, 2021.
| Photo Credit: AFP A fuel tank blast in Lebanon on Sunday killed 28 people and left nearly 80 others injured, authorities said. An adviser to the Health Ministry said the death toll from the blast in Al-Tleil village had climbed to 28.
The military said a fuel tank that “had been confiscated by the Army to distribute to citizens” exploded just before 2 a.m. Soldiers were among those hurt.
The Army began raiding gas stations on Saturday to curb hoarding by suppliers after a central bank decision to scrap fuel subsidies.
Also Read: Fuel tanker explodes in Lebanon, killing 20, wounding dozens
The official National News Agency (NNA) said the blast followed scuffles between “residents that gathered around the container to fill up gasoline” overnight.
Unable to seek treatment in Akkar, Ismail al-Sheikh, 23, who sustained burns to his arms and legs, was driven by his sister Marwa to the Geitawi hospital in Beirut, some 80 km away.
“At night, we were informed that the Army was distributing gasoline... so people flocked to fill it in plastic containers... straight from the tank,” Ms. Marwa said. “Most people who were there said that someone had thrown a lighter on the floor causing a fire that sparked the explosion.” Our code of editorial values
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Gas explosion
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Obaidul Quader has recovered, to be released soon: Doctor
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Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader is recovering, all his test results are reportedly good. "Obaidul Quader is almost completely healthy. His blood pressure, oxygen circulation are all normal. Hopefully, he can return home in a day or two," informed Professor Md Sharfuddin Ahmed, BSMMU vice-chancellor and board head of the 10-member medical board formed for the minister's treatment. He said that when he (Obaidul Quader) first came to the hospital, he had a little pain in his chest, his blood sugar was high and he suffers from heart problem. Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader has been undergoing treatment at BSMMU since last Tuesday when he was admitted there with chest pain, high blood sugar and heart issues. Initially, Obaidul Quader was admitted to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) hospital on 2 March, 2019, following breathing complications. After examining his angiogram there, doctors found three blocks in his coronary artery. On 4 March, the minister was flown to Singapore on an air ambulance for advanced treatment. The minister underwent bypass surgery at Mount Elizabeth Hospital on 20 March. Later, he returned home on 15 May after receiving medical treatment in Singapore for over two months. On 31 January 2020, Obaidul Quader was again admitted to BSMMU due to shortness of breath after a meeting of the party's secretaries was held at the Awami League president's political office in Dhanmondi. At that time, he felt shortness of breath and left the office 10 minutes after his arrival. From there he went directly to BSMMU.
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Famous Person - Recovered
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Askja volcano (Central Iceland) activity update: Alert level raised to Yellow
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The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) reported that GPS observations and ground deformation maps from Sentinel-1 satellite data detected that the volcano began to inflate at the beginning of August 2021. The uplift signal is centered on the western edge of Öskjuvatn, close to Ólafsgígar, and corresponds to ~5 cm/month of vertical motion. Geodetic modeling indicates that the source of this inflation is located at a depth of approximately 3 km and corresponds to a volume change of approximately 0.001 km³/month. ... Mon, 11 Nov 2019, 07:35 An swarm of earthquakes is occurring near the Askja caldera, in an area approx. 10 km ENE from the rim and at depths around 5 km. ...
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Volcano Eruption
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Turkey donates technology to Pakistan to fight locusts
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Turkey's state-run aid agency on Thursday donated new technology to Pakistan to fight locust attacks in the country. The ULV vehicle-mounted and man-mounted machines along with pesticides were handed over by Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency's (TIKA) officials to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). The handover ceremony was also attended by Federal Food Security and Research Minister Fakhar Imam, Turkish Ambassador to Pakistan Mustafa Yurdakul, and TIKA head in the capital Islamabad Gokhan Umut. At the occasion, Imam thanked the Turkish government and people for their generosity. "The government is working to modernize the agriculture sector in the country, and these machines will upgrade agricultural technology," he said. In a tweet, Yurdakul said: "Happy to be part of Pakistan's efforts to fight locust swarms." Last year swarms of locusts invaded agricultural fields in over 60 districts throughout Pakistan. These insects, mainly originating from deserts, eat anything from bark to seeds and flowers while traveling up to 150 kilometers (93 miles) a day. Last May the region saw the first wave of a locust invasion since 1993. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 38% of Pakistan's agriculture fields are breeding grounds for the insects.
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Insect Disaster
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1960 Hallingskeid fire
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Hallingskeid Station (Norwegian: Hallingskeid stasjon) is a train station on the Bergen Line in the municipality of Ulvik in Vestland county, Norway. Located at an elevation of 1,110 meters (3,640 ft) above mean sea level, the station is situated inside a snow tunnel. It opened along with the central section of the line on 10 June 1908 and remained as a staffed station until 1982. It is located on the Hardangervidda plateau in an area without population or road access. The station therefore serves trekkers and mountaineers. Only some of the Vy trains stop at the station. The original station building was designed by Paul Due, who used the same architectural plan for four other mountain stations on the line. The snow tunnel has caught fire five times. The fires in 1948, 1953 and 2008 only caused minor damage to the tunnel itself. The 1960 fire burned-down the tunnel, the station building and most of the station area. The last fire, in 2011, had a Class 73 train caught in the tunnel; both it and the tunnel were damaged beyond repair. The station was opened on 10 June 1908, along with the rest of the central portion of the Bergen Line. [1] The station building was of the Mountain Station Variant 1 type, designed by Paul Due. This made it identical to Mjølfjell Station, and with only slight variations to Haugastøl Station, Finse Station and Myrdal Station. [2] During construction, NSB built several buildings for their staff. Two of the houses and an assembly building have been preserved. They were built in 1900 and represent an example of buildings from the construction time. One is partially built in stone, partially in wood, while the other two are entirely in wood. All are now used as cabins. [3] The sick ward for the navvies was bought by Kari Maristuen in 1909 converted to a hotel, named Fjellstova. [4]
Because of the harsh winter conditions, the station area was gradually built with snow tunnels to keep the snow off the tracks. This included the platforms and most of the passing loop at the station. [1] In 1914–15, the station serviced 398 passengers, and in 1919–20, it serviced 684 passengers, both times making it the least used station on the line. [5] In 1948, the western part of the snow tunnel caught fire, and although it spread to the station building, it was quickly put out by the staff. In 1953, there was again a fire in the tunnel. [6]
In 1960, there was a major fire which burned down most of the station area. On 22 October, two boys were playing with matches and had lit some wood shavings in the tunnel, about 100 meters (330 ft) from the station building. The tunnel quickly caught on fire, which spread towards the other buildings. [6] The fire was discovered by Station Master Mons Almenningen, who immediately notified Bergen Station, Myrdal Station, and Finse Station. The morning expresses in both directions were en route to Hallingskeid, with the east-bound train about half an hour away. It was forced to turn around at Myrdal, and the passengers were bused from Voss Station across the mountain. [7] A train with a fire engine containing 20,000 litres (4,400 imp gal; 5,300 US gal) of water was sent from Myrdal and a fire engine was dispatched from Finse, but the fire spread quickly and within an hour the station building, the guard house and 500 meters (1,600 ft) of tunnel had burnt down. The incident occurred around noon. By 12:30 the next day, when the morning express passed the station, 500 meters (1,600 ft) of track had been replaced. Work had been done by 100 men in two shifts around the clock. [6] Four families with a total of fourteen people lost their houses in the fire. [7] The fire caused the hotel to burn down, and it was never rebuilt. [4] A new station building opened in 1970[8] was built on the same foundation as the old. [1]
The section past the station took electric traction into use on 7 December 1964. [9] The station received automatic train control from 23 September 1982, and starting on 1 October 1982, the station became unmanned. [1] On 2 October 2008, there was a fire in a 100-meter (330 ft) long snow tunnel 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) west of Hallingskeid. Traffic was stopped and a combination of a fire train and helicopter put out the fire. However, the track and overhead lines past the station were destroyed. [10] The line re-opened on 4 October. [11]
A fire started in the snow tunnel at Hallingskeid on 16 June 2011. It was caused by sparks from welding, which had been completed at 07:45. A freight train passed through the station at 09:16 and the welders left the station at 09:30. The passenger trains which caught on fire, pass through the station at 10:06. [12] As the station is unmanned, there was no prior warning of the fire until the driver saw it from the cab just as the train entered the tunnel. At nearly the same instance, he reached the point of the line where the fire had caused the power to cut.
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Fire
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Aeroflot Flight 2003 crash
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Aeroflot Flight 593 was a regular passenger flight from Sheremetyevo International Airport, Moscow, Russia, to Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong. On 23 March 1994, the aircraft operating the route, an Airbus A310-304 flown by Aeroflot, crashed into the Kuznetsk Alatau mountain range in Kemerovo Oblast, killing all 63 passengers and 12 crew members on board. No evidence of a technical malfunction was found. Cockpit voice and flight data recorders revealed the presence of the relief pilot's 12-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son on the flight deck. While seated at the controls, the pilot's son had unknowingly disengaged the A310's autopilot control of the aircraft's ailerons. The autopilot then disengaged completely, causing the aircraft to roll into a steep bank and a near-vertical dive. Despite managing to level the aircraft, the first officer over-corrected when pulling up, causing the plane to stall and enter into a spin; the pilots managed to level the aircraft off once more, but the plane had descended beyond a safe altitude to initiate a recovery and subsequently crashed into the mountain range. All 75 occupants died on impact. The aircraft involved in the accident was a leased Airbus A310-304, registration F-OGQS, serial number 596, that was delivered new to Aeroflot on 11 December 1992. [1] Powered by two General Electric CF6-80C2A2 engines, the airframe had its maiden flight as F-WWCS on 11 September 1991, and was one of five operating for Russian Airlines, an autonomous division of Aeroflot – Russian International Airlines that was set up for serving routes to the Russian Far East and Southeast Asia. [1][2] On average, the crew of three operating the aircraft had logged 900 hours on the type. [2]
Of the 63 passengers on board, 40 were Russian nationals,[3] including about 30 airline employees and family members. [4] The remaining 23 foreigners were mostly businessmen from Hong Kong and Taiwan, who were looking for economic opportunities in Russia. [3][4][5]
The captain of Flight 593 was Andrey Viktorovich Danilov, 40, who was hired by Aeroflot in November 1992. He had accrued over 9,500 hours of flight time, including 950 hours in the A310, of which 895 hours were as captain. The first officer was Igor Vasilyevich Piskaryov, 33, hired by Aeroflot in October 1993, who had 5,885 hours of flight time, including 440 hours in the A310. The relief pilot was Yaroslav Vladimirovich Kudrinsky, 39, who was hired by Aeroflot in November 1992; he had over 8,940 flying hours, including 907 hours in the A310. Kudrinsky also had experience in the Yakovlev Yak-40, Antonov An-12, and Ilyushin Il-76. Nine flight attendants were on board the plane. [5]
On 23 March 1994, the aircraft was en route from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow to Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, with 75 occupants aboard, of whom 63 were passengers. [3][6][7] Relief pilot Kudrinsky was taking his two children on their first international flight, and they were brought to the cockpit while he was on duty. [8] Five people were thus on the flight deck: Kudrinsky, co-pilot Piskaryov, Kudrinsky's son Eldar (age 16) and daughter Yana (age 12),[9] and another pilot, Vladimir Makarov, who was flying as a passenger. [10]
With the autopilot active, Kudrinsky, against regulations, let the children sit at the controls. [8][11][12] First, Yana took the pilot's left front seat. Kudrinsky adjusted the autopilot heading to give her the impression that she was turning the plane, though she actually had no control of the aircraft. Shortly thereafter, Eldar occupied the pilot's seat. [8] Unlike his sister, Eldar applied enough force to the control column to contradict the autopilot for 30 seconds. This caused the flight computer to switch the plane's ailerons to manual control, while maintaining control over the other flight systems. Eldar was now in partial command of the aircraft. A silent indicator light came on to alert the pilots to this partial disengagement. The pilots, who had previously flown Soviet-designed planes that had audible warning signals, apparently failed to notice it. [13][14]
Eldar was the first to notice a problem, when he observed that the plane was banking right. Shortly after, the flight path indicator changed to show the new flight path of the aircraft as it turned. Since the turn was continuous, the resulting predicted flight path drawn on screen was a 180° turn. This indication is similar to those shown when in a holding pattern, where a 180° turn is required to remain in a stable position. This confused the pilots for nine seconds, during which time the plane banked past a 45° angle to almost 90°, steeper than the design allowed. The A310 cannot turn this steeply while maintaining altitude, and the plane started to descend quickly. The increased g-forces on the pilots and crew made regaining control extremely difficult for them. The autopilot, which no longer controlled the ailerons, used its other controls to compensate, pitching the nose up and increasing thrust. As a result, the plane began to stall; the autopilot, unable to cope, disengaged completely. A second, larger indicator light came on to alert the pilots of the complete disengagement, and this time they did notice it. At the same time, the autopilot's display screen went blank. To recover from the stall, an automatic system lowered the nose and put the plane into a nosedive. [5] The reduced g-forces enabled Kudrinsky to retake his seat. Piskaryov then managed to pull out of the dive, but over-corrected, putting the plane in an almost vertical ascent, again stalling the plane, which fell out of the sky into a spin. Although Kudrinsky and Piskaryov regained control and leveled out the wings, they did not know how far they had descended during the crisis and their altitude by then was too low to recover. The plane crashed at high vertical speed, estimated at 70 m/s (14,000 ft/min). [15] All 75 occupants died on impact. [6]
The aircraft crashed with its landing gear up, and all passengers had been prepared for an emergency, as they were strapped into their seats. [15] No distress calls were made prior to the crash.
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Air crash
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Driver mentally ill before SA fatal crash
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An Adelaide man charged over a road crash that killed two people, including a senior South Australian police officer, has been found to be mentally incompetent at the time. Harrison Kitt came before the South Australian District Court on Thursday where prosecutors conceded he was suffering a psychotic episode in April last year when he drove through an intersection, colliding with two other cars. He had pleaded not guilty to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and one count of causing harm. The court found him not guilty of those charges because of his mental illness. As a result, he will not face jail time but will be subject to some form of supervision. Immediately after the decision, Kitt's mother Kathy said the family understood that the decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions would prompt mixed community reactions. "Some will find it difficult to understand that what occurred can be explained by mental illness," she said. "We only wish that we had understood some of the warning signs in Harry's behaviour." Mrs Kitt said not a day had passed since the crash that they did not think about the impact on the families of those who lost their lives. "Their loss is unimaginable," she said. "We hope they can find it in their hearts to forgive Harry for what happened even though it might be difficult for them to accept that it was not his fault, but the fault of a terrible and debilitating disorder that none of us knew he had." The charges against Kitt related to a three-car crash at suburban Urrbrae in April last year which killed Detective Chief Superintendent Joanne Shanahan, 55, and Tania McNeill, 53. Supt Shanahan was a passenger in a car driven by her husband Peter, a former police detective. Ms McNeill was driving a second car and Kitt the third vehicle involved. As part of the allegations against him, Kitt was accused of driving at excessive speed at the time of the crash. Defence counsel David Edwardson QC had indicated previously that a defence of mental incompetence was to be advanced. Mr Edwardson said Kitt had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, with manic episodes and psychotic features.
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Road Crash
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Jeannette's Creek train wreck
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The Jeannette's Creek train wreck, also known as the Baptiste Creek train wreck, was a fatal railroad accident that occurred on October 27, 1854, at Baptiste Creek near present-day Jeannettes Creek in Chatham-Kent, Ontario. It was Canada's first major train wreck, leaving 52 people dead[1] and indeed the worst rail disaster in North America at that time. [2]
The train involved left Niagara Falls the previous afternoon; it comprised eight cars altogether; four first-class, two second-class and two baggage cars. As was commonplace during that early time of rail travel it was subject to several delays; these were caused by dense fog, a derailed gravel-train, a burst cylinder head and a slow freight train ahead of it. By the time it left London at 1 a.m. bound for Windsor it was at least four hours late. [3]
At Baptiste Creek, a gravel train consisting of fifteen cars loaded with wet gravel was on a siding employed in repairing the trackbed. Its engineer had been told by the night watchman at Baptiste Creek station that it was safe to venture onto the mainline as the passenger train had already passed; at 5 a.m. as the train backed along the main railway line at between ten and twelve mph the passenger train emerged from the fog at a speed of twenty mph. The collision was described as "absolutely dreadful", the second-class cars were described as being "smashed into bits and pieces" with "nearly every person of them killed or dreadfully injured". The people in the front of one of the first class cars suffered a similar fate. Witnesses described several of the bodies, which included eleven women and ten children, as being "crushed out of all human shape". Some six hours later, many of the bodies still had to be recovered. The second-class cars carried many German emigrants on their way to start a new life in the United States. The 48[1] (some sources 60[4]) injured were taken to Chatham where their moans and cries could be "heard throughout the town", with blood literally dripping from the cars. A grand jury found that Twitchell, conductor of the gravel train and Kettlewell, engineer of the train were criminally responsible for the death of 52 persons and they were charged with manslaughter. According to the jury, the gravel train had entered onto the track in contravention of the rules of the Great Western, and in any case, should not have proceeded onto the track in the dense fog. [5]
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Train collisions
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Sa Pereira rail disaster
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A train crash in Sa Pereira in Santa Fe Province, Argentina on 25 February 1978 left 55 people dead. [1][2]
It is sometimes known as the "Estrella del Norte" accident, from the name of one of the trains involved. This was the second worst rail disaster in the history of Argentina. (The worst was the Benavídez rail disaster, and the third worst was the 2012 Buenos Aires rail disaster). [3]
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Train collisions
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Jolie and Pitt's lawyers face off over her bid to dump their private judge in divorce case
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The long-delayed celebrity divorce of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt entered a new stage of complications Friday when their big-name legal teams went before a California appellate court to argue about Jolie's bid to dump their private judge and start over on their nearly five-year-old custody battle.
There was no immediate decision from the three-justice panel following more than an hour of back-and-forth between power lawyers Robert Olson for Jolie and Ted Boutrous for Pitt.
Jolie's lawyer said Judge John Ouderkirk, the judge who married Jolie and Pitt in 2014, who was picked by both stars to preside as a paid private judge over their 2016 divorce, should now be dismissed because he failed to fully disclose in a timely manner professional links to one of Pitt's lawyers.
"If you're going to play the role of a paid private judge you have to play by the rules and the rules are very clear, they require full transparency," Olson said. "Matters that should have been disclosed were not disclosed....If rules have no consequences they are empty."
Pitt's lawyer argued that Jolie is engaging in a stalling tactic because she doesn't like Ouderkirk's earlier decisions in the case, including awarding temporary joint custody of their children to Pitt.
If Ouderkirk is dismissed, his previous rulings in the case could be voided, a new judge would be appointed and the case would be slowed down even further, thus allowing more of the couple's six children to reach adulthood (son Maddox is 19), at which point they can make their own choices about a relationship with their father.
Their other children are Pax, 17, Zahara, 16, Shiloh, 15, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 12.
"This is the kind of game-playing that the courts condemn," said Boutrous, a First Amendment lawyer who recently persuaded a New York judge to allow a tea-spilling book about former President Donald Trump by his niece to be published over his objections.
Boutrous insisted that Jolie, "a sophisticated person with sophisticated lawyers," has known all along about matters requiring disclosure by Ouderkirk but did not raise objections until she began losing in his court.
"These kids are aging, some are already adults, others are reaching adulthood, and to allow this delaying tactic is extremely unjust and extremely unfair" to them and to Pitt, Boutrous said.
The lawyers and the justices engaged in dense legal arguments about precedents and earlier decisions on similar cases, and occasionally wandered into questions about whether California should even allow private judges to be compensated.
Jolie sought Ouderkirk's dismissal in August 2020, alleging he was not impartial due to professional links between him and Pitt's lawyers. She lost that bid in Superior Court in November. The hearing Friday was to hear her appeal of that decision.
Ordinarily, an appellate court decision could be expected in about a month. As the hearing closed, Olson pleaded for the court's decision to be madepublic.
Divorce cases in California, especially celebrity cases and those conducted under the aegis of a private judge, often take place behind closed doors and are not accessible online, even before the COVID-19 pandemic closed courthouses. Much of the Jolie/Pitt divorce has been closed to the public.
The appellate proceeding before the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles was regarding the judge, not the divorce, so it was live-streamed.
Christopher Melcher, a Los Angeles family law attorney not involved in the Jolie/Pitt case, who watched the entire proceeding, told USA TODAY that disqualifying a judge is rarely successful.
"It's viewed as a last-ditch measure," he said. "Questioning a judge’s integrity is a serious accusation, which carries the risk of alienating the person who will decide custody and other issues. Angelina must have decided that was a risk worth taking."
He says it's significant that Jolie repeatedly agreed to the reappointment of Ouderkirk each time his assignment was coming to end, and it was only after he criticized her in court that she cried foul.
Olson said Friday that Jolie approved the last reappointment of the judge without full knowledge of Ouderkirk's disclosure of his latest business links to Pitt's legal team. Olson also asked for a stay so that Ouderkirk does not issue a final custody ruling before the appellate panel issues its own ruling.
Jolie's lawyer's brief in the case declared that even if she loses at the appellate level, she will keep fighting Pitt and the custody order.
The brief filed by Jolie's lawyers ahead of Friday's hearing claimed "prejudicial legal error" on Ouderkirk's part, including the judge's refusal to hear testimony from the younger children about their views on custody. Jolie's team also argued the actress was denied "a fair trial" because the judge improperly excluded hearing "evidence relevant to the children’s health, safety, and welfare."
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Famous Person - Divorce
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IMF Survey : Nauru Joins the IMF as 189th Member
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The IMF welcomed the Republic of Nauru as its newest member on April 12. The island adds its name to the list of 188 other IMF member countries.
Mr. David Adeang, Minister of Finance of Nauru, signed the Articles of Agreement of the IMF at a ceremony held at the State Department in Washington, D.C. IMF officials witnessed the signing ceremony.
“I am very pleased to welcome Nauru as a member of the IMF,” said Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s Managing Director. “As Nauru faces a number of challenges common to small island economies, including its geographical remoteness and climate change, it will benefit from participating fully in the economic cooperation of our global membership. The IMF stands ready to assist the government and people of Nauru in achieving their development objectives in cooperation with other partners in the international community,” she added.
Small state
Measured by its quota, Nauru will be the second smallest member of the Fund, after Tuvalu. This will be the case after it pays its quota increase under the 14th General Review (which will increase its quota to SDR 2.8 million). Nauru has an initial subscription of SDR 2 million, or about $2.81 million. It has a population of about 10,500 and a land area of about 8 square miles, compared with 68 square miles for Washington DC. Nauru is also the smallest sovereign state in the world after the Vatican City in terms of both population and area. The Australian dollar is the legal tender. There had been virtually no bank in the country during the past decade until the opening of Bendigo Bank agency in June 2015.
Nauru’s economy relies on phosphate mining, the Australian Regional Processing Center (RPC) for asylum seekers, and revenue from fishing license fees. In recent years, growth has been strong, mainly driven by the RPC operations and phosphate exports, although it has moderated in 2015 due to problems with the seaport that lowered phosphate exports.
The country faces a number of challenges common to small islands: small population, remoteness, climate change, narrow production base, high cost of public goods, and insufficient infrastructure. The key priorities include strengthening public finances, improving basic infrastructure, and diversifying its sources of growth.
Membership benefits
Membership allows the Fund and other development partners—the country has also joined the World Bank—to help the authorities implement economic reforms and tackle the development challenges facing Nauru. The country can now benefit from an annual review or “health check” of its economy by the IMF (called the Article IV consultation), cross-country analysis and access IMF lending. Nauru will continue to receive technical assistance through Pacific Financial Technical Assistance Center (PFTAC) based in Fiji.
Nauru can now also attend the joint IMF-World Bank Spring and Annual Meetings as a full member of the Bretton Woods family, where the authorities can meet and exchange views with other delegations. The 2016 Spring Meetings will be held this week, April 15–17.
A two-year process
The Republic of Nauru applied for membership to the IMF and the World Bank in April 2014. IMF staff then worked intensively with the authorities through the IMF’s Resident Representative for the Pacific Islands and the PFTAC to manage the membership process for the past two years. A joint IMF-World Bank membership mission took place in May 2015. A Membership Committee composed of members of the IMF Executive Board was formed and discussed Nauru’s proposed quota in August 2015. The IMF Board of Governors adopted a membership resolution in November 2015 offering admission to the country.
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Join in an Organization
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Puttingal temple fire
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On 10 April 2016 at approximately 03:30 AM IST,[a] the Puttingal Temple in Paravur, Kollam, Kerala, India, experienced an explosion and fire after firework celebrations went awry. As a result, 111 people were killed[1] and more than 350 were injured, including some with severe burns. [2] The temple and at least 150 houses in the area of the temple were damaged by the blast. [3] According to local reports and eyewitnesses,[2] the explosion and fire were caused by sparks from a firecracker[2] being used in a competitive fireworks display igniting fireworks in a concrete storehouse. [2][4]
The temple did not have permission from Kerala government authorities to conduct a "competitive fireworks display". [5] About 15,000 pilgrims were visiting the temple to mark local Hindu celebrations during the last day of a seven-day festival of the goddess Bhadrakali. [6]
On 13 April, in the aftermath of the event, the Kerala High Court banned the display after sunset of sound-emitting firecrackers in all places of worship in the state. [7]
This was the second major firework disaster reported in the news within southern India in recent years, after the Sivakasi factory explosion in the state of Tamil Nadu on 5 September 2012. [8]
The shrine is administered by a private trust. [9]
Temples in southern India often have festivals with displays of fireworks and firecrackers to appease the female deity. Annual competitions are staged across the state of Kerala for the most spectacular displays. In 1952, 68 people were killed after a firecracker explosion at Sabarimala temple. [10]
On 10 April 2016, two groups of devotees set off fireworks while thousands participated in the festival at Puttingal temple. [10] The temple's authorities told police that they had verbal permission from the district authorities. [10] On 12 April, they revealed that, due to safety concerns, the temple had been denied permission, but it proceeded due to pressure from the people. [11]
The fire took place at approximately 03:30 IST (22:00 UTC) when an explosion occurred in a stash of firecrackers stored in the temple for upcoming Vishu celebrations. [12] The apparent cause of the explosion was a firework, known locally as Amittu, which fell into the stash after being lit during the firework celebrations. [13] The explosion caused the storage building and adjacent office building to collapse leading to most of the casualties. [14] The blast was felt by people living more than a kilometer away from the temple. [2][14]
The Indian Navy dispatched one Dornier 228 transport aircraft and two helicopters for rescue transport along with medical teams from Headquarters Southern Naval Command (HQSNC), Indian naval air station located in Kochi. [15] The Indian Air Force, Army and Coast Guard were also involved. The majority of the victims were taken to Thiruvananthapuram Medical College. [16]
An investigation was ordered by Ramesh Chennithala, the Home Minister of Kerala. [14] The police plans to take action against the display contractors and the temple administration. [14] On 11 April 2016, five men who worked at the temple were taken into police custody for questioning. [17] During the night of 11 April and into 12 April, the police arrested a further seven people connected with Puttingal temple, including the president. [11]
The Government of India took cognizance of the fateful event and appointed DR.A.K.Yadav, Joint Chief Controller of Explosives, Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization(PESO) as the inquiry officer vide Government of India order No: 31(03)/2016 -Expl dated 22/04/2016 under section 9(A) of Explosives Act,1884. Dr.R.Venugopal, Deputy Chief Controller of Explosives, PESO, Hyderabad, Dr.K.B.Radhakrishnan, Professor & Head Department of Chemical Engineering, TKM College of Engineering and Shri.G.M Reddy , Joint Chief Controller of Explosives(Retired),PESO were appointed as Assessors in Inquiry by the Government of India . The Inquiry officer issued public notices and press releases regarding the inquiry in leading news papers. Conducted its proceedings by visiting the site of accident, sittings at paravoor and Kollam. The Inquiry commission submitted its report on time The immediate and proximate causes of accident in the report are conducting display without a valid licence by the paravur puttingal dewasom managing committee, Non maintenance of safety distance as required under Explosives Rules 2008 between display site and spectators, use of unauthorized fireworks for display, storage of unauthorized fireworks,Absence of crowd control mechanism, use of prohibited chemicals in the manufacture of display fireworks.</24>
Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi wrote on Twitter that the accident was "heart-rending and shocking beyond words"[18] and that he was on his way to visit the area later in the afternoon, as was Chief Minister of Kerala, Oommen Chandy. [19] Kerala state home minister Ramesh Chennithala visited the disaster site. [14] Political parties postponed campaigning for the election to the Kerala Legislative Assembly out of respect. [14] Neighbouring Karnataka offered to send a team but was turned down as Kerala apparently had the requirements. Modi announced ₹2 lakh (US$2,800) ex-gratia to the kin of the deceased and ₹50,000 (US$700) to critically injured people. [20] Oommen Chandy announced ex-gratia relief of ₹10 lakh (US$14,000) to relatives of each of those killed in fire tragedy, ₹2 lakh (US$2,800) for seriously injured. In the wake of the disaster, the Kerala Disaster Management Authority decided to re-examine the disaster preparedness of the Thrissur Pooram. [21] The Chief Minister of Kerala, Oommen Chandy said that "Permission was never taken for the storage of fireworks inside the Temple. "[22]
Based on this incident as a backdrop, a Malayalam film named Kuttanpillayude Sivarathri was released in 2018 starring Suraj Venjaramoodu. 24. Inquiry Report of the Fireworks Display Accident on 10.04.2016 at Puttingal Devi Temple Premises,Paravur, Kollam District, Kerala. Inquiry officer - Dr.A.K.Yadav, Joint Chief Controller of Explosives, Chennai. Assessors in Inquiry : Dr.R.Venugopal, Deputy Chief Controller of Explosives, PESO, Hyderabad, Dr.K.B.Radhakrishnan, Professor & Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering, TKM College of Engineering, Kollam, Kerala and Mr.G.M.Reddy, Joint Chief Controller of Explosives, (Retired), PESO.
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Fire
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Britain to front-run capital rules on crypto if need be, says Bank of England
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LONDON : Bank of England Deputy Governor Sam Woods said on Thursday he would front-run global rules if necessary to avoid Britain's banks building up big exposures to cryptoassets that were not backed by sufficient capital. The global Basel Committee of banking regulators have begun work on capital requirements for banks which hold cryptoassets like bitcoin, proposing punitive charges that lenders said this week would make their involvement in the sector prohibitive. Woods said that the regulatory community was starting to get a better grip on the crypto sector and that Basel's proposals were "quite sensible". "At this point our banks don't have material exposures to crypto but you can see over time, there is an investor appetite and not just retail, also institutional investor appetite to have a little bit of this stuff," Woods told Reuters. "Some of the banks have announced plans to provide ancillary services in that regard. That may be OK but as that develops and if it develops into something big, we are going to need to make sure the capital treatment is pretty robust." The crypto sector is growing rapidly, but Basel can take years to adopt norms that then need to be implemented by members like Britain, the European Union and the United States. "We would not want to stop firms doing things that make commercial sense, but we would take a very conservative view on capital treatment, and if necessary, we would therefore front run, maybe not exactly in the same way, but we would put some capital measures in place," Woods said. "It's not an issue yet." DEADLINE 'SHIFTING' Separately, the final elements of Basel's tougher capital norms agreed in the aftermath of the global financial crisis over a decade ago have yet to be implemented after being delayed a year to January 2023 to give banks space to focus on dealing with COVID. The new deadline now looks in doubt as Europe, Britain and the United States have yet to finalise how those final elements will be implemented in practice. Woods said it was "not clear" if the January 2023 deadline will be met given that "timetables are shifting". "There is always the question of what does it mean by first of January 2023, that you have published your rules, does it mean firms have got them into their systems? We are going to be in line with the others and there is not going to be a big delay," he said. Banks in the EU want some of the rules eased, but Britain, however, will not water down the rules, Woods said. "Our overriding approach is that we both are and seen to be a robust implementor of international standards," Woods said.
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Financial Crisis
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TGA fines Pete Evans's company $80,000 for repeated advertising breaches
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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
Pete Evans has been fined almost $80,000 by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for repeated breaches of advertising rules around health products.
The controversial celebrity chef's company was hit with six infringement notices totalling $79,920 and directed to take down "non-compliant advertising" relating to hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers, two oral medicines and a device called a BioCharger.
In April last year, Evans was slapped with a $25,200 fine from the TGA for claiming the BioCharger, described as a "subtle energy revitalisation platform", could be used in relation to coronavirus, as well as a number of other unproven claims.
Evans's company was also warned about a number of other products at the time.
"Due to the repeated nature of the alleged advertising breaches, the TGA has also issued a directions notice to Mr Evans and his company to cease advertising therapeutic goods not entered in the ARTG [Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods] and to discontinue making various claims about therapeutic products," the TGA said.
In announcing the latest fines, the TGA said the products were being advertised for their claimed therapeutic benefits, but they were not included on the ARTG.
The TGA also said the advertising for static magnet products and the hyperbaric chambers "implied the products were endorsed by a health professional", which was a violation of the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code.
Neither product is currently being advertised on Evans's website but the blurb for a product called Q Magnets described them as "the world's most powerful and effective therapeutic magnets".
"Q Magnets are developed by experienced physiotherapists and neurologists and are designed to help provide comfort or temporary relief of minor aches and pains," the website read.
"Q Magnets are the real deal and used by hundreds of sports players, physiotherapists, chiropractors, podiatrists, acupuncturists, massage therapists, rehabilitation professionals and individuals around the world."
The hyperbaric chamber's description said the product was used by a doctor who specialised in hyperbaric medicine, but also included a disclaimer that said the claims from the manufacturer did "not constitute a medical recommendation and [was] intended for information and educational purposes only".
"No claims (real or implied) are being made," it read.
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Organization Fine
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Britain Will Finally Become The First Ever Country To Leave The European Union
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(CNN) — After three-and-a-half years, three prime ministers and seemingly endless votes in Parliament since the 2016 Brexit referendum, Britain finally becomes the first ever country to leave the European Union at 11:01 p.m. GMT on Friday. Despite this cataclysmic event, almost all of the immediate changes will be invisible to the public. The United Kingdom will enter the transition period that was agreed between the British government and the EU. And the terms of that agreement mean that for the next 11 months, the UK remains an EU member state in all but name. The UK formally leaves the EU. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will address the nation in what can be presumed to be an optimistic message. Other Brexiteers will be celebrating in grander style, as parties are being held across the country — including one opposite the Houses of Parliament, the body that thwarted Brexit so many times in 2019. Remain voters will be holding similar protest events all over Britain. The mood in Brussels will be somber. The Union flag will be removed from all EU institutions (one of which will be placed in a museum in Brussels) and senior EU politicians will probably make statements expressing that this is a sad day for Europe and that they want to remain the closest of friends with Europe. In theory, quite a lot; in practice, very little. The UK might be leaving the EU, but as of 11:01 p.m., it will continue to obey all EU law and European courts. In the coming months, it will continue to pay into the EU budget and comply with any changes to EU law. That means that the only things that will change are largely symbolic. The UK will cease to have any meaningful representation in EU institutions and will no longer attend any meetings of EU leaders. So it will be obeying EU rules while having no say in EU policy. Most things that actually affect you. Businesses will be able to operate as normal, meaning that you as a customer will not be affected. People traveling to Europe will not be affected during the transition period, and EU citizens will still be able to move freely around the bloc. The end of phase one marks the start of phase two. And if the past three and a half years have been anything to go by, phase two is going to be far more of a nightmare than phase one. The Brexit transition period is due to end on December 31 of this year. That means the UK has to negotiate its future relationship with Europe in just 11 months. Failure to reach an agreement would mean the hardest Brexit possible, causing economic damage for both sides and possibly the wider world. This is a scenario that both sides are eager to avoid — even as they continue to engage in their game of high-stakes brinkmanship. Formal negotiations will begin on March 3. In the meantime, both sides will outline their priorities and draw their red lines. If history tells us anything, the UK will be more likely to back down than Brussels. The bulk of these negotiations will focus on the UK and the EU’s future trading relationship. Trade deals normally take years, if not decades, to negotiate. The EU’s deal with Canada, for example, took seven years to hammer out. And the EU is famously difficult to negotiate with because of its complicated internal politics. The Canada deal, for example, almost fell at the last hurdle when Wallonia, a region of Belgium, refused to ratify the deal. However, it is worth pointing out that the UK-EU deal starts from a place of total alignment, meaning comparisons to other trade deals are not fair. But that’s just trade. There are still many unanswered questions about exactly how much money the UK would pay the EU in exchange for access to its market and what, if any agreement might be reached on intelligence sharing security, aviation and fishing. And the controversial issue of what will happen on the Irish border is likely to feature heavily in any final deal. Johnson has not formally announced his red lines yet, but it’s safe to say that his priority will be sealing a free trade agreement that makes both importing and exporting as straightforward as possible, while freeing the UK from strict EU rules. If this is achievable, it would mean the UK continuing to trade in the EU but being flexible on regulations — a situation that could come in handy when striking trade deals with other nations like the US and China. “With the EU, we need a close partnership based on zero tariffs and quotas as well as regulatory recognition, adequacy and equivalence in all areas including services and financial services,” says Shanker Singham, a competition and trade lawyer. “We won’t be immediately diverging all over the place, but we must reserve the right to do so.” This issue of divergence is alarming many in Brussels. In short, if the UK is willing to diverge from the EU in areas like tax, food standards and financial regulation, it risks undermining the EU’s precious single market — the EU’s most valuable asset and top bargaining chip. And if Brussels thinks that Johnson has plans to undercut the EU, it won’t hesitate to restrict access to the world’s largest economic bloc. “For the EU, the trade-off is simple: if the UK diverges and no longer meets EU standards, or British businesses gain an unfair competitive advantage over EU business, then it will have less access to the EU market,” says Georgina Wright, an EU expert at the Institute for Government think tank. This concern in Brussels is not unreasonable. When the UK points to trading relationships that the EU has with countries like Canada and Japan, it misses two crucial points. First, agreements reached with external countries were about increasing engagement. As the UK leaves, it is about reducing engagement. Second, the UK shares a common border with the EU. And as one EU diplomat points out, “There is a direct relationship between trade and distance: the further you are away the less trade you do. So when we talk trade with Canada, we know that their undercutting of standards will not have the same effect as the UK.” Notwithstanding this cold reality, it’s clear that both sides desperately want to accommodate one another. The question is whether their competing aims are compatible. “Both sides want to maintain reasonably strong relations, but on the EU side this clearly has to be appropriate with existing structures and agreements,” says David Henig, the UK director of the European Center For International Political Economy. “On the UK side it will be about allowing regulatory flexibility while still facilitating trade. Defining that in great detail will be a challenge for both sides, though the EU is concerned that the UK doesn’t understand this sufficiently.” The gloves are already off. France’s Europe minister, Amelie de Montchalin, said in a news conference on Wednesday that “France is ready to sign a Brexit deal very quickly if the UK commits to full regulatory alignment that could guarantee no dumping.” That lack of understanding is the reason this could all get ugly. Regardless of what both sides might say about reaching a mutually beneficial agreement, in negotiations with the EU, there is always a winner and a loser. The UK will see winning as having its cake and eating it: near-frictionless trade with the EU while enjoying the freedom to so as it pleases at home. It could use state aid to give British businesses a competitive edge or slash tax rates to attract foreign investment in ways that would flout EU rules on competition. For the EU, hugging the UK tight and stopping it from drifting toward an economic rival, e.g. the US, would be a victory. Brexiteers have long talked up global trade deals as being the upside of Brexit, and no victory would be sweeter than a wide-ranging deal with the world’s only hyperpower. But for the UK, it will ultimately find that in trade deals with both the EU and the US, it is going to be the smaller partner and to some extent will be expected to sign on the dotted line. Time is running out. Johnson has said that he has no intention of extending the transition period. If he is to extract concessions from the EU and get a deal that looks like Brexit was worth it, he’s going to have to hope that European fears of divergence and the relatively short period to get a deal done will focus minds in Brussels. For virtually all of 2019, the British establishment was tearing its hair out over whether or not it would avoid a no-deal Brexit. Getting a Brexit deal through Parliament sucked the life out of British politics. When Boris Johnson finally won his majority last December, a certain degree of calm fell as the key obstacle to getting Brexit done had been cleared. Now, Johnson finds himself facing 11 months of hellish negotiations with another threat of no deal at the end of the tunnel. He does have other bargaining chips at his disposal: the EU is very keen to reach agreement on areas other than trade, such as fishing rights, data sharing and security. Johnson could concede on these to get a more attractive trade deal. But ultimately, Brexit is now weeks away from hurtling towards its next critical deadline. And for the UK more than anyone else, to get what it wants could require shutting its eyes and hoping for the best.
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Withdraw from an Organization
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Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 crash
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Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 was a Boeing 737-8EH on a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Manaus, Brazil, to Rio de Janeiro. On the afternoon of 29 September 2006, it collided in mid-air with an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet over the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. The Boeing 737 broke up in midair and crashed into an area of dense jungle, killing all 154 passengers and crew on board. Despite sustaining serious damage to its left wing and tail, the Embraer Legacy jet landed safely with its seven occupants uninjured. [2]:p.108[3][4]
The accident was investigated by the Brazilian Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center (Portuguese: Centro de Investigação e Prevenção de Acidentes Aeronáuticos -CENIPA) and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), and a final report was issued in 2008. CENIPA concluded that the accident was caused by air traffic control (ATC) errors, combined with mistakes made by the American pilots on the Legacy, including a failure to recognize that their traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) was not activated, while the NTSB determined that both flight crews acted properly and were placed on a collision course by ATC, deeming the Legacy pilots' disabling of their TCAS system to be only a contributing factor rather than a direct cause. [2]:p.259[3][5][6]
The accident, which triggered a crisis in Brazilian civil aviation, was the deadliest in Brazil's aviation history at the time. [7] It remains the second-worst plane crash in Brazil, after TAM Airlines Flight 3054 in 2007. [8] This accident was also the first hull loss, and the first fatal accident of a Boeing 737-800. [4][9]
The Gol Transportes Aéreos twin turbofan Boeing 737-800 aircraft, registration PR-GTD, was a new Short Field Performance variant,[10] with 186 seats (36 Economy Plus and 150 Economy seats). [11] It made its first flight on 22 August 2006, and was delivered to Gol on 12 September 2006, less than three weeks before the accident. Six crew members and 148 passengers were on board the Boeing airliner. [12] The six crew members and 105 of the passengers were Brazilian; the remaining passengers were of various other nationalities. The crew consisted of Captain Decio Chaves Jr., 44, First Officer Thiago Jordão Cruso, 29, and four flight attendants. The captain, who had also been serving as a Boeing 737 flight instructor for Gol, had 15,498 total flight hours, with 13,521 in Boeing 737 aircraft. The first officer had 3,981 total flight hours, with 3,081 in Boeing 737 aircraft. [2]:p.22
Gol Flight 1907 departed Eduardo Gomes International Airport in Manaus on 29 September 2006, at 15:35 Brazilian standard time (BRT) (18:35 UTC),[note 1] en route to Rio de Janeiro–Galeão International Airport, with a planned intermediate stop at Brasília International Airport. [2]:p.12
The twin turbofan Embraer Legacy 600 business jet, serial number 965 and registration N600XL, newly built by Embraer and purchased by ExcelAire Service Inc. of Ronkonkoma, New York, was on a delivery flight by ExcelAire from the Embraer factory to the United States. It departed from São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf Airport (SJK), near São Paulo, at 14:51 BRT (17:51 UTC), and was en route to Eduardo Gomes International Airport (MAO) in Manaus as a planned intermediate stop. [2]:p.12
The ExcelAire flight crew consisted of Captain Joseph Lepore, 42, and First Officer Jan Paul Paladino, 34, both U.S. citizens. [13][14] Lepore had been a commercial pilot for more than 20 years and had logged 9,388 total flight hours, with 5.5 hours in the Legacy 600. Paladino had been a commercial pilot for a decade and had accumulated more than 6,400 flight hours, including 3.5 hours in the Legacy 600 as well as 317 hours flying as captain of Embraer ERJ-145 and ERJ-135 jet aircraft for American Eagle Airlines. (The ERJ-145 and ERJ-135 aircraft are regional jets of the same family as the Legacy.) Paladino had also served as first officer for American Airlines, flying MD-82, MD-83, and Boeing 737-800 aircraft between the U.S. and Canada. Both pilots were legally qualified to fly the Embraer Legacy as captain. [2]:p.23
Two of the five passengers were Embraer employees, two were ExcelAire executives, and the fifth passenger was The New York Times business travel columnist Joe Sharkey, who was writing a special report for Business Jet Traveler. [15][16][17]
At 16:56:54 BRT (19:56:54 UTC), the Boeing 737 and the Embraer Legacy jet collided almost head-on at 37,000 feet (11,000 m), approximately midway between Brasília and Manaus, near the town of Matupá, 750 kilometers (470 mi; 400 nmi) southeast of Manaus. [19][20][21] The left winglet of the Embraer sheared off about half of the 737's left wing, causing the 737 to nosedive and enter an uncontrollable spin, which quickly led to an in-flight breakup. When the 737 was hit, the left engine remained on the wing that stayed attached to the aircraft. The Boeing 737 crashed into an area of dense rainforest, 200 kilometres (120 mi; 110 nmi) east of the municipality of Peixoto de Azevedo. [22] All 154 passengers and crew on board died and the aircraft was destroyed, with the wreckage scattered in pieces around the crash site. [2]:pp.21–22
The Embraer jet was able to continue flying, despite serious damage to the left horizontal stabilizer and left winglet, though its autopilot disengaged and it required an unusual amount of force on the yoke to keep the wings level. [2]:p.137[23][note 2]
With radio relay assistance from Polar Air Cargo Flight 71, a Boeing 747 cargo aircraft flying in the area at the time, the Embraer's crew successfully landed the crippled jet at Cachimbo Airport, part of the large military complex Campo de Provas Brigadeiro Velloso, at about 160 km (100 mi) from the collision point. [2]:p.12[23]
Passenger and journalist Joe Sharkey described his experience on board the Embraer in an article for The New York Times, titled "Colliding With Death at 37,000 Feet, and Living", filed on 1 October 2006:[13]
And it had been a nice ride. Minutes before we were hit, I had wandered up to the cockpit to chat with the pilots, who said the plane was flying beautifully. I saw the readout that showed our altitude: 37,000 feet. I returned to my seat. Minutes later came the strike (it sheared off part of the plane's tail, too, we later learned). Immediately after the Embraer's emergency landing at the Cachimbo air base, Brazilian Air Force and Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil (ANAC) officials detained and interviewed the flight crew. [16] The two "black boxes"—the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR)—were removed from the Embraer, and sent to São José dos Campos, São Paulo,[16] and from there to Ottawa, Canada,[2]:p.62 at the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) laboratories, for analysis. [note 3][25]
In an initial deposition, the Embraer flight crew testified that they were cleared to flight level 370, about 37,000 feet (11,000 m) above mean sea level, by Brasília ATC, and were level at that assigned altitude when the collision occurred. They also asserted that they had lost contact with Brasília ATC at the time of the collision, and their anticollision system did not alert them to any oncoming traffic. [26]
On 2 October 2006, the Embraer's captain and first officer were ordered by the Mato Grosso Justice Tribunal to surrender their passports pending further investigation. The request, made by the Peixoto de Azevedo prosecutor,[27] was granted by Judge Tiago Sousa Nogueira e Abreu, who stated that the possibility of pilot error on the part of the Embraer crew could not be ruled out. [28] The Embraer crew was forced to remain in Brazil until their passports were released to them on 5 December 2006, more than two months after the accident, after federal judge Candido Ribeiro ruled no legal grounds existed for "restricting the freedom of motion of the foreigners. "[29][30]
Prior to their scheduled departure to the United States, the crew was formally charged by Brazilian Federal Police with "endangering an aircraft", which carries a penalty up to 12 years in prison. The two pilots had to explain why they had not switched on the transponder. [31] They were allowed to leave the country after signing a document promising to return to Brazil for their trials or when required by Brazilian authorities. They picked up their passports and flew back to the U.S.[32][33]
The Brazilian Air Force (the Força Aérea Brasileira or "FAB") sent five fixed-wing aircraft and three helicopters to the region for an extensive search and rescue (SAR) operation.
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Air crash
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Recovered from injury, Fleetwood girls basketball’s Alexis Hess hopes to lead the Tigers to new heights in 2021-22
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In June, Fleetwood junior Alexis Hess sat on her couch, unable to walk. Hess, one of the top girls basketball players in the state, was recovering from surgery that placed cadaver cartilage in her knee to supplement missing cartilage caused by an osteochondral defect. The operation and ensuing recovery forced Hess to miss the entire AAU season. “It was tough for me mentally, seeing all these other girls playing, and I had to sit down on the couch and watch them play,” Hess said. “I stuck it out. I knew in my mind that if I just worked hard, that I’d be back to playing.” After being unable to walk for two months following the surgery on June 22, Hess worked hard throughout the fall on her recovery. Despite the challenges, she said she believes she would play basketball at a high level again. “I know I had a really huge and positive support system behind me,” said Hess, a third-team All-State pick in Class 5A last season. “It helped boost my confidence in playing again.” Ahead of schedule, Hess returned to game action on Friday night in Fleetwood’s season-opening 47-40 win over Conestoga Valley. The Tigers fell to 1-1 with a 32-29 loss to Lebanon on Saturday. “I honestly didn’t think I’d be ready for the season, but I worked really hard during my physical therapy,” Hess said. “I’m ready.” Hess, a guard, led the team with 21 points in Friday’s victory over the Buckskins. She scored six Saturday. “I’m so thankful for the surgery,” Hess said. “I’m grateful, because now that I’m getting better, I feel like I can do a lot more and get down the court.” Last season, Fleetwood finished 6-3 in Berks III, 10-7 overall. The Tigers were eliminated in the first round of the BCIAA and District 3 Class 5A playoffs. As a sophomore, Hess led Fleetwood in scoring, averaging 17.5 points per game. A two-time All-Berks selection, she wore a brace and often played through heavy swelling in her knee. This season, along with a now-healthy Hess, the Tigers also return senior Julia Kaskey, who averaged 8.8 points per game last season and is a two-time all-division selection. With experienced leaders, first-year coach Steve Zeller said he believes Fleetwood can make a bigger splash in the postseason. “I have high hopes for us this year,” Zeller said. “We look to compete for the county championship.” While Hess has led the Tigers in scoring since she was a freshman, Zeller said she isn’t hesitant to pass the ball. “She sees the court, and she’s not selfish,” Zeller said. “She loves her teammates (and) she likes when they’re involved.” Hess is being recruited by Division I schools across the country. This summer, she will be living in Ohio and playing for Ohio United AAU, her second season with the squad. “There’s no harder worker,” Zeller said. “The skills and things she has are not by accident. She has a natural gift, but she has worked.” As a high school student-athlete, an AAU basketball player and a highly sought-after recruit, Hess has a lot on her plate. However, when she steps on the court, she said she is focused solely on doing her best. “I have such a love for the game that I don’t allow things to really get to me,” Hess said. “I know there are people looking, but if I just play my game and do what I have to do, I just know that things will follow with it.”
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Famous Person - Recovered
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Esso Longford gas explosion
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Widowing Julie Anderson
Father of:
Jay Lowery
Shanon Lowery
The Esso Longford gas explosion was a catastrophic industrial accident which occurred at the Esso natural gas plant at Longford in the Australian state of Victoria's Gippsland region. On 25 September 1998, an explosion took place at the plant, killing two workers and injuring eight. Gas supplies to the state of Victoria were severely affected for two weeks. In 1998, the Longford gas plant was owned by a joint partnership between Esso and BHP. Esso was responsible for the operation of the plant. Esso was a wholly owned subsidiary of US based company Exxon, which has since merged with Mobil, becoming ExxonMobil. Built in 1969, the plant at Longford is the onshore receiving point for oil and natural gas output from production platforms in Bass Strait. The Longford Gas Plant Complex consists of three gas processing plants and one crude oil stabilisation plant. It was the primary provider of natural gas to Victoria, and provided some supply to New South Wales. The feed from the Bass Strait platforms consists of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons, water (H2O) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The water and H2S are removed before reaching the plant, leaving a hydrocarbon stream to be the feed to Gas Plant 1. This stream contained both gaseous and liquid components. The liquid component was known as "condensate". The LPG is further extracted by means of a shell and tube heat exchanger, in which heated "lean oil" and cold "rich oil" (oil which has absorbed LPG) are pumped into the exchanger, cooling the lean oil and heating the rich oil. During the morning of Friday 25 September 1998, a pump supplying heated lean oil to heat exchanger GP905 in Gas Plant No. 1 went offline for four hours, due to an increase in flow from the Marlin Gas Field which caused an overflow of condensate in the absorber. (The plant was complex and the hot oil pump was only one component involved in the accident process; why the pump shut down is complicated and important.) A heat exchanger is a vessel that allows the transfer of heat from a hot stream to a cold stream, and so does not operate at a single temperature, but experiences a range of temperatures throughout the vessel. Temperatures throughout GP905 normally ranged from 60 °C to 230 °C (140 °F to 446 °F). Investigators estimated that, due to the failure of the lean oil pump, parts of GP905 experienced temperatures as low as −48 °C (−54 °F). Ice had formed on the unit, and it was decided to resume pumping heated lean oil in to thaw it. When the lean oil pump resumed operation, it pumped oil into the heat exchanger at 230 °C (446 °F)—the temperature differential caused a brittle fracture in the exchanger (GP905) at 12.26pm. About 10 metric tonnes of hydrocarbon vapour were immediately vented from the rupture. A vapour cloud formed and drifted downwind. When it reached a set of heaters 170 metres away, it ignited. This caused a deflagration (a burning vapour cloud). The flame front burnt its way through the vapour cloud, without causing an explosion. When the flamefront reached the rupture in the heat exchanger, a fierce jet fire developed that lasted for two days. The rupture of GP905 led to other releases and minor fires. The main fire was an intense jet fire emanating from GP905. There was no blast wave—the nearby control room was undamaged. Damage was localised to the immediate area around and above the GP905 exchanger. Peter Wilson and John Lowery were killed in the accident and eight others were injured. The fire at the plant was not extinguished until two days later. The Longford plant was shut down immediately, and the state of Victoria was left without its primary gas supplier. Within days, VENCorp shut down the state's entire gas supply. The resulting gas supply shortage was devastating to Victoria's economy, crippling industry and the commercial sector (in particular, the hospitality industry which relied on natural gas for cooking). Loss to industry during the crisis was estimated at around A$1.3 billion. As natural gas was also widely used in houses in Victoria for cooking, water heating and home heating, many Victorians endured 20 days without gas, hot-water or heating. Gas supplies to Victoria resumed on 14 October. Many Victorians were outraged and upset to discover only minor compensation on their next gas bill, with the average compensation figure being only around $10. A Royal Commission was called into the explosion at Longford, headed by former High Court judge Daryl Dawson. The Commission sat for 53 days, commencing with a preliminary hearing on 12 November 1998 and concluding with a closing address by Counsel Assisting the Royal Commission on 15 April 1999. [3]
Esso blamed the accident on worker negligence, in particular Jim Ward, one of the panel workers on duty on the day of the explosion. [4]
The findings of the Royal Commission, however, cleared Ward of any negligence or wrongdoing. Instead, the Commission found Esso fully responsible for the accident:
Other findings of the Royal Commission included:
Certain managerial shortcomings were also identified:
Esso was taken to the Supreme Court of Victoria by the Victorian WorkCover Authority. The jury found the company guilty of eleven breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1985, and Justice Philip Cummins imposed a record fine of $2 million in July 2001. In addition, a class action was taken on behalf of businesses, industries and domestic users who were financially affected by the gas crisis. The class action went to trial in the Supreme Court on 4 September 2002, and was eventually settled in December 2004 when Esso was ordered to pay $32.5 million to businesses which suffered property damage as a result of the incident. Following the Longford accident, Victoria introduced Major Hazard Facilities[5] regulations to regulate safety at plants that contain major chemical hazards.
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Gas explosion
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Adani pleads guilty to giving 'false or misleading documents to an administering authority', fined $20k
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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
Mining giant Adani has been fined $20,000 after pleading guilty to providing false or misleading information to Queensland's environmental regulator.
No conviction was recorded.
The company was facing a fine of up to $3 million if convicted under the Environmental Protection Act.
Magistrate Stephen Courtney said in sentencing that "the company is a large one, it's well resourced".
"This mistake just should not have happened," Mr Courtney said.
In court papers, the Department of Environment and Science (DES) says Adani filed its annual return in March 2018 with a graph declaring it cleared no land on the Carmichael mine site, north-west of Clermont, in 2017-18.
The DES alleged it became aware of the offence six months later.
It alleged Adani "knew or ought reasonably to have known [the document] was false or misleading" because it had planned and carried out land clearing before and during the reporting period.
On September 6, 2018, conservation group Coast and Country raised land clearing allegations with the State Government, citing satellite imagery.
State and federal environment department officials then inspected the site within days.
Almost two weeks later, Adani amended its return to declare a total of 132 hectares cleared, including 5.8 hectares in the reporting period.
An Adani Mining spokeswoman said the department had "chosen to prosecute Adani Mining for an administrative error … which we self-reported".
"The prosecution is proceeding despite the fact all relevant works were legal, and fully complied with our project conditions, and despite there being no environmental harm," the spokeswoman said.
"Improvements to internal processes were introduced at the time the administrative error was discovered and reported by us to ensure paperwork errors of this nature are avoided in the future.
"We will continue to participate in the relevant legal processes required to resolve this matter."
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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