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Federal judge dismisses Rose McGowan’s RICO lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein and his lawyers
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A federal judge dismissed actress Rose McGowan’s racketeering lawsuit against disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein and his team of high-powered lawyers on Monday.
In October 2019, McGowan filed a RICO suit against Weinstein — who is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence for rape and sexual assault — and his attorneys David Boies and Lisa Bloom, as well as Black Cube, a private investigation firm that was allegedly hired to dig up dirt on McGowan in order to silence her.
The 72-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, alleged McGowan’s career as an actress and author, as well as her mental health, “suffered tremendously” because of Weinstein’s efforts. It sought unspecified damages for an array of offenses, including allegations of fraud and conspiracy.
“Harvey Weinstein was able to perpetrate and cover up decades of violence and control over women because he had a sophisticated team working on his behalf to systematically silence and discredit his victims,” McGowan said in a statement at the time. “My life was upended by their actions.”
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No one took Rose McGowan’s claims seriously. Now everyone is listening
Well before the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, Rose McGowan was already, in her words, a “feminist whistleblowing badass.”
The lawsuit focused mainly on a series of events over several months in 2017 as McGowan prepared to publish a memoir, in which she says Weinstein raped her in 1997. Weinstein has denied the allegation.
Last December, Judge Otis D. Wright dismissed most of McGowan’s claims in the 2019 lawsuit but allowed her to pursue two fraud complaints and amend her RICO allegations.
However, on Nov. 9, the judge ruled that the amended complaint did not reach the standard for racketeering or organized crime.
Two weeks later, McGowan’s attorney informed the court that the actress had fired her and withdrew from the case.
After McGowan, who represented herself in court, missed a Dec. 3 deadline, Judge Wright dismissed all claims.
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The Wide Shot brings you news, analysis and insights on everything from streaming wars to production — and what it all means for the future.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate
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Timeline of the 2017 Venezuelan protests
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The 2017 Venezuelan protests began in late January following the abandonment of Vatican-backed dialogue between the Bolivarian government and the opposition. The series of protests originally began in February 2014 when hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans protested due to high levels of criminal violence, inflation, and chronic scarcity of basic goods because of policies created by the Venezuelan government though the size of protests had decreased since 2014. Following the 2017 Venezuelan constitutional crisis, protests began to increase greatly throughout Venezuela. [6][7][8]
The opposition protests demanded immediate presidential elections to be held following controversy surrounding the failure to recall President Nicolás Maduro. The protests are listed below according to the month they had happened. This is our last conventional protest, the next ones, well, those will be surprise ones. -- Henrique Capriles Radonski[14]
I order SEBIN to sue those spokesmen of the opposition who are accusing of barbarities and improper acts that are never discussed in this republic. -- President Nicolás Maduro[56]
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Protest_Online Condemnation
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2012 Shwebo earthquake
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The 2012 Shwebo earthquake occurred at 07:42 local time (01:12 UTC) on 11 November in Myanmar. It had a magnitude of 6.8 on the moment magnitude scale and a maximum perceived intensity of VIII (Severe) on the Mercalli intensity scale. [2] The epicenter was near the town of Male, 52 km NNE of the city of Shwebo, 64 km west of Mogok and 120 km north of Mandalay. Significant damage and possible casualties have been reported from near the epicenter, with up to 26 people dead and many more injured. Part of a bridge under construction fell into the Irrawaddy River near Shwebo and a gold mine collapsed at Sintku. [3]
[4] An aftershock with a magnitude of 5.8 followed at 17:24 local time (10:54 UTC). [5]
Central Burma lies within the complex zone of collision between the Indo-Australian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. In this area the collision is highly oblique and much of the plate convergence is accommodated by right lateral strike slip faults, of which the largest is the north-south trending Sagaing Fault, which takes up 18mm per year of this movement. [6]
The earthquake was caused by right lateral movement on the Sagaing Fault between Singu and Tagaung, with a rupture length of 60–70 km, and was followed by three large (M≥5) aftershocks in the area south of the mainshock epicenter,[7] and one to the north. [8]
Many buildings, including monasteries, pagodas, a hospital, and a school collapsed in Male and neighbouring villages. Damage was also reported from Shwebo, Mogok and Mandalay. [7] The Radana Thinga Bridge, which was still under construction, fell into the Irrawaddy River, and several workers went missing. [9]
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Earthquakes
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Over 6000-yr-old relics site found in East China's Shandong
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Archaeologists have unearthed a Neolithic relics site dating back to more than 6,000 years ago, in the city of Linyi, East China's Shandong province. The site mainly comprises a ring trench of the Beixin culture with an area of some 4,000 square meters, as well as three housing sites and several pits, said the cultural relics and archaeology research institute of Shandong. Pottery remains from kettles, bowls, jars and pots were found in the trench. Beixin, a Neolithic culture, dates back between 7,300 years to 6,100 years ago in the lower reaches of Yellow River. It was the precursor of the Dawenkou culture. The settlements of the Beixin culture were all half beneath the ground, and the people used artifacts made from stones, bones, horns, teeth, and clams as production tools.
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New archeological discoveries
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Angel Locsin and Neil Arce: ‘We got married!’
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“Oh by the way, since filming this vlog, we decided not to wait and just do it. We got married!” reads a text in the vlog followed by the photos of the couple during the wedding. Just minutes after posting the vlog, Locsin shared a photo with Arce captioned: “and just like that [heart emoji]. Bukas na ‘yung iba. Namimilipit pa ako sa kilig.” and just like that ❤️ Bukas na yung iba. Namimilipit pa ako sa kilig ?❤️ Posted by Angel Locsin on Saturday, August 7, 2021 Actress Dimples Romana also shared a photo of Locsin and Arce during their wedding. “In case you missed the end of their VLOG. May we present to you, Mr. and Mrs. [Neil Arce] and [Angel Locsin],” Romana said in an Instagram post.
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Famous Person - Marriage
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1939 Pan Am Sikorsky S-43 crash
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The Seaplane Baby Clipper NC 16933 Crash took place in Rio de Janeiro on August 13, 1939. The aircraft, owned by Pan Am, was flying Miami-Rio, with stops in the cities of Antilla, Port-au-Prince, San Pedro de Macorís, San Juan, Port of Spain, Georgetown, Paramaribo, Cayenne, Belém, São Luís, Fortaleza, Natal, João Pessoa, Recife, Maceió, Aracaju, Salvador, Caravelas and Vitória. This would be the first accident of a Pan Am aircraft in Brazil. [1][2]
The Sikorsky S-43 was a Flying Boat seaplane. Pan Am would order 10 units, which would be used on routes connecting the United States to the Caribbean and Latin America. The aircraft involved in the accident was manufactured at the Sikorsky Aircraft Industrial Plant in Bridgeport, CT. It was assigned the serial number "4324". [3] Construction would be finished on December 20th, 1936. After being flight-tested and approved, it would receive tail number NC 16933 from the Civil Aeronautics Authority. These aircraft would be christened "Baby Clipper" by Pan Am. The "Baby Clippers" began service at Pan Am on September 10th, 1937 and would be retired in 1945. [4]
The aircraft involved was a three-year-old Sikorsky S-43B airliner registered NC16933. It had first flown in 1936, and had accumulated a total of 3,650 flight hours during its career. [5]
The aircraft took off from Miami on a scheduled international passenger flight to Rio de Janeiro, with many stopovers across the Caribbean and South America. As it neared its destination, the aircraft circled Rio in preparation for a normal approach. As it was circling, however, the left engine lost power, putting the aircraft into a descending left yaw turn. As the yaw grew sharper, the pitch angle also steepened until the aircraft struck a caisson and crashed into Guanabara Bay, about one kilometer from Rio's Santos Dumont Airport. Of the twelve passengers and four crew members, only two passengers survived. [6]
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Air crash
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Hassan, Farah set rare 1-hour world records at Brussels Diamond League
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With no fans to watch from the stands, four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah and Sifan Hassan both broke the rarely run one-hour world record on Friday at the Memorial Van Damme meeting.
In an empty stadium because of the coronavirus crisis, Hassan first improved the previous women's mark of 18.517 kilometres set by Ethiopia's Dire Tune at the Ostrava Golden Spike meeting in 2008 by covering 18.930 kilometres at the Memorial Van Damme.
In the final race of the meeting, which is part of the Diamond League series, Farah broke Haile Gebrselassie's 13-year-old record of 21,285 kilometres on his return to the track. Farah, who ran with his training partner Bashir Abdi, established a new world reference of 21.330 kilometres.
"I'm very happy to break the world record today. What an amazing way to do it and to show people what is possible," said the 37-year-old Farah.
WATCH | Farah sets men's 1-hour world record:
Hassan and Kenya's world marathon record-holder Brigid Kosgei fought toe to toe at the King Baudouin stadium. Hassan accelerated in the final minute to leave the marathon world-record holder powerless in her slipstream.
"An hour is long. It takes a lot of concentration and focus. After the first half I found my rhythm. I'm really happy with this record," Hassan said.
WATCH | Hassan sets women's 1-hour world record:
Reigning Olympic 1,500m champion Faith Kipyegon of Kenya failed in her bid to break the 1,000 metres record, crossing in 2 minutes 29.92 seconds, shy of Svetlana Masterkova's 2:28.98 record set in the same stadium back in 1996.
Kipyegon set the second best time over the distance last month in Monaco, in 2:29:15. Following the sustained tempo of a pacemaker, she looked on track to set a new best mark until the last 150 metres but faded in the finale. Burnaby, B.C.'s Lindsey Butterworth finished 3rd with a time of 2:37:26.
WATCH | Canada's Butterworth finishes 3rd:
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Break historical records
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The Global Economy: on Track for Strong but Uneven Growth as COVID-19 Still Weighs
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With 189 member countries, staff from more than 170 countries, and offices in over 130 locations, the World Bank Group is a unique global partnership: five institutions working for sustainable solutions that reduce poverty and build shared prosperity in developing countries. The World Bank Group works in every major area of development. We provide a wide array of financial products and technical assistance, and we help countries share and apply innovative knowledge and solutions to the challenges they face. We face big challenges to help the world’s poorest people and ensure that everyone sees benefits from economic growth. Data and research help us understand these challenges and set priorities, share knowledge of what works, and measure progress. A year and a half since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy is poised to stage its most robust post-recession recovery in 80 years in 2021. But the rebound is expected to be uneven across countries, as major economies look set to register strong growth even as many developing economies lag. Global growth is expected to accelerate to 5.6% this year, largely on the strength in major economies such as the United States and China. And while growth for almost every region of the world has been revised upward for 2021, many continue to grapple with COVID-19 and what is likely to be its long shadow. Despite this year’s pickup, the level of global GDP in 2021 is expected to be 3.2% below pre-pandemic projections, and per capita GDP among many emerging market and developing economies is anticipated to remain below pre-COVID-19 peaks for an extended period. As the pandemic continues to flare, it will shape the path of global economic activity. The United States and China are each expected to contribute about one quarter of global growth in 2021. The U.S. economy has been bolstered by massive fiscal support, vaccination is expected to become widespread by mid-2021, and growth is expected to reach 6.8% this year, the fastest pace since 1984. China’s economy – which did not contract last year – is expected to grow a solid 8.5% and moderate as the country’s focus shifts to reducing financial stability risks. Growth among emerging market and developing economies is expected to accelerate to 6% this year, helped by increased external demand and higher commodity prices. However, the recovery of many countries is constrained by resurgences of COVID-19, uneven vaccination, and a partial withdrawal of government economic support measures. Excluding China, growth is anticipated to unfold at a more modest 4.4% pace. In the longer term, the outlook for emerging market and developing economies will likely be dampened by the lasting legacies of the pandemic – erosion of skills from lost work and schooling; a sharp drop in investment; higher debt burdens; and greater financial vulnerabilities. Growth among this group of economies is forecast to moderate to 4.7% in 2022 as governments gradually withdraw policy support. Among low-income economies, where vaccination has lagged, growth has been revised lower to 2.9%. Setting aside the contraction last year, this would be the slowest pace of expansion in two decades. The group’s output level in 2022 is projected to be 4.9% lower than pre-pandemic projections. Fragile and conflict-affected low-income economies have been the hardest hit by the pandemic, and per capita income gains have been set back by at least a decade. Regionally, the recovery is expected to be strongest in East Asia and the Pacific, largely due to the strength of China’s recovery. In South Asia, recovery has been hampered by serious renewed outbreaks of the virus in India and Nepal. The Middle East and North Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean are expected to post growth too shallow to offset the contraction of 2020. Sub-Saharan Africa’s recovery, while helped by spillovers from the global recovery, is expected to remain fragile given the slow pace of vaccination and delays to major investments in infrastructure and the extractives sector. Uncertain Outlook The June forecast assumes that advanced economies will achieve widespread vaccination of their populations and effectively contain the pandemic by the end of the year. Major emerging market and developing economies are anticipated to substantially reduce new cases. However, the outlook is subject to considerable uncertainty. A more persistent pandemic, a wave of corporate bankruptcies, financial stress, or even social unrest could derail the recovery. At the same time, more rapid success in stamping out COVID-19 and greater spillovers from advanced economy growth could generate more vigorous global growth. Even so, the pandemic is expected to have caused serious setbacks to development gains. Although per capita income growth is projected to be 4.9% among emerging market and developing economies this year, it is forecast to be essentially flat in low-income countries. Per capita income lost in 2020 will not be fully recouped by 2022 in about two-thirds of emerging market and developing economies, including three-quarters of fragile and conflict-affected low-income countries. By the end of this year, about 100 million people are expected to have fallen back into extreme poverty. These adverse impacts have been felt hardest by the most vulnerable groups – women, children, and unskilled and informal workers. Global inflation, which has increased along with the economic recovery, is anticipated to continue to rise over the rest of the year; however, it is expected to remain within the target range for most countries. In those emerging market and developing economies in which inflation rises above target, this trend may not warrant a monetary policy response provided it is temporary and inflation expectations remain well-anchored. Climbing Food Costs Rising food prices and accelerating aggregate inflation may compound rising food insecurity in low-income countries. Policymakers should ensure that rising inflation rates do not lead to a de-anchoring of inflation expectations and resist using subsidies or price controls to reduce the burden of rising food prices, as these risk adding to high debt and creating further upward pressure on global agricultural prices. A recovery in global trade after the recession last year offers an opportunity for emerging market and developing economies to bolster economic growth. Trade costs are on average one-half higher among emerging market and developing economies than advanced economies and lowering them could boost trade and stimulate investment and growth. With relief from the pandemic tantalizingly close in many places but far from reach in others, policy actions will be critical. Securing equitable vaccine distribution will be essential to ending the pandemic. Far-reaching debt relief will be important to many low-income countries. Policymakers will need to nurture the economic recovery with fiscal and monetary measures while keeping a close eye on safeguarding financial stability. Policies should take the long view, reinvigorating human capital, expanding access to digital connectivity, and investing in green infrastructure to bolster growth along a green, resilient, and inclusive path. It will take global coordination to end the pandemic through widespread vaccination and careful macroeconomic stewardship to avoid crises until we get there.
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Financial Crisis
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Varig Flight 837 crash
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Varig Flight 837 was a flight from Fiumicino Airport, Rome, Italy to Roberts International Airport, Monrovia, Liberia, originating in Beirut, Lebanon. On 5 March 1967, due to pilot error, the flight crashed during approach to Runway 04 of Roberts International Airport. [1] Of the 71 passengers and 19 crew on board, 50 passengers and the flight engineer perished. In addition, 5 people on the ground were also killed. The aircraft caught fire and was written off. This is the worst aviation accident in Liberia to this day. [2][3]
Investigators determined the probable cause of the crash to be "The failure of the pilot-in-command to arrest in time the fast descent at a low altitude upon which he had erroneously decided, instead of executing a missed approach when he found himself too high over the locator beacon. "[4]
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Air crash
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1978 Georgian demonstrations
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On 14 April 1978, demonstrations in Tbilisi, capital of the Georgian SSR, took place in response to an attempt by the Soviet government to change the constitutional status of languages in Georgia. After a new Soviet Constitution was adopted in October 1977, the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR considered a draft constitution in which, in contrast to the Constitution of 1936, Georgian was no longer declared to be the sole State language. A series of indoor and outdoor actions of protest ensued and implied with near-certainty there would be a clash between several thousands of demonstrators and the Soviet government, but Georgian Communist Party chief Eduard Shevardnadze negotiated with the central authorities in Moscow and managed to obtain permission to retain the previous status of the Georgian language. This highly unusual concession to an open expression of opposition to state policy of the Soviet Union defused popular anger in Tbilisi, but triggered tensions in the Abkhaz ASSR (Abkhazia), an autonomous republic in northwest Georgia, where Abkhaz Communist officials protested against what they saw as a capitulation to Georgian nationalism and demanded that their autonomy be transferred from Georgia to the Russian SFSR. The request was rejected but a number of political, cultural and economic concessions were made. Since 1990, 14 April has been celebrated in Georgia as the Day of the Georgian Language. The late 1970s witnessed the reemergence of a Georgian national movement which called for the revival of Georgian national culture and, in its most radical form, saw no compromise to Georgia's ultimate independence from the Soviet Union, a rare instance of pro-independence dissident movement in the Union at the time. Although Georgian opposition intelligentsia preached avoidance of conflict with non-Georgian minorities, as such conflict would hamper the road to independence, and forged ties with the Russian dissidents of the time, including Andrei Sakharov, the movement had a strong anti-Russian emphasis and alarmed some minorities, especially in Abkhazia, where there was a lingering ethnic discord between Georgian and Abkhaz communities. In early 1977, the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB) managed to suppress most Russian dissident groups and moved to Georgia, with the irreconcilable Georgian opposition leaders, Merab Kostava and Zviad Gamsakhurdia, being arrested in April. Such measures failed to curb the movement, however. New influential young dissidents such as Tamar Chkheidze, Avtandil Imnadze, later Giorgi Chanturia, and Irakli Tsereteli, emerged in support of the jailed leaders, and several underground publications (samizdat) were founded. [1] During this period Georgia acquired the position of the republic with the highest level of per capita higher education in the Soviet Union, and the increasing number of students, especially the rural youth with higher education and with little connection to the Communist Party and Nomenklatura, formed a ground for anti-Soviet sentiments. [2]
The three Transcaucasian republics – Georgia, Armenian SSR and Azerbaijan SSR – were the only Union republics where the language of a "titular nationality", in this case Georgian, enjoyed the status of sole state language. [3] When in early 1978 the issue of adopting new constitutions in the republics, based on the 1977 Soviet Constitution, came up, an attempt was made by the Soviet authorities to remove the anomaly of the three Transcaucasian republics, replacing it with a clause giving an equally official status to the Russian language. [2] The move was highly unpopular, but in Georgia the question of language was particularly sensitive and a negative outcry was quite predictable since a suggestion to hold certain courses in the local institutions of higher learning in Russian two years earlier, in April 1976, had provoked a public outrage. [1] While the situation in Azerbaijan remained calm, the events proceeded in an unexpectedly dramatic manner in Georgia and to a lesser extent Armenia. [4]
Demonstrations broke out throughout Georgia, reaching their climax in Tbilisi on 14 April 1978, the day when the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR convened to ratify the new legislation. An estimated 20,000,[5] mainly university students, took to the streets. Several intellectuals, including the venerated 80-year-old linguist Akaki Shanidze, campaigned against reforming Article 75 (addressing the official status of Georgian), and leaflets calling for nationwide resistance appeared in the streets. The demonstrators marched to the House of the Government in downtown Tbilisi. The Soviet police (militsiya) officers managed to partially block the march, but around 5,000 people still managed to reach the government building, which was quickly surrounded by the Soviet army. The rest of the protesters gathered in and around Tbilisi State University. As the situation threatened to turn dangerous and rumors were coming of Soviet troops preparing for action, Eduard Shevardnadze, the First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party Central Committee, addressed the demonstrators and reminded them about the student demonstrators shot by the Soviet army in Tbilisi on 9 March 1956. Although he was booed when he first tried to speak to the crowd, Shevardnadze was quick to react. He immediately contacted Moscow and asked for permission to leave Article 75 unchanged. While the shocked Kremlin was contemplating the issue, Shevardnadze came out and spoke to the demonstrators, explaining the situation and pledging his sympathies to their cause. Finally, the government—giving in to popular pressure—decided not to change the disputed clause. The demonstrators began gradually to withdraw only after Shevardnadze announced the final decision and read out the article affirming the status of Georgian as the state language of the Georgian SSR. [6]
Following this unprecedented concession to public opinion, Soviet authorities, alarmed by the mass actions in Georgia, abandoned similar amendments to the constitutions of Armenia and Azerbaijan and declared Armenian and Azerbaijani state languages at the republican level, without waiting for similar manifestations in either republic. [7]
The language issue in the Transcaucasian republics revealed the sensitivity of the national problem in the region. The upsurge of the national movement in Georgia proper led to tensions between minorities as well, in particular with the Abkhaz, who interpreted the concession by the Soviet authorities as a retreat in the face of Georgian nationalism and saw this as an opportunity to secede from Georgia. In May 1978, several thousands of Abkhaz nationalists assembled in the village of Lykhny to support 130 Abkhaz Communists, who had signed the letter to Moscow, demanding that the Abkhaz ASSR be allowed to be transferred from Georgia to the Russian SFSR. The Kremlin dispatched I.V. Kapitonov, secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee, to Sukhumi and installed a new party leader, Boris Adleiba, in Abkhazia. Kapitonov declared that secession was impermissible, but the government acknowledged the seriousness of the Abkhaz problem by decreeing a costly plan "for the development of the economy and culture of the Abkhaz ASSR". [6] An extra 500 million rubles were appropriated over seven years for economic investments such as a road-building program for infrastructure-poor Abkhazia, and cultural benefits such as the creation of an Abkhaz State University (with Abkhaz, Georgian, and Russian sectors), a State Folk Dance Ensemble in Sukhumi, and Abkhaz-language television broadcasting. Besides, ethnic quotas were established for certain bureaucratic posts, giving the Abkhaz a degree of political power that was disproportionate to their minority status in the autonomous republic. [8]
Both the Georgian language and Abkhaz questions were high on the agenda throughout the following years. Georgians living in Abkhazia protested about discrimination against them at the hands of the Abkhaz Communist Party élite and demanded equal access to the autonomous structures. Several Georgian intellectuals petitioned Shevardnadze and the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to address the situation. During 1981, at least five mass demonstrations took place in Georgia at which the Abkhaz question was raised once again alongside broader issues connected with the defense of Georgian language, history, and culture. The protesters also demanded the release of Avtandil Imnadze, the only person who was arrested in connection with the events of 14 April 1978 for having filmed the student demonstrations in Tbilisi. [9] Although Shevardnadze managed to comply with popular opinion without being punished or reprimanded by the centre, probably due to the success of his economic policy in Georgia,[2] he still sought to neutralise the dissident movement in order to retain his reputation as a successful and loyal Communist leader. Under increasing pressure from the authorities, the national movement suffered a setback in April 1979, when the prominent Georgian dissident, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, was pardoned after having repented his views, admitting his "errors of judgment" on nationwide television. As Gamsakhurdia's close associate, Merab Kostava, refused to surrender, he remained an untainted leader of the Georgian dissident movement until his release in 1987 and his mysterious death in a car crash in 1989. [1] The anti-nationalist measures also included the dismissal of Akaki Bakradze, a popular professor who taught a course on Georgian literature at Tbilisi University and was known for his anti-Soviet feelings. In March 1981, over 1,000 students protested and achieved the restoration of Bakradze to his position. Later that month, large groups of students and intellectuals demonstrated in defence of Georgian national rights and submitted to the Georgian party leadership a document entitled "The Demands of the Georgian People". The petition included proposals to protect the status of the Georgian language, improve the teaching of Georgian history and the preservation of Georgian historical monuments, and protect the Georgians in Abkhazia. Other Georgian protests took place in the town of Mtskheta in October 1981, when 2,000 people demonstrated in defence of their native language.
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Protest_Online Condemnation
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The Measles Epidemic in Africa in the Age of COVID-19
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SEATTLE, Washington — As of April 2020, an estimated 117 million children around the world are at risk of missing out on a measles vaccine. The majority of foreign aid is being redirected toward COVID-19 efforts. As a result, vaccines and medical tools used to stave off other diseases have become increasingly scarce. Because of this, Africa’s measles epidemic is now spiking at alarming levels. Furthermore, the continent faces a financing gap in healthcare funding of US $66 billion that leaves facilities understaffed, underfunded and ill-equipped to handle disease outbreaks. With the coronavirus pandemic, the situation has become even worse. In early 2020, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) experienced its deadliest measles epidemic in recorded history, with more than 6,000 dead. Caught between the overshadowing of Ebola and COVID-19, the DRC’s medical systems are too underfunded and understaffed to adequately respond. Although treating and controlling COVID-19 is vital to public health, as Emmanuel Lampaert, a Doctors Without Borders regional coordinator, says, “unfortunately, these measures are having an impact on the overall measles response, including transporting vaccines, assembling dedicated teams and launching vaccination campaigns.” Neighboring countries, including Chad and the Central African Republic, also reported measles cases but did not declare states of emergency. Measles is also spiking in the Eastern horn of Africa, with Ethiopia declaring a measles outbreak in January 2020. In the span of one month, the country had recorded more than 700 cases. The coronavirus pandemic was not far behind. Medical resources are now in short supply as hospitals struggle to treat the two diseases simultaneously. Other factors, such as the country’s high rates of acute malnutrition and poor sanitation services, affect Ethiopia’s overall health. These factors have thereby made the population more vulnerable to communicable diseases like measles and COVID-19. Next to Ethiopia, Somalia also faces a measles outbreak, now compounded by the effects of COVID-19. As with Ethiopia, years of drought have left Somalia in a state of food insecurity, compromising the health of many citizens and increasing the population’s vulnerability to diseases. The DRC, Ethiopia and Somalia are each unequipped to handle a measles epidemic alone, let alone COVID-19. However, humanitarian organizations have worked hard to bolster treatment facilities and vaccination programs against the disease. In the DRC, Doctors Without Borders has vaccinated 260,000 children and treated 17,500 people in 2020. Similarly, in 2019, UNICEF supplied local clinics with 1,111 measles treatment kits — enough to care for 111,000 people. In Ethiopia, where the outbreak remains in the East Wollega zone, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reached out to 15,000 people as part of a measles awareness campaign. They spoke with individuals about measles transmission and rehabilitating hospitals and sanitation systems to prevent transmission in the first place. When asked about the effects of the organization’s work, Rashal, a mother in the region, told volunteers, “I was so happy to see doctors and IOM staff members at the Adare health centre treating patients coming in. Now, my child is saved.” In response to Somalia’s measles outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) implemented retraining programs for health workers to strengthen the quality of treatment services. Additionally, UNICEF vaccinated 54,000 children for measles in 2016 and donated vitamin A supplements to boost disease immunity.
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Disease Outbreaks
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Eastern Air Lines Flight 375 crash
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Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, registration N5533,[1] was a Lockheed L-188 Electra aircraft that crashed on takeoff from Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts on 4 October 1960. 62 of 72 on board were killed in the accident; ten survived, nine with serious injuries. N5533 and its crew came into Logan that day as Flight 444 from New York City's LaGuardia Airport. The plane and crew turned around in Boston as Flight 375, which was scheduled to travel to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Charlotte, North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia. The pilots had filed an IFR flight plan that would have had the aircraft cruising to Philadelphia at 10,000 feet. At 5:35 pm, the aircraft pulled away from the terminal and taxied to the threshold of Runway 09[2] for an easterly departure; the tower cleared it for takeoff at 5:39 PM. The takeoff was normal until approximately six seconds after liftoff. At that point the aircraft encountered a large flock of starlings. The aircraft veered to the left for a moment then resumed the runway heading. At a height of about 120 feet small birds were sucked into the propeller engines, causing the propeller on engine 1 to be feathered and shut down. Engines 2 and 4 lost thrust momentarily but recovered. [2] At a height of 200 feet the airplane veered left again and sank nose-up to about 100 feet in altitude. It then rolled to the left, the nose dropped, and the aircraft crashed into Winthrop Bay. The fuselage broke into two pieces; eight passengers and two flight attendants in the rear section were thrown out of their seats and were quickly picked up by boats already in the bay. The front section sank to the bottom of the bay, taking the majority of the passengers and the flight crew with it. A Navy Reserve Commander who arrived at the scene of the accident shortly afterwards, stated many passengers were stuck in their seats and unable to get out before sinking into the bay. [2] The entire accident sequence from the beginning of takeoff to the impact in the water took less than one minute. Investigators with the Civil Aeronautics Board (the predecessor of the NTSB) determined that engines Nos. 1, 2, and 4 had each ingested at least one bird, and that engine No. 1 had ingested at least eight. The bird damage caused the No. 1 propeller to autofeather and the engine to shut down at the same time that damage to the No. 2 and No. 4 engines prevented those engines from developing full power at a critical stage of flight. The aircraft, unable to climb, went into a stall. The power interruption to the port engines probably caused the left wing to stall; the wing dropped and the aircraft crashed into the water. There was also evidence that birds had crashed into the windscreen, reducing the pilots' visibility; in addition, bird remains had clogged the pitot tubes, making the pilots' airspeed indicators unreliable. It was eventually determined that turboprop engines such as those on the Electra were highly sensitive to damage from bird strikes. The CAB recommended to the CAA, the predecessor of the FAA, that steps be taken to reduce the damage caused by bird strikes to turbine engines, and that ways be found to reduce the populations of birds around airports. However, another possible factor that came to light later was a maintenance defect in the copilot's seat. During civil litigation by the family of a deceased passenger, it was discovered that the airplane's maintenance records showed that the adjustable seat had accidentally slid backward during a takeoff about six weeks prior to Flight 375. [3] Rather than perform the proper repair of replacing a metal rod, a mechanic used a strand of wire. A subsequent maintenance check on September 19 showed that the copilot's seat would not lock in any position; it was left in that condition. Expert testimony during the trial claimed that the co-pilot of Flight 375 (who during an emergency would typically be flying the plane while the pilot attempts to locate and solve the problem) most likely pushed the rudder pedal to compensate for unexpected yaw. In doing so, it was surmised that this foot pressure caused the seat to slide backward, which caused him to inadvertently pull back on the yoke. [4] This nose-up condition could have been the decisive stall that caused the final plunge into the water.
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Air crash
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The other plague: Locusts are devouring crops in East Africa and the Middle East
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Billions of hungry insects are threatening to cause famine amid the coronavirus pandemic. Gargantuan swarms of desert locusts with a voracious appetite for staple crops like teff, wheat, and sorghum are sweeping over the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, leaving crops and rangeland destroyed. A combined 42 million people in Eastern Africa and Yemen were already expected to face acute food insecurity this year, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The locusts, and now the novel coronavirus, could push more people to the brink of starvation. For countries like Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia, the locusts this year have already been the worst in decades, with billions of insects forming swarms that spread over hundreds of thousands of acres. Swarms have also swept into Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, and India, threatening harvests. India is also contending with evacuations for millions of people as Cyclone Amphan makes landfall. And now more ravenous insects are on their way. The recent swarms have already devoured almost 100 percent of crops in some areas. At times, locust swarms have become so dense that they’ve even forced aircraft to divert. Officials in Iran reported that a layer of dead locusts piled up 6 inches high after they sprayed afflicted areas with pesticides. “I have a lot of experience with locusts, but this is my first time to see such a size of a swarm,” said Mehari Tesfayohannes, chief information and forecasting officer for the Desert Locust Control Organization for Eastern Africa. Locust swarms are an irregular phenomenon, with years passing without them. But weather and climate conditions over the past year converged to create the perfect conditions for a boom of these ravenous insects. They are landing at an especially tenuous moment for many countries dealing with longstanding conflicts, resource shortages, and now a pandemic. A humanitarian crisis could lie ahead. “Locust” refers to several species of short-horned grasshoppers that can radically change how they look and behave under the right circumstances. Out of roughly 7,000 species of grasshoppers, about 20 are considered to be true locusts. They are found on every continent except Antarctica, though in many places they rarely gather enough numbers to swarm. The species behind the recent swarms in Africa and Asia is the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria. It’s normally an introvert, leading a solitary life. But every now and then, ideal environmental conditions cause a population explosion. In prolonged close company, these introverts become what scientists call “gregarious.” They begin to move and act in sync rather than as haphazard individuals. And it’s not just their personalities that change; the desert locust changes color from a green or mottled brown to a vivid yellow. They change shape, too: Their body sizes are smaller and their brains are larger than in their solitary phase. The changes in behavior can occur in just a few hours, while the physical changes take longer. After they transition into their gregarious phase, locusts form swarms with roughly 150 million individuals per square kilometer, or 600,000 per acre. Those 150 million locusts eat as much food as 35,000 people every day. This year has seen swarms spreading over as much as 2,400 square kilometers, nearly 600,000 acres, according to the FAO. Once airborne, locust swarms can travel more than 100 miles in a day as they ride the wind, devouring almost all vegetation in their path. Together, the scale, speed, and destruction of locust swarms make them an international danger to agriculture. “Locusts do not honor political boundaries and can easily invade other adjacent countries,” said Hojun Song, an entomologist at Texas A&M University, in an email. Rainfall led to the recent population explosion in these insects, particularly in East Africa and the Middle East. That was due in part to the changes in the Indian Ocean Dipole, a pattern of changing temperature gradients in the Indian Ocean. “The western side of the Indian Ocean was unusually warm as compared to the eastern side,” said Muhammad Azhar Ehsan, a researcher at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. “So when the western side was warm, we had a lot of evaporation happening over there, and that evaporation turned into a rainfall.” In 2019, the Indian Ocean Dipole was at near-record strength with a temperature gradient not seen in decades. This led to torrential rainfall in East Africa, Yemen, and India, some of the heaviest in two decades. The rains caused floods and forced hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes. When the waters receded, however, there was a surge in lush greenery. The sudden bounty caused locusts to congregate and breed far more rapidly than they would when food is scarce, particularly in areas that are normally dry and bare. The insects gathered, ate, mated, and laid eggs. The rain also triggered dormant locust eggs to hatch, some that were laid years ago. These offspring were born into a world of abundance, with fields of fresh, juicy plants like grasses and shrubs to nourish them. This early stage in the locust life cycle, when they are known as “hoppers” or “nymphs,” also presents the most important opportunity for preventing them from forming swarms. Since they don’t yet have mature wings, they tend not to venture very far. “The key is to detect the sign of population increase early on when locusts are aggregating as nymphs,” said Texas A&M’s Song. “When they are nymphs (immatures that have not yet developed wings), it is easier to control. Then they become adults and airborne, then it’s very difficult to control.” These post-hopper, young adult locusts are often the most damaging because they are mobile and famished. “I like to say they’re like hungry teenagers,” said Keith Cressman, senior locust forecasting officer at the FAO. “They’re very active and they’re very voracious.” Once the local cuisine, be it native vegetation or crops, is devoured, the locusts take flight and look for their next meal. About a month into this stage, the locusts are ready to lay eggs. Then exponentially more locusts hatch, up to a 20-fold increase each generation. The cycle continues, one that’s hard to break. Locusts have been a threat to humanity for thousands of years, but anticipating them remains tricky. And with years, if not decades, passing between major swarm outbreaks, it’s easy for countries to lose sight of the threat. The first signs of a pending locust swarm often arise in remote areas, so surveillance is a key part of a locust control strategy. “There’s not people around watching, particularly in places that don’t typically have a lot of rainfall,” said John Furlow, deputy director for humanitarian and international development at IRI. “So you may get them breeding and multiplying in places and not be aware of it, and then once they reach a certain population, it’s too big to manage.” Once a potential swarm is identified, the main response is pesticides, sprayed from ground vehicles or aircraft. The chemicals used are “ultra-low volume,” meaning a very small amount of pesticide is being used to do the job. But for it to work effectively, it has to actually come in contact with the locusts. Simply spraying crops or vegetation at a distance won’t work; it requires finding locusts and targeting them. However, because decades have passed since the last major swarms landed in places like Kenya in East Africa, national and local governments don’t always have robust locust-control programs. That can leave countries without the tools or institutional knowledge to quickly respond. International organizations are trying to provide funding, equipment, technical support, but that takes time to scale up. “It’s like a fire in a country that has no fire department,” Cressman said. Some, but not all, of this has been complicated by the coronavirus pandemic. Cressman said teams had largely gotten the necessary equipment — things like pesticide and sprayers — on the ground by the time the pandemic really exploded, and countries began instituting lockdown measures. They’ve also tried to diversify sources for things like pesticides, to avoid pressures on the global supply chain, but some disruption is unavoidable. “It went well with ground and aerial control operations” for locusts in East Africa, said Tesfayohannes of the Desert Locust Control Organization for Eastern Africa. “Even though there were some restrictions due to the virus.” However, providing technical support and training is still tricky in the age of social distancing; it’s harder to help on the ground or hire people to help control the locusts or gather all the stakeholders (literally) in one room. Teams trying to control these locust swarms have been deemed essential services in many of these countries, but they are still subject to quarantine curfews in some areas. In Kenya, for example, a 7 pm curfew can limit the extent of control operations in the afternoon, Cyril Ferrand, the resilience team leader in Eastern Africa for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization who’s on the ground in Nairobi, said. Locusts are also active in wide swaths of East Africa and the Middle East, where fragile governments or outright conflict zones are complicating control efforts. The security situation in places like Yemen or Southern Somalia — both currently threatened by locust swarms — prevents local forecasters and control teams from operating on the ground. That can make it extraordinarily difficult to prevent swarms or to even know what’s going on. It also puts these already vulnerable areas are at greater risk for food insecurity or famine. And since locusts can move, the inability to control swarms in one place means that an entire region remains under threat. Yemen, according to Ferrand, is particularly concerning right now, where the locusts are currently in their “hopper” stage, and where the ongoing conflict has complicated control efforts. “And this is really worrisome because our control capacity there is limited — but we need to control there. If we don’t control now, these hopper bands will turn to swarm, and this swarm, at some point will come to our region,” he said, referring to East Africa. In this way, the locusts are a bit like the coronavirus: A rapid and effective response in one place can be undermined by failures elsewhere. But beyond spraying pesticides, there are few options for limiting their spread. “There is no lockdown for desert locusts,” Ferrand said. Then there’s Mother Nature. The same climate shifts and weather patterns that supercharged this locust need to lessen. That might mean a break from the rains, or cooler temperatures, or winds that send the locusts to a location that’s much less favorable to their survival. None of that is really happening right now. “For the last two years we have not seen any single break in the weather for desert locusts,” Cressman said. “It’s just been phenomenally favorable to them.” The disaster caused by locusts is both impossibly quick and lasting. A dark cloud descends on a farm, and a swarm can devour an entire season’s crop in an afternoon. But their reproductive cycles, and their ability to take their destructive appetites on the road, means that crisis can repeat itself over and over again. Countries in East Africa — parts of Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia — are bracing for the next wave of this crisis now through June, when the new swarms will start to form. If conditions remain favorable, and if control operations falter, another wave could devastate the region from September through December this year. And over the long term, climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme Indian Ocean Dipole events, meaning that the downpours that helped drive the recent swarms could become more frequent. So giant locust swarms could also arise more often in the years ahead. For now, famine and food insecurity remain the biggest threat: More than 20 million people in the East African region already faced severe food insecurity in 10 countries, according to the FAO. Climate shocks and other natural disasters, conflict, and displacement have created those conditions, though that predates the coronavirus crisis. The World Food Program has said the pandemic could cause famine worldwide, pushing an additional 130 million people close to starvation, on top of the 135 million already on the brink. Locusts will make this worse in places like East Africa and Yemen, where each bug can eat its weight in a day. If control operations can spare farmers’ crops, or the grass that herders depend on, that will prevent the most acute crises. If the locusts return later in the year, the crisis can repeat itself. But if those crops and vegetation can’t all be saved, people will exhaust their food supplies, pushing another 2.5 million to the brink of hunger in East Africa. Countries like Yemen already have about 17 million people on the brink of famine due to conflict and drought. Locusts are now eroding its already faltering agriculture system. The locusts themselves have become a food source. So far, the FAO says it has saved about 720,000 tonnes of cereal across 10 affected countries, which amounts to food for about 5 million people. The UN agency is still seeking additional funds, primarily for livelihood support for farmers and herders who’ve lost their crops or food source. The organization will launch a new international appeal, starting Thursday. Food and resource scarcity are also increasing tensions and violence in some of these regions. Some seeking to graze their herds of cattle, for example, may be displaced to other pastures, igniting potential conflict over diminishing natural resources. “There will be an increase in resource-based conflict … people will be moving towards areas where there will be grass. We need to prepare for conflict,” Josephine Ekiru, a Turkana pastoralist and peace-builder for the Northern Rangelands Trust in Kenya, told the Guardian this week. The coronavirus pandemic could also make the humanitarian crisis more fraught. Many who see their crops destroyed or fields torn up might seek work elsewhere, likely in big cities. Quarantine, curfews, and travel restrictions in some of these countries may make that extraordinarily difficult. The economic pressures of lockdowns, which are affecting countries rich and poor, may also make labor opportunities scarce. Some governments are focusing their limited resources within their own borders to control the spread of the virus. However, controlling locusts will require countries to work together, and it will take a sustained effort to fight this ancient plague, even among modern conflicts and a global pandemic. “Our gains have been significant,” said Qu Dongyu, director general of the FAO, in a statement. “But the battle is long and is not yet over.”
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Insect Disaster
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California’s tsunami vulnerability may be greater than once believed
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On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake shook Japan, triggering a deadly tsunami that wreaked havoc both along the Japanese coastline and an ocean away. Now, a decade later, scientists are using lessons learned from that disaster to reevaluate the risk posed by such rare but high-impact tsunamis. Some Californians now get earthquake early warnings on their phones. Here’s how the alerts work. Scientists in California are striving to better understand the range of possible tsunami threats posed by earthquakes, and are reaching deeper into the geologic record to estimate how coastal communities in the United States might flood if another “great” earthquake materializes. The magnitude 9.1 earthquake that struck Japan in 2011 ruptured an undersea boundary known as a subduction zone, along which one tectonic plate dives beneath another. The resulting tsunami waves ravaged the island nation, and traversed the Pacific to cause damage thousands of miles away in California. In an email, Lori Dengler, professor emeritus of geophysics at Humboldt State University, wrote: “2011 convinced us that every subduction zone in the world is capable of producing an earthquake in the low magnitude 9 range and we must plan accordingly.” The Fukushima tsunami 10 years later: A correspondent recounts the day that changed Japan To mark this week’s state tsunami preparedness week, the California Geological Survey is releasing new tsunami hazard maps that expand the danger zone farther inland in some areas. Emergency management officials will also work through response exercises for a major event, and test communication systems to ensure they work smoothly. Despite improvements in planning and awareness, challenges remain in preparing for tsunamis, particularly for more local, “near-field” events, which can reach shore minutes after a large quake. When the March 2011 earthquake struck, Japan was well prepared for a tsunami, but had underestimated the extent and severity of inundation in many of its evacuation maps. “Japan has put more effort into tsunami and earthquake hazard reduction than any other country in the world, but they had primarily relied upon the 400 years of written records to estimate the size and frequency of future seismic events,” Dengler said. Yet there was geologic evidence of something bigger in Japan’s distant past: a magnitude 8.6 tremor more than 1,000 years earlier. Why recent Pacific earthquakes didn't trigger a damaging tsunami “That earthquake … is now fairly well known, but in 2011 hadn’t made it into the planning process,” she said. “That has changed in both Japan and the U.S., where using a 1,000-year event has now become standard procedure.” California, for example, is updating its tsunami hazard maps, which were originally drawn in 2009, by modeling a suite of realistic tsunami scenarios from both nearby and faraway sources. Simulated sources include local offshore faults, landslides and distant earthquakes in Alaska, Chile and Japan. In addition, the Cascadia subduction zone, which scientists fear could someday rupture and unleash a significant quake and tsunami, lurks nearby and extends from Vancouver south to Cape Mendocino in Northern California. “Since 2009, we have a great deal more information, we have better tools in mapping tsunami hazards, and we understand tsunami sources a lot better,” said Rick Wilson, a senior engineering geologist with the California Geological Survey, which produced the state maps. Wilson and his colleagues have expanded the maximum inundation line in some communities to reflect new reasonable worst-case scenarios: a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on the Pacific Northwest’s Cascadia subduction zone and a magnitude 9.3 earthquake on the Alaska-Aleutian Islands subduction zone. Both are plausible, yet very rare, scenarios, with a 1,000-year return interval, or a 5 percent chance of happening in the next 50 years. In other words, it probably won’t happen in our lifetimes — but, like many low-probability events, it would have an enormous impact if it did. While the most significant impacts of a Cascadia rupture would be felt in far Northern California, Oregon and Washington, the Alaska earthquake scenario would direct ocean wave energy farther south, flooding much of California’s low-lying coastline and requiring the evacuation of 300,000 to 400,000 people. Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, could see inundation up to 50 feet high, as would other parts of Northern California. Southern California beaches, such as Huntington Beach in Orange County, could see 15 to 20 feet of flooding. If waves from a distant source are traversing the ocean, NOAA’s tsunami warning centers in Alaska and Hawaii provide state emergency managers with data on expected wave heights so officials can decide which areas to evacuate, and then notify the public via wireless emergency alerts, local tsunami sirens or other means. Because NOAA’s system relies on offshore buoys to measure waves, there can be considerable delay in assessing the tsunami threat in real time. Yvette LaDuke, the tsunami planning coordinator with the California Office of Emergency Services, said that during the time spent waiting for information from the National Tsunami Warning Center, the state is in contact with local officials about how big the event might be, and whether they should set plans in motion, like closing beaches and harbors. “What we can do in the interim is start taking protective action and make sure the public is out of harm’s way,” she said. However, for the public and other users, the tsunami.gov portal has a history of messaging problems, with critical information often buried in a string of bulletins. Neither warning center provides a “bottom line” on exactly what threat exists and where either. “The current plethora of messages whenever an event occurs makes it difficult for even those of us who understand the system to sort through the current status for all regions,” Dengler said. Waves traveling across the Pacific take several hours to arrive, but if a tsunami is generated close to shore, there will be little time to muster an official warning. The public should therefore know to move to high ground or inland if there is long or strong shaking at the coast. That’s the purpose of this week’s tsunami outreach events in California, with many education efforts at the state and local levels geared toward making residents aware of the warning signs and encouraging them to practice evacuation routes. Jason Ballmann, communications manager for the Southern California Earthquake Center, coordinates the website TsunamiZone.org, which this year registered more than 500,000 participants in evacuation drills and other activities in California, the Caribbean and other tsunami-prone regions. Three major earthquakes rattled New Zealand in one day “We are trying to build a culture of preparedness, in which people can be inspired by seeing and hearing others in their community taking action to be safer from tsunamis,” he said. This training is particularly important in the Cascadia region, where a devastating tsunami could arrive in as little as 10 minutes after an offshore quake. “Everyone living in my community and the coastal areas of every other community from Humboldt County to British Columbia needs to be self-reliant and get themselves to safety on their own,” Dengler said. “It’s a drum that many of us have been beating in the Cascadia region for nearly three decades.”
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Tsunamis
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Semnan–Damghan train collision
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Two trains collided on the main line in Semnan Province between Semnan and Damghan, Iran, on 25 November 2016, resulting in 49 deaths and 103 injuries. [1] There were reported difficulties with the rescue operation due to the incident's remote location 4 km from the nearest station, Haft-Khan,[2] and because only one helicopter could reach the scene immediately to join the rescue operation. [3] It was the deadliest rail disaster in Iran since the Nishapur train disaster in 2004. The accident happened when an express train going from Tabriz to Mashhad stopped because of technical problems associated with cold weather between Semnan and Damghan. The second express train, which was travelling from Semnan to Mashhad on the same track, was ordered to stop by the dispatcher, and the signals turned red. The shift for the dispatcher changed before the technical problems with the first train were resolved. The second train asked for permission to resume its journey which was then approved by the new dispatcher. The second train reached full speed, and, at 7:50 AM, hit the stopped express train from behind. [4] As a result of the collision, four carriages were derailed, two of which caught fire. Forty-seven passengers and crew from both trains were reported dead, and more than 100 were reported injured. [5][6] The injured were airlifted to hospitals in Semnan and Damghan. [5][7][8]
The governor of East Azerbaijan province, where most of the victims were from, announced a day of public mourning in respect for the victims. [9] The Iranian President offered his condolences to the victims' families and asked for an investigation into the accident to find out the causes and discover where the responsibility for the accident lies. [10] Tehran to Mashhad railway line has been closed to allow an investigation. [11]
On 27 November it was announced that Managing Director of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways Mohsen Pourseyyed Aqaei resigned, offering an apology to the nation for the deadly incident. [12]
Media related to Semnan–Damghan train collision at Wikimedia Commons
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Train collisions
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Walkerton E. coli outbreak
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The Walkerton E. coli outbreak was the result of a contamination of the drinking water supply of Walkerton, Ontario, Canada, with E. coli and Campylobacter jejuni bacteria. The water supply was contaminated as a result of improper water treatment following heavy rainfall in late April and early May 2000, that had drawn bacteria from the manure of nearby cattle used to fertilize crops into the shallow aquifer of a nearby well. The first reported case was on May 17. The contamination caused gastroenteritis and sickened more than 2,000 people and resulted in six deaths. Subsequently, Associate Chief Justice of Ontario, Dennis O'Connor launched an inquiry into the outbreak, called the Walkerton Inquiry. Walkerton Public Utilities Commission operators Stan and Frank Koebel, neither of whom had any formal training, were sentenced on December 20, 2004, after pleading guilty to charges of common nuisance stemming from the contaminationStan to one year in jail, and Frank to nine months house arrest. As a result, stricter water treatment guidelines were put in place by the government. Walkerton, Ontario is a small township in the municipality of Brockton, 180 kilometres (110?mi) northwest of Toronto. It serves as the administrative centre of Brockton, into which it was merged in 1999,[1] and as the county seat of Bruce County. The population of Walkerton in 1996 was recorded as 5,036 individuals in an area of 6.4 square kilometres (2.5?sq?mi). [2] At the time of the 2000 events, the town's drinking water was drawn from three chlorinated wells to the west and southwest of the town. [3] The wells were owned and operated by the Walkerton Public Utilities Commission (PUC), which was managed by Stan Koebel and run by foreman Frank Koebel. [4]
In 2000, the Walkerton Public Utilities Commission was under the supervision of two men, brothers Stan and Frank Koebel. [5] Both men had been working for the Walkerton Public Utilities Commission (PUC) since the 1970s, when they were teenagers[6] and their father worked at the PUC. [7] Neither man had formal training in public utility operation or in water management, but by 2000, both had been promoted to management positions on the basis of their experience. Both brothers carried certification as class 3 water distribution system operators, licences obtained through a grandfathering program run by the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) and based on their work experience in their positions. Though Ontario law required that water systems operators receive 40 hours of continuing education per year, Stan Koebel interpreted this to include activities only marginally related to water systems, such as CPR certification, and as a result neither brother used continuing education time to gain or maintain expertise in water safety. [6]
As a result of their lack of formal training and their overseeing themselves, the Koebel brothers were relatively uninformed about water safety. Both later testified that they were not familiar with sections of the Ontario Drinking Water Standards documentation (ODWS) that dealt with tasks they needed to be aware of to do their jobs adequately: manager Stan Koebel had not read the section of the ODWS about identifying contaminated water, while foreman Frank Koebel had not read the chapter on chemical testing of water for safety purposes. Neither man had more than a passing familiarity with E. coli or the danger the bacteria posed to water systems, nor with chlorination standards and best practices. [6]
The wells that drew water for Walkerton were known as Well 5, Well 6, and Well 7, with Well 5 being both the southernmost and the closest to the residential portion of the township. [3] Well 5, drawing water from depths of 5.5 to 5.8 metres (18.0 to 19.0?ft) and 7.0 to 7.3 metres (23.0 to 24.0?ft) through soft limestone, was brought online to the Walkerton water system in 1978, following a hydrological evaluation commissioned by the PUC. Because Well 5's aquifer drew partially from spring-fed, gravel-soiled zones that were prone to absorbing surface runoff, the hydrological evaluation recommended that Well 5 be monitored regularly to ensure that water was being drawn from lower well depths rather than higher ones. It also recommended that land usage in the immediate area of the well be limited in light of agricultural waste runoff being detectable in the well's water. Neither of these recommendations was implemented as conditions of operation when Well 5 received a Certificate of Approval in 1979. Multiple subsequent tests on the well between 1979 and 2000 continued to conclude that due to the shallow depth at which Well 5 was drilled and the tendency of its water level and makeup to be directly affected by surface runoff, caution toward contamination levels in the well was advisable. [8]
Wells 6 and 7 were drilled more deeply and drew from areas of land with significantly less fractured bedrock than well 5. [9]
In 2000, Ontario law indicated that in a community the size of Walkerton, at least thirteen water samples per month should be submitted for microbiological testing, with the samples being drawn from "the point at which the treated water enters the distribution system". [10] A longstanding standard at the Walkerton PUC, however, was to comply with an earlier governmental requirement of nine samples per month. [11] Employees were instructed to collect four weekly samples from each of the three wells that served Walkerton. [12] This meant that even in an ideal month, the PUC typically submitted one fewer sample than required by law; in practice, it was more common for eight or nine samples to be submitted than for thirteen to be. [11] In addition, the samples that were submitted often had their points of origin mislabelled; for the sake of convenience, testing employees might draw two samples from one location but label the bottles as having come from two locations, or draw a water sample from the water supply of their own home rather than from within distribution points of the system. As a result, not all water sources were being tested adequately, and there was little regularity to which ones were tested when. [12] Multiple Ministry of the Environment (MOE) documents dating to throughout the 1990s note that Walkerton's sampling practices were lacking. Walkerton was placed on a list of non-compliant municipalities in 1997, but removed shortly thereafter after assurances from Stan Koebel that compliance would improve. Nevertheless, a 1998 inspection verified that eight or nine samples were still the standard of collection in Walkerton. The PUC was again warned about noncompliance, and again Stan Koebel agreed to improve testing practices. [11]
MOE reports throughout the 1990s also noted that the PUC was inadequately chlorinating water that ran through the Walkerton system. Best practices dictated that chlorine residual levels after fifteen minutes of contact between the chlorine and the water be maintained at 0.5?mg/L, with that level verified through daily testing; this would indicate that the water was being adequately purified of potentially harmful microorganisms. Inspections of the Walkerton system in 1991, 1995, and 1998 showed chlorine residual levels in the Walkerton system of between 0.12?mg/L and 0.4?mg/L, with a mean level of 0.27?mg/L. According to the later Walkerton Inquiry, "Stan Koebel testified that he generally set the chlorinator to slightly less than 0.5 mg/L and that Frank Koebel would lower it to approximately 0.3 mg/L several times a month." Both men felt that Walkerton water was adequately pure and safe without a 0.5?mg/L chlorine residualthey were known to willingly drink raw water from the wellsand they had received complaints from community members about system water tasting overly chlorinated. [13] The PUC's evaluation of chlorine residual levels was typically performed weekly, rather than daily, and actual testing was often eschewed in favour of visually inspecting the "bubble" on the chlorinator for a "guesstimate" of the residual. These "guesstimates" would be noted in the PUC's daily operating sheets as if they were actual tested levels. When actual testing was performed, the 15-minute timeframe of the test was often cut short, resulting in higher-than-reality chlorine residual readings. [14]
Fecal coliform and E. coli testing on Well 5 between 1990 and 2000 showed ongoing deterioration in the quality of water from the well. [8] In the mid-1990s, a provision for more intensive monitoring of wells susceptible to groundwater contamination was added to the Ontario Drinking Water Objectives (ODWO); however, the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) failed to apply this provision to reclassifying existing wells. As a result, despite tests repeatedly showing that Well 5 was prone to contamination, it did not have any contamination alarms or emergency shut-off mechanisms. [8] April 2000 sampling done on water from Wells 5 and 6 showed fecal coliform present in Well 5's water, both raw and treated, but not in Well 6's. Well 7 was not running during this time period and was not tested.
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Disease Outbreaks
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FBI, KPD searching for Knoxville bank robbery suspect
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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Knoxville Police Department are searching for a suspect responsible for a bank robbery. According to a release from the FBI, a suspect entered the FSNB bank located inside Walmart at 3051 Kinzel Way in Knoxville around 2:49 p.m. Friday, April 9. The suspect approached the bank tellers and handed them a note demanding money. The tellers complied with the demands and then the suspect left the bank driving a dark green Honda Accord. The suspect is described as a Black man with a medium to large build. He is believed to be in his 40s or 50s and was between five-foot-10 and six-foot-two. “He was wearing a long-sleeve camouflage shirt, a gray ballcap with a “W” on the front, sunglasses, dark-colored pants, white/gray gardening gloves, black boots, and a royal blue face covering. He was also in possession of a yellow bag, which he kept underneath his arm during the robbery,” the release states. If you know this person, or have any information on his whereabouts, you are asked to call the FBI’s Knoxville, Tennessee Field Office at 865-544-0751 or submit a tip online at https://tips.fbi.gov.
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Bank Robbery
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Aeroflot Flight 6263 crash
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Aeroflot Flight 6263 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Krasnodar International Airport to Perm International Airport, with stopovers in Volgograd, Saratov, and Kazan. [1][2] Shortly before the flight was scheduled to land in Perm on 21 January 1973, the aircraft entered a downward spiral and crashed in Bolshesosnovsky District approximately 91 km (57 mi; 49 nmi) from Perm International Airport, its intended destination. Of the 39 passengers and crew on board the aircraft, four survived the initial crash; however, all survivors had died by the time rescuers arrived at the scene. The aircraft involved in the accident was an Antonov An-24B with registration CCCP-46276. The aircraft first flew in 1967. [1]
Approximately 15 minutes before the aircraft was due to land in Perm, at an altitude of 5,400 metres (17,700 ft), the aircraft entered a downward spiral, reaching approximately 1,000 kilometres per hour (620 mph; 540 kn). [1] The aircraft subsequently broke up due to high g-forces at an altitude of approximately 2,700 metres (8,900 ft). The fuselage came to rest in an inverted position on deep snow in Bolshesosnovsky District, approximately 91 km (57 mi; 49 nmi) from Perm. [2] Four of the 39 passengers and crew on board initially survived the crash; however, all of the initial survivors had died of exposure to the cold by the time rescuers arrived at the scene. [1]
Investigators were unable to conclusively determine the cause of the crash. Some signs of a missile explosion were found, such as dots of green paint that were not from the aircraft. However, the Ministry of Defence denied that there had been any exercises in the area at the time of the crash. [1]
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Air crash
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The emir of Qatar received a hero’s welcome in Gaza on Tuesday
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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The emir of Qatar received a hero’s welcome in Gaza on Tuesday, becoming the first head of state to visit the Palestinian territory since the Islamist Hamas seized control of the coastal strip five years ago. The Israeli Foreign Ministry condemned the visit, saying Qatar has chosen to support a terror organization.
In a speech at Gaza’s Islamic University, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani urged Hamas and the rival Fatah faction to put aside their differences.
“Why are you staying divided?” he said. “There are no peace negotiations, and there is no clear strategy of resistance and liberation. Why shouldn’t brothers sit together and reconcile?”
The visit of Al Thani was called “historic and courageous” by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who greeted and embraced the sheikh on his arrival in Gaza. The visit “has broken the political and economic blockade of the Gaza Strip,” Haniyeh said. “This visit proves Gaza is not alone.”
However, the emir canceled a planned address to the Palestinians in Gaza City’s main soccer stadium at the last moment Tuesday afternoon.
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Diplomatic Visit
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Carbon monoxide poisoning sends seven to Salem Hospital
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. seek to previous 12… 6 seek to 10%, 20% … 60% WOODBURN, OR (KPTV) – Seven people were in the hospital Sunday night with carbon monoxide poisoning, according to Woodburn Fire Chief Joe Budge.
KPTV file image
"Just got off a conference call with PGE and they were calling it a 50-year storm," Budge said.
This leaves many people to rely on propane and generators for heat and power. However, relying on these can lead to tragic accidents.
"So, we had three adults and four children get transported to Salem Hospital. They had carbon monoxide poisoning. They were doing some cooking with a propane cooker inside the house," Budge said.
Budge said those seven people were all unconscious when first responders arrived. He said the children were revived on the scene, but two of the three adults were in critical condition at last check.
He said these accidents are more common when people are without power. On Sunday alone, Woodburn fire responded to three carbon monoxide incidents. Fortunately, the other two were not as serious.
"People don’t understand that that does produce - carbon monoxide is odorless, tasteless. They won’t know it’s being produced until it’s too late," he said.
If you are relying on propane and generators as you wait for your power to be restored, Budge offers some advice for how to avoid an accident like this one:
"If you’re cooking with anything with an open flame it needs to be outside, it can’t be indoors and if you’re running a generator, make sure it’s away from the house and well ventilated," Budge said.
Budge said because carbon monoxide is odorless, you should keep an eye out for symptoms like a headache. If you do experience that after using propane or a generator incorrectly, he said ventilate the area and call 911.
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Mass Poisoning
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Downeast Flight 46 crash
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Downeast Airlines Flight 46 was a scheduled airline service in the United States from Boston's Logan International Airport to Rockland, Maine operated by Downeast Airlines. On May 30, 1979 a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter operating the flight crashed during a nonprecision approach to Rockland's Knox County Regional Airport. [1] All but one of the 18 people on board were killed. [2] The cause of the accident was controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) after the failure of the flight crew to stop the aircraft's descent below the minimum descent altitude for the non-precision approach at Knox County airport. [1] The investigation into the accident looked into the airline's corporate culture as a contributing factor to the crash; this was the first time an investigation took this approach to an air crash. The crash of Flight 46 is currently the deadliest to have occurred in the state of Maine. [3] At the time of the crash, the crew had descended the Twin Otter below the minimum descent altitude in order to see the runway in heavy fog. [4]
There was poor visibility around Rockland on the night of the crash. [3][4] Fog was extremely common at Knox County Regional Airport because of its position on a peninsula in Penobscot Bay. [4] The weather observer at the airport used markers to the north and west of the airport to determine visibility, but approaches were from the south to the airport's Runway 3. [4] The approach path was over the Atlantic Ocean, and fog is often thicker over the sea than over land. [4]
At the time, Runway 3 had a set of flashing strobe lights leading to the runway, which could be activated by either the flight crew or the company agent stationed at the airport. [4]
The airline was established by Robert Stenger in the 1960s. [3] Originally, Stenger flew, refueled and loaded passenger luggage onto the aircraft, and his wife would sell tickets. [3] As the airline grew, he hired more pilots and acquired more equipment, but found himself ill-prepared to manage staff. [3] In addition, the airline had trouble recruiting pilots with experience of flying in the bad weather frequently found in Maine. [4] Retired Rockland Police Chief Alfred Ockenfels, who flew for Downeast, said, "Stenger was a guy that didn’t suffer fools gladly; he barked at you...but he never told anyone to go below the [altitude] minimums." Some pilots for the airline felt that Stenger took any delay or problem as a personal attack, or an attack against the company. [3] Around the time of the crash, several senior pilots had left the company due to Stenger's management style. [4]
Although the Company operations manual expressed the need for coordination between the Captain and First Officer during flight, duties were not clearly distributed between the pilot in command and first officer. [4] Pilots for the airline received minimal training, and some deadhead flights marked as training time did not actually include any training. [4]
The aircraft involved in the accident, a twin-engine turboprop, was known to have a right engine that ran hotter and used more fuel in flight than the left engine. In addition to the high fuel flow and oil temperature in the right engine, the aircraft had poor cockpit lighting at night. Observation flights by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators found that errors in flap settings due to poor lighting were common on Twin Otters during night flights. The area around the flap control overhead was not illuminated; and the flap position indicator on the windscreen center post was poorly illuminated to the point of being barely visible. Some of the lights in the engine gauges had been incorrectly replaced with red, instead of white bulbs, making the gauges hard to see. Pilots had requested the maintenance crew standardize on one color of light bulb, but this had not been done at the time of the accident. Among Downeast pilots, there was discussion of the first officer's altimeter sticking and indicating as much as a 100 ft (30m) difference in altitude compared to the pilot's altimeter during descent and ascent. There was no formal record of the altimeter problem in the aircraft's logbooks, but investigators were told that it had been checked during an inspection in the past with no defects found. [4]
At the time of the crash, the captain, James Merryman, was the chief pilot of the airline and was responsible for recruiting, selecting and training new pilots for the airline. He had 17 years experience as a pilot, but less than a year's experience as a chief pilot. His friends and family told investigators that in the weeks before the crash, he was exhibiting symptoms of extreme stress. The First Officer, George Hines, had been with the airline for two months and had only flown single-engine aircraft before joining Downeast. He was reported to have had problems with instrument approaches in the past, including excessive rates of descent. Examination of the crew members' bodies after the crash determined that the First Officer was likely flying at the time of the crash, as he had suffered a broken thumb. [4]
Of the 16 passengers and 2 aircrew aboard the flight, all but one perished in the crash. Sixteen-year-old John McCafferty was returning from Florida and his parents were waiting for him at the Owls Head Airport. Seated in the rear of the plane, McCafferty briefly saw trees through the fog just before the crash. After impact he was able to crawl from the wreckage with a broken arm and leg. He also had his scalp torn from his forehead. Thirty years later McCafferty still had nightmares relating it to post-traumatic stress. "Nobody wanted that crash to happen. It’s unfortunate that it did. It changed the lives of a lot of people," he said. "It’s an awful feeling. I sometimes feel that I’m being haunted. Like there are people around me sometimes that I don’t see. There is a God, I can tell you that. "[3]
The crash was featured on an episode of the American television program Why Planes Crash, broadcast on The Weather Channel.
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Air crash
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1996 Air Africa crash
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The 1996 Air Africa crash occurred on 8 January when an overloaded Air Africa Antonov An-32B aircraft, wet leased from Moscow Airways and bound for Kahemba Airport, overshot the runway at N'Dolo Airport in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) after failing to take off and ploughed into Kinshasa's Simbazikita street market. Although four of the aircraft's six crew survived, between 225 and 348 fatalities and around 253 serious injuries occurred on the ground. After decades of conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa, the air transport business is complex and often illegal. As Johan Peleman explained:
The relationship between the charterers, who operate the plane, the shipping agent who organises the delivery for his clients and the company that actually owns the plane, is often very complex. This makes it difficult to see which of the contracting parties is actually responsible for the illegal aspects of the transactions. The Antonov that crashed in Kinshasa in January 1996 was operated by African Air. The company had rented the plane and crew from Scibe CMMJ, the company of Bemba Saolona. Scibe's Belgium based sales agent had leased the plane to the company in Zaïre. The Belgian company in turn had contracted with Moscow Airways. [2]
It has been reported that this flight was carrying weapons to UNITA:
Scibe Airlift, an airline owned by Bemba Saolona and (at least in 1985) Mobutu himself (Forbes, 18 November 1985), was also found to be transporting arms to UNITA when, in January 1996, an Antonov 32 crashed on take-off from Kinshasa en route to Angola, killing an estimated 370 people (Agence France Presse, 10 January 1996). The aircraft and crew, chartered by African Air from Scibe, had, in turn, been leased from Moscow Airways through Scibe's sales agent, Scibe CMMJ, in Ostend (The Washington Post, 21 March 1997). [3]
While attempting to take off fully fuelled and overloaded from N'Dolo Airport's short runway, the An-32B did not achieve sufficient speed to bring its nose up, yet began to lift. It crashed into the open-air Simbazikita produce market, full of shacks, pedestrians and cars, and its full fuel load ignited. The number of casualties cited varies from 225 (per the manslaughter charges) to 348. [4]
The first injured went to the Mama Yemo Hospital (now Kinshasa General Hospital), which was quickly overwhelmed. Two other hospitals took the additional victims. A worker with the International Committee of the Red Cross, Vincent Nicod, stated that 217 bodies were found at the market, in addition to 32 more bodies possibly already at morgues within the city. [5]
Mobutu and Saolona both attended the funeral on 10 January 1996 at the Protestant Cathédrale du Centenaire. [6]
The Russian pilots, Nicolai Kazarin and Andrei Gouskov, were charged and convicted of manslaughter, each receiving the maximum two-year sentence. At trial, they admitted they were using borrowed clearance papers from Scibe Airlift, that they knew the flight was illegal, and that the flight was actually bound for Angola. Scibe Airlift and African Air paid fines of US$1.4 million to the families and the injured. [7]
The underlying hazards of overloaded aircraft overflying densely populated areas were not addressed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and on 4 October 2007 a virtual repeat occurred in the 2007 Africa One Antonov An-26 crash at Ndjili International Airport. [8][a fact or an opinion?]
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Air crash
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Lionel Messi nominated for IFFHS Men's World Best Playmaker 2021 award
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Argentina and Paris Saint-Germain superstar, Lionel Messi is widely considered as the greatest player in the history of the sport, with the striker winning numerous professional and individual honours during his career so far, including a record six Ballon d'Or awards.
Messi is on the verge of winning another honour as the striker has been nominated for the IFFHS Men’s World Best Playmaker 2021 award, joining the likes of Real Madrid midfielder Luka Modric and Barcelona midfielder Pedri in the shortlist for the award.
This is not the first time that the 34-year-old has been nominated for the honour as he has won the award four times so far in his career. However, he has not had the best of times this year for the French giants, failing to register an assist for his new club following his move as he has not played much as a playmaker.
Leo Messi is nominated for the Best Playmaker in the world for 2021, presented by the International Federation of History and Statistics (IFFHS). ?? pic.twitter.com/L9WdYeR0cc
The Argentinian icon did have notable success in this area of play with Barcelona last season and in the 2021 Copa America tournament with Argentina and it will be interesting to see whether he picks up his fifth such honour.
IFFHS Men's World Best Playmaker 2021 - List of candidates 1) Lionel Messi (Argentina, Barcelona/PSG) 2) Pedri (Spain, Barcelona)3) Kevin De Bruyne (Belgium, Manchester City) 4) Luka Modric (Croatia, Real Madrid) 5) Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (Denmark, Tottenham Hotspur)6) Mason Mount (England, Chelsea)7) Sergio Oliveira (Portugal, Porto) 8) Bruno Fernandes (Portugal, Manchester United)
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Awards ceremony
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RAAF contamination: Defence admits it should have tested Katherine water for chemicals sooner
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The Department of Defence has told residents in Katherine it should have acted sooner to test local bore water, thought to have been contaminated by firefighting chemicals once used at a RAAF base Tindal.
Deputy Secretary for Defence Estate and Infrastructure Steve Grzeskowiak answered questions from the public about the chemicals — collectively known as PFAS — at a meeting in Katherine last night.
"It's easy to be wise after the event," Mr Grzeskowiak said.
"If we know what we knew now we would have definitely been more alert to this than we were."
He admitted Defence was still trying to understand the environmental movements of the chemicals, which was the reason testing was delayed.
Mr Grzeskowiak said it was natural for people to be worried about the chemicals, which have been linked to firefighting foams.
"[I] would love to be able to stand here and say it's all OK, but I can't.
"When I talk to the medical people, and I talk to the scientists, and we look at global information we don't know enough about these chemicals to be definitive one way or the other," he told a room packed with residents.
On November 8 Defence released a complex report showing its test results.
For now, Defence is supplying 11 mostly rural properties near RAAF Base Tindal that use bore water with alternative drinking water.
Mr Grzeskowiak said Defence expected to supply many more properties with alternative drinking water, and passed on Defence contact information to residents.
"I am aware we've had delays of a few days for some of those people, we've met some of those people and we're solving that problem now," he said.
Defence and the Northern Territory Department of Health have both said the town's main water supply, which is largely river water, is safe to drink.
It is bore water from aquifers near RAAF Base Tindal that is contaminated.
Residents Nicholas and Shannon deBeer live just south of Katherine, and had their water tested for chemicals at their own expense.
"We got our results and they're three times higher than what's acceptable," Mr deBeer said.
"We then informed Defence, and they are stepping up — they're supplying us with water at the moment."
Mrs deBeer said she feared for her children's health, and wanted to see the full-scale environmental investigation for Katherine fast-tracked.
"We need to drink water to stay alive, and our drinking water is contaminated," she said.
"I think they can pool some more resources and get onto it more quickly."
At the meeting Defence would not confirm to residents whether or not they would be reimbursed for blood tests they had done.
Defence stated that drinking contaminated water was the main cause of elevated levels of PFAS in the body.
Mr Grzeskowiak said Defence was providing the water as a precaution, and there was no consistent evidence that exposure to PFAS chemicals in humans caused any negative health impacts.
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Environment Pollution
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Malaysia's Petronas says Baram oil output to resume in Q3 after ship accident
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SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Malaysia’s state energy firm Petronas said on Monday it expects to resume full production at its Baram facilities, off the state of Sarawak on Borneo island, in the third quarter after halting output in October following an accident. Petronas declared force majeure at its Miri crude oil terminal on Oct. 29 as a result of the ship collision on Oct. 27 at the Baram field, a company spokesman told Reuters. Two crew of the Malaysian offshore support vessel MV Dayang Topaz died after their ship rammed into the Baram B oil platform in bad weather. “Rectification work is currently being carried out at the Baram facilities, which are expected to resume full production in Q3 2021,” it said. Separately, Petrofac, the operator of the Cendor terminal, offshore Peninsular Malaysia, declared force majeure at the hub on Dec. 4 due to a “technical malfunction”, Petronas said. “An investigation is ongoing and the Cendor terminal is currently on partial production mode,” Petronas said, without providing a timeline for when the terminal can resume full output.
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Shipwreck
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White Draw Fire
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White Draw Fire was a wildfire in South Dakota, United States, that started on Friday, June 29, 2012. [1] The fire burned a total area of 14 square miles (8640 acres), mainly the U.S. Forest Service land. [2] The fire did not harm any civilian population or livestock; however, a military C-130 MAFFS air tanker crashed in the Black Hills during firefighting. [3][4]
The fire was sparked by a vehicle 80 miles southwest of Rapid City on Friday afternoon. [3][5] On the first day, it moved five miles due to wind gusts. [6] It was fueled by dry bush and dry trees. [7]
By Sunday, the fire was 30% contained. [6] The fire was primarily burning U.S. Forest Service land, and five homes were asked to evacuate. [3] On July 5, the fire was 80% contained and had burned almost 9000 acres. [2] The fire was fully contained by July 6 due to the efforts of 400 firefighters, helicopters, aircraft, and rainfall. [1] The fire did not harm any people or livestock but affected some ranches. [8][2] On July 1, an airforce C130 firefighter aircraft operated by North Carolina National Guard crashed with a crew of six, after it got stuck in a microburst, a small and intense thunderstorm. [3][9]
On Sunday, July 1, a military C-130 MAFFS air tanker crashed in the Black Hills while fighting the White Draw Fire. [4] The plane crashed at 6:00 p.m. after making two drops of retardant on the fire. [3] The cause of the crash was a microburst. [9] Four out of the six-member crew were killed. The four killed in the crash included Lt. Col. Paul Mikeal of Mooresville, Master Sgt. Robert Cannon of Charlotte, Maj. Joe McCormick of Belmont, and Captain Major Select Ryan Scott David of Boone. Immediately after the crash, a helicopter landed and took two survivors to a Rapid City hospital. [10][11][12][13][2][5][8][4]
On July 1, 2013, a memorial site was dedicated to honoring the four people who died in the Modular Airborne Firefighting System (MAFFS) C-130 air tanker crash in White Draw Fire in 2012. The memorial site is located near the point of origin, approximately 6 miles northeast of Edgemont on Highway 18. [14] It consists of a gravel parking area with room for about six vehicles, and it has two interpretive panels. [15]
The Black Hills National Forest management ordered a temporary closure of the White Draw Fire to limit the use of land by the public. The residents, persons with permits, people involved in firefighting activities were exempted from the closure. [1]
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Fire
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Predicting tsunamis with the world’s fastest supercomputer
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The model can also be run in seconds on ordinary PCs, making it easier to build practical, real-time systems. | Photo Credit: AFP (Subscribe to our Today's Cache newsletter for a quick snapshot of top 5 tech stories. Click here to subscribe for free.) When the tragic 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit Japan a decade ago, causing a tsunami that flooded the eastern coast, the early warning system (EWS) relied on dart buoys in the Pacific Ocean to detect tsunami and alert the country. That system had grossly underestimated the size of the wave to 3-metre high. But, the actual wave reached 50 metres in some places, claiming over 20,000 lives. The mistaken forecast shows that accurate information is required to predict and mitigate such calamities efficiently. One way to better predict outcomes is by using artificial intelligence (AI). Japan’s Fujitsu Laboratories has developed an AI model to predict tsunami flooding in coastal areas in real-time. The technology company used Fugaku, the world’s fastest supercomputer, to develop the model. Also Read | This drone can smell obstacles using live moth antenna A team of researchers generated training data for 20,000 possible tsunami scenarios based on high-resolution tsunami simulations, using the supercomputer. They created the AI model using these data sets. In the event of an earthquake, inputting tsunami waveform data observed offshore into the model help predict flooding in coastal areas before the wave makes landfall. This will make it possible to accurately and rapidly obtain flooding forecasts for specific areas and can also offer critical insights into the effects of localised waves on surrounding infrastructure like buildings and roads, according to the company. The system is also said to make evacuation measures more efficient. Also Read | NIIST develops alternative to single-use plastic The model can also be run in seconds on ordinary PCs, making it easier to build practical, real-time systems, which previously required supercomputers, Fujitsu Laboratories said. Fujitsu developed the Fugaku supercomputer at the RIKEN Center for Computational Science in Japan in 2014, and is said to officially start operating this year. In June last year, the supercomputer was termed the world’s fastest, carrying out 2.8 times more calculations per second than IBM’s machine which stood second in the Top500 list. To make the metaverse work, some developers say they are going to have to form a set of industry standards similar to those that coalesced around HTML, the open “markup language” that’s been used to structure websites since the 1990s. EU industry chief Thierry Breton criticised the increased lobbying by technology companies over the draft rules and urged lawmakers fighting over the scope of the DSA to step up their deliberations.
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Tsunamis
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National Science Foundation - Where Discoveries Begin
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By reading between the lines of tree rings, U.S. National Science Foundation-funded researchers at the University of Arizona reconstructed what happened in Alaska the year the Laki Volcano erupted half a world away in Iceland. What they learned can help fine-tune future climate predictions. In June, 1783, Laki spewed more sulfur into the atmosphere than any other Northern Hemisphere eruption in the last 1,000 years. The Inuit in North America tell stories about the year summer never arrived. Benjamin Franklin, who was in France at the time, noted the "fog" that descended over much of Europe in the aftermath, and correctly reasoned that it led to an unusually cold winter on the continent. Previous analyses of annual tree rings have shown that the entire 1783 growing season for the spruce trees in Alaska was colder than average. But Julie Edwards, a researcher at UArizona, reasoned that since Laki erupted in June, it doesn't make sense to assume that the entire growing season, which starts in May for the trees, was cooler than normal. Edwards is lead author of a paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research that outlines how she and her collaborators, using an alternative method called quantitative wood analysis, painted a different picture of Alaskan climate that year. What happened to climate half a world away from the eruption reflects a combination of forces -- what the volcano did and natural variability in climate. To understand how volcanoes affect the climate system, the team looked closely at the structure of tree rings to reveal what happened on a finer time scale. Edwards cut a very thin slice of tree ring and dyed it. Using computer software, she calculated the thickness of each of the stained cells. In warm years, the walls of these cells are thickened, and the wood appears darker. In cold years, however, the cell walls are thin, and the wood appears light and less dense. "That suggests a sudden cooling at the end of the growing season, which is a different result than what you'd get by just looking at annual tree-ring width or wood density," said paper co-author Kevin Anchukaitis. "Using this fine-scale analysis, this week-to-week perspective from individual cells, it is possible to explain the previous observation that the entire summer of 1783 was cold in Alaska, and get a better perspective on a truly extreme climate event."
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Volcano Eruption
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Locust plague in East Africa prompts UN to call for international aid
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Government negotiators from nearly 200 countries have adopted a new deal on climate action at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow A locust plague of almost biblical proportions is ravaging Eastern Africa's food bowl, prompting the United Nations to call for international help. Hundreds of millions of the bugs have swarmed into Kenya from Somalia and Ethiopia, creating the worst outbreak of desert locusts there in 70 years. Somalia and Ethiopia have not had an infestation like this in a quarter of a century. It has destroyed farmland and threatened an already vulnerable region with devastating hunger. The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has warned the "unprecedented size and destructive potential" of the swarms could leave millions of people without food. "Even cows are wondering what is happening," Ndunda Makanga, a Kenyan farmer, said. "Corn, sorghum, cowpeas, they have eaten everything." The rose-coloured locusts turn whole trees pink, clinging to branches like quivering ornaments before taking off in hungry, rustling clouds. When rains arrive in March and bring new vegetation across much of the region, the numbers of the fast-breeding locusts could grow 500 times before drier weather in June curbs their spread, the FAO warned. "We must act immediately," The FAO's David Phiri said. About US$70 million ($103 million) is needed to increase aerial pesticide spraying, the only effective way to combat them, the UN says. Last week, Peter Munya, a Kenyan cabinet secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, confirmed the country was deploying three more pesticide spray aircraft to spray some 20,000 litres of the liquid. Speaking on Friday, Mr Munya told local broadcaster Citizen TV that 10 counties were affected, but most of the country's breadbasket was unaffected — except for the south-eastern Kitui county. In a press release issued on Monday, FAO director-general Qu Dongyu said the agency was activating fast-track mechanisms to support governments, warning the situation was now of "international dimensions". "Authorities in the region have already jump-started control activities, but in view of the scale and urgency of the threat, additional financial backing from the international donor community is needed so they can access the tools and resources required to get the job done," Mr Qu said. That will not be easy, especially in Somalia, where parts of the country are in the grip of the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab extremist group. Even a small swarm of the insects can consume enough food for 35,000 people in a single day, Jens Laerke of the UN humanitarian office in Geneva, said. About 70,000 hectares of land in Kenya are already infested. "This is huge," Kipkoech Tale, a migratory pest control specialist with the Kenyan agriculture ministry, said. "I'm talking about over 20 swarms that we have sprayed. We still have more. And more are coming." A single swarm can contain up to 150 million locusts per square kilometre of farmland, an area the size of almost 250 football fields, regional authorities say. One especially large swarm in Kenya's north-east measured 60km long and 40km wide. Kenya needs more spraying equipment to supplement the four planes now flying, Mr Tale said. Ethiopia also has four. They also need a steady supply of pesticides, Francis Kitoo, deputy director of agriculture in Kitui county, said. "The locals are really scared because they can consume everything," Mr Kitoo said. "I've never seen such a big number." A changing climate had contributed to "exceptional" breeding conditions, Nairobi-based climate scientist Abubakr Salih Babiker, said. Migrating with the wind, the locusts can cover up to 150km in a single day. They are now heading toward Uganda and fragile South Sudan, where almost half the country faces hunger as it emerges from civil war. Uganda has not had such an outbreak since the 1960s and is already on alert. The locusts also are moving steadily toward Ethiopia's Rift Valley, the breadbasket for Africa's second-most populous country, according to the UN. "The situation is very bad but farmers are fighting it in the traditional way," Buni Orissa, a resident of Ethiopia's Sidama region, said. "The locusts love cabbage and beans. This may threaten the shaky food security in the region." Even before this outbreak, nearly 20 million people faced high levels of food insecurity across the East African region which has long been challenged by periodic droughts and floods. Numerous desert locust swarms have also been breeding in India, Iran and Pakistan since mid-2019. The FAO said locust breeding in Egypt, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen could also see swarms expand in the coming months.
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Insect Disaster
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COVID-19 spurs rise in hospital mega mergers, finds Kaufman Hall
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The number of hospital and health system mergers and acquisitions saw a sharp decline in the first quarter of the year, but the average transaction size soared, finds new analysis from industry consultant Kaufman Hall. This trend is a reversal from Q1 2020, when COVID-19 first began to take hold in the U.S. In total, there were 13 announced deals in Q1 2021, compared to 29 in 2020. Average seller size by revenue was $676 million due to a pandemic-induced rise in "mega mergers" (involving two companies with over one billion dollars in annual revenue) and transactions with seller revenues between $500 million and $1 billion. The scale of Q1 transactions led to a high number of hospital facilities, 72 total, included in the announced deals. There were a number of notable transactions recorded in the first quarter. OU Health, for example, signed a letter of intent to merge with the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine to create a fully integrated academic health system. And CommonSpirit Health announced the planned sale of 14 hospitals in North Dakota and Minnesota to Essentia Health – one tertiary hospital in Bismarck, North Dakota, and 13 critical access hospitals. Meanwhile, UK HealthCare and King's Daughters Health System announced a joint-venture partnership that will expand access to tertiary-level services for residents of eastern Kentucky and southern Ohio. And Aspirus Health announced its plan to acquire seven hospitals in central and northern Wisconsin from Ascension Health. Average seller size by revenue for Q1 2021, $676 million, is well above historical averages for the first quarter and for recent year-end averages, and is the third highest quarterly figure Kaufman Hall has recorded in the past decade. The average size of the quarter's transactions is also reflected in total transacted revenue for the quarter, which at $8.8 billion is second only to Q1 2018 among historical first-quarter figures. For-profit health systems were the acquirer in two of the 13 announced transactions, academics were the acquirer in three, and religiously sponsored systems were the acquirer in two. Other not-for-profit systems were the acquirer in the remaining six transactions. WHAT'S THE IMPACT? The COVID-19 pandemic has affirmed the importance of transformation and again validated the pursuit of scale. Organizations are seeing new value in diversification, whether across markets or revenue sources. LifePoint's reported pursuit of Ardent Health Services would add more densely populated suburban and urban markets in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas to LifePoint's existing, rural-focused portfolio. In this and similar cases the market activity involves partnerships with health systems that have an established presence in their local markets. The decision to partner with health systems that have an established market presence remains a key driver, as another emerging trend is the significance of local market knowledge. While smaller health systems may not have the financial scale of larger multi-state systems, they may have intellectual bandwidth and an understanding of local issues that can be significant advantages. Partnering with these systems can leverage their knowledge and facilitate growth within local markets. CommonSpirit's and Ascension's transfer of assets to local systems in the upper Midwest ensures the continued vitality of these assets under the management of a more focused and regionally driven operator, the report said. This also allows larger systems with a national presence to reallocate their time, capital and resources to markets they deem essential to their organization's future success. THE LARGER TREND While Q2 data from this year is still incomplete, the second quarter of 2020 saw a slight dip in transaction numbers, with 14 recorded transactions in Q2 2020 as compared to 19 in the same period in 2019. For Q2 2020, the aggregate transaction value was $12.26 billion, compared to $29.31 billion in Q1 and $137.29 billion in the second quarter of 2019. Until June 30, the value of global healthcare M&A was $37.68 billion for 903 deals. Since 2015, global healthcare M&A value has increased in every year except 2017, according to S&P Global. Kaufman Hall anticipates that COVID-19's impact will continue to influence partnership, merger and acquisition activity through the remaining quarters of the year.
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Organization Merge
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After rare Iceland volcano eruption, people rush to catch a glimpse
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Spring began with a bang in southwestern Iceland when a volcano erupted this weekend, after nearly 800 years of dormancy. The flowing lava, hot terrain and mystic cloud cover have attracted plenty of visitors and scientists alike to the Reykjanes Peninsula. The Icelandic Meteorological Office reported that Friday's eruption took place about three miles inland from the coast and did not pose any serious danger to residents in the area. The office said that earthquakes in the region over the last couple of weeks are what set off the eruption. On Saturday, over 500 earthquakes were recorded. The strongest was a recorded 2.8 magnitude, according to the meteorological office. Crowds began to gather throughout the weekend to see the lava flows from a safe distance, take pictures and, in one case, capture drone video of the lava and terrain. One man also cooked and ate hot dogs off the hot terrain near the eruption. While the Icelandic Meteorological Office warned visitors about the potentially hazardous conditions near the site, it linked to a guide from the Icelandic Travel Association with tips about hiking and viewing the eruption. Rescue teams were deployed over the weekend to aid hikers who got lost, according to the meteorological office. One person had to be hospitalized for their injuries. The meteorological experts added that there is no current threat to air quality from the eruption and it will not affect flights, but they will monitor the situation.
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Volcano Eruption
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2% of Elon Musk's wealth could help solve world hunger, says director of UN food scarcity organization
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A small group of ultra-wealthy individuals could help solve world hunger with just a fraction of their net worth, says the director of the United Nations' World Food Programme. Billionaires need to "step up now, on a one-time basis", said David Beasley in an interview on CNN's Connect the World with Becky Anderson that aired Tuesday -- citing specifically the world's two richest men, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk . "$6 billion to help 42 million people that are literally going to die if we don't reach them. It's not complicated," he added. Elon Musk is now worth more than ExxonMobil Tesla chief executive Musk has a net worth of nearly $289 billion , according to Bloomberg, meaning that Beasley is asking for a donation of just 2% of his fortune. The net worth of US billionaires has almost doubled since the pandemic began, standing at $5.04 trillion in October, according to progressive groups Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness . A "perfect storm" of several crises, such as climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic , mean many nations are "knocking on famine's door," Beasley said. Half of the population of Afghanistan -- 22.8 million people -- face an acute hunger crisis, according to a WFP report released Monday. Rampant unemployment and a liquidity crisis means the country is teetering on the edge of a humanitarian crisis and 3.2 million children under the age of five are at risk, the report concluded. David Beasley, director of the United Nations' World Food Program A series of new reports from the Biden administration issued a stark warning last week: The effects of climate change will be wide-reaching and will pose problems for every government. Among the reports, the administration details how climate change is driving migration, the first time the US government is officially recognizing the link between climate change and migration. The WFP has warned about this swell of movement in the past, particularly in the "Dry Corridor" region in Central America. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin wants to build a tourism space station nearly as big as the ISS "For example, take the United States and the region in Central America, the Dry Corridor, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua -- just down in that area alone," said Beasley Tuesday. "We're feeding a lot of people down there and the climate is just changing with hurricanes and flash flooding; it's just devastating." In Ethiopia, the WFP estimates that 5.2 million people are in urgent need of food assistance in the Tigray region, where Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has led a major offensive against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) since last year. Thousands of civilians have since been kille d, while more than 2 million have been displaced. Humanitarian organizations like the WFP have struggled to get supplies to those in need in the region, compounding the crisis. "I don't know where they're getting the food from," said Beasley in the wide-ranging interview. "We're out of fuel. We're out of cash, in terms of paying our people and we are running out of money and we can't get our trucks in." -- Correction: An earlier version of this story's headline incorrectly stated that the director of the UN's food scarcity organization believes 2% of Elon Musk's wealth could solve world hunger. He believes it could help solve world hunger.
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Famine
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Great Tenmei famine
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The Great Tenmei famine (天明の大飢饉, Tenmei no daikikin) was a famine which affected Japan during the Edo period. It is considered to have begun in 1782, and lasted until 1788. It was named after the Tenmei era (1781–1789), during the reign of Emperor Kōkaku. The ruling shoguns during the famine were Tokugawa Ieharu and Tokugawa Ienari. The famine was the deadliest one during the early modern period in Japan. Starting in the 1770s, there was a sharp decline in crop yield in Tōhoku, which is the north-eastern region of Honshū, due to poor and cold weather, so food stocks in rural areas were exhausted. The situation was exacerbated by natural disasters: Mount Iwaki erupted on April 13, 1783 (3rd month, 12th day, in the year Tenmei-3, according to the Japanese calendar), as did Mount Asama on July 6, so volcanic ash was sent down into the atmosphere of Japan. Aside from the direct damage caused by the eruptions, this led to a fall in solar radiation, resulting in cold weather that catastrophically damaged crops. The massive Icelandic Laki eruption of 1783 disrupted weather patterns all over the Northern Hemisphere, and may have worsened matters as well. [original research?] Another cause of the famine was the government's economic policies. During this period, a mercantilist policy was implemented by Tanuma Okitsugu, a minister of the Tokugawa shogunate cabinet. This was intended to commercialize agriculture and thus increase tax income, which was paid in rice. The policy caused economic difficulties for many Hans and led to excessive investment in rice production (which was vulnerable to cold weather) in order to pay the higher taxes. It also resulted in local emergency stores of food becoming depleted. The climatic, volcanic and economic factors combined to result in poor harvests and a lack of emergency stores, which led to skyrocketing rice prices, so serious famine expanded to a national scale as a result. According to Nochi-mi-gusa, written by Genpaku Sugita, approximately twenty thousand people starved to death, mainly in rural areas of the Tōhoku region. However, many local authorities, afraid of being accused of economic mismanagement, did not report the full extent of the damage, so the actual death toll may have been far higher, perhaps even ten times Sugita's estimate. [original research?] The outcome was particularly severe in Mutsu Province, where it was reported that over a hundred thousand people died. [1] Including people who fled the area, Hirosaki (Tsugaru) Han lost almost half of its population. The combined impact of famine and outbreaks of disease resulted in a population decline of more than 920,000 people across Japan between 1780 and 1786. [2]
The effects of the famine can be seen from the census numbers for the years before, during, and after the famine recorded for all of Japan and in the Tohoku region, specifically. [3][4]
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Famine
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PBA Flight 1039 crash
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PBA Flight 1039 was a scheduled passenger flight from Jacksonville International Airport in Jacksonville, Florida, to Tampa International Airport, Florida. On December 6, 1984, the plane crashed upon takeoff at Jacksonville, killing all 13 passengers and crew. Provincetown-Boston Airlines was a regional airline headquartered in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The airline had been grounded on November 10, 1984 for violating federal aviation safety rules, and began returning to service on November 25. Prior to being grounded, the airline carried more passengers than any other commuter airline in the United States. [1]
On December 6, 1984, PBA operated Flight 1039 using an Embraer Bandeirante EMB-110P1 twin-turboprop regional airliner (registration N96PB[2]). The EMB 110 was operated within its designed gross weight and center of gravity limits on the date of the accident. [3]:3 The aircraft was purchased by PBA in October 1981 and operated continuously by PBA until the accident, accumulating 5662 hours of operation and 7,858 cycles by the date of the accident. [3]:51
Flight 1039's captain was hired by PBA in 1974. At the time of the accident, he had accumulated approximately 10,000 hours of flying time, including approximately 400 hours in the EMB 110. The first officer was hired in 1984, and had accumulated approximately 3,000 of flying time, including 500 hours in the EMB 110. [3]:50
PBA Flight 1039 was scheduled to depart Jacksonville at 6:08 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. [a] At 6:12 p.m., Flight 1039 received takeoff clearance and began its takeoff roll down Runway 31. At 6:13 p.m., the EMB 110 climbed above the departure end of Runway 31, Flight 1039 was told to switch to the departure control frequency, which he acknowledged with "OK, so long. "[3]:2
Thirty seconds later, witnesses saw the aircraft in a steep descent. The horizontal stabilizer, elevators, tail cone assembly, and part of the ventral fin separated from the aircraft while in flight. At 6:14 p.m., the EMB 110 crashed approximately 7,800 feet (2,400 m) beyond the end of Runway 31. [3]:2,4 The aircraft was destroyed by the impact and a post-crash fire; all 11 passengers and both crew members were killed by "severe impact forces which exceeded human tolerance. "[3]:2,16
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the accident. The NTSB found the horizontal stabilizer had separated from the EMB 110 in one piece, landing 1,100 feet short of the primary crash site. The tail cone and ventral fin separated along with the horizontal stabilizer. [3]:4–5 The left and right elevators separated from the horizontal stabilizer due to fractures in hinge brackets typical of overstress separations. [3]:9 As a result, the NTSB's investigation and analysis focused substantially on determining the sequence of, and the reasons for, the structural separations. [3]:27
The hypotheses considered by the NTSB included:
The lack of a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) aboard the EMB 110 hampered the NTSB's ability to investigate the accident. At the time of the Flight 1039 accident, the Federal Aviation Administration had issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would require installation of CVRs/FDRs on multi-engine turboprop passenger aircraft, but no such rule was finalized yet. [3]:40 The NTSB concluded that "installation of an FDR and CVR would have provided significant clues regarding the cause of this accident and remedied action needed to prevent recurrence. "[3]:45
Based on its investigations, the NTSB was able to determine multiple potential causes of an elevator control system or elevator trim system malfunction, any of which could have led the crew to take corrective actions that would result in an overstressed elevator control rod, and ultimately separation of the elevators and horizontal stabilizer. The NTSB issued its final report on June 24, 1986. In its report, it made the following statement regarding the probable cause of the accident:[3]
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was a malfunction of either the elevator control system or elevator trim system, which resulted in an airplane pitch control problem. The reaction of the flightcrew to correct the pitch control problem overstressed the left elevator control rod, which resulted in asymmetrical elevator deflection and overstress failure of the horizontal stabilizer attachment structure. The Safety Board was not able to determine the precise problem with the pitch control system. The crash was the third in six months for PBA, which had just recently resumed service after its grounding by the FAA for safety violations. [4] The crash shook public confidence in PBA, and customer bookings dropped by 75 percent. [5] After filing for bankruptcy, the airline was purchased by People Express in 1986. This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Transportation Safety Board.
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Air crash
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Bank robbery triggers police manhunt
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Police are examining footage from security cameras to try and identify a man who robbed a bank in Goulburn yesterday morning. Officers say the man was wearing sun glasses, a yellow bandana and a baseball cap as he approached a teller at the National Australia Bank on Auburn Street. Police say he was carrying a handgun, but no-one was injured in the incident. The offender is described as being of stocky build and having a dark complexion.
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Bank Robbery
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While Hollywood has brought us tons of romance as of late, with many couples coming together, breakups and divorces are also in the mix
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While Hollywood has brought us tons of romance as of late, with many couples coming together, breakups and divorces are also in the mix.
There’s nothing stranger than getting updates from a friend about an ex. Celebrities get most of their information about what past partners are up to from the paparazzi and press. In the age of celebrity, fans and foes alike can scroll Instagram to find out who their ex is canoodling with.
Regular folk often avoid their exes like the plague, while celebrities are often asked to share their feelings about past romantic partners during interviews. Stars are often surprised with information about who their ex is dating, engaged to, and more. Once children are involved, most celebs and non-famous folk try to keep things amicable for the sake of the kids.
While Hollywood has brought us tons of romance as of late, with many couples coming together, breakups and divorces are also in the mix. It’s estimated that 40 to 50 percent of American marriages end in divorce, so common sense dictates that celebrity relationships don't always last. These relationships are just a lot more public. Sometimes, they are a lot messier, too, since there's typically oodles of cash to go to court over.
Marriage is tough work for everyone - add in the pressures of fame and grueling filming and travel requirements, and things get even more difficult.
Today, we're going to share updates on the careers, lives, and romantic interests of these 13 recently divorced couples.
13 Adele And Simon Konecki
Some of Adele’s best music has been inspired by lost love. After she announced the end of her relationship with Simon Konecki, everyone was wondering what was next, especially since it looked like the singer had retired.
Multiple sources close to the singer told People Magazine , “She talks about last year as a very difficult year, and she’s said in the past that creating new music is almost like therapy. You can tell that she is ready to share with her fans.”
Others can’t stop talking about Adele being spotted on a beach vacation with Harry Styles. James Corden was also on this vacation, but people are sensing the love connection between Styles and Adele.
12 Solange Knowles And Alan Ferguson
Work has been a focus for Solange Knowles since her recent divorce from Alan Ferguson. Solange, who was married and divorced (and the mother of a child) by the time she was 21 (and married and divorced again by 27) says she’s learned a lot, post-marriage number two.
Solange has started her own record label and she's the Creative Director of Puma. She said, "Everyone talks about how, in your 30s, all of these growing pains transition into wisdom and you feel more self-assured and confident. But I think I had a bit of a jump-start on that at 27."
11 Bradley Cooper And Irina Shayk
Since his split from Irina Shayk, Bradley Cooper has spent most of his time working and focusing on raising his daughter. Brad and Irina weren't legally married, but they were a long-term couple who are well worth a mention here.
Cooper said, “I guess having a child, and having a family of my own—which is a miracle and something I've always dreamt of—has opened me up even more, I guess, to the day, and to be present."
While Cooper has said that he’s not dating yet, Shayk was spotted in New York City with a ‘mystery man’ just weeks after her relationship with Bradley ended.
10 Miley Cyrus And Liam Hemsworth
After over a decade of on-and-off romance, and a marriage that lasted less than a year, both Miley and Liam have moved on. Liam has a movie in post-production and was recently spotted introducing his family to his model girlfriend, Gabriella Brooks. That happened this past December.
While Hemsworth has been low-key about his relationship with the Australian model, people are speculating that things are serious. Miley has been more public about her post-divorce relationships and is currently romantically connected to Cody Simpson, although there have been recent rumors of a breakup.
Miley is currently working on a short film, Fly On The Wall, that is in pre-production.
9 Sara Gilbert And Linda Perry
After nearly six years as a married couple, Gilbert and Perry separated this winter. The two are working together to co-parent their 5-year old son, Rhodes, and Gilbert’s two kids from a previous marriage, Levi Hank and Sawyer Jane.
The divorce comes shortly after Gilbert stepped back from some of her hosting work on The Talk in order to focus on her family.
8 Lady Gaga And Christian Carino
While Gaga and her ex, Christian Carino, were engaged, rather than married, their split still rocked the headlines. For the first time since they called off the wedding, Gaga got real with the audience during a Las Vegas residency show.
Before performing “Someone to Watch Over Me”, the singer lamented that the last time she sang the song, she had a ring on her finger. She showed her fans her ringless finger.
Just a few days ago (in Feb. 2020), Gaga announced that she’s dating someone new, and he is a tech investor named Michael Polansky.
7 Colin Firth And Livia Giuggioli
After 22 years of marriage, Colin Firth and Livia Giuggioli decided to throw in the towel. While the split is amicable, as the two continue to co-parent their children, people weren’t all that surprised that their marriage didn't last.
In 2018, Colin and Livia, who have generally been notoriously private about their relationship, revealed that Livia had an extramarital affair with an Italian journalist while the two were separated.
A source close to them said, “Things never really came around for them (after that). No matter what was decided when they stayed together after her affair, nothing could erase that betrayal. It was time to move on, even though they had a solid family relationship and really wanted to save it.”
Colin is currently focused on work, filming a movie called Operation Mincemeat.
6 Christina Hendricks And Geoffrey Arend
After 10 years of marriage, Hendricks and Arend announced their split in a joint statement on Instagram, saying, “Twelve years ago we fell in love and became partners. We joined our two amazing families, had countless laughs, made wonderful friends and were blessed with incredible opportunities. Today we take our next step together, but on separate paths. We will always be grateful for the love we’ve shared and will always work together to raise our two beautiful dogs.”
Hendricks is gearing up for the release of season three of her show, Good Girls, while Arend has just wrapped his work on the TV Series, Madam Secretary.
5 Ian Ziering And Erin Ludwig
This fall, Ian Ziering announced his separation from centerfold wife, Erin Ludwig, after nine years of marriage. The split has been amicable and Ziering was quick to dismiss claims to the contrary.
Ziering said, “It has come to my attention that things are being written and said to sensationalize a situation that is simply not sensational. Any quote attributed to me is completely false and solely meant by haters to undermine our intention to continue to get along, protect and raise our daughters, and be examples of successful co-parents.”
No projects are currently listed for Ziering in the immediate future, following the 90210 re-boot.
4 Jillian Michaels And Heidi Rhoades
Everyone’s favorite body shamer, Jillian Michaels, has announced her split from long-time partner and co-parent, Heidi Rhoades. After spending nine years together, things have ended and the two work on co-parenting their two children.
Michaels has been romantically connected to a new girlfriend, Deshanna Marie Minuto, since late 2018, which was shortly after the split. Jillian is preparing to launch her own athletic line and is currently writing a book, which will be published in 2021.
3 Tom Arnold And Ashley Groussman
Tom Arnold must be easy to love and difficult to live with, since his recent split from wife, Ashley Groussman, marks the end of his fourth marriage. These two were together for nearly 10 years.
In a statement about their split, which was reported on ET Online, Arnold said, “For the last couple of years we grew apart and have been moving in different directions, which is why at this time we have decided to end our marriage. I told Ashley that it's her life, we had great years together and there doesn't have to be a reason or a bad guy to move on. Go live your life, you owe me nothing."
Arnold has recently become politically active and is very vocal about his dislike of a certain US figurehead.
2 Jeff And Mackenzie Bezos
One of the most famous recent splits is the breakup of Amazon Founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, and his wife, Mackenzie. They were together for 25 years.
Post-divorce, novelist Mackenzie has turned her efforts to charity, saying, “In addition to whatever assets life has nurtured in me, I have a disproportionate amount of money to share. My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care. But I won't wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty."
While Mackenzie isn’t dating, Jeff is romantically linked to TV anchor, Lauren Sanchez.
1 Jennifer Garner And Ben Affleck
After what seemed like one of the longest divorces in Hollywood, Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck have finally moved on. The two work hard to co-parent their children and remain friendly. In fact, US Weekly reports that Jen’s new boyfriend has been a positive influence on Ben, saying, “Jen having a boyfriend has been the best thing to happen to Ben and Jen in a long time. Ben’s become a better parent.”
Many think that Jen and boyfriend, John Miller, will be engaged soon, and Ben will be supportive of the engagement. Garner recently appeared in the film, Peppermint, while Affleck is focusing his efforts on producing.
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Famous Person - Divorce
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Phoenix Cop Arrested by FBI for Bilking 'Paycheck Protection' for $1.2 million
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The organization was owned by Richardson, the application affirmed, and she served as its president and CEO.
The Lotto Club had major payroll expenses: 85 employees and monthly labor costs of upwards of $500,000, she claimed in her loan application.
The Lotto Club, according to filings with the state, was incorporated in 2015 as a "social club." In 2021, an annual report listed it as a "charity for veterans."
But before the loan was issued, the charity had no employees and conducted no business, according to the FBI.
The payroll ledger that the organization provided was fake, federal prosecutors allege. A bank account that was opened in The Lotto Club's name after the organization received the loan had an original balance of $0, and had no history of processing payroll.
"Defendants knew The Lotto Club had zero employees and that it paid no salaries or payroll taxes to any employees or independent contractors," the indictment says.
Richardson's business partner, Blu Mitchell, took out a $200,000 check in his own name, as well as a later $25,000 transfer. Mitchell, it appears, runs multiple nonprofits in the Phoenix area, including Sigma C.U.T.S., which purports to do a wide variety of philanthropic work across the U.S.
PPP loan fraud has been widespread. One law office tracking cases of Covid relief fraud has compiled hundreds of cases nationally of PPP loan fraud, including several cases in Arizona.
In March, a Mesa resident was charged with multiple counts of fraud when he allegedly fabricated documents to obtain a PPP loan, and then bought a Porsche, according to court documents.
Richardson joined the force in 2017, according to city salary data. She had previously worked as an officer in Atlanta and California.
A spokesperson for the U.S. District Attorney for Arizona said the office would not comment on a pending matter.
Andrew Williams, a Phoenix police spokesperson, told Phoenix New Times Thursday that the department did not plan to investigate internally, given that Richardson had left the force.
"The city of Phoenix takes allegations of criminal conduct by our employees very seriously," Williams said in a statement. "The alleged actions of this employee go against the core values of the city and everything we stand for as public servants."
KEEP PHOENIX NEW TIMES FREE... Since we started Phoenix New Times, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Phoenix, and we'd like to keep it that way. With local media under siege, it's more important than ever for us to rally support behind funding our local journalism. You can help by participating in our "I Support" program, allowing us to keep offering readers access to our incisive coverage of local news, food and culture with no paywalls.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate
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República Cromañón nightclub fire
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The República Cromañón nightclub fire occurred in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 December 2004, killing 194 people and leaving at least 1,492 injured. [1]
República Cromañón was a facility that held concerts and events. It was located on 3060-3066-3070 Bartolomé Mitre in the Balvanera neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. It was operated by Omar Chabán, and opened on 12 April 2004, with a concert of the same band who played the day of the fire: Callejeros. The club was in a two story building, with a main entrance with six doors behind it leading into the main area of the nightclub, on the night of the fire four of the six doors were locked. There was also a connection to a nearby hotel, an emergency exit that was locked, and another emergency exit that was blocked by a fence in front of the stage. [2] Fire safety measures in the building were extremely lacking with no reports of a fire detection or alarm system, emergency lighting, and fire suppression with ten of the fifteen fire extinguishers were depressurized and unusable. The nightclub's fire safety license had run out the previous month. [2]
The venue was hosting rock group Callejeros and around 3,000 people were in attendance, which was double the venue's capacity of 1,500. [3] The blaze was started when a pyrotechnic flare (a popular device in New Year's Eve celebrations) was set off and ignited foam in the ceiling. The materials used in the building for decoration were flammable: mostly wood, styrofoam, acoustic panels and a plastic net (media sombra[4]). This plastic net was hung from the ceiling and caught fire first, melting into a rain of fire. In some parts of the building, teddy bear stuffing was used as a cheap alternative to wool fiber. The owner and the band's lead singer had told the patrons not to use flares inside the building. Four of the six doors, some of which were fire exits, were chained shut[3] so that "people would not enter without paying", according to Mayor Aníbal Ibarra. Most of the victims died from inhaling poisonous gases, and carbon monoxide. After the fire the technical institution INTI found that the level of toxicity, due to the materials and volume of the building, was 225 ppm of cyanide in the air. A lethal dose for rats is between 150 ppm and 220 ppm, meaning the air in the building was highly toxic. [2] Many of the victims were identified to be in their teens and 20s, but rescue workers clearing the club also found children and babies. [5] This is potentially due to survivor accounts that a bathroom inside the nightclub had been used as a nursery, where parents could leave their children for the show. [6]
Following the disaster, an Argentine judge issued a national and international arrest order against Omar Chabán, local businessman and owner of República Cromañón and other nightclubs, including one called Cemento that had been closed by court orders many times before. Chabán was located at one of his houses in the neighbourhood of Montserrat and was arrested. Police are still seeking those responsible for setting off the flare, the guilty parties could face eight to twenty years in prison. President Néstor Kirchner decreed three days of national mourning, and city authorities forbade concerts and closed all nightclubs in Buenos Aires during the mourning period, only to open again, one by one, after they had been checked and approved by the fire department. Pope John Paul II expressed his condolences to victims families in a message sent to officials in Argentine churches. [3]
The parents of many of the victims have worked to keep the victims memories alive, by planting 194 trees in honor of the deceased, and creating a traveling exhibit of the victims' photographs. A ceramics factory has donated memorial plaques to be dispersed across the country. [7]
It later became known that República Cromañón had been overdue for a fire hazard inspection since late November 2004. Although Buenos Aires Mayor Aníbal Ibarra blamed the Fire Department of the Argentine Federal Police (responsible for the inspections), several flaws in the city's inspection system soon surfaced. In addition to the city's poor planning for a disaster of this magnitude, critics pointed to Ibarra for failing to reorganize Buenos Aires' inspection system. A few days after the fire, Ibarra reshuffled the entire Buenos Aires security and emergency administration. The City Legislature announced that Mayor Ibarra was going to face a questioning session, but failed to achieve the necessary votes to force his questioning. Shortly thereafter, Ibarra voluntarily submitted to a questioning session, and announced a recall referendum to decide whether he would remain in office or not. Relatives and friends of the dead organized several marches to Plaza de Mayo[7] demanding the resignation of Aníbal Ibarra as Mayor of Buenos Aires, the conviction of Omar Chabán, and a more efficient inspection system. Some of these marches ended with incidents between protesters and the police. On 14 November 2005, an impeachment jury formed by the Buenos Aires Legislature suspended Mayor Ibarra for four months, pending an investigation of his performance that could lead to his removal. He accused the opposition of manipulating the families of República Cromañón's victims in order to ruin his career. On 7 March 2006, after four months of deliberations, the impeachment jury voted to remove Ibarra from office. A trial started on 19 August 2008 and finished 1 year later. The judges heard from over 300 witnesses, who claimed young fans has lit a flare that struck the ceiling, and it was revealed that the band was in charge of the concerts organization, security and entry into the club that night. But that the band was not at fault for the club being given a permit even though it lacked basic fire safety measures such as fire extinguishers, working emergency exits and nonflammable walls and ceilings. [8] The defendants were sentenced as follows:
The band members of Los Callajeros were absolved in the 2009 trail, but the appeals court later found that they shared responsibility for the fire, in the 2011 ruling. Evidence to their complicity were witnesses statements that the band had encouraged the audience to fire flares. [9]
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Fire
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Iraq and Oman on Monday (Feb 24) confirmed their first coronavirus infections.
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NAJAF, IRAQ/MUSCAT (AFP) - Iraq and Oman on Monday (Feb 24) confirmed their?first coronavirus infections.
Iraq health officials said?their first case is an Iranian national studying in the southern shrine city of Najaf, while Oman?reported its first two cases?and halted flights to and from Iran with immediate effect, authorities and reports said.
Iraq, which has a dilapidated healthcare system, often hosts pilgrims and religious students from Iran, where 12 people have died since a coronavirus outbreak there was first reported last week.
Iraq had blocked travel to and from the Islamic republic days before announcing that a seminary student in Najaf is the country's first confirmed case.
Two Omani women who had returned from Iran C which is battling the deadliest outbreak outside China C were diagnosed with the disease and were in a stable condition, state TV reported.
The civil aviation authority said in a tweet that it was suspending all civilian flights between the sultanate and the Islamic Republic of Iran starting today and until further notice.
Najaf's provincial health authority said the Iranian national had entered "before the ban was declared".
An AFP correspondent said the man is being quarantined in a hospital in the city.
The education directorate in Najaf said official mid-year exams, which had already started, would be cancelled until further notice to protect students.
The deaths from the Covid-19 virus in Iran were the first in the Middle East and the country's toll is now the highest outside China, the epicentre of the outbreak.
Chinese nationals have been barred from entering Iraq, despite it hosting several Chinese oil companies.
Iraq also closed the only border crossing with Kuwait at Safwan, south of Basra, late on Sunday evening, after Kuwait confirmed multiple Covid-19 cases.
Concern has spread over social media networks in Iraq, with users expressing fears that the country cannot accommodate a coronavirus outbreak.
Many hospitals in the country are poorly equipped or in disrepair and there are less than 10 doctors for every 10,000 people, the World Health Organisation says.
The novel coronavirus has spread to more than 25 countries since it emerged in December and is causing mounting alarm due to new outbreaks in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
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Disease Outbreaks
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California Polytechnic State University football team plane crash
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The California Polytechnic State University football team plane crash occurred on October 29, 1960, at 22:02 EST near Toledo, Ohio. [1] The aircraft, a veteran of World War II, was carrying the Cal Poly Mustangs college football team. [1][2] Of the 48 on board, 22 were killed,[3] including both pilots, 16 players, a student manager, and a Cal Poly football booster. [3][4][5]
The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) investigated the accident and concluded that the aircraft had been overloaded by 2,000 lb (910 kg) above its maximum certificated gross takeoff weight of 47,100 lb (21,360 kg) and that there was a partial power loss in the left engine prior to the crash. [5]
Prior to takeoff the weather at the airport steadily deteriorated; at 7 pm the visibility was 3/4-mile (1.2 km), down to 1/16-mile (100 m) at 8:37 pm, and zero at the time of the accident, 22:02 EST. [1][2] The CAB accident report states that stemming from the crash, the FAA published a notice in the Airman's Guide that prohibited takeoff for commercial aircraft when the visibility is below 1/4 mile (400 m), or the runway visual range is below 2,000 ft (600 m). [2]
In its final report, the CAB Probable Cause statement was "The accident was due to loss of control during a premature lift-off. Contributing factors were the overweight aircraft, weather conditions, and partial loss of power in the left engine. "[5]
The pilot who made the decision to take off was flying on a license that had been revoked, but he was allowed to fly pending an appeal. [6] Following the crash, the Arctic-Pacific Company lost its certificate to charter airplanes. [4][6]
Among the survivors was quarterback Ted Tollner,[3] later the head coach at USC and San Diego State. At the time of the crash, Bowling Green State had been the easternmost opposing school ever to play football against Cal Poly. The university canceled the final three games of the 1960 season. [citation needed]
Hall of Fame coach John Madden, a Cal Poly alumnus, has a fear of flying which is commonly attributed to the crash, although he has said it instead stems from claustrophobia. He played football for the Mustangs during the 1957 and 1958 seasons. Madden was coaching at the nearby Allan Hancock Junior College at the time of the crash and knew many passengers aboard the aircraft. [4]
As a result of the crash, Cal Poly did not play any road games outside California until 1969, a 14–0 loss at Montana in Missoula. [7] Cal Poly did not play another game east of the Rocky Mountains until 1978, a 17–0 loss to Winston-Salem State in North Carolina in the NCAA Division II playoffs. [8] They did not play another regular season game east of the Rockies until 1989, a 45–20 loss to Angelo State in Texas. [9]
Two weeks afterward, LIFE Magazine published an article, "Campus Overwhelmed by Team's Tragic Flight". [10]
In April 2001, the tragedy was examined in an ESPN Outside the Lines monthly special focusing on the evolution and frequency of travel in collegiate and pro sports. [11] The segment, entitled "Have Game, Will Travel," included an interview with Tollner conducted by Lisa Salters. [11]
In the following season on Thanksgiving Day 1961, Los Angeles County Supervisor Warren Dorn and Bob Hope sponsored a "Mercy Bowl" in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum between Fresno State and Bowling Green State to raise a memorial fund for the survivors and bereaved families. [12][13] The event raised about $200,000 from a crowd of 33,000 on November 23. [4] Fresno State defeated Bowling Green in the game, 36–6. [14]
In 2008 interviews with ESPN, several former Cal Poly players expressed interest in seeing the Mercy Bowl return for various contemporary charitable causes. [15] Similar sentiments were expressed in a 2012 ESPN story about the game potentially returning in relation to other modern bowl games. [16]
There are memorial plaques for the crash on the Cal Poly campus at Mott Gym and the Mustang horse statue. A permanent memorial plaza opened with the new Alex G. Spanos Stadium. The memorial has 18 copper pillars, one for each of the Cal Poly-affiliated individuals who died in the crash. Each pillar rises to the height of the person honored and is adorned with a plaque about that individual's life. [17]
On September 29, 2006, the 1960 football team was inducted into the Cal Poly Athletics Hall of Fame. The following night, former players and members of the crash victims' families stood at mid-field of Spanos Stadium during a halftime memorial. [18]
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Air crash
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2009 California mid-air collision crash
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The 2009 California mid-air collision occurred at sea, west of San Diego, on 29 October. It involved a Lockheed HC-130H Hercules of the United States Coast Guard and a Bell AH-1W Super Cobra of the U.S. Marine Corps. There were no survivors among the nine crewmates aboard either aircraft. At 19:10 local time on 29 October 2009 (02:10 on 30 October UTC), a Lockheed HC-130H Hercules aircraft of the United States Coast Guard and a Bell AH-1W Super Cobra helicopter of the United States Marine Corps collided in mid-air. The location of the accident was 24 kilometres (15 mi) east off San Clemente Island, California. The Hercules was carrying a crew of seven and the Cobra a crew of two people; there were no survivors. [1] Eyewitnesses reported seeing a fireball in the sky. [2] Debris from the collision was reported at the scene. [3] The Hercules was on a Search and Rescue mission to search for a sailboat in distress while the Super Cobra was on a training flight. [4] Two Sikorsky MH-60J helicopters along with USCGC Edisto, USCGC Petrel and USCGC Blackfin were sent to search the area. [5] USCGC Blacktip, USCGC George Cobb and USCGC Jarvis later joined the search. [6]
The HC-130H Hercules involved was serial number 1705. [1] The aircraft was c/n 382-4993 and it had formerly served with the United States Air Force as 83-0007. [7] It was based at the Coast Guard Air Station in Sacramento, California. It had been in service previously at Air Station Barber’s Point, Hawaii. [2]
The Super Cobra was operated by Marine Aircraft Group 39, based at Camp Pendleton. Personnel aboard the aircraft belonged to Marine Aircraft Group 39 and the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, based at Miramar. [2]
A joint investigation by the United States Coast Guard and the U.S. Marine Corps was opened into the accident, headed by Rear Admiral Korn. [6] The investigation concluded in mid-2010 and each agency released its own report of findings. Both agencies found that there was no single cause for the incident, and there was no misconduct on the part of any aircrew involved. However, both identified serious failings on the part of the U.S. Navy air traffic control center that had responsibility for the airspace within which the collision occurred. [8]
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Air crash
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Waiting to declare famine ‘will be too late for Yemenis on brink of starvation’
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In Yemen, fears of famine have resurfaced as UN humanitarians also warned on Friday that 360,000 severely malnourished children could die unless they continue to get treatment and aid is stepped up. In an urgent appeal for funding, the World Food Programme (WFP) said that it needs $200 million per month to maintain assistance in the war-torn country. “If we wait for famine to be declared, it will already be too late as people will already be dying”, it said in a statement. The UN agency has already had to limit distributions in the north of the country and fears that it may not be able to prevent people from starving, as it said it did last year. #YemenCrisis The scale of #Yemen's suffering is unimaginable. After 5 years of conflict, hunger and malnutrition are causing pain for millions of people.?Two-thirds of Yemenis are hungry?Nearly half do not know when they will eat nextYou can help: https://t.co/QYcv3EWdQ4 pic.twitter.com/cpruu5Vqqf Widely described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, the country has been torn apart by more than five years of conflict between the forces of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi - supported by a Saudi-led international coalition – and mainly Houthi militia, for control of the Arab nation. WFP spokesperson Elisabeth Byrs told journalists in Geneva that the dire economic situation in Yemen caused by the conflict had led to reduced imports and soaring food prices in a country that imports almost everything it needs. “There are 10 million people who are facing (an) acute food shortage, and we are ringing the alarm bell for these people, because their situation is deteriorating because of escalation and because of the lockdowns and the constraints and the social-economic impact of the coronavirus,”, she said. “Those people cannot go to find work, they have to stay home, they cannot feed themselves and their families.” Day to day, vulnerable Yemeni families have been forced to reduce the number and quality of meals that they eat. Breakfast “is no longer beans and bread but bread only, dinner is rice only instead of rice and vegetables”, Ms. Byrs said, noting that some 20 million people are food insecure nationally, with 13 million receiving food aid. Nationwide, the conflict has displaced more than 3.65 million people and killed thousands. Fewer than one in two health facilities are fully functioning and nearly half of all children have been left stunted by malnutrition, requiring treatment, according to WFP. In total, two million children require treatment for acute malnutrition “of which around 360,000 are at risk of dying without treatment”, the agency said. “Of course, we continue to treat them”, Ms. Byrs added, noting that the UN agency began distributing food assistance on alternate months in parts of Yemen in April “to stretch the limited resources”. Insisting that WFP’s aim “is to maintain a safety net for people for as long as possible”, the spokesperson maintained that its nutrition treatment programme for children under five and pregnant or breastfeeding mothers would continue at current levels. But unless donors step up, the agency may have to reduce its prevention programme, which provides blanket supplementary feeding to all children under two, as well as to pregnant or breastfeeding women, one million of whom require treatment for acute malnutrition. “We would prioritise areas with the highest prevalence of malnutrition” in that case, Ms. Byrs explained.
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Famine
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As permanent economic damage piles up, the Covid Crisis is looking more like the Great Recession
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The global COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in soaring infection rates, widespread lockdowns, record-shattering declines in output, and spiking poverty. But, in addition to these trends, a quieter crisis now gaining momentum could jeopardize economic recovery prospects for years to come. The term “financial crisis” has long been associated with dramas such as bank runs and asset-price crashes. Charles Kindleberger’s classic books The World in Depression, 1929-1939 and Manias, Panics and Crashes, and my own work with Kenneth Rogoff, This Time Is Different, document scores of these episodes. In recent years, the term “Lehman moment” has stood out as a marker of the 2007-09 global financial crisis and even inspired a Broadway show. But some financial crises do not involve the drama of Lehman moments. Asset quality can deteriorate significantly as economic downturns persist, especially when firms and households are highly leveraged. Moreover, years of bank lending to unproductive private firms or state-owned enterprises (the latter is not uncommon in some developing countries) take a cumulative toll on balance sheets. Although these crises may not always include panics and runs, they still impose multiple costs. Bank restructuring and recapitalization to restore solvency can be expensive for governments and taxpayers, and new lending can remain depressed, slowing economic activity. The credit crunch also has distributional effects, because it hits small and medium-size businesses and lower-income households more acutely. To be sure, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to deliver many moments of unwanted drama, including soaring infection rates, widespread lockdowns, record-shattering declines in output, and spiking poverty. But, in addition to these trends, a quieter crisis is gaining momentum in the financial sector. Even without a Lehman moment, it could jeopardize prospects for economic recovery for years to come. Specifically, financial institutions around the world will continue to face a marked rise in non-performing loans (NPLs) for some time. The COVID-19 crisis is also regressive, disproportionately hitting low-income households and smaller firms that have fewer assets to buffer them against insolvency. Since the onset of the pandemic, governments have relied on expansionary monetary and fiscal policies to offset the steep declines in economic activity associated with broad-based shutdowns and social-distancing measures. Wealthier countries have had a decided advantage in their ability to respond, although a surge in lending by multilateral institutions has also helped to finance emerging and developing economies’ response to the health emergency. Unlike in the 2007-09 crisis (or most previous crises, for that matter), banks have supported macroeconomic stimulus with a variety of temporary loan moratoria, as the International Monetary Fund has documented in its Policy Tracker. These measures have provided some respite for households facing loss of employment and a decline in income, as well as for businesses struggling to survive lockdowns and general disruptions to normal activity (tourism-linked sectors stand out starkly in this regard). Financial institutions in all regions have granted grace periods for repayment of existing loans, and many have re-contracted loans in favor of lower interest rates and generally better terms. The understandable rationale has been that, because the health crisis is temporary, so is the financial distress of firms and households. But as the pandemic has persisted, many countries have found it necessary to extend these measures until 2021. Alongside the temporary moratoria, many countries have relaxed their banking regulations regarding bad-loan provisioning and the classification of loans as non-performing. The upshot of these changes is that the extent of NPLs may currently be understated, and for many countries markedly so. In many cases, financial institutions may be insufficiently prepared to deal with the hit to their balance sheet. The less regulated non-bank financial sector, meanwhile, has even greater exposure to risk (compounded by weaker disclosure). Adding to these private-sector developments, downgrades of sovereign credit ratings reached a record high in 2020 (see figure below). Although advanced economies have not been spared, the consequences for banks are more acute in emerging and developing economies where governments’ credit ratings are at or near junk grade. In more extreme cases of sovereign default or restructuring – and such crises are on the rise, too – banks will also take losses on their holdings of government securities. As I argued in March 2020, even if one or more effective vaccines promptly resolve the pandemic, the COVID-19 crisis has significantly damaged the global economy and financial institutions’ balance sheets. Forbearance policies have provided a valuable stimulus tool beyond the conventional scope of fiscal and monetary policy. But grace periods will come to an end in 2021. As the US Federal Reserve’s November 2020 Financial Stability Report highlights, policy fatigue or political constraints suggest that forthcoming US fiscal and monetary stimulus will not match the scale reached in early 2020. Many emerging markets and developing countries are already at or near their monetary-policy limits as well. As 2021 unfolds, therefore, it will become clearer whether countless firms and households are facing insolvency rather than illiquidity. Firms’ high leverage on the eve of the pandemic will amplify the financial sector’s balance-sheet problems. Corporations in the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China, are highly indebted and include many high-risk borrowers. The European Central Bank has repeatedly voiced concerns about the rising share of NPLs in the eurozone, while the IMF has frequently warned about the marked increase in dollar-denominated corporate debt in many emerging markets. Exposure to commercial real estate and the hospitality industry is another source of concern in many parts of the world. Balance-sheet damage takes time to repair. Previous overborrowing often results in a long period of deleveraging, as financial institutions become more cautious in their lending practices. This muddling-through stage, usually associated with a sluggish recovery, can span years. In some cases, these financial crises develop into sovereign-debt crises, as bailouts transform pre-crisis private debt into public-sector liabilities. The first step toward dealing with financial fragility is to recognize the scope and scale of the problem, and then expediently restructure and write down bad debts. The alternative – channeling resources into zombie loans – is a recipe for delayed recovery. Given the pandemic’s already huge economic and human costs, avoiding that scenario must be a top priority for policymakers everywhere.
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Financial Crisis
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Proposal to use some federal funding to increase financial aid access
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BLACKSBURG, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) -- Legislative leaders plan to use millions of dollars in federal funding to increase access to financial aid for low- and moderate-income undergraduate students. Governor Ralph Northam was at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg on Thursday to announce the plan to use $111 million in American Rescue Plan funding for this. According to a release, the proposal designates $100 million for public higher education institutions through the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia. There will also be $11 million for private institutions that are eligible for the Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant program. “The economic uncertainty of this pandemic has led many to question whether a college degree was still an affordable reality,” said Northam. “Our administration has worked hard to make higher education accessible to every Virginian, and this targeted investment represents a significant stride towards that goal. Increasing access to financial aid will help create more equitable pathways to opportunity and put a world-class education within reach of even more students.” The release says this proposed investment would supplement more than $833 million that will be available to colleges and universities across Virginia through the American Rescue Plan Act's Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund III. Institutions of higher education will get these funds directly, and they must be used for financial assistance for students as well as qualifying institutional purposes. “In order for Virginia to be the best-educated state in the nation, we must continue to invest in financial aid and improve access to affordable higher education,” said Secretary of Education Atif Qarni. “It is critical that we dedicate federal relief funds to build on our past investments in financial assistance and bolster our education and talent pipelines.” The proposal would also commit $10 million to enhance the Online Virginia Network, which facilitates online coursework and degrees from community colleges, George Mason University, Old Dominion University, and James Madison University. This proposal will be before the General Assembly, which will be gathering for a special session next week.
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Financial Aid
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2016 Sunbird Aviation crash
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On 13 April 2016, a Britten-Norman BN-2T Turbine Islander operated by Sunbird Aviation crashed about 1,200 m (0.65 nmi; 0.75 mi) short of runway 7 at Kiunga Airport[1] in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. The plane had pitched up right before the crash, and then dropped its right wing and fell almost vertically to the ground. [2] Eleven passengers (including three children) and the 31-year-old Australian pilot, Benjamin Picard,[3] were killed. Nine people died on impact, with other three declared dead on arrival at Kiunga Hospital. [4][5][6][7]
The investigation determined that an engine failure occurred mid-flight. The aircraft was loaded significantly aft of the center of gravity limit. Upon extension of the aircraft's flaps, an uncontrollable pitch up resulted in the aircraft stalling and spinning into the ground. The flight was a non-scheduled domestic chartered passenger flight from Tekin, West Sepik Province (Sandaun) to Kiunga, Western Province. The flight was under Visual Flight Rules. The flight was operated by Sunbird Aviation, a small non-scheduled aviation company based in Goroka, with a Britten-Norman BN-2T Turbine Islander, registered as P2 – SBC. The flight was carrying 11 passengers, including 3 children, and an Australian pilot, identified as Benjamin Andre Picard. [8]
The flight took off from Kiunga at 13:56 and later reached Oksapmin. Picard then reported to Kiunga that the flight was on Kiunga's circuit area and began to fly a left circuit to land at Kiunga. The weather in Kiunga, at the time, was in good condition. Picard then configured the aircraft for landing. [8]
As the flight approached Kiunga, it suddenly pitched up in a nearly vertical condition. Due to the vertical motion, the right wing stalled and the aircraft rolled to the right. It then fell rapidly, struck trees and slammed onto the ground. The aircraft impacted at a nearly 90° angle. Due to the force of the impact, the front part was crushed and the tail snapped. 9 people were killed instantly. [9]
Witnesses reported the crash to the airport and subsequently located the crash site. 3 people were extricated alive from the crash site and were transported to Kiunga Hospital. However, they were later pronounced dead on arrival. All 12 passengers and crews on board were killed. [10]
Papua New Guinea AIC sent two investigators to the crash site. Representative from the aircraft's manufacturer Britten-Norman was also invited to join the investigation. Initial examination of the wreckage was hampered due to bad weather condition. The wreckage was left unattended for five days due to inundation around the area. It was later taken to Kiunga on the sixth day. [8]
There were reports that the pilot of the flight, Benjamin Picard, made an emergency call to the authorities in Kiunga. Seconds later, the aircraft pitched vertically and crashed. Investigators dismissed the report. However, investigators later confirmed that the right engine had failed in mid-flight. It happened while the aircraft was approaching Kiunga. Evidences found on the right engine proved that an engine failure had occurred in mid-flight. This causing the propeller to auto feather as it was shutting down, but that the compressor was still spooling down at impact. [8]
Further investigation revealed that the centre of gravity of the aircraft had shifted significantly to the aft centre. As a result, the aircraft pitched up severely when the pilot extended the flaps. [8]
It is usual for aircraft to pitch up when the pilots extended the flaps. The possibility for the aircraft to pitch up is even greater when the pilots extended the flaps for an approach. [8]
The accident flight was aggravated by the fact that the centre of gravity of the aircraft was shifted to the aft. When the pilot extended the flaps, the aircraft pitched up. However, because the centre of gravity was located at the aft, it would be difficult to pitch the nose down. Examination on the wreckage revealed that the flaps, at the time, were fully extended and that Picard, during the stall, had made a full nose down input, to no avail. Investigators added that there was no evidence that the pilot calculated the aircraft loaded balance for the flight. The actual weight and balance of the aircraft could not be conclusively determined. [8]
Investigators later added that recovery from the stall was impossible due to the low height of the aircraft. [8]
The investigation concluded that the right engine failure caused the aircraft to lose its lift force. The improper loading of the cargo aggravated the condition.
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Air crash
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2019 Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick floods
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The 2019 spring floods in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick were exceptional floods in eastern Ontario, southern Quebec and from the St.John River region to New Brunswick, Canada. In fact, flooding along the Ottawa River has been recognized as the most important weather event of the year 2019 in Canada, and the one along the Saint John River as the ninth, by Environment and Climate Change Canada. The flooding caused by the rapid spring snow melt, coupled with frozen ground, and several heavy rain events that resulted in abnormally high cumulative rainfall for April and May. In Quebec, 6681 residences of 51 municipalities were flooded in five main zones, including the greater Montreal area, and 3458 residences were isolated due to landslides and submerged roads resulting in over 13500 disaster victims. [3]
In New Brunswick, 15 communities were affected and 69 roads and 45 bridges were closed or partially closed. [4]
With the experience gained during the 2017 Quebec floods, the Canadian Armed Forces were called early on to support local authorities and volunteers in the regions as soon as the rivers showed signs of potential flooding and weather forecasts showed a heightened risk. More than 2200 Canadian soldiers were deployed in the three provinces to assist residents. [5]
During the spring thaw, runoff from snow melt flows into rivers, causing localized overflows each year in many parts of the three provinces. The winter of 2018-2019 was particularly cold and snowy, the thick snowpack remained for an extended period into may while temperatures remained colder than average.
In addition, late snowfall and "freezing rain" affected the area in early April, leaving more than 20 cm of snow everywhere and up to 20mm of ice on the Ottawa River and Montreal
In the second half of the month, several depressions left significant accumulations of rain and then temperatures began to rise abruptly. This has had the effect of accelerating snowmelt and surface runoff. On April 28, many rivers reached and exceeded the flood threshold that was seen in the previous flood in 2017. [9]
After a lull in the first 8 days of May, which reduced river levels, a large meteorological depression deposited 30mm to 50mm of within 3 days. Most of the reservoirs in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region were already nearing capacity, and could not hold anymore surplus and the excess water flowed into the Ottawa River and the St.Lawrence River between Mattawa and Gatineau, water levels were expected to rise in the following days to record values[10]
Over the following month, the levels in streams began to decline as less precipitation fell and the remaining snow cover was almost all melted away in northern areas and nonexistent in the south. The floods gradually subsided: first in New Brunswick, then in Ontario and Quebec. By the end of June, almost all areas were no longer flooded. When the government of Quebec and New Brunswick requested the deployment of the Canadian Armed Forces, approximately 1000 soldiers were first assigned to this task. The number of deployed quickly rose to more than 2200 after additional assistance in Ontario as well as the added rainfall in late April that continued to raise water levels. The mission, known as Operation LENTUS , included more military personnel deployed to flood-affected areas in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick, than there were on all previous missions in Canada. [5][11]
As of May 3, approximately 1000 personnel from the Joint Task Force Central (JTFC) of the Canadian Joint Operations Command were present at Ottawa, Constance Bay, Wilola, Clarence-Rockland, Cumberland and Grand View in Ontario. In Quebec, the number of deployed was 1050 from Joint Task Force East (JTFE) and deployed throughout the province. Among them, nearly 400 Reservists and Seamen from HMCS Donnacona, HMCS Jolliet, HMCS Montcalm, HMCS Iberville, HMCS Radisson and HMCS Champlain. The 438th Tactical Helicopter Squadron provided air support. [12] At the same time in New Brunswick, nearly 200 soldiers from Joint Task Force Atlantic (JTFA) were taking part in the operation and the 403rd Helicopter Operational Training Squadron was providing air support . The main tasks of the CAF were:[11]
The Canadian Armed Forces officially ended the operation on June 6. [13]
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Floods
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1959 San Diego F3H crash
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The 1959 San Diego F3H crash was the crash of a United States Navy McDonnell F3H-2N Demon in San Diego, California, on 4 December 1959. The pilot, Ensign Albert Joseph Hickman from VF-121, chose not to eject from the stricken aircraft, piloting it away from populated areas of Clairemont, including an elementary school, saving "as many as 700 people" on the ground, according to one estimate. [1][a] The aircraft crashed into a canyon, with the pilot being the sole fatality. Hickman has been memorialized in the naming of an elementary school and a sports complex in San Diego. Several decades later, a similar crash occurred in University City, a neighborhood north of Clairemont. Albert Joseph Hickman was born in Sioux City, Iowa, on April 4, 1938. [2][3][b] Later he graduated from Central High School in 1956, enlisting in the Navy before graduating. [4] Hickman was a naval aviator, being assigned to VF-121, a training squadron at Naval Air Station Miramar. [3]
Miramar was previously part of a rancho controlled by Mission San Diego de Alcalá, before becoming Camp Kearny, a Naval Auxiliary Air Field, and then Miramar Naval Air Station. [5] Another part of the rancho controlled by Mission San Diego de Alcalá would become the current neighborhood of Clairemont;[6] previously cattle grazing land, it was developed in the 1950s into one of the United States' largest postwar planned tract house suburban communities. [7] Part of the neighborhood of Clairemont is within the airport traffic area of Miramar. [8]
On 4 December 1959, Hickman was practicing carrier landings. [9] As he returned to Miramar in his McDonnell F3H-2N Demon, the aircraft's engine failed. [10] The aircraft was at an altitude of 2,000 feet (610 m) when the engine compressor stalled and surged. [11] It was reported that Hickman chose not to eject from the stricken aircraft and even opened the aircraft canopy and waved to warn children of his aircraft, all the while steering it away from Hawthorne Elementary School in Clairemont, just missing the school's fence. [9][12] Ultimately, the aircraft crashed in San Clemente Canyon;[13] it resulted in a burning of 20 acres (81,000 m2) of canyon brush. [14] Hickman was the sole fatality. [9]
An estimate claims that as many as 700 lives were saved when Hickman steered the aircraft during its crash. [1] For his actions that led to his death, Hickman was posthumously awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. [15] He is buried at Memorial Park Cemetery in Sioux City. [3] The location of the crash site is on Diane Avenue in Clairemont, with no remnants remaining at the site. [13]
Hickman has been memorialized in several ways; in 1962, an American Legion post in Kearny Mesa was dedicated to Hickman. [16] In 1971, an elementary school in the Mira Mesa neighborhood was named after Hickman;[16] its construction was completed in 1976. [12] In 1994, on land leased from the US Navy, a sports complex was also dedicated in honor of Hickman. [17]
Several decades later, a similar event as the crash in 1959 occurred during the 2008 San Diego F/A-18 crash. [9] On 8 December, a United States Marine Corps two-seat F/A-18D had engine problems after taking off from the USS Abraham Lincoln during training. [18] Instead of landing at Naval Air Station North Island, Lieutenant Dan Neubauer flew the ailing aircraft to Miramar. [19] Neubauer and the aircraft were part of Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 101 based at Miramar. [20] On its way to Miramar, both of the aircraft's engines failed. Neubauer decided to eject from the aircraft, which was seconds from crashing. [20] The pilot-less aircraft crashed into a residential area of University City that was 1⁄4 mile (400 m) from University City High School, and 2 miles (3 km) from Miramar;[20] four people were killed on the ground. [1] Neubauer ejected safely, landing east of University City High School;[20] he was later cleared to fly again. [1] This crash was compared to the 1959 crash. [1][9]
In 2019, a commemorative plaque for Hickman was added to the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial. [21]
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Air crash
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3D-printed furniture & transformable lights win 2021 DDP best design award
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from bespoke furniture made using 3D-printing to flexible home office lighting, the 2021 DDP best design award recognizes seven best products from south korean collaborations that prompt healthier lifestyle changes. the winners were selected by seoul design foundation and city mayor oh se-hoon from a total of 162 candidates. each presenting new, innovative ideas, the designs were created through the union of the country’s most creative-minded designers and the manufacturing abilities of small businesses.
all images courtesy of DDP design fair
the 2021 DDP best design award is one of the main programs of the annual DDP design fair, now in its third edition. held from 19-25 october at the DDP art hall 1, the occasion not only unites creatives and manufacturers through the literal exhibitions but also design enthusiasts attending and being inspired by the showcase. the platform is an opportunity for designers to realize ideas whilst enabling small business owners to increase the value of their products; creative thinkers are paired with manufacturing and business possibilities. the seoul metropolitan government and seoul design foundation actively supports these collaborations.
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Awards ceremony
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1949 Kemi strike
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The 1949 Kemi strike was a strike in July–August 1949 by the workers of Kemi Oy (today a part of Metsä Group) in the Northern Finnish town of Kemi. On August 18 the strike escalated on a violent clash called "Kemi Bloody Thursday" between strikers and local police, two workers were killed and several injured. Kemi strike is so far the last fatal political protest in Finland. The Kemi strike is seen as a struggle between Communist Party of Finland and the Prime Minister K-A Fagerholm's cabinet. The cabinet controlled a large part of the trade unions through the Social Democratic Party and the communists wanted to regain the power their parliamentary organization Finnish People's Democratic League had lost in the 1948 legislative election. [1]
The strike began on July 1, as the government wanted to cut the wages of Kemi Oy's lumber workers with more than 30 percent. It was soon joined by local lumberjacks, employers of the Kemi Oy sawmill and the dockers of Port of Kemi. Prime Minister Karl-August Fagerholm declared the strike illegal as it went on for several weeks. [2] The strike caused a jam of 20,5 million cubic foot of logs to the mouth of Kemijoki river. [3] The employers recruited strikebreakers, bringing them to work under police protection. On August 18 a peaceful march of more the 3,000 strikers was on its way to the estuary, where the strikebreakers were driving logs and releasing the jam. As the march was stopped by armed policemen, a violent riot burst out. Protesters were equipped with sticks and rocks, while the police were using their batons and guns. One striker was shot and a female worker was fatally hit by a truck. It is still unclear who fired the deadly shot. According to official forensic examination the bullet was not shot from any of the police guns,[2] although declassified secret police documents reveal that the police were shooting at strikers. One police officer stated he was prevented from shooting at a violent striker only by his gun jamming. [4]
As a result, president Juho Kusti Paasikivi called a general alert of the armed forces and the government sent army troops to Kemi. This ended up with an arrest of 22 leading activists. A total number of 127 strikers were later accused of uprising, 63 of them were sent to prison. [2] The police violence caused a series of sympathy strikes around Finland by communist dominated trade unions like the seamen's union led by Niilo Wälläri and a large number of metal workers. [1]
Finnish government was even afraid of communist uprising and Soviet intervention. Communists in turn, were accusing the government for violating the Paris Peace Treaty since they had sent military against the striking workers. The American press characterized the incident as a "test for Finnish democracy". Soviet newspaper Pravda was talking about "police terror" and "Prime Minister Fagerholm's collaboration with American imperialists". The sympathy strikes were finally put down on 22 August, as the Social Democrat controlled Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions expelled the striking unions. Several other unions decided to cancel their planned strikes. Some trade union leaders were later put on trial and given short sentences. [1]
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Strike
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Grim task of identifying 20 miners found dead in Orkney under way
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The families of the miners found dead in Orkney, North West, last week will start the grim task of identifying their bodies on Monday.The 20 bodies were found near a disused mine shaft in Orkney last week.The cause of death is not clear yet.North West Premier Job Mokgoro and Lesotho Consul General Selimo Thabane intend helping the families with the identification process after establishing that most of the deceased were from Lesotho.They were allegedly mining illegally. EWN reported that at least one miner has been identified but the identity was not released. City Press reported that a video was being analysed which could be of a person named "Mafifi" pleading for advice on how to bring bodies to the surface. READ | Video clip on social media could be a lead in probe into death of 20 suspected zama zamas in the NW He says the deceased were "hit by some smoke".Some of the miners had notes tucked into the wrappings their bodies were swaddled with, which could contain their identities. READ | North West premier calls for immediate action after 20 bodies found near mine Golden opportunity in commodities Peter O’Connor from Shaw and Partners says the gold price looks to have overshot and should be trading around $1,900/oz. He's seeing opportunity in local gold miners as well s some the big name resources stocks. China's last stand to cap very hot iron ore and copper prices Vivek Dhar CBA Director Mining and Energy says China is making its last stand in an attempt to cap the very hot iron ore and copper prices Country singer Corb Lund hosts anti-coal rally Country singer Corb Lund was joined by about 30 landowners on horseback on property in Alberta's eastern slopes. Lund and his friends are opposed to open-pit coal mines proposed for the area. Why residents of a Siberian mining town tried to come to Canada Residents of a mining town in Siberia asked Canada for help two years ago to save them from poverty and constant pollution, but Ottawa said it couldn't help. Since then, the residents say they've given up hope and they've been forgotten by their o... Bird's-eye view of mines near Kiselyovsk, Russia Many residents in Kiselyovsk, a Siberian mining town, say the pollution from the open-pit coal mines nearby harms their quality of life. Bitcoin Mining Council Looks at Best Practices, Energy Usage, Says Ohio Rep Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio 8th District), ranking member of the congressional FinTech Task Force, joined Cheddar to talk about the state of cryptocurrency in the U.S. after the establishment of the Bitcoin Mining Council. He said the group is fo... Bitcoin jumps as Musk says Tesla could use again Bitcoin hit a two-week peak just shy of $40,000 on Monday, after another weekend reacting to tweets from Tesla boss Elon Musk, who fended off criticism over his market influence and said Tesla sold bitcoin but may resume transactions using it. Julian Mining industry lifts SA's GDP Mining has been a stellar performer, helping lift GDP growth to better than expected levels in the first quarter. The economy’s annualised 4-point-6 percent growth came largely off the back of higher commodity prices and exports. Mining production... Illegal gold mining in Mozambique Thousands of miners descended on Chimanimani National Park to find their fortune digging for gold. But environmental costs have been high. Can legalization and organized cooperatives help preserve what's left untouched? Cambodia's new batch of landmine-sniffing rats Cambodia has deployed its next generation of rat recruits to sniff out landmines as part of efforts to boost de-mining operations in a country plagued for decades by unexploded ordinance (UXO). Could mining make a comeback in Cornwall? A Cornish tin mining company is leading the charge to revive a centuries old industry that collapsed along with the price of tin in the 1980s. Singapore considers Bitcoin as legal tender | The Daily Forkast In The Daily Forkast today: Bitcoin as official currency in Singapore?; China bans crypto mining in two regions and crypto-related keywords; UK hedge fund backs Kikitrade platform; China arrests 1,000 alleged crypto-related money launderers. Arizona town prepares for wildfire Firefighters east of Phoenix report that the Telegraph fire is more than 20% contained. It has burned over 125 square miles. Globe, Arizona is one of the towns where firefighters, volunteers and residents are gearing up to fight the flames. Shakedown on the gold industry Shae Russell from Pallion joins ausbiz to chat key levels on gold and her pick on the local gold miners making waves. El Salvador makes bitcoin legal tender El Salvador has become the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender after Congress approved President Nayib Bukele's proposal to embrace the cryptocurrency. This report produced by Chris Dignam. Protest by energy sector activists brings Warsaw traffic to a standstill Activists from energy, mining and fuel sectors from across Poland rallied for a protest march through Warsaw on Wednesday Raining cash; PWC expects the big miners to pay out $70b in dividends PWC's new report on the mining sectors shows some very rosy times ahead. Global Mining Leader Paul Bendall shares with us the nuts and bolts. India establishes crypto code of conduct | The Daily Forkast In The Daily Forkast today: India sets up crypto council to oversee code of conduct; China clampdown reduces cost of mining hardware by around 20%; Miners flee China for Kazakhstan with major hardware producer setting up there. What makes your smartphone smart? Smartphones couldn't exist without rare earths. They cause it to vibrate, for example, and display vivid colors. So rare earth elements are in huge demand worldwide. But mining them is difficult and bad for the environment, and reserves are finite. Indonesia's tin miners target the sea, angering fishermen Indonesia's tin miners are targeting the ocean off Bangka island after reserves of the lucrative metal dwindled on dry land. The shift has angered local fishermen who say their livelihoods are threatened. Searching for handsome dividends Jason Teh from Vertium has been seeking high yielding stocks in a low interest rate world with the iron ore miners the standouts as profits and dividends have surged faster than their rising share prices. China blocks social media accounts linked to Bitcoin It follows an announcement by the Chinese government that it will step up a crackdown on bitcoin trading and mining. Peruvian leftist Castillo inches ahead in tight presidential vote A socialist candidate for president pledging to share Peru's mineral wealth with the poor clawed out a razor-thin lead in the latest official ballot count. This report produced by Zachary Goelman. Peruvians await results of knife-edge election Peruvians awaited results of a presidential race between a free-market advocate and a socialist vowing constitutional reforms. This report produced by Zachary Goelman. How a tiny Pacific community fought off a giant mining company A proposal to mine 60% of a tiny island of Wagina in the Pacific was met with outrage by locals and became a landmark case in Solomon Islands. Asian governments move to regulate crypto exchanges | The Daily Forkast in The Daily Forkast: Discussions heat up on how to regulate crypto; South Korea to introduce tax of 20% on crypto profits; authorities in Sichuan lax on crypto mining; Standard Chartered launches digital asset trading platform. Could bitcoin going green boost solar investment? A push toward relying more on renewable energy for bitcoin mining could make the underperforming solar industry more attractive, according to star fund manager Cathie Wood. Maha Albadrawi has more. Giant gold mine seized by Kyrgyz government Authorities in Kyrgyzstan say they have taken full control of the giant Kumtor gold mine, sparking a legal battle with its operators, Canadian firm Centerra Gold. 'Australia's Greta Thunberg' vows to step up fight Leading thousands of protest marchers through central Sydney and joining a landmark class action lawsuit aren’t the usual activities for most 14-year-olds. This is the story of the girl known as 'Australia's Greta Thunberg'. Flora Bradley-Watson ha ATO to target crypto profits | The Daily Forkast On today's Daily Forkast with Angie Lau from forkast.news: the ATO warns investors that crypto profits are not tax free; privacy coins like Monero and Dash on the rise; Global Bitcoin mining difficulty drops after Beijing crackdown on crypto mining. 2025: Made in China is Australia's (iron ore) loss China's push for self-sufficiency is going to be Australia's loss, according to Julian Evans-Pritchard, Chef China Economist from Capital Economics. China buying or mining lower grade iron ore will only temporarily stress environmental targets. Bird's eye view: climate change accountability is rising Helen Bird, Corporate Governance at Swinburn Uni, is busy again scanning the headlines. Nuix again on the back foot, while oil and mining companies are increasingly being held accountable for future climate change impact. The mining company championing ESG David Cataford CEO of Champion Iron joins ausbiz as the company announces its operational and financial results for fourth quarter and fiscal year. Focus on exceptional purity and quality of iron ore on the top of this CEO's list. Brazil's illegal mining: Indigenous villages, police attacked Brazil's illegal mining: Indigenous villages, police attacked. Wildfire forces evacuation of Arizona mining town A wildfire has destroyed several homes and forced evacuations in the small central Arizona mining community of Bagdad. Arizona forestry officials say the fire is fueled by dry grass and brush. RSG MD: Political turmoil in Africa will not impact our operations Resolute Mining's new MD and CEO Stuart Gale says ESG factors are "top of mind" for the miner but says political turmoil is a watching brief at the company's Mali operations. Wall Street ekes out gain as jobless claims fall U.S. stocks advanced slightly on Thursday, as data showing improvement in the labor market helped bolster expectations in the economic recovery. Elon Musk and MicroStrategy CEO Announce Bitcoin Mining Council Elon Musk and MicroStrategy CEO Announce Bitcoin Mining Council. Elon Musk and MicroStrategy CEO Announce Bitcoin Mining Council. Musk and MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor held a meeting with North American Bitcoin mining firms. Musk and MicroStra... Elon Musk and MicroStrategy CEO Announce Bitcoin Mining Council Musk and MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor held a meeting with North American Bitcoin mining firms Gerrish goes for gold James Gerrish from Shaw and Partners is expecting more downside in the short-term for the big miners, given what bond markets and the USD is doing. He's also liking Newcrest Mining, and Northern Star. Elon Musk and MicroStrategy CEO Announce Bitcoin Mining Council Elon Musk and MicroStrategy CEO Announce Bitcoin Mining Council. Elon Musk and MicroStrategy CEO Announce Bitcoin Mining Council. Musk and MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor held a meeting with North American Bitcoin mining firms. Musk and MicroStra... Smile, we're going to Chile to sort out this copper problem Tim Mason Eagle Mountain Mining CEO steps in to take the measure of the copper market as Chile whacks a hefty royalty on the world's largest producer at a time of great demand. Drilling into a blast of an acquisition Garret Dixon is a very happy man. As a non-exec chairman of Dynamic Drill and Blast, the company has raised $10m and in the process, acquired another mining services provider. He joined ausbiz to tell us all about it. Nasdaq, S&P 500 down 4 of 5 sessions A mixed closed Friday with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 closing lower for the fourth time in five sessions but the Dow rallied on strong economic news. Conway G. The iron ore peak is here and now With China jawboning commodity prices lower, CBA's Director of Mining and Energy Vivek Dhar has called the iron ore peak. He also speaks to why the oil price is sliding, and the near-term outlook for the gold price. FOX 35 INVESTIGATES: Mining cryptocurrency Over the last few months, cryptocurrency has exploded in popularity and value. You can buy cryptocurrency or you can earn it by mining it. You just need a computer and some equipment. It can be a pricey hobby though. It's a great time to be a gold miner; Kaiser Reef's A1 plan Jonathon Downes from Kaiser Reef joins Kara and Dave - the company became a fledgling producer after acquiring the very high grade A1 gold mine in Victoria. Mithril's mining Mexico John Skeet, Mithril Resources CEO, updates the company's drilling program, which is focused on discoveries, acquisitions and production of gold and silver in Mexico’s Sierra Madre Gold Silver Trend. Ninepoint Partners to Utilize Management Fee to Reduce Bitcoin's Devastating Carbon Footprint Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may be sweeping the globe but the mining operations are adversely impacting the planet. A March report from Bank of America found that mining for bitcoin could produce more carbon emissions than American Airlines... Glencore to restart at world's biggest cobalt mine Operations are expected to resume next year at Mutanda, a copper and cobalt operation in Democratic Republic of Congo, in a move that could help ease shortages on the copper and cobalt markets that analysts have predicted for next year. David Doyle h This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window. This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. "The first five decomposed bodies were found at about 7pm on Tuesday outside an old and unused ventilation mine shaft in Lawrence Park, Orkney," provincial police spokesperson Brigadier Sabata Mokgwabone said at the time. "On Wednesday, 14 more bodies were found along Ariston Road and the railway line in Orkney. While still processing the scene, police received information that another body was discovered where the initial five bodies were found earlier, bringing the total to 20."
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Mine Collapses
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1977 Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134 hijacking crash
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On 10 July 1977, two Soviet hijackers took over an Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134 flight in the hope of diverting it to Stockholm, Sweden. Lacking the fuel to do this, the aircraft landed at Helsinki Airport, Finland, where the hijackers kept hostages to demand that the Finnish authorities refuel the aircraft and provide it with a new crew. The hijackers fell asleep, however, and the hostages escaped. Without this bargaining power, the hijackers surrendered and were extradited back to the Soviet Union, where they were sentenced to lengthy prison terms. The Tu-134 departed Petrozavodsk Airport on 10 July 1977 with a passenger complement of approximately seventy and an intended destination of Leningrad-Pulkovo Airport. [1][2][3][A] Partway through the flight, however, the aircraft was commandeered by 19-year-old Alexandr Zagirnjak and 22-year-old Gennadi Sheludko. The two had smuggled guns and what appeared to be a grenade on board, though it was later revealed to be a non-explosive training grenade, and demanded that the crew fly it to Stockholm. [4]
As the aircraft did not have the fuel to travel over the Baltic Sea to the Swedish capital, the crew were forced to divert to Helsinki Airport, Finland. Upon landing, the hijackers released all of the crew and a significant number of its passengers. The remainder, which reportedly included at least seven children for some period of time, were held back as hostages. [1][2] Zagirnjak and Sheludko hoped to use them as leverage to get Finnish authorities to refuel the aircraft, replace the Soviet crew, and allow them to fly to their original destination. [2] This plan was foiled, however, when Zagirnjak and Sheludko fell asleep, which allowed the remaining hostages to escape. [4][B] Lacking bargaining power, the hijackers surrendered not long after. The Finnish government returned them to the Soviet Union three days later, complying with a unique anti-hijacking treaty they had signed with the Soviets in 1974. [5] Sheludko, who had a previous criminal record for theft, would eventually be sentenced to fifteen years; Zagirnjak received eight. [4]
The incident came as part of a recent increase in airliner hijacking. The Washington Post reported that it was the third such crime in a week, with the others occurring in the Middle East and South America, and that the last successful hijacking of a Soviet aircraft had been only two months earlier. [2]
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Air crash
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What to do when post-Covid symptoms linger months after recovery
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As several cases of 'long covid syndrome' have been reported, doctors recommend covid patients to closely watch their symptoms post-recovery, follow a healthy diet and try going back to their usual routine to prevent psychological problems While the transmission rate of coronavirus is extremely high, such is not the case of symptoms that patients experience post-Covid. It’s been over a month since Senaara Ailawadi tested positive for Covid-19 , however, her symptoms remain. From extreme fatigue, breathlessness to wheezing and coughing, the 28-year-old has continued to experience prolonged post-Covid symptoms making it difficult for her to return to a normal lifestyle. After contracting the disease in November last year, Ailawadi developed the symptoms of the coronavirus again in April and began treatment. “I was exposed to a Covid positive person and was isolating to monitor my symptoms. The fever spiked to 103 twice and then stayed constant at 99 for a few days,” she told the indianexpress.com . However, even after 17 days of taking the necessary precautions and medication, Ailawadi continued to show covid symptoms. “I felt heaviness in my chest with cough, cold and fatigue with a consistently high pulse rate, even when I was in a resting state,” she said. ALSO READ | What happens if the gap between two COVID-19 vaccine doses exceeds? Similar prolonged symptoms were also experienced by 29-year-old Neha Rajpal, who tested positive for Covid on April 16. Post-recovery, Rajpal has continued to complain of “lingering cough and weakness”. What Ailawadi and Rajpal experienced is being termed “long COVID syndrome “, where a Covid patient continues to show symptoms even post-recovery and can last over six months. According to Dr Vikas Maurya, Director and HOD, Pulmonology, Fortis Hospital Shalimar Bagh, patients with moderate to severe symptoms have a higher tendency of experiencing post-COVID symptoms. “Patients may experience post-COVID symptoms such as extreme fatigue, headache, muscular pain, or some may experience cardiac problems also,” Maurya told indianexpress.com. However, in the majority of cases, patients are recovering without any post-COVID symptoms, he added. Patients who recovered at home with mild to moderate disease may continue to expect early fatigue, muscle pains. What post-COVID symptoms to expect? As several cases of ‘long covid syndrome’ have been reported, doctors recommend covid patients to closely watch their symptoms post-recovery, follow a healthy diet and try going back to their usual routine to prevent psychological problems. Moreover, it is also suggested to pay close attention to Mucormycosis or black fungus infection, which is being detected in various post-recovery Covid patients. Mucormycosis is a rare but serious fungal infection being detected among Covid-19 patients . The disease often manifests in the skin and affects the lungs and the brain. According to Dr Reshma Tewari, Director Critical care, Artemis Hospitals Gurgaon, patients who recovered at home with mild to moderate disease may continue to expect early fatigue, muscle pains. However, they must watch out for signs of Mucormycosis such as pain or swelling around the eye, cheekbone or lower jaw and connect with a doctor immediately “Patients who are still in hospital on ventilatory support or O2 support even after becoming negative would need continued hospital care till they improve. They would be at high risk for secondary infections, multi-organ failure and mucormycosis,” she added. ALSO READ | Doctor recommends this pranayam for COVID patients to keep lungs healthy Isolating while experiencing post-COVID symptoms While the transmission rate of coronavirus is extremely high, such is not the case of symptoms that patients experience post-Covid. Experts do not recommend isolation after testing negative and instead encourage resuming regular, daily activities. “Since the patient has already recovered from COVID, even if someone is experiencing post-COVID symptoms, isolation is not required. In order to overcome the psychological issues, it is better to start normalising regular activities post-recovery,” says Dr Maurya. However, Dr Tewari recommends up to 14 days of isolation for patients with moderate disease who received steroids and/or O2 therapy at home. When experiencing post-COVID symptoms or recovering from COVID, when can a patient resume normal activity? Experts do not recommend isolation after testing negative and instead encourage resuming regular, daily activities. As the virus affects each individual differently, Dr Tewari suggests that resuming activity depends on the nature of symptoms and complications of the virus. “If at home with fatigue, muscle pain patient needs to give more time and accept extended convalescence.” In agreement, Dr Maurya suggests that a patient can definitely follow their usual routine even during their isolation. “For example, if a person used to exercise regularly, he/she can do it at home even during isolation. A patient can start his/her office work slowly post isolation. But how much they are affected, that factor is very much important.” Vaccination post-COVID With the second wave of Covid-19 infecting a major population of India, getting vaccinated is a sure-shot way of preventing the spread of the virus. However, the question of vaccinating infected people often lingers. While the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests patients wait for 90 days before getting a COVID-19 vaccine if treated with monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma, there are reports that the NTAGI has stated that those tested for SARS-CoV-2 illness should defer Covid vaccination for six months after recovery. There will be no issues if a patient gets vaccinated after two-three weeks post-recovery, said Dr Maurya. “There will be no issues if a patient gets vaccinated after two-three weeks post-recovery. But it is important to consider the fact whether at that point in time a vaccine is required or not since a patient develops an antibody post-Covid and the antibody can prevent them from getting infected further,” Dr Maurya said. Commenting on the recent change in guideline stating a wait of 3 months post-recovery, Dr Maurya adds that even if a patient takes a vaccine after four weeks post his/her recovery, the vaccine may not work fully because the patient would have developed an antibody that is effective enough to prevent him/her from further infection.
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Famous Person - Recovered
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At home with Covid-19: My 10 days of recovering from the virus
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It started with a cough, then a fever and concluded with a positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. As the person closest to him, I was also diagnosed on the same day. After we tested positive, we quarantined ourselves in my room. But we were freed from the room shortly after, when, the next day, my husband also tested positive. The happy part of this story was that, on Sept 15, about a week before we caught Covid-19, the home recovery programme kicked in. When my son and I tested positive, we applied to stay home together. My husband did the same too when he got his results. Initially, there was a bit of confusion over what to do because we were given scanty instructions, but we sorted things out ourselves by reading the Ministry of Health (MOH) website. We then hunkered down for self-isolation at home. The home recovery scheme is to lighten the load of medical personnel and facilities, but I am sure being at home also played a very big part in our recuperation. For a few days after testing positive, we were knocked out by flu-like symptoms such as a fever, headache, runny nose and fatigue, and nothing beats the comfort of home when you are feeling this way. Even just lying in a familiar bed made me feel better, which must have, in turn, helped me get well faster. You know, the mind-body connection and all that. We are thankful that my husband and I met the criteria for home recovery: We are both vaccinated, do not have any health issues, had mild symptoms and do not have any elderly persons living with us. Although our son was unvaccinated because he had not hit the age requirement, as a young person, he did not seem to be terribly affected by the virus. Apart from regular bouts of coughing, he was easily the most sprightly person in the house. So sprightly that I told him more than once I wished they had taken me away to a care facility so that I can rest quietly. (No, I'm kidding. They should take him.) We religiously monitored our temperatures and blood oxygen saturation with the Temasek Foundation-issued oximeter, which checks the oxygen level in the blood and can help detect early signs of a deterioration in health. It came in very handy - it gave us the peace of mind that we were doing all right. We were not suffering from any life-threatening symptoms, so all we needed to get well were some doctor-prescribed paracetamol tablets, blankets, hot honey lemon drinks and Netflix. Meals were a problem initially. On the first day that we were isolating at home, we ordered in lunch, but quickly discovered that outside food was terribly unappetising when you were sick. The other hard-to-swallow bit was that food delivery is expensive. Multiply two meals a day by the 10 days of home isolation and a bout of Covid-19 could leave a sizeable deficit in our bank account. In the end, we fell back on the love and kindness of family and friends, something which Grab cannot deliver. My mother-in-law and mother quickly swooped in and took turns to cook our meals and get them dropped off at the doorstep of our apartment. Along with the convalescent food, they also delivered plenty of fresh fruit, vegetables, fish and meat should we feel up to cooking simple meals. Colleagues and friends too sent care packages, which shored up our inner fortitude to tide over this mini crisis. Fortunately, we were not sick for too long. Within days, even the adults were up and about on our feet again (thank you, vaccine!). Which was when we discovered the other advantage of recovering at home was that my workaholic husband could quickly get back to work, and, because the Primary 5 year-end exams be upon us, our son could attend home-based learning, which is crucial. (He disagrees.) After 10 days of being at home which, thankfully, was without too much drama, we were automatically discharged. A PCR test is not required on the tenth day, and neither will there be a discharge memo. The MOH website advises recovered patients to minimise social contact for another seven days afterwards, which we will be doing so. Although I would not wish to catch Covid-19, being allowed to recover at home is one of the better things that can happen in a bad situation. Tip for households with more than one case of Covid-19 • Regularly monitor your temperatures and blood oxygen saturation “We religiously monitored our temperatures and blood oxygen saturation with the Temasek Foundation-issued oximeter, which checks the oxygen level in the blood and can help detect early signs of a deterioration in health. It came in very handy - it gave us the peace of mind that we were doing all right.” – Ms K. Tan, 40s, media executive More On This Topic Like a thief in the night, Covid-19 broke into our home Tough for some caregivers Having family members at home can mean quick access to food and services. But it can be tough for the caregivers. When CK, who declined to have her name published, saw that her houseplants in the common corridor had been watered after she returned from a Covid-19 testing centre, she knew what it meant. Her father, who had contracted the virus and was supposed to remain in his room, had broken the rules. “I was very stressed... We had to keep highlighting how his behaviour is going to cause a lot of inconvenience for the rest of us before he started to self-isolate more often,” said the personal assistant in her 30s, who lives in a Housing Board flat with her parents and brother. “He would walk around the house because he wanted to talk to my mum. Occasionally, he went out to water the plants or sit at the staircase.” When CK’s father, who is in his 60s, tested positive on Sept 19 - a Sunday - his family thought he would be taken to a recovery facility as he has an underlying heart condition and had been hospitalised earlier this year because of it. His Covid-19 symptoms - which included a runny nose and fever - were relatively mild. But although the family of four was served home quarantine orders from Sept 20, nobody contacted them about her father’s condition until Friday. The caller, a telemedicine provider, said someone would drop by to check on her father over the weekend. Nobody did. As CK’s father did not stick to using one set of utensils, the rest of the family washed all cups and plates with boiling water before using them. They also wore masks at home and disinfected surfaces when he returned to his room after being in the common areas. “He was very frustrated and didn’t have any official advice telling him what to do,” CK said. “To him, this is his home and these are his things. He didn’t understand why we were controlling him.” The family also did not get a care pack, which is supposed to contain items such as a thermometer, hand sanitiser and surgical masks. “I think these are the basic things you should have at home, as well as test kits and some disinfecting spray,” CK said. “Because you never know when you will need them, and MOH is really overwhelmed.” The whole family - including CK’s father - is vaccinated, and did ART tests regularly while in quarantine. They tried to contact MOH several times, but were only able to reach phone operators who were not equipped to give advice on their specific situation. When CK asked if her father could be taken to a recovery facility because they were finding it hard to keep him indoors, they suggested she call the police instead. “If I had wanted my father to be caught, I would have called 999,” she said. “What if I had driven him crazy?” “I felt that we were one of the families that had been forgotten,” she added. “Nobody checked on my dad or monitored his condition.” Tip for those caring for a Covid-19 patient at home • Wear masks at home and clean surfaces frequently if infected family members do not self-isolate “We wear masks every day. I also ordered disinfecting spray. Every time my dad accesses a different part of the flat, I will use it to keep everything as clean as possible after he returns to his bedroom.” – CK, 30s, a personal assistant More On This Topic Kept family safe During his 10-day home recovery stint, Mr Toh Kian San developed a strict routine. Anything that left his room - from food waste to dirty clothes - was double-bagged before it was handed over to his wife and teenage children. Wearing disposable gloves, they would help Mr Toh carry out his chores before stripping off the gloves and sanitising their hands. “We also told our neighbours that I had tested positive,” the 53-year-old taxi driver said in Mandarin. “That way, they wouldn’t wonder why my family was suddenly avoiding them if we saw them at the central chute on our floor.” Mr Toh had tested positive for the virus on Sept 17, and came down with a fever, sore throat and body aches. After two days without hearing from anyone at MOH, he called the ministry and was asked if he would like to recuperate at home or be sent to a recovery facility. Mr Toh chose to stay home, partly because his Pasir Ris apartment has two balconies. One is attached to the master bedroom, where he was isolating himself, and the other is connected to the living room. The family of four would don masks when talking to each other from their separate balconies. “At least I could see my children that way, even though we were a few metres apart,” he said. They are all fully vaccinated and put on masks whenever they came into close contact with Mr Toh, such as when they had to leave meals outside his bedroom door. Mr Toh took his temperature three times daily, and was contacted by a telemedicine provider on the fifth day. By that time, his symptoms had already begun to subside, he recalled. “For me, it was like a normal flu. Just that it’s very transmissible, so that’s what made me a bit anxious.” His main concern now is getting back to work. Although he has completed his home recovery stint - with MOH saying that people can be discharged after the 10-day period - his TraceTogether app still shows that he has not been cleared. The taxi company he works for told him he cannot get back on the road. “They waived the taxi rental, but of course my family is still impacted because I have no income,” he said. “My wife is working from home, so right now it’s one person supporting the four of us.” Tips for the Covid-19 patient who is living with healthy people • Double-bag your rubbish to protect your family “I put my food waste or dirty clothes into a plastic bag, and then I put the whole bag into another bag for my family to collect it.” – Mr Toh Kian San, 53, taxi driver • Take a self-test using an ART kit upon being informed of exposure to Covid-19 “A day before my PCR test, I tested positive on the ART, when my symptoms were still very light. This gave my family time to exchange my room and prepare for home recovery.” – Ms Isabella Ng, 26, a training officer. She tested positive on Sept 17, after home recovery became the default care model for vaccinated Covid-19 patients on Sept 15.
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Famous Person - Recovered
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1955 Madaba riot
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The 1955 Madaba riot, sometimes also referred as the Madaba massacre took place in the predominantly Christians Jordanian town of Madaba, when a number of Christians were killed by Islamist rioters.
The riot seems to have begun in a dispute between Christian and Muslim taxi drivers, after which the Salt monastery was attacked by members of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, eventually transforming in into an all-out sectarian riot. It is claimed that the event was instigated by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb ut-Tahrir. It was also claimed that a Jordanian Parliament Member, Muhammad Salim Abu al-Ghanam, was behind the eruption of the riot.
Wide-scale anti-Hashemite riots took place the same year in December, lasting for five days. Those came as a result of an attempt to bring Jordan into the Baghdad Pact. The riots were severe – foreign consulates were attacked and many people were killed and wounded throughout the country. The riots were quelled only with the military intervention of the Arab Legion and imposition of a curfew. As a result of the riots, the Majali government fell and the introduction of Jordan into the pact was cancelled.
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Riot
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In Blow to Globalism, Trump Withdraws From TPP “Trade” Regime
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Walter E. Williams – The Democrats and their media allies would love to find some Russian collusion and interference. I can help them discover some, but I doubt that they will show much interest. Here it goes. C. Mitchell Shaw – Some members of the intelligence community have claimed that President Trump is not only in bed with the Russians, but that he may be being blackmailed. Are they credible? by Selwyn Duke – Instead of teaching lessons based on the tried and true — the results of thousands of years of trial and error — schools adhere to the latest whims and fads, damaging youth. by Alex Newman – In a major victory for American national sovereignty and self-government, President Donald Trump on Monday fulfilled his campaign pledge to withdraw the U.S. government from the “free trade” regime known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Despite strong support from Obama, most congressional Republicans, and the establishment wing of both parties, the secretly negotiated “trade” scheme was unconstitutional, dangerous, and extraordinarily unpopular across the political spectrum. But with a simple executive action by the new president, the globalist establishment's cherished dream for what lawmakers described as a “Pacific Union”-style super-government went up in smoke. Globalists were furious, while patriots celebrated. by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D. – As in the 2016 presidential election, past political factions have splintered, with the disaffected politicos claiming betrayal. In the early 1800s, they were the Tertium Quids. by William F. Jasper – In a major victory for American national sovereignty and self-government, President Donald Trump on Monday fulfilled his campaign pledge to withdraw the U.S. government from the “free trade” regime known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Despite strong support from Obama, most congressional Republicans, and the establishment wing of both parties, the secretly negotiated “trade” scheme was unconstitutional, dangerous, and extraordinarily unpopular across the political spectrum. But with a simple executive action by the new president, the globalist establishment's cherished dream for what lawmakers described as a “Pacific Union”-style super-government went up in smoke. Globalists were furious, while patriots celebrated. Trump signed the executive order essentially killing TPP on January 23 after a meeting with a team of high-level corporate executives and advisors. “Everyone knows what that means, right?” Trump was quoted as saying at the White House signing ceremony for the action withdrawing from TPP. “We've been talking about this for a long time. It's a great thing for the American worker.” However, before making the move official, Trump made clear that he was not opposed to trade, per se. “What we want is fair trade,” he said while meeting with top business executives. “And we're gonna treat countries fairly, but they have to treat us fairly.” Among other concerns, President Trump pointed to Japan and the communist regime in Beijing, both of which make it difficult — if not impossible — to sell many U.S. goods. “If you want to sell something into China and other countries it's very, very hard,” Trump told the CEOs of some of America's largest international businesses before signing the TPP withdrawal action. “In some cases it's impossible. They won't even take your product. But when they do take your product they charge you a lot of tax. I don't call that free trade. What we want is fair trade.” Trump is also reportedly working on a plan to renegotiate or, if necessary, withdraw from, the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). While the TPP deal was likely dead anyway after Trump's election — the TPP was so unpopular that even establishment globalist Hillary Clinton had to pretend to oppose it — Trump's latest action was widely hailed as the death knell for TPP. The scheme has never been approved by Congress despite efforts by Obama and establishment GOP leaders. And Obama and others let the cat out of the bag. Despite needing support from Republicans to pass the TPP, for example, Obama went around boasting to his supporters that the massive scheme was the “most progressive trade agreement in history.” And to the extent that progressivism means unaccountable and autocratic rule by the elite at the expense of the people, the remark could be considered accurate. The TPP, like its Atlantic counterpart known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), would have stripped Americans of their right to self-government across a wide array of policy areas. From policies on immigration and trade to regulation and labor, the TPP and related schemes would purport to give foreign powers the ability to make rules for Americans. In the case of TPP, this would have included both a communist dictatorship and an Islamist dictatorship. And far from enabling real free trade, the deals are composed of thousands of pages of secretly negotiated rules and regulations establishing a byzantine regional regime more accurately characterized as “managed” trade and regional governance. Among the most significant controversies that plagued the TPP was the treaty's establishment of kangaroo courts purporting to allow foreign corporations and even state-owned enterprises to sue American taxpayers. The agreement also established an unelected, unaccountable governing board that could change the scheme later on, without congressional approval. “This new structure is known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission — a Pacific Union — which meets, appoints unelected bureaucrats, adopts rules, and changes the agreement after adoption,” warned Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a leading congressional opponent of the agreement, referencing its similarity to the European Union, which has all but crushed national sovereignty and self-government across Europe using the same deceptive strategy of "free trade." “The 5,554-page accord, disguised as a simple trade agreement, commits the American people to an international commission with the power to act around Congress,” Sessions continued. “It allows 12 nations [governments], some with less than 1 percent of the GDP of the United States, an equal vote in the TPP Commission. Actions by this commission separate the American people from the policy decisions that affect their lives. The TPP Commission is a direct threat to representative democracy [sic] and accountability.” In other words, instead of self-government under the Constitution through elected representatives, the TPP would have installed an unaccountable supranational government to make crucial decisions for the American people. Senator Sessions, one of Trump's earliest and fiercest supporters and now his nominee to serve as U.S. attorney general, also highlighted the economic ramifications of the TPP and similar pseudo-free trade regimes. “Americans know these agreements have allowed trade practices that unfairly close manufacturing plants, costing millions of high paying jobs,” Sessions explained. “Our people are hurting. We cannot afford to lose a single job because of a bad trade deal.” Blasting “Obama's globalist agenda,” Sessions said radical schemes such as the TPP were the reason voters “are in rebellion, at home and in Europe.” Trump apparently got the message, though elements of the establishment have not. Ironically, while some establishment globalist “Republicans” such as Senator John McCain of Arizona were left frothing at the mouth over Trump's move to block TPP, some forces traditionally associated with the Democrat Party celebrated the action. “With this decision, the president has taken the first step toward fixing 30 years of bad trade policies that have cost working Americans millions of good paying jobs,” Teamsters Union President James Hoffa said in a written statement quoted in media reports. Democrats dependent on blue-collar and union votes have largely sided with their constituents, and real conservatives and patriots, in opposing schemes such as TPP, though perhaps for different reasons. Globalists, however, were outraged by Trump's action, and seemed to be reading from the same script of deceptions. “TPP withdrawal will slow U.S. [economic] growth, cost American jobs, & weaken U.S. standing in Asia/world,” claimed Richard Haass, president of the establishment globalist powerhouse known as the Council on Foreign Relations, in what sounded like a threat. “China could well be [the] principal beneficiary.” The CFR has been exposed by former members who defected, including U.S. military leaders, as a hotbed of subversive activity by fanatics seeking to sell out American independence in favor of a world government. (Trump has previously praised Haass, confusing his supporters.) The claim, which has been debunked, that China would benefit if the U.S. government refused to surrender sovereignty and jobs under TPP was echoed by numerous other globalists. In reality, top officials involved in TPP had already proposed allowing the regime in Beijing to join the scheme. And of course, it was the globalist CFR and its leading operators — globalists such as David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger — who are most responsible for the massive threat the Communist Chinese dictatorship poses to the United States, humanity, and freedom around the world today. The TPP was negotiated for Obama by a CFR operative, too. Indeed, Rockefeller even claimed in the New York Times after a trip to China in the 1970s that Chairman's Mao's “social experiment” was the “one of the most important and successful in human history,” despite the savage slaughter of tens of millions of innocent people. Just last week, top globalists and CFR figures were at the World Economic Forum in Davos paying tribute to mass-murdering Chinese dictator Xi Jinping as the new leader of globalism after his keynote speech. And as billionaire globalist George Soros has explained publicly, he thinks Beijing should “own” the “New World Order” in the same way the United States owned the last one. Foreign powers tried to put a smiley face on the developments, with some officials pretending that they might pursue the deal even without the United States. Before Trump was formally sworn in, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd even suggested that Trump be persuaded to back away from his position. “If he needs to re-brand this, or re-name it or re-constitute it because he's the president and he said he'd get rid of it then fine,” Rudd said, calling for preserving “as much substance” as possible. And in the days leading up to Trump's executive action, Australian Trade Minister Steven Ciobo denied that the TPP was dead, calling on Trump and Americans not to junk the scheme just because there “may be aspects that they don't like.” But Trump's action did not come as a surprise to almost anyone. In fact, in November, he vowed that scrapping TPP would happen immediately after he took office. And in his inaugural address last week, he made clear that his “America First” vision would guide policy. “From this moment on, it’s going to be America First,” Trump said. “Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families.” He also vowed to protect America from what he called the “ravages” of other countries “making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.” As soon as Obama was gone, the White House website also vowed to kill TPP. On the same day as the action withdrawing from TPP, Trump also unleashed other constitutional executive actions applauded by his supporters. From instituting a federal hiring freeze (excluding the military), to restoring a longtime ban on taxpayer funding for abortion groups around the world that Obama sought to undermine, Trump went right to work, following through on some of the most important promises he made on the campaign trail. It was a series of crushing blows to globalism, Big Government, the abortion lobby, establishment plans for regionalizing governance, the undermining of the U.S. economy, and more. At the Monday meeting with corporate leaders before his latest orders, Trump outlined some of his other proposals for boosting U.S. manufacturing. “What we want to do is bring manufacturing back to our country,” Trump told the chief executives, which also included the leaders of companies such as Ford, Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, and U.S. Steel. To accomplish that, Trump proposed slashing corporate tax rates from 35 percent “down to anywhere from 15 to 20 per cent,” helping bring U.S. tax rates — the highest in the developed world — back in line with those of other industrialized countries. Trump also vowed to seek a “very major border tax” on companies that shut down their U.S. factories and then try to sell goods back into the United States. Obama tried to make TPP and the rest of his agenda seem inevitable. But thanks to the hard work of grassroots organizations across the political spectrum, much of that agenda is now in ruins. Indeed, broad swaths of Obama's legacy have already been abolished the same way the schemes came about — with a “pen and a phone.” Of course, undoing the damage of the Obama years, and of generations of globalist establishment machinations, will not be easy. And it is unlikely that Trump will even try. But if the first few days of his term are any indication, Trump does plan to take firm action against globalism, even if it means clashing with the powerful establishment forces that tried to destroy him throughout his campaign for the presidency.
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Withdraw from an Organization
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1979 Sydney Ghost Train fire
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The Sydney Ghost Train fire at Luna Park Sydney killed six children and one adult on 9 June 1979. It destroyed the amusement park's ghost train. Inadequate fire-fighting measures and low staffing caused the fire to completely destroy the ride. It is believed the Ghost Train ride was first constructed in 1931 and transported from Glenelg, South Australia to Milsons Point, New South Wales during 1934 and 1935. [1]
Originally the fire was blamed on electrical faults, but arson by known figures has also been claimed. The exact cause of the fire could not be determined by a coronial inquiry. The coroner also ruled that, while the actions of Luna Park's management and staff before and during the fire (in particular their choosing not to follow advice on the installation of a sprinkler system in the ride) breached their duty of care, charges of criminal negligence should not be laid. The case was reopened in 1987: no new findings were made, although the police investigation and coronial inquiry were criticised. The fire forced the closure of Luna Park until 1982, when it reopened under a new name and new owners. [2]
A memorial garden was installed by Luna Park in 1995, but its fixtures were lost during the park's 2003 redevelopment. In replacement, a plaque listing those killed was placed on the location of the ride, but a promised mural to surround the plaque was never painted. A separate memorial park was created by North Sydney Council in 2007, including a sculpture by Michael Leunig. Luna Park's Ghost Train was a ghost train-style amusement ride. Designed and constructed in 1931 at Luna Park Glenelg, the ride was transported to Milsons Point along with all the other rides and reassembled prior to Luna Park Sydney's first opening in October 1935. Architectural plans and drawings of rides and buildings at Luna Park Sydney (Milson’s Point, New South Wales) are held at the State Library of New South Wales, including the Ghost Train ride. The plans and drawings include some from Luna Park Melbourne (St Kilda, Victoria) and Luna Park Glenelg (Glenelg, South Australia). [3]
On the night of 9 June 1979, a fire broke out inside the ride at approximately 10:15 pm. Due to a combination of low water pressure, under-staffing within the park, and inadequate coverage of the Ghost Train by the park's fire hose system, the fire was able to completely consume the ride. [4][5] It took an hour to bring the fire under control, but it was extinguished before any significant damage could be done to the adjacent River Caves and Big Dipper. [5][6]
Around 35 people were believed to have been on the ride when thick smoke began to escape from the tunnel doors. [6] Ride staff raised the alarm, and began to pull people from the ride as their cars exited the tunnel. [6] It was initially thought that everybody had escaped the fire, but at around 11:30 pm, the bodies of seven people were found inside the ride: John Godson and his two children, Damien and Craig, and four Waverley College students; Jonathan Billings, Richard Carroll, Michael Johnson, and Seamus Rahilly. [5][6] At the time of the fire, investigating police speculated that the seven had climbed out of their cars and unsuccessfully tried to find their way out of the tunnel; had they stayed in the cars, they might have survived. [6] Other evacuated passengers reported seeing empty cars exit the tunnel on fire. [7]
The park was shut down immediately after the incident for a federal investigation. [4][6] A coronial inquiry into the incident did not determine the cause of the fire, although it was demonstrated that the ride's permanent wiring and attractions were not the source of ignition. [4] Coroner Kevin Anderson found that Luna Park's management had failed to develop an adequate fire suppression program, despite recommendations by North Sydney Council and the Fire Department eighteen months earlier. [4] Anderson's report stated that while the park's owners and management had failed in their duty of care towards patrons, the failure was not "that high degree of negligence necessary to support a charge of criminal negligence". [8] The NSW Government called for new tenders to operate the park on 31 July 1979. [9]
Before the fire, a Sydney design consultant stated that he had advised Luna Park management to install a sprinkler system in the Ghost Train in December 1977, following an inspection of the park for potential renovations. [6] The recommendation was not followed. [4][6]
In 1987, a Government inquiry by the National Crime Authority reopened the investigation of the fire. [10] No new evidence was presented, but it was found that the police investigation into the incident had been inadequate, and the coronial inquiry ineffective. [10]
Despite claims ranging from faulty wiring to sabotage in an attempt to have the park closed down and demolished, the cause of the fire has never been established. [10]
In May 2007, Anne Buckingham, a niece of Sydney underworld figure Abe Saffron, claimed in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald that her uncle was responsible for the fire. [11] Saffron had been associated with seven other arson attacks in the two years following the Ghost Train fire, although he had repeatedly denied involvement with the Ghost Train fire. [5][11] Buckingham claimed the attack was part of a plan for Saffron to gain control of Luna Park's lease, although she stated her belief that the seven deaths were not intended. [11]
Former Park Artist Martin Sharp claimed that Saffron had approached Luna Park's owner, Ted Hopkins, several years before the fire, offering to buy the park. [5] In 1985, it was claimed by NSW MP Michael John Hatton that Saffron had beneficial ownership of the park, resulting in an inquiry which concluded that although people related to Saffron were involved in supplying pinball and arcade games to Luna Park, Abe Saffron himself was not linked to the ownership of the park. [5]
Buckingham later denied she made the comments attributed to her and demanded the story not be published, although the Herald claims her original statements were recorded on tape during a face-to-face interview. [11] The NSW Attorney General has stated the coronial inquiry could be reopened, but would first require the submission of new evidence to the police. [12]
A memorial was dedicated in 1995 to the seven victims of the 1979 fire, with a tree planted next to an antique bench decorated with the names of the victims. [13] During the 2003 redevelopment, the tree was removed and the bench lost. [13] Park director Warwick Doughty claimed that the memorial and events had little relevance, although North Sydney mayor Genia McCaffery, among others, disagreed and campaigned for the memorial's reinstatement. [13] In 2004, a plaque listing the names of the victims was placed on an external wall of the Big Top, which was constructed on the site of the Ghost Train. [14][15] The plaque was to be the centrepiece of a mural painted by former Park Artist Martin Sharp,[15] but this has never been painted. At least one person present at the unveiling of the plaque was unimpressed with the new memorial. [15]
A memorial park was opened at Lavender Bay by North Sydney Council on 25 August 2007. [16] The Art Barton Park, named after former Park Artist Arthur Barton, includes a bronze sculpture designed by Michael Leunig dedicated to the victims. [16]
The Chapel at Waverley College features a memorial to four of the boys who perished in the fire.
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Fire
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2017 Czech Hockey Games
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The 2016–17 Euro Hockey Tour is the 21st season of Euro Hockey Tour. It started on 3 November 2016 and lasted until 30 April 2017. It consisted of Karjala Tournament, Channel One Cup, Sweden Hockey Games and Czech Hockey Games. The Karjala Cup was played between 3–6 November 2016. Five of the matches were played in Helsinki, Finland, and one match in Plzeň, Czech Republic. Tournament was won by Russia. The Channel One Cup was played between 15–18 December 2016. Five of the matches were played in Russia, and one match in Helsinki, Finland. Tournament was won by Sweden. The 2017 Sweden Hockey Games was played between 9–12 February 2017. Five of the matches are played in Gothenburg, Sweden, and one match in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The 2017 Czech Hockey Games was played between 27–30 April 2017. Five of the matches are played in České Budějovice, Czech Republic, and one match in Stockholm, Sweden.
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Sports Competition
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Cardiff Ely bread riots
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The Cardiff Ely bread riots, or Ely petrol riots,[1] was the outbreak of violence that occurred in the council suburb of Ely in the capital of Wales, Cardiff, during September 1991. The unrest was attributed to a dispute between two shopkeepers over who could sell bread and other food products which escalated into a riot that saw up to 500 participants. An estimated 175 police officers were mobilised, including reinforcements called in from the Vale of Glamorgan, to deal with the unrest. The South Wales region had been experiencing an economic downturn at the start of the 1990s. Unemployment among young men in the Ely area was widespread, with an estimated 30% of the demographic being out of work.The miners' strikes in the mid-1980s had led to tension between the working class and the Tory government which had been in power for 12 years at the time. The Ely area of Cardiff was an area that had seen poverty levels increase for low paid workers or people living on the benefits system.
The weather at the time of the incident has also been attributed as a factor. Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Cardiff West, Rhodri Morgan, later described how "the weather was absolutely scorching and sultry, which was half the problem".
In 1991, tensions were raised when a dispute broke out between two shopkeepers in Ely over council restrictions over what each shop could sell. Abdul Waheed, a Pakistani-born shopowner who had opened his store at 70 Wilson Road seven years earlier, was accused by some locals of trying to put a white shopkeeper, Carl Agius, who was of Maltese descent, out of business. Waheed had obtained a court injunction that banned the rival shop from selling bread and other food products at discounted prices. The pair had been involved in a long running dispute over the sale of certain products that had been ongoing for two years prior to the incident.Some local residents claimed the unrest was triggered by Waheed's alleged treatment of suspected shoplifters. However, both shopkeepers later denied their actions were the cause of the unrest.
On 31 August, Waheed's premises on Wilson Road were vandalised when bricks and stones were thrown at the store. Police officers were deployed to stand guard outside the shop after locals continually threatened the site. Local MP Rhodri Morgan travelled to the site in the early stages in an attempt to appease the situation. Morgan was nearly hit by eggs thrown by locals that instead hit a police inspector that he was in conversation with. Morgan later wrote in his autobiography that he had made a mistake by speaking to police first at the scene rather than locals, believing he had shown that he was siding with the authorities.
The store was targeted for two further nights as Waheed and an employee remained in the flat above. However, the pair left the house and fled to Birmingham when advised to leave the store by local police.
After the initial disturbances, youths from other areas of Cardiff and Barry began travelling to the site in order to join in the disruption. [4] To combat the arrival of further rioters from outside the area, the police began turning non-locals away from the area in what was described as a "sterile-zone". Over the weekend of 1–2 September, estimates put the number of rioters at around 500, who threw stones, petrol bombs and fired air rifles at riot police. 22 arrests were made over the initial two days.
Police arrested 11 people on 3 September, including three over an incident where a car was driven at a line of police officers. [5] During the operation, numerous police officers from the Vale of Glamorgan area were called in to assist, as well as officers from the wider South Wales region. [2] In total, an estimated 175 officers were mobilised at the height of the disturbances. Cardiff police were equipped with full riot gear during the unrest, the first time in the force's history that the equipment had been used, and the force's helicopter was deployed.
The unrest in Ely was linked to similar disturbances in other parts of Britain. In the weeks around the Ely riots, there had been riots in Handsworth, Birmingham and on the Blackbird Leys Estate in Oxford, linked with social factors such as high rates of unemployment and "disaffected" youth. Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Kenneth Baker responded to the unrest by describing the perpetrators as "yobbos and hooligans". His response was heavily criticised by Labour Council leader Bob Morgan who retorted "pretty outrageous for a home secretary to talk in those terms. [...] He really should be concerned with the underlying causes of these matters. "
Morgan blamed the violence on the "build-up of this huge reservoir of disadvantaged youths, which not only can't find employment, but they have no real hope. " His response was supported by Labour MP Rhodri Morgan, who also blamed the lack of employment and prospects in the area.Some newspapers claimed that the violence was racially motivated, but these comments were dismissed by local residents and Andrew May, assistant chief constable of South Wales Police, who commented "the local community has taken sides between the two shops and then a large group of younger men have turned their hostile intentions towards the police. "
20 people were eventually jailed for various offences perpetrating from the riots, the longest being a 30-month sentence. [8] Local residents have claimed that the riots have left the area "stigmatised". The two shops at the centre of the unrest have since been demolished. [8]
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Riot
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Police: Bank robbery suspect caught after pursuit through Rochester, nearby towns
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Rochester, N.Y. - A bank robbery suspect is in custody, police say, following a pursuit in Rochester Monday. Around 1:45 p.m., police say the suspect robbed the M&T Bank on Lyell Avenue. They say the suspect passed a note to a teller. Soon after, officers in the area saw a vehicle matching a description of the suspect's and attempted to stop it. This reportedly resulted in a lengthy police pursuit that stretched through multiple areas, including Greece and Irondequoit. After nearly 45 minutes, the pursuit eventually came to an end on West Avenue. The suspect was taken into custody and transported to the hospital to be evaluated for injuries. The suspect has been identified as Stevie C. Williams, 42, from Buffalo. He has been charged with third-degree robbery and fourth-degree grand larceny. e is also being charged with DWAI-drugs and multiple traffic offenses. No police or civilians were injured.
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Bank Robbery
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Man dies after after equipment collapse at West Virginia mine
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BOONE COUNTY, WV (WOWK) — UPDATE: Shortly after 5:30 P.M. Wednesday, crews responded to the former Hobet Mine in Boone County, where a worker became trapped in a piece of equipment. According to Danville Fire Lieutenant Gregory Hager, Danville Volunteer Fire Department found an excavator entangled in debris from a silo that was being demolished. 73-year-old James Simpkin was pronounced dead at the scene. The Danville Volunteer Fire Department, with automatic aid assistance from the Madison Volunteer Fire Department and the Boone County Ambulance Authority, responded to the scene. Several crews are at the Hobet Mine in Boone County after an accident. According to Boone County Dispatchers, a man was operating a piece of machinery when a silo collapsed on him. Madison Fire Department and Danville Fire Department are on the scene as well as the South Charleston structural collapse unit.
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Mine Collapses
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OSU researchers find evidence of 300-year-old earthquake, tsunami
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PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Researchers with Oregon State University found evidence inside tree rings of an earthquake and tsunami that happened more than 300 years ago. According to the researchers, samples from trees near Newport show reduced growth following the 9.0 quake in January 1700. It triggered a tsunami that battered the Pacific Coast. “The tsunami appears to be the event that most affected the trees’ growth that year,” said Robert Dziak, a Hatfield Marine Science Center-based scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. “Getting these little bits of the picture helps us understand what we might expect when the next ‘big one’ hits.” Modeling shows the coast could have been inundated by as much as 30 feet of water. The research is important to find out more about future earthquakes. The quake in 1700 was the last major one to hit the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
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Tsunamis
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TWA Flight 841 (1979) crash
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TWA Flight 841 was a domestic, scheduled passenger flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, en route to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota. On April 4, 1979, at or around 9:48 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (01:48 UTC), while flying over Saginaw, Michigan, the Boeing 727-31 airliner began a sharp, uncommanded roll to the right, and subsequently went into a spiral dive. The pilots were able to regain control of the aircraft and made a successful emergency landing at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. At 8:25 p.m. EST, TWA Flight 841 departed JFK International after a 45-minute delay due to traffic congestion. After traveling nearly 540 miles (870 km),[2] while cruising at 39,000 feet (12,000 m) near the city of Saginaw, Michigan, Captain Harvey "Hoot" Gibson says the aircraft was operating with the autopilot on "Altitude Hold" mode when it began a steep roll to the right. [1]:2 The crew immediately disconnected the autopilot and tried to bring the aircraft back to a wings level attitude. Despite the best efforts of the flight crew, the aircraft spiraled out of control, diving about 34,000 feet (10,000 m) in just 63 seconds. [1]:2 During the course of the dive, the plane rolled through 360 degrees twice and crossed the Mach limit for the 727 airframe. Control was regained at about 5,000 feet (1,500 m) after the pilots extended the landing gear in an attempt to slow the aircraft. [3][4] The plane suffered substantial structural damage, but made an emergency landing at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Michigan at 10:31 p.m. EST without further trouble. No fatalities occurred among the 82 passengers and seven crew members. Eight passengers reported minor injuries related to high G forces. [1]
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the accident, conducting what was at the time the lengthiest accident investigation in NTSB history. [5] In its final report, published in June 1981, the NTSB concluded the probable cause of the accident was pilot error. [1]:1
Among the damage discovered after the accident, investigators found the #7 slat missing from the leading edge of the right wing. NTSB investigators requested the aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, inspect the remainder of the slat assembly, including a portion of the slat actuator cylinder (the motor that moves the slat and holds it in position). Boeing determined that the #7 slat had failed because the slats had been extended while the aircraft was flying at cruising speed. They also determined that it was "impossible" for the flaps to extend without manipulating the controls. [6]
After eliminating all individual and combined sources of mechanical failure, the NTSB ruled that the extension of the slats was due to the flight crew manipulating the flap/slat controls in an inappropriate manner. [1]:2[7] Investigators believed that 727 pilots (in general, and this flight specifically) were setting the trailing edge flaps to two degrees during high altitude cruise, while at the same time pulling the circuit breaker for the slats so that they would not activate. This configuration was rumored to result in increased lift with no increase in drag, thus allowing more speed, higher elevation, or decreased fuel consumption. Flaps and slats were intended to only be deployed at low speeds during take-off or landing. [1]
The crew, Capt. Harvey "Hoot" Gibson, first officer Scott Kennedy, and flight engineer Garry Banks, denied that their actions had been the cause of the flaps' extension:
At no time prior to the incident did I take any action within the cockpit either intentionally or inadvertently, that would have caused the extension of the leading edge slats or trailing edge flaps. Nor did I observe any other crew member take any action within the cockpit, either intentional or inadvertent, which would have caused the extension. The crew suggested instead that an actuator on the #7 slat had failed, causing its inadvertent deployment. The NTSB rejected this as improbable and attributed the extension of the flaps to the deliberate actions of the crew. The crew claimed that such failures had happened on other 727s prior and subsequent to this incident. [10] The NTSB report noted that between 1970 and 1973, seven separate cases involving a single leading edge slat extension and separation were reported, but none of these reports indicated whether or not the slat extension was due to flight crew involvement. [1]:18 Records after 1974 did include this information, and (other than Flight 174) only two slat extension problems were reported between 1974 and the close of the NTSB's investigation in 1981, one of which was inadvertently caused by the flight crew. [1]:24
The flight crew testified that they had not engaged the flaps, and the NTSB concluded that "if the flightcrew's recollections are accurate," the slat extension must have been caused by a mechanical failure or defect. [1]:24 However, the NTSB ultimately concluded that the flight crew was probably attempting to use 2º of flaps at cruising speed:
While cruising at Mach 0.816 and 39,000 feet pressure altitude and with the autopilot controlling the aircraft, an attempt was made to extend 2º of trailing edge flaps independently of the leading edge slats, probably in an effort to improve aircraft performance[1]:32
When retraction of the flaps was ordered, the Number 7 leading edge slat failed to retract, causing the uncommanded roll to the right. The Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the isolation of the No. 7 leading edge slat in the fully or partially extended position after an extension of the Nos. 2, 3, 6, and 7 leading edge slats and the subsequent retraction of the Nos. 2, 3, and 6 slats, and the captain's untimely flight control inputs to counter the roll resulting from the slat asymmetry. Contributing to the cause was a preexisting misalignment of the No. 7 slat which, when combined with the cruise condition airloads, precluded retraction of that slat. After eliminating all probable individual or combined mechanical failures, or malfunctions which could lead to slat extension, the Safety Board determined that the extension of the slats was the result of the flightcrew's manipulation of the flap/slat controls. Contributing to the captain's untimely use of the flight controls was distraction due probably to his efforts to rectify the source of the control problem. [1]:1
Captain Gibson appealed the NTSB's findings, first to the NTSB itself, and then to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. [5][11] Both petitions were rejected: the former for lack of new evidence, and the latter for lack of jurisdiction due to the NTSB's "unreviewable discretion". The aircraft was repaired and returned to service in May 1979. The aircraft was equipped with a Fairchild Industries Model A-100 cockpit voice recorder (CVR). However, 21 minutes of the 30-minute tape were blank. [1]:6 Tests of the CVR in the aircraft revealed no discrepancies in the CVR's electrical and recording systems. [1]:6The CVR tape can be erased by means of the bulk-erase feature on the CVR control panel located in the cockpit. This feature can be activated only after the aircraft is on the ground with its parking brake engaged. [1]:6 In a deposition taken by the Safety Board, the captain stated that he usually activates the bulk-erase feature on the CVR at the conclusion of each flight to preclude inappropriate use of recorded conversations. However, in this instance, he could not recall having done so.
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Air crash
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2019–2021 Algerian protests
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The 2019–2021 Algerian protests, also called Revolution of Smiles[26][27] or Hirak Movement,[28] began on 16 February 2019,[2][29] six days after Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced his candidacy for a fifth presidential term in a signed statement. These protests, without precedent since the Algerian Civil War, were peaceful and led the military to insist on Bouteflika's immediate resignation, which took place on 2 April 2019. [30] By early May, a significant number of power-brokers close to the deposed administration, including the former president's younger brother Saïd, had been arrested. [31][32]
The rising tensions within the Algerian regime can be traced back to the beginning of Bouteflika's rule which has been characterized by the state's monopoly on natural resources revenues used to finance the government's clientelist system and ensure its stability. [33] The major demonstrations have taken place in the largest urban centers of Algeria from February to December 2019. Due to their significant scale, the protests attracted international media coverage and provoked reactions from several heads of states and scholarly figures. Abdelaziz Bouteflika had been president of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria since 1999. Two amnesties (via referendum) for former combatants in the Algerian Civil War had taken place during his presidency (1999 and 2005). A complex "dirty war" between Islamic guerrillas and the government had claimed a contested number of approximately 200,000 lives between 1991–2002. [34][35] Nearly half of the Algerian population was born after the end of the conflict, amidst the din of repeated corruption scandals. With Bouteflika's accession to power in 1999, he began a diplomatic mission to rehabilitate Algeria's image abroad. He set about consolidating power, especially after his re-election in 2003. [30] During his tenure as president, the power center in Algerian politics shifted from the east to west, most particularly to Tlemcen, where some became highly placed figures in the media, administration, and police. Roughly $10 billion of public funding flowed to the city for construction projects, including a university, hotels, museums and airports. €155m was spent on a state residence, which remains incomplete. Many of the public works contracts were given to Chinese companies, by whom local contractors were allegedly not always paid. [36]
Oil-rich during the Arab Spring, the government was able to quiet dissent during the 2010–2012 protests with increased spending. [37]
The constitutional revision of 2016 limited the number of presidential terms that could be served to two, but nevertheless allowed Bouteflika to seek a fifth term, because the law was not retroactive. [38]
Since 2005, and especially after his stroke in 2013, Bouteflika's ability to govern the country was called into question: rumors of his death were frequent as he was often hospitalized, no longer spoke and made very few written statements. [39] In this context, some Algerians considered his announced candidacy for the presidential election, originally scheduled for 18 April 2019, 4 July 2019 or 2020, to be humiliating. [40]
Members of Bouteflika's administration have been accused of engaging in corrupt practices in several instances. In 2010, Sonatrach, the state-owned oil and gas company, suspended all of its senior management after two of the company's vice-presidents were imprisoned for corruption. Algeria's Energy Minister Chakib Khelil announced that the president of the company and several executives have been placed under judicial supervision. [41][42] In 2013, Khelil was also accused of receiving a bribe from a subsidiary of the Italian energy company Eni. [43] According to El Watan, overbilling for public works and misleading descriptions of imported goods are two common corrupt practices, facilitated by cronyism at the highest levels. [44]
On 26 June 2018, Bouteflika dismissed Abdelghani Hamel as head of the national police (DGSN), despite the latter being part of his inner circle. This news came after one of Hamel's drivers had become a suspect in Cocainegate, which led a general of the gendarmerie, four judges and two public prosecutors to be tried for bribery. [45][46]
Djamaa el Djazaïr, a large mosque under construction in Algiers, is nicknamed the Great Mosque of Bouteflika. Its minaret is 55m higher than the Hassan II Mosque in Morocco. Though its construction was touted as an Algerian job-creater, immigrant workers did most of the work for China State Construction Engineering while living in prefab shantytowns around the construction site. The project still came in 2.5 times over-budget. The cost of the mosque's construction has been estimated to be between $1.4 and $2 billion. [47][48] A doctor quoted in Le Monde complained that "with $4 billion [sic], 200 hospitals could have been built." Converting the mosque into a hospital has been suggested. For the Algerian press, it became a symbol of the mismanagement of public funds and of the "capricious megalomania" of the former President. [49][50][51]
Broadly, cumulative grievances and aspirations were at the heart of the protest movement. Decade-long economic stagnation, unemployment, labour market segmentation, and chronic corruption fueled discontent. Plummeting oil and gas prices weakened the regime's capacity to continue buying off some sections of the lower classes and youth, and to contain discontent. [52]
In December 2018, calls for demonstrations in the neighborhood of Bab El Oued against the fifth term went unheeded, except by the police, which mobilized a significant dissuasive force. [53][54]
The protests were at first, following the 10 February formal announcement of Bouteflika's candidacy,[2] limited geographically to northern Algeria. [55] The first major demonstration took place on 16 February 2019 in Kherrata, at the eastern end of the wilaya of Bejaia in the Kabylie region, after the distribution in Kherrata and its surrounding villages of posters calling for "a peaceful march against the fifth term and against the existing system" on that date. [2][29]
In Khenchela, on 19 February, a giant poster of the President of the Republic was torn down from city hall and trampled. Two days later, another suffered a similar fate in Annaba. [56] This form of protest was related to the recent practice of offering gifts to a framed portrait of Bouteflika in the latter's absence. [57][58][59]
Protests were organized via social media in major and mid-sized cities on 22 February. Those in Algiers—where street protests had been illegal since a demonstration on 14 June 2001, "when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators from Kabylie converged on the capital"[60]—were the biggest in nearly 18 years. [61][40] Smaller protests, with slogans like "There is no president, there's a poster," had been taking place in Algiers since 11 February. [62][63] On 22 February, the portrait of the President was torn down from the landmark central post office. [64] There are no official government numbers published, but one expert put the number of demonstrators at 800,000 on 22 February 2019. [40][65]
Regularly hospitalized for "periodic medical examinations", Abdelaziz Bouteflika was admitted to the University Hospital of Geneva (Switzerland) on 24 February 2019.
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Protest_Online Condemnation
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Chinese planes spotted as military exercises end
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Ten Chinese military planes flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone yesterday as Taiwan concluded its annual Han Kuang military exercises, the Ministry of National Defense said. Six J-16 and two J-11 fighters entered airspace between Taiwan and China’s Dongshan Island (東山島), while one Y-8 reconnaissance plane and one Y-8 anti-submarine plane flew to the southeast of Taiwan before turning back, the ministry said in a report. The air force responded by scrambling planes to monitor the Chinese aircraft, issuing radio warnings and mobilizing air defense assets — the standard practice in responding to intrusions. Photo provided by the Military News Agency via CNA Yesterday was the 15th consecutive day of intrusions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone by Chinese planes, ministry data showed. The highest number of Chinese aircraft to have entered the zone in a day was 28, which was reported on June 15, while up to 19 planes were recorded on Sept. 5. The ministry on Sept. 17 last year set up a dedicated section on its Web site for reports of intrusions by Chinese military planes. The Han Kuang exercises began on Monday by mobilizing fighter jets stationed in the west of Taiwan to fly to the east. On the last day of the exercises yesterday, the air force tested the counterstrike capabilities of the Indigenous Defense Fighter, while the navy’s Tian Dan, a Cheng Kung-class frigate, was deployed to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance missions alongside other naval vessels. At the end of the exercises, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) passed on President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) encouragement to the armed forces for their hard work this week. Chiu said the drills were held to test the military’s capability and to demonstrate its commitment to the defense of Taiwan. A Taipei hospital and travel agencies have been implicated in an international prostitution investigation, allegedly bringing Chinese women to Taiwan to work in the illegal sex trade, prosecutors said on Thursday. Evidence indicated that top executives at Chung Shan Hospital have taken advantage of a “medical tourism” program, under which foreigners obtain medical visas to enter Taiwan, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Evidence shows that from 2016 to 2019, hospital executives issued documents to help facilitate the entry of more than 10,000 Chinese, purportedly for medical treatment, health exams, cosmetic surgery or other procedures at hospitals and medical institutions in Taiwan, The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled against National Taiwan University (NTU) professor emeritus Ho De-fen (賀德芬) after she filed an appeal against the Ministry of Education over the doctorate President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) earned from the London School of Economics and Political Science. The court said that Ho does not have the legal right to ask the ministry to declassify related documents to enable her to verify the authenticity of Tsai’s doctoral certificate. The ministry had provided Ho with Tsai’s resume and academic credentials during a court hearing on June 3, which met Ho’s demand, the court said. In conjunction with Seventy-two years ago, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seized control of China after a bloody struggle. The defeated Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government fled to Taiwan. Since then, China has arisen as a superpower rivaling the US, while Taiwan has blossomed into a self-governing democracy and high-tech powerhouse with Washington’s backing. Now, after decades of stalemate, there is a renewed risk of conflict. While it is impossible to know how this long rivalry will play out, in some respects the battle for Taiwan is already under way. As Reuters reported in December last year, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is waging so-called “gray ‘A BREAKTHROUGH’: TSRI Fabrication Service Division director Li Kai-shin said the key step forward in making the device entailed perpendicular magnetic anisotropy The Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute (TSRI) yesterday unveiled a new memory device it developed with university researchers, saying that they are the world’s second team after Intel to make the breakthrough. Magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) is widely regarded as having the potential to become a mainstream device, TSRI Fabrication Service Division director Li Kai-shin (李愷信) told a news conference in Taipei. To develop the device, global manufacturers have been working on various techniques, including spin-transfer-torque MRAM (STT-MRAM) and spin-orbit-torque MRAM (SOT-MRAM), although SOT-MRAM is still mostly in the research phase, he said.
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Military Exercise
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Alitalia Flight 771 crash
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Alitalia Flight 771 was a multi-leg Douglas DC-8-43 international scheduled flight from Sydney via Darwin, Bangkok, Bombay, Karachi, and Tehran to Rome with 94 on board. On July 7, 1962 18:40 UTC (July 8, 1962, 00:10 local) it crashed into a hill about 84 kilometres (52 mi) north-east of Bombay while on approach. The aircraft involved in the accident was a Douglas DC-8-43 constructed in 1962 and registered as I-DIWD to Alitalia. At the time of the accident the aircraft had recorded 964 flight hours. The registration and airworthiness certificates were valid. The Captain of the flight had signed the Certificate of Maintenance on 6 July 1962. The aircraft was equipped with a VHF navigation receiver, glide slope receiver, marker beacon receiver, ADF receiver, Loran receiver, doppler radar, and a transponder; but the aircraft did not have any flight recorders. [1]
No mechanical issues were reported, and the centre of gravity and weight of the DC-8 were within permitted parameters. [1]
Nine crew members were aboard the flight. The cockpit crew consisted of:
The remaining six members of the crew were flight attendants. Both the captain and co-pilot were trained navigators, but there was no individual navigator in the flight crew. After starting initially with 45 passengers in Sydney and taking on more passengers on the stops to Darwin and Singapore,[5] Flight 771 departed from Bangkok at 15:16 UTC with 94 people aboard as stated by the load sheet, although the official flight plan stated there was to be 98 people aboard. The flight plan was not signed by the pilot-in-command, a violation of the Alitalia Operations Manual. [6][7]
Flight 771 first made communications with Bombay Flight Information Center at 17:20, during which the flight requested a weather forecast for landing, as well as stating their estimated time of arrival to be 18:45 and their altitude to be 36,000 feet. Between the times of 17:30 and 17:47 they were informed of the local weather forecast; Various weather reports for Bombay at the time of the accident indicated that there was light rain but no thunderstorms or other dangerous conditions. [8]
At 18:20 the flight switched to the Bombay approach frequency and requested to initiate descent when over the point of Aurangabad to an altitude of 20,000 feet. The descent was approved and the weather information provided was acknowledged. [8]
The flight initiated descent at 18:24:36 UTC, descending from 35,000 ft to 20,000 ft approximately twenty minutes before it was due to land at Bombay with an ETA at 18:45. At 18:25 the flight was cleared to take a transition level of 4,000 ft. Weather information was transmitted again at 18:28:04, with the QNH at 29.58 inches. At 18:29 the air traffic controller was informed of the flight's preference to land on runway 27. At 18:38:34 the flight was asked if it would be making a 360° over the beacon or landing in directly. [8] At 18:38:49 the flight only replied "OK" leading to some confusion as to which approach would be taken. The flight clarified shortly thereafter that it would make a 360° over the outer beacon. [9]
At 18:38:54 the DC-8 reached an altitude of 5,000 feet; the flight plan provided by Alitalia prescribed a 100-mile descent to Bombay in 13 minutes. The flight continued descending further to 3,600 feet, well below the minimum safety altitude at 9,000 feet as well as below the 4,000 ft minimum initial approach altitude. [9]
The last communication heard from the aircraft was at 18:39:58 again confirming the 360° over the beacon. The DC-8 crashed into Davandyachi hill on a bearing of 240°. The wreckage of the aircraft was found scattered among trees on the hill with the remains of the cockpit altimeter at an altitude of 3,600 feet, only 5 feet short of the top. [7] The DC-8 was completely destroyed and all persons aboard perished in the crash. [9]
Investigators explored several potential causes, including: navigational errors which led the pilot to believe that he was nearer to his destination than he actually was; failure to maintain the recommended safe altitude; and pilot unfamiliarity with the flight route. [10] Pilot intoxication was initially suggested but ruled out as a contributing cause. Chart number 21 from the radio facility did not show the terrain the flight crashed into and only indicated the presence of a location 13 miles to the north at a height of 5,400 feet. [11]
Investigators concluded that errors in navigation led the pilot to think he was closer to the necessary point of descent than in reality resulting in a premature descent for a straight-in instrument approach at night, resulting in controlled flight into terrain. [12]
Secondary causes of the accident were cited as follows by the ICAO:[12]
"1. Failure on the part of the pilot to make use of the navigational facilities available in order to ascertain the correct position, of the aircraft. 2. Infringement of the prescribed minimum safe altitude. 3. Unfamiliarity of the pilot with the terrain on the route."
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Air crash
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Strong undersea quake shakes Indonesia; no tsunami warning
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PALU, Indonesia (AP) — A strong, shallow underwater earthquake shook central Indonesia on Monday but no serious damage was immediately reported and no tsunami warning was issued. The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-6.2 quake was centered at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) about 98 kilometers (60 miles) west-northwest of Luwuk, a town in Central Sulawesi province. Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency official Taufan Maulana said the quake was felt in many parts of the province but there was no danger of a tsunami. Still, many people in the provincial capital of Palu ran to higher ground, haunted by the memory of a devastating 7.5 magnitude earthquake in the city three years ago that set off a tsunami as well as a phenomenon called liquefaction, in which wet soil collapses because of the shaking. More than 4,000 people died. “I felt the shaking was strong ... people were running from their houses,” said Muhammad Rusli, a resident of Ampana town. He said most people ran to higher ground and there was a power blackout following the quake. Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 271 million people, is frequently struck by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanos and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. In January, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed at least 105 people, injured nearly 6,500, and displaced more than 92,000 in West Sulawesi province.
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Tsunamis
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2014 Men's World Floorball Championships
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The qualifying for the 2014 Men's World Floorball Championships took part in early 2014. A total of 30 teams competed for fifteen spots. The final tournament was organized by Sweden in December 2014. Numbers in brackets show the ranking before the qualification started, which was based on results from the last two World Championships. Finland (2)
Russia (9)
Poland (10)
Spain (24)
France (25)
Ukraine (–)
Switzerland (3)
Estonia (8)
Slovakia (12)
Serbia (21)
Belgium (26)
Czech Republic (4)
Germany (7)
Denmark (14)
Austria (23)
Netherlands (27)
Great Britain (29)
Norway (5)
Latvia (6)
Hungary (16)
Italy (18)
Liechtenstein (28)
Japan (13)
Singapore (15)
Australia (17)
South Korea (20)
New Zealand (–)
Canada (11)
United States (19)
Jamaica (–)
The qualification rules were as follows:
Dates: 29 January – 2 February 2014[1]
Venue: Łochów Arena, Łochów, Poland
Dates: 29 January – 2 February 2014[2]
Venue: HANT Aréna, Bratislava, Slovakia
Dates: 28 January – 1 February 2014[3]
Venue: Jan Massinkhal, Nijmegen, Netherlands
Dates: 28 January – 1 February 2014[4]
Venue: Vidzemes OC, Valmiera, Latvia
Since the number of teams between the qualification groups differ, the group sizes were equalised by removing the results from the matches against the lowest placed teams in the larger-sized group before comparing the average results. The three best teams from the qualification group qualified
Dates: 29 January – 1 February 2014[5]
Venue: ASB Sports Centre, Wellington, New Zealand
The qualification rules are as follows:
Dates: 31 January – 2 February 2014[6]
Venue: Cornell Community Centre, Markham, Canada
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Sports Competition
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Murray-Darling Basin cotton irrigators defend water usage, put blame back on government
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The Darling River has been reduced to puddles in some parts of north-west New South Wales, but while farmers and conservationists butt heads on social media, much of the blame has fallen on cotton irrigators.
The town of Menindee in far-west New South Wales has seen three fish kills in the last two months, and many locals have blamed poor management by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority [MDBA] and irrigators further up the system taking more than their fair share of water.
Experts say the kills were likely caused by a combination of drought, mismanagement and irrigation, while the Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission has found Commonwealth officials committed gross maladministration, negligence and unlawful actions in relation to the river's management.
So why has the cotton industry been under fire, and how much water do cotton irrigators actually have to spare? Mark Winter is an irrigator who has farmed his land in Moree, 600 kilometres north-west of Sydney, his whole life. His family arrived there in 1886 and began in the wool industry before moving into farming and eventually into irrigation in the 1990s. This year, he has planted just 23 hectares, compared to his usual crop size of 450 to 500 hectares. He said the decision to grow cotton was economic. "We water cotton because cotton's got the best cross-margin by far, no other crops come anywhere near it," he said.
"In dollars per megalitre, it's cotton. For jobs per hectare around the area, it's cotton."
Mr Winter's crop has dwindled due to lack of water available through his license, managed by the MDBA. This year, the water allocation for his and other local farmers was zero.
He relies on bore water to irrigate his small crop.
"We've got no water from Copeton dam, there's zero allocation at the Copeland [dam], zero allocation at the Namoi [River], zero allocation at the Macquarie [River]," he said. "It just hasn't rained so there's no allocation. "The only bit of water anybody that might have is if they had some left in their account from last year, except for the bores in some areas."
Further west in Bourke, you could be forgiven for thinking Tony Thompson's property comprised of dry paddocks filled with weeds.
The land was once filled with water, but no rain or water allocation has forced him to abandon his crop in favour of quick income. "This is not what cotton farms look like," he said.
"We could have [gone] in and sprayed or cultivated these weeds out and spent a heap of dough and probably not necessarily achieved a lot.
"What we've done is we've put a couple of thousand dorper [sheep] on here and they're running around and probably putting on 100 grams a day and making me money.
"The earliest opportunity that we would plant anything now is probably September this year, so we've got plenty of time to get this country back in shape, should we get the opportunity to get some water, with hopefully a river flow at some stage."
CEO of Cotton Australia Adam Kay said the industry has been blamed for a situation not of its making.
"As far as the irrigated summer crops go, cotton is middle of the pack," he said. "It's using about the same as corn or soy beans and other summer crops. The idea that cotton is a heavy water user is just not true."
He said the crop wasn't as thirsty as some people believed. "I think those perceptions have been framed by 20 or 25 years ago, when the industry was a heavier user of pesticide and a heavier user of water," he said. "These days, we've been able to reduce the amount of pesticide we use by over 90 per cent and our water-use efficiency in the last decade has improved by 40 per cent, so we are incredibly efficient producers of this natural fibre that is in demand globally. "We are the highest yielders in the world and we are looked up to by countries all around the world for the sustainable way we produce our cotton."
The New South Wales Irrigators' Council also denies cotton growers are to blame, instead fingering government departments, who they say have not been doing their job.
Council chair Jim Cush said the issue stemmed from problems with compliance and transparency that went back several years. "Irrigators have been paying for metering and compliance for years," he said.
"There was a lack of service being provided by the department, now we've got problems where people are being asked what happened three or four years ago.
"Wouldn't you think the powers that be would have that information? Really, that's what their job was: compliance and checking the metering."
He said cotton irrigators were being asked to explain a complex situation outside of their mandate. "Why should we have to defend the water rules?" he said.
"It should be the department's job, hence the trouble we've got."
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has been a vocal critic of the corporate cotton industry. In January, she visited the Menindee Lakes and toured the Macintyre River in Queensland, which runs into the Murray-Darling.
"I'm concerned that what we're seeing is a prioritisation of irrigation to big corporate cotton at the expense of the health of the river and of the river community," Senator Hanson-Young said.
"[Corporate cotton farms] are flourishing, they've got water; meanwhile downstream, other people are struggling.
"I'm always going to take the stance that small communities, small farmers and the river deserve a bigger say than those who are simply in this game for their own corporate profits." Since the first fish kill at Menindee, cotton irrigators have received significant backlash on social media. "This industry is defenceless, has no morals and is proven to be run by imbeciles who have the top end of town in their pocket," one user wrote on Facebook. "These greedy, mindless, selfish so-called farmers should lose their water rights permanently," another wrote. Mr Kay said misinformation had prompted some of the online abuse reported by members of the industry. "I've had a number of them say they've withdrawn from social media because they've been abused and I think it's just frustration that people who aren't out in the bush are making comment on things they don't understand," he said. "We put a social media post of the cotton harvest up at Emerald starting and people were slamming it because it's used all the water in the Murray-Darling Basin. "The cotton in Emerald is grown using water from Fairbairn Dam on the Nogoa River that flows out at Rockhampton. It has nothing to do with the Murray-Darling Basin." Mr Winter said he published figures from his farm to try to inform the public. "People just say these outlandish things which are utter bullshit, but what do you do?" he said. "They're not going to believe you anyway, but at least we have to try and get some of the public to come around."
Mr Thompson said he welcomed more transparency in the industry to combat misinformation.
"We've seen very few compliance people over the last decade coming and inspecting works and inspecting pumps — it's almost been non-existent," he said.
"We as an irrigation organisation have been asking for more compliance because we've been concerned about people getting the wrong impression about what we're doing.
"I'm quite happy to have those people who are in compliance coming and looking at stuff to prove I am doing what I should be doing, and also to highlight any potential issues that I need to address."
In the aftermath of the royal commission findings, cotton farmers will continue to make do with what they have.
"It's definitely not doom and gloom, it's a great place to live and it's a tough time at the moment but I think that breeds tough people," Mr Thompson said.
"I guess I'm proud of the fact that we're living through these times and we'll battle on. We've been through them before, they're always tough, but I think what picks our quality is how you manage those tough times. "One thing I've learnt in living and managing this country now for 25 years is that we make our decisions based on what we've got, not what we think we're going to get, whether that means river flows or the amounts of grass we've got in our paddocks.
"I'm not going to make any predictions as to when [the water] is coming back. I just hope it's bloody soon."
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Environment Pollution
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Groups Petition Buhari To Investigate Attorney-General, Malami Over Alleged Corruption In Justice Ministry
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The groups advised that the head of the investigative committee should be higher in rank than Malami so as to not influence the investigation.
by SaharaReporters, New York Dec 16, 2021
Three groups, Human and Environmental Development Agenda, Corner House and RE: COMMON have called on President Muhammadu Buhari to inaugurate an investigative board to probe alleged fraud, which a syndicate is supervising in the Federal Ministry of Justice.
According to the groups, the Attorney-General of Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) should be investigated over his role in the Paris Club contract scam involving states and local governments in the country.
The groups advised that the head of the investigative committee should be higher in rank than Malami so as to not influence the investigation.
In a statement signed by the Chairman of HEDA, Olanrewaju Suraju, co-founder of Corner House, Nick Hildyard, and Programme Director of RE: COMMON, Antonio Tricarico, which was made available to SaharaReporters on Thursday, the groups accused the AGF of selling national assets and diverting the proceeds into his personal purse.
The statement partly read, “The Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA), Corner House and RE: COMMON have written to President Muhammadu Buhari, seeking an independent investigative body to look into the alleged fraud syndicate within the Federal Ministry of Justice and condemning the role of Minister in the Paris Club contract scam against States and Local Governments.”
The statement also noted that in other to guarantee confidence in the outcome of the inquiry, “a thoroughgoing, independent investigation into the alleged fraud should be set up, hence it's unwise for one to investigate oneself”.
It further stated, “The internal Ministry of Justice investigation that has been announced is wholly inadequate and will do nothing to assuage the concerns of the national and international anti-corruption community.
“Regardless of the qualifications and history of the five-member review panel, few can have confidence in a process that effectively allows the Ministry of Justice ‘to mark its own homework.’”
The groups reminded Buhari of their earlier letter on the same issue, saying all the allegations of mismanagement, corruption and fraud that hang over the Federal Ministry of Justice and its Minister, must not be handled with kid gloves.
The statement continued, “We have previously written to express our concerns about alleged corruption within the Ministry of Justice and its mismanagement by Attorney General Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN.
“We are therefore unsurprised, though nonetheless shocked, to read press reports that aides to the Attorney General, including his deputy director, have allegedly been selling off forfeited and recovered assets belonging to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and pocketing the proceeds.
“The reports also alleged the involvement of former members of the now-defunct Ad Hoc Committee on the Sale of Non-essential FG Residential Houses in Abuja.”
According to the groups, Malami is either incompetent or complicit in the corruption going on under his ministry, if he claims he is not aware, based on his remarks earlier this year.
“The Attorney General is said to have been unaware of the alleged criminality. If so, this brings his management of the Ministry further into question. It is mindboggling that hundreds of properties could have been sold without him knowing that the proceeds had gone missing,” the groups said.
They noted that “it’s either the AGF has turned a Nelsonian blind eye to the black hole that would have been apparent in the accounts, or he was incompetent, or he was complicit”.
They affirmed that the above concerns were reinforced by AGF's failure to act when the scandal first broke. They noted that it was over two months since elements of the alleged scam were exposed by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) yet it was not until the press reported the full extent of the alleged wrongdoing that Mr Malami responded.
“As the saying goes, ‘Justice must not only be done but be seen to be done’ and in this instance, both justice and good governance demands that an independent committee be set up under the aegis of an officer of the Federal Republic who is senior to the AGF.
“We note that when Ibrahim Magu, the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was investigated, he was suspended from his post pending the outcome of an investigation conducted by an independent panel set up under your auspices,” the statement said further.
The groups further urged that the committee to be set up must report to Buhari and his Vice President Yemi Osinbajo so that the findings would not be swept under the carpet.
“We see no reason why the same model should not be adopted to investigate the Ministry of Justice allegations, with the panel reporting either to you or His Excellency the Vice President. We are aware of further allegations that have recently emerged relating to planned payments of $418 million to consultants that would be deducted from funds owed to state governments as a result of refunds from the Paris Club.
“We would therefore urge that the investigation’s terms of reference encompass these allegations. We are aware that a number of allegations of corruption have been made against Mr Malami in a Petition, which is attached, addressed to your office dated 20th July 2020,” the statement added.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate
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POLITICOPolitico Logo
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A summary issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency said it had received 43 notifications of significant inland oil spills and chemical releases in its jurisdiction after Ida.
An oiled tricolored heron is observed at the Alliance Refinery oil spill in Belle Chasse, La. | Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries via AP
Louisiana wildlife officials say they have documented more than 100 oil-soaked birds after crude oil spilled from a refinery flooded during Hurricane Ida.
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said Thursday that a growing number of oiled birds had been observed within heavy pockets of oil throughout the Phillips 66 Alliance Refinery in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, as well as nearby flooded fields and retention ponds along the Mississippi River.
Jon Wiebe, a biologist running the state restoration program, said 10 oiled birds have been captured and transported to a rehabilitation location for cleaning. Five additional dead birds were recovered and bagged as evidence, he said.
Wiebe said efforts to capture and save more birds are ongoing. The affected species include black-bellied whistling ducks, blue-winged teal and a variety of egrets. Other animals were also seen covered in oil, include alligators, nutria and river otters.
A summary issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency said it had received 43 notifications of significant inland oil spills and chemical releases in its jurisdiction after Ida. The agency's compliance arm has issued 10 requests to facility operators seeking information to determine whether federal environmental laws were violated during the storm, potentially triggering penalties and fines.
That is a small fraction of the 1,539 reports of pollution a U.S. Coast Guard hotline has received since the Category 4 storm made landfall made landfall Aug. 29 at Port Fourchon, the primary port for the offshore oil and gas industry. The Coast Guard said Thursday it was actively supervising the cleanup and mitigation efforts at 564 sites. Another 197 reports were listed as unverified because there was no remaining evidence of pollution.
The Associated Press first reported the spill at the Alliance Refinery on Sept. 1 after reviewing aerial images captured by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration aircraft. In the days after the hurricane, Phillips 66 repeatedly sought to downplay reports of damage at the company's sprawling refinery.
Asked about reports of levee failures near the refinery the day after Ida hit, Phillips 66 spokesman Bernardo Fallas told AP there was “some water” in the facility and stressed that operations were shut down in advance of the storm.
Asked two days after the storm about potential environmental hazards emanating from the facility, Fallas referred a reporter to a statement on the company’s website saying its response is focused “on ensuring the safety and well-being of our employees and our surrounding communities.”
On Day Three, after the AP sent Phillips 66 aerial photos showing extensive flooding at the refinery and what appeared to be petroleum in the water, Fallas conceded the company could had “discovered a sheen of unknown origin in some flooded areas" of the refinery and that all pollution had been “secured and contained within refinery grounds” at that time.
A Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality assessment team sent to the refinery last week reported a sizable spill of heavy crude oil at the site was being addressed with booms and absorbent pads. A levee meant to protect the plant had breached, allowing floodwaters to flow in during the storm and then back out as the surge receded.
Despite the gap in the levee remaining open for days after the storm, Fallas once again asserted Thursday no oil spilled beyond the land owned by Phillips 66.
“The breach has been secured,” Fallas said Thursday. “Clean-up crews continue to remove oil and sheen contained within some flooded areas of the refinery. There has been no offsite impact. We continue to work with all appropriate regulatory agencies.”
No estimate for how much oil might have spilled from the refinery has yet been made public by state or federal regulators. When fully operational, the Alliance Refinery can process more than 255,000 barrels of crude oil per day into gasoline and other petroleum products.
The company listed the aging refinery for sale last month, before the storm hit, citing poor market conditions. The facility remained shut down Thursday, with no timetable to reopen.
Following inquires from AP, Fallas also confirmed Thursday that a Phillips 66 pipeline in an uninhabited area outside Paradis, Lousiana, leaked during Ida. Records show the company reported to the Coast Guard on Aug. 31 that 2,700 barrels of isobutane, a liquified flammable gas often used to fuel camping stoves, had spilled.
“The site was isolated and brought under control last week,” Fallas said Thursday. “The product vaporized to the atmosphere when it was released; there was no impact to soil or water. The pipeline remains shut down while repairs are underway.”
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Environment Pollution
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Huge swarm of locusts brings traffic to a standstill in Bahrain after from Saudi Arabia
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A huge swarm of locusts stopped traffic on a major highway in Bahrain yesterday, as the insects entered the country on high winds. Terrifying video shows the insects landing on car windscreens as a large column flies overhead. The swarm is thought to have spread from Saudi Arabia, where they had been seen in regions including Riyadh, Mecca and Qassim, because to strong winds. However Bahrain's Agriculture and Marine Resources Department said there was 'no need to panic' and that they are monitoring the locusts, reports News of Bahrain. Experts explained the outbreak was caused by an atmospheric depression that contributed to transporting the insects from Yemen and Oman to Damman, Al-Ahsa and Buqayq in Saudi Arabia. A terrifying clip of the swarm shared online shows a column of the insects blacken the sky as they fly over the three-lane highway in Bahrain. Cars are seen slowing to a near standstill and sounding their horns as the insects start landing on their windscreens, obstructing vision. The swarm of locusts was pictured flying through the sky in a huge column in Bahrain Several also landed on the road and windscreens, forcing cars to slow to a standstill The driver and passenger are heard exclaiming shock and disgust in the video. Footage posted on social media also showed locusts landing in swarms on highways, in people's front gardens and in their swimming pools. It comes after a much larger swarm - thought to number 360 billion - decimated food supplies across Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. The insects have also damaged crops in Djibouti, Eritrea, South Sudan, Uganda, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian crisis. Countries have deployed planes to spread pesticide on the swarms and Uganda has even called in its army. Cars are also heard sounding their horns in the terrifying clip The huge locust swarm began in east Ethiopia and central Somalia before spreading down into Kenya and Uganda The insects have travelled in swarms the size of Moscow in Africa and experts have warned that a second swarm could emerge in April as young locusts left by previous swarms mature. The UN has urgently called for $76million to help pay for aircraft and pesticides to control the spread. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has offered to donate $8million after a visit to Ethiopia. Rain expected in the coming weeks will bring fresh vegetation and, with it, an anticipated explosion in locust numbers. Desert locusts are usually solitary but undergo a change when kept in large groups Swarm of locusts pictured covering a tree in Otuke, Kenya, on February 17 There have been six major desert locust plagues in the 1900s, the last of which was in 1987-89. The last major upsurge was in 2003-05. Desert locusts are typically solitary creatures, but can form into huge swarms under the right conditions. It is thought that heavy rainfall, which causes the population to boom, followed by a drought which forces the creatures into a smaller area is to blame. As the group is forced together the locusts' bodies flood with a hormone called serotonin, which produces the swarming behaviour. The change is so dramatic, that for decades scientists thought the solitary locusts and swarming variety were actually two different species, until it was disproved.
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Insect Disaster
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2005 Quebec student protests
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The 2005 Quebec student protests were a series of student strikes and student protests in opposition to budget cuts of C$103 million in the Grants and Loans program by the Charest government. It occurred between February 24 and April 2005 and involved thousands of CEGEP and universities students from across Quebec. During the 2003 Quebec general election campaign, the Liberal Party of Quebec, led by Jean Charest, made a promise to freeze education cost. Having to deal with a rough budget, and because of the election promise, the Quebec government changed the Grants and Loans program by transforming $103 million of grants into loans, nearly doubling the debt of the poorest students. Coalitions representing most CEGEPs and universities started to negotiate with the government. Talks and protests, in the form of marches, went on for over a year. Students from most CEGEPs and universities took the streets on April 14, 2004 (the first anniversary of the Charest government's election) and November 10, 2004. During their January 29–30, 2005 congress, the students' unions members of the ASSÉ (Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante) and other independent students' unions decide to form the Coalition de l'Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante Élargie (CASSÉÉ) to coordinate the upcoming strike campaign. ("Cassé" is a French word equivalent to "broke".) The strike was initiated on February 21, by a member of the CASSÉÉ, the anthropology students' association from University of Montreal (Association étudiante d'anthropologie de l'Université de Montréal). But the real start was given on February 24 when over 30,000 students members of the CASSÉÉ, and a few other unions joined the strike. The FECQ and the FEUQ, federations of CEGEP and university unions, called for a student strike on March 4 and March 9[1] respectively. By March 15, over 100,000 students were on strike. This turn of events surprised many, as these organizations were traditionally opposed to strikes/boycotts as a negotiation tactic. [citation needed]
On March 16, 2005 students from traditionally more moderate institutions like École Polytechnique de Montréal, as well as from Concordia University and McGill's Post-Graduate Student Society joined the strike for 24 hours. Between 10,000 and 100,000 students (80,000 being the number most reported)[citation needed] took the streets for a peaceful march in Montreal, creating the largest student protest staged in Quebec until March 22, 2012. The École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Montréal and McGill University undergraduates Students' Society of McGill University joined the strike on March 18 for 24 symbolic hours, though the McGill boycott went largely unobserved and further action was rejected by the student body through an online poll. This constituted the first strike since 1967 for the HEC and the first strike in 40 years for Polytechnique. On April 2, the student federations and the government reached an agreement that was still left to be voted on by the individual student associations during the week. This agreement consists of a CAN $70M refunding for 2005–2006 and a return of the $103M for the next 4 years, totaling $482M. This money comes from 3 levels: the millennium grant foundation, the federal government and the provincial government. The FEUQ officially endorsed the agreement, while the FECQ maintained a neutral position, saying it was "interesting enough" to be voted on by the individual members' unions. The CASSÉÉ rejected it. Over the next week, the movement mostly ended, with over two thirds of the students voting for a return to class during the week. However, at least 20 unions representing over 100,000 students rejected the offer and by April 11, there were still approximately 20,000 students boycotting class. During the following 2 weeks, most associations ended or suspended the boycott to allow the students to complete their semester. The symbol of support for the student strike was a small square of red cloth worn upon clothing as a kind of ribbon. The Parti Québécois MNAs, then in opposition, wore the red square to demonstrate their support for the striking students. On March 30, a group of students hoisted the symbol opposed to student poverty on Mount Royal Cross. It took a full day before authorities were able to remove it. On its lower panel, it was written: "Arrêtons de sacrifier nos enfants", which means: "Let's stop sacrificing our children."
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Protest_Online Condemnation
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Man charged with murdering teenager two days after being released from prison over COVID-19 fears
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A New Jersey man has been charged with murder just two days after being released from prison through a state effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in detention facilities, authorities said. Jerry Crawford, 25, a convicted burglar, was released on Nov. 4 on public health emergency credits to mandatory parole supervision, the New Jersey Department of Corrections told the Washington Examiner. 20% OF PEOPLE SAY THEY LOST FRIENDS OVER COVID-19 DISAGREEMENTS: POLL "Without the Public Health Emergency Credits he would have been released on 12/24/2020," the NJDOC said. On Nov. 6, two days after his release, Crawford and another man allegedly shot and murdered an 18-year-old man. Authorities found the man's body in a field by an apartment complex with multiple gunshot wounds. Footage from that apartment complex displayed Crawford, his accomplice, and the victim before the shooting, according to court documents. Crawford and the other man were indicted last week on first-degree murder charges and first-degree conspiracy to commit murder charges. Both men are jailed and due back in court this week for hearings. Crawford was released along with thousands of inmates under New Jersey's emergency plan following deaths and a "soaring" infection rate in state prisons attributed to COVID-19. New Jersey was one of the dozens of states that released inmates to curb the pandemic's impact, and many of those released were arrested a short time later.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release
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The Straits Times
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SINGAPORE - A possible Covid-19 cluster has surfaced at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, with a nurse infected and likely infections in a doctor and three patients in a general ward.
The Health Ministry said that one of the three new Covid-19 community cases on Wednesday (April 28) was a nurse from Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH).
The 46-year-old Filipino woman was deployed at Ward 9D, a general ward.
She developed a cough, sore throat and body aches on Tuesday, and sought medical treatment at TTSH, said MOH.
Her test result came back positive for Covid-19 infection on the same day, and she was warded at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID).
Her serology test result is pending.
She received her first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine on Jan 26 and the second dose on Feb 18.
The vaccine is effective in preventing symptomatic disease for the vast majority of those vaccinated, but it is possible for vaccinated individuals to get infected, said the ministry in a statement.
TTSH has locked down the affected ward, and tested the patients and staff who had been in the ward.
The hospital said late Wednesday night that it is also tightening its ward visiting policy till further notice as a necessary precaution to contain the situation and protect its patients and staff.
"We are tightening our ward visiting policy till further notice, allowing only two pre-registered visitors throughout a patient's stay," it said in a Facebook post.
"We will monitor the situation and review our policy accordingly. We will also be swabbing all staff in the main hospital’s ward block."
So far, MOH said it has detected four more cases in TTSH who have tested preliminarily positive for Covid-19 infection. These are a doctor and three patients who were being cared for in the same ward.
As a precautionary measure, all staff who treated the infected patients, as well as all visitors, patients and staff working in Ward 9D will be placed under quarantine, it said.
Epidemiological investigations and contact tracing are ongoing.
As it is conducting further testing for these four cases, they have not been included in Wednesday's case count, MOH explained.
The Straits Times understands that one of the patients found to have tested positive for the virus is a 72-year-old woman who had been warded at the hospital since April 20.
She had been admitted to Ward 9D - a C class ward - for rheumatoid arthritis and developed a cough and fever on Sunday.
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Famous Person - Sick
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Amsterdam coronation riots
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The Amsterdam coronation riots (Dutch: Kroningsoproer) refers to major violence and rioting in Amsterdam, the Netherlands on the day of the accession of Queen Beatrix, 30 April 1980. It was one of the biggest episodes of such disturbances in the country since the end of World War II and the most significant event of the Dutch squatters' movement (Krakersrellen). Since the 1960s and the 1970s, squatting had become common in Amsterdam to protest the city's shortage of housing. Many of the protesters were youngsters of the baby boomer generation. [1] The 1980 riots were precended by the Nieuwmarkt Riots in 1975 and the Vondelstraat Riots in March 1980, when authorities heavily responded to evict squatters from properties in the city. [1]
On 31 January, Queen Juliana announced that she would abdicate in favour of her eldest daughter, Princess Beatrix, on 30 April. Beatrix ascended the throne on 30 April 1980, and squatters started to riot. The protesters were rallying under the slogan Geen woning, geen kroning (No house, no coronation). [2] Despite the presence of 10,000 police officers, gendarmes and some military officers, the event turned into a major clash. [3] The riots were centred around the Dam Square, where the new Queen's inauguration took place. [4] Clashes also happened in and around Blauwbrug, Rokin and Vondelstraat. [5]
One of the protesters, Karel Fassotte, claimed in an interview that apart from squatters, people taking part included ordinary students and football hooligans. [6]
It marked a milestone in the mostly peaceful post-war history of the Netherlands. 600 people were wounded in the riots. [7]
The squatters' movement had enjoyed much public support for their cause beforehand, but that was depreciated following the riots, partly because the Dutch royal family was highly popular, while the squatters had turned the day of accession into one of violence. [8]
A new police leadership in Amsterdam started to force the evacuation of squatted buildings, including through special means. [4]
In 2010, the Dutch parliament voted to ban squatting entirely. [3][9]
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Riot
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Potential tsunami threat in North Arabian Sea
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If governments across the globe are looking at Afghanistan and the Middle East with renewed concern over the recent developments, earth scientists too are having a critical look at the region, especially towards the sea in the Gulf region. The Indian Ocean is likely to be affected by tsunamis generated mainly by earthquakes not only from the known and explored ‘Andaman-Nicobar-Sumatra Island Arc’ in Bay of Bengal but also the ‘Makran Subduction Zone’ in the Northern Arabian Sea which is poorly understood. “Hundreds of fatalities were confirmed to have occurred after the 1945 Tsunami in north west of Indian Ocean and there still are ‘open questions’ on whether the Makran subduction zone can generate such large tsunamis in the future,” said Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) director T. Srinivasa Kumar on Wednesday. Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission-UNESCO has begun to implement a multi-national project aimed at better understanding Makran and to strengthen tsunami early warning through regional cooperation funded by UN ESCAP Trust Fund in the region, he said. INCOIS hosting the Tsunami Warning Centre for 25 countries of the region has been drafted to strengthen the standard operating procedures for disseminating alerts through mainstream media of Iran, Oman, United Arab Emirates and Pakistan apart from India. Dr. Kumar, addressing the second day of the three-day workshop, said the ideal situation is the one in Japan where National Broadcaster NHK has a direct connection with the warning centre to relay real time information. Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) at INCOIS came into existence after the tsunami on December 26, 2004, which took 16,000 lives in the country alone, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences and it is part of the IOC framework. It can now give alerts within 10 minutes of any quake underwater through a network of buoys, 36 tide gauges along the coastline and 27 seismic stations, he said. Incidentally, INCOIS has five buoys in Bay of Bengal to give real-time information about ocean currents and any sub-surface quakes whereas it has just two on Arabian Sea near Makran. “Ideally, we need to have one more as right now these two help us get timely alerts, but not enough for research. We are expecting Oman to fund another one since each buoy costs about ₹8 crore. It is quite a complicated process to maintain them since we had incidents of vandalism with parts of the buoys being cut off mid-sea,” said scientists B.Ajay Kumar and Ch.Patanjali Kumar. Senior scientist T.M. Balakrishnan Nair gave an overview of INCOIS activities on fishing, ocean forecasting, multi-hazard mapping of coastline, etc. Scientists M.V.Sunanda and Sudheer Joseph also participated.
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Tsunamis
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2002 European floods
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In August 2002 a flood caused by over a week of continuous heavy rains ravaged Europe, killing dozens, dispossessing thousands, and causing damage worth billions of euros in the Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Ukraine and Russia. The flood was of a magnitude expected to occur roughly once a century. [2] Unprecedented flood heights were recorded and at least 110 people died. [1] In December 2002, total economic damage estimates exceeded 15 billion Euro, of which 15% was insured. [3]
Flooding resulted from the passage of two Genoa low pressure systems (named Hanne and Ilse by the Free University of Berlin) which brought warm moist air from the Mediterranean northwards. [4] The effects of El Niño are believed to have possibly contributed[5] although others disagree. [6] The floods gradually moved eastwards along the Danube, although the damage in the large cities on its shores was not as severe as in the areas affected by the floods later. When the rainfall moved northeast to the Bohemian Forest and to the source areas of the Elbe and Vltava rivers, the results were catastrophic water levels first in the Austrian areas of Mühlviertel and Waldviertel and later in the Czech Republic, Thuringia and Saxony. Several villages in Northern Bohemia, Thuringia and Saxony were more or less destroyed by rivers changing their courses or massively overflowing their banks. The floods that hit Europe during August 2002 were part of a larger system that was also affecting Asia. [7] Several rivers in the region, including the Vltava, Elbe and Danube reached record highs. [8]
Prague received significant damage from what were deemed to be the worst floods ever to hit the capital. The flow of Vltava culminated at 5300 m³/s, 20% more than during the flood of 1845. Among the regions of the capital city most severely affected were: Karlín, Kampa, Holešovice and Libeň, where there was significant risk of building collapse. [9] Most of Prague's art work was saved due to advance warning of high water levels,[10] however there was significant damage to the Prague Metro subway system, much of which was completely flooded,[11] as well as to the historic Prague pneumatic post, which was forced to cease operation. [12]
The Terezín Memorial[13] and Prague's Jewish Quarter also received significant damage,[14] a part of the estimated $30 million in damage to Czech cultural sites including: the Prague Municipal Library, Malá Strana, the National Theatre and Terezín. [15]
The evacuations before the worst of the flooding have been cited as one of the reasons for relatively little loss of life in the capital. [16] An estimated 40,000 people were evacuated from Prague. [17] One of the most visible victims of the summer's flood was Gaston, a sea lion from the Prague Zoo who swam to Germany following the flooding of his aquarium. For some time, it was believed he would survive, however he died following capture in Dresden. [18]
In total, 17 people lost their lives in the Czech Republic due to the floods, and damage from the flood was estimated at between 70 and 73 billion CZK. [19][20] The damage to the Prague metro has been estimated at approximately 7 billion CZK. [21]
Germany was the hardest hit, with over two-thirds of the flood's total losses. [3] The 10 years of renovation work that had been carried out since reunification in 1990 in the town of Grimma, in the former East Germany, were said to have been destroyed in one night. [22]
Dresden received significant damage when the Elbe River reached an all-time high of 9.4 meters (30.8 feet). More than 30,000 people were evacuated from various neighborhoods throughout the city and some of the city's cultural landmarks were considered to be at risk. [8]
Dresden's Zwinger Palace, home to a significant number of Europe's artistic treasures including Raphael's Sistine Madonna was at risk from the flooding Elbe, however all of the art works could be saved. [23] The Semper Opera House also suffered damage. The Black Sea Coast region was among the most severely hit regions of Russia with significant loss of life due to a tornado that hit the tourist region and destroyed homes. [24] This was after earlier summer floods in southern Russia. All told, damage in the region was calculated at more than $400 million. [25]
Although all of Europe was affected to some degree or another from the record rains that fell, some cities were spared the severe flooding that hit Dresden and Prague. Although the Danube reached record highs, both Bratislava and Vienna were spared significant flooding. Bratislava's sparing was due to the city's flood protection measures, which withstood the water,[26] while it was generally believed that Vienna was spared significant damage due to the city's engineering, and plans were undertaken to see if such work could be applied to the other cities as well. [27]
Once the water levels returned to normal and residents returned to their homes, they faced not only the damage left by the flood waters but also threats of disease due to decaying waste and food. The danger increased due to flooding of sewage treatment plants and the risk of damage to chemical plants. [28]
European leaders gathered in Berlin to discuss the effects of the floods and to create a better understanding of how to prevent such disasters in the future. This meeting garnered some criticism, as Russia, which had suffered significant damage, was not invited to what was billed as a meeting of EU members and future members. [29] The EU leaders did promise aid to the central European countries that suffered the most under the floods with money coming from the EU's structural budget and this outreach to non-members was seen as symbolic in an effort to portray a truly united Europe. [30]
Media related to Flood in Central Europe (2002) at Wikimedia Commons
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Floods
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1954 Prestwick air disaster crash
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The 1954 Prestwick air disaster occurred in the early morning of Christmas Day, 1954. A British Overseas Airways Corporation Boeing 377 Stratocruiser crashed on landing at Prestwick Airport, Scotland; 28 of the 36 on board were killed. The Stratocruiser was on a flight from Heathrow Airport, England to New York, United States with scheduled stop-overs at Manchester Airport, in Northern England and Prestwick Airport in Scotland. Due to the bad weather it was decided to fly directly to Prestwick and the flight was delayed while it waited for a Manchester passenger to be brought to London. [2] The aircraft originally scheduled to operate the flight left Heathrow at 21:43 GMT but it returned to London at 22:53 with a mechanical problem, the passengers and crew were moved to another aircraft (Cathay) which left for Prestwick at 01:05 on 25 December. [2] Only four of twenty-five passengers were booked onward to New York; the rest were to leave the flight at Prestwick. [3] The eleven crew members were also due to be relieved at Prestwick and be replaced with a new crew. [3]
It was 03:30 in driving rain when Cathay was about to land at Prestwick; it landed short of the runway forcing the port landing gear into the wing causing the aircraft to overturn and burst into flames. [3]
Among the 250 bags of mail cargo was a £900,000 consignment of diamonds for a New York address, a police guard was placed on the crash site and diamonds were still being found at scene a week later. [4][5] On 5 January it was reported that only 300 diamonds had been found and further searches were to be carried out which included digging up the soil around the crash site. [6] Out of the 40 parcels of diamonds only 90% were recovered. [7]
RMA Cathay was a four-engined Boeing 377-10-28 Stratocruiser airliner, registered G-ALSA. It had been delivered new to BOAC on 12 October 1949. The aircraft was depicted, very briefly, at the beginning of the 1951 film Home to Danger. Twenty-eight people died including ten women and two children. [3] One of the men killed was the cricketer Kenneth Davidson. [citation needed] Of the eight survivors, seven were members of the flight crew who were thrown from the wreckage as it broke apart. [1]
It was announced on 3 January 1955 by the Minister of Transport that a public enquiry would be held into the accident. [8]
The public inquiry opened at Ayr on 28 March 1955 with questions about the operation of the air brake switch and any possible effect a failure may have caused. [9] On the second day evidence was taken from air traffic controllers who agreed that the aircraft had descended on the runway more rapidly than usual, the inquiry also heard from a pilot of an aircraft that landed before the Stratocruiser about the condition of the airfield and approach lighting. [10]
The inquiry reported on 20 July that the accident was caused by an error of judgement by the pilot and contributed to by the First Officer not turning on the landing lights. It concluded that the accident was not caused or contributed to by any wrongful act or party and/or mechanical defect in the plane. [11]
The inquiry also made three recommendations:
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Air crash
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Great Fire of Turku
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The Great Fire of Turku (Finnish: Turun palo and Swedish: Åbo brand) was a conflagration in the city of Turku; that is still the largest urban fire in the history of Finland and the Nordic countries. The city had burned once before, in 1681. [1][2]
The fires started burning on 4 September 1827 in burgher Carl Gustav Hellman’s house on the Aninkaistenmäki [fi] hill[3][4] slightly before 9 p.m.[5] The house had possibly been lit on fire by sparks flying from the chimney of a neighboring building. [6] The fire quickly swept through the northern quarter, spread to the southern quarter and jumped the Aura River, setting the Cathedral Quarter on fire before midnight. By the next day, the fire had destroyed 75% of the city. Only 25% of the city was spared, mainly the western and southern portions. The fire destroyed the downtown area of Turku, including Turku Cathedral and the main building of the Imperial Academy of Turku, Akatemiatalo, which were badly damaged. The disaster was made possible by a dry summer preceding the event, a fire-spreading storm rising on the night of the fire, and a lack of extinguishers because a large number of the city's people happened to be visiting a market in Tampere that day. The damage was considerable and was felt for a long period of time in the aftermath of the event. 11,000 people were left homeless, and 27 casualties and hundreds of wounded were recorded. [5][7]
The night of the fire, Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander, Observator at the Imperial Academy of Turku, was in the Vartiovuori Observatory on Vartiovuorenmäki [fi]. Due to the fire, he had to stop what he was doing. In his observation log, he wrote: "Today observation was interrupted by a horrible fire that reduced Turku to ashes”. The observatory, placed on the top of a tall hill, was spared though and work was continued on 9 September. [8] As the rest of the academy has suffered great damage, its indispensable activities such as meetings of the consistory and the Chancellor’s Office, were moved to the observatory. Most Finnish archives, including practically all material from the Middle ages, were destroyed in the fire. At the time of the fire, and for some time afterwards, Turku was the largest city in Finland, which is why the Great Fire of Turku was a major national disaster. As a result of the fire, the Imperial Academy of Turku was transferred to Helsinki, which in 1812 had been made the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland. [9]
Governor-General of the Grand Duchy of Finland Arseniy Zakrevskiy was responsible for rebuilding the city after the fire. His proposal resulted in the Senate of Finland selecting Architect Carl Ludvig Engel to create the new city plan for Turku. [10] Downtown Turku is still based on Engel’s grid plan, which was approved on 15 December 1828. The largest buildings in downtown Turku, the cathedral and Akatemiatalo, were refurbished, and some of the other buildings, such as the Old Town Hall and the former sugar factory, were rebuilt. The majority of the city, however, had to be completely rebuilt. Turku’s grid plan design had a significant influence on how other Finnish towns were laid out. The Cloister Hill area, which was completely spared due to its location on the outskirts of the area hit by the fire, was protected and opened up as an open-air museum in 1940. Great Fire of Turku, Robert Wilhelm Ekman, unknown date
Map of Åbo after the 1827 fire. Destroyed areas are in grey, surviving areas in red. The red blocks to the South East are now the Luostarinmäki museum. Turku in the winter of 1827, only a few months afterwards
Coordinates: 60°27′N 22°16′E / 60.45°N 22.27°E / 60.45; 22.27
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Fire
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The worst drought in 40 years is affecting people in the south of Madagascar particularly badly
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Bonn/Berlin, 2021-05-08. The worst drought in 40 years is affecting people in the south of Madagascar particularly badly, devastating whole swathes of land. If rapid emergency assistance is not provided, there is a risk that the famine will spread, endangering the lives of up to a million people. There are already 70,000 children who are acutely malnourished, and these disastrous figures are rising daily. Between November 2020 and January 2021, there was less than half the normal quantity of rainfall, following other droughts in recent years. It is expected that people will lose up to 60 percent of their harvests in the coming months. The COVID-19 pandemic is expanding, further exacerbating the situation, as transport routes and delivery chains are being interrupted and the food price is rising continuously. The regional lockdowns are also making it harder for people providing assistance to gain access to the affected areas, which means that day labourers, who live from hand to mouth, can no longer find work and cannot adequately feed their families. "Our colleagues in the south report that some fields have turned to dust and sand because of the lack of rain. The small farmers normally harvest their crops at this time of year to feed their families. Instead, the children must go hungry because they are not getting enough to eat. People are feeding on leaves, berries, and locusts. The small farming families have no way to get enough healthy food, or to earn an income. The people in the south are experiencing the worst drought for 40 years, and they have no reserves left. Without rapid assistance from outside, they are threatened by starvation. The people in the south of Madagascar already need a lot of support and time, to get back on their feet", says Marlene Müller, Welthungerhilfe Programme Director, explaining the dramatic situation in the south of the country from the capital Antananarivo. Due to the hunger crisis, Welthungerhilfe is extending its support in current areas of activity in the south of the country, and helping the most severely affected families to gain access to food and water. In coordination with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the National Disaster Management Authority of Madagascar, Welthungerhilfe is working to expand life-saving assistance to other districts that urgently need humanitarian assistance. Our colleagues in Madagascar are available for interviews. ***Welthungerhilfe **is one of the largest private aid organisations in Germany; politically independent and non-denominational. It is fighting for “Zero Hunger by 2030”. Since it was founded in 1962, more than 9,830 overseas projects in 70 countries have been supported with €3.95 billion. Welthungerhilfe works on the principle of help for self-help: from fast disaster relief to reconstruction and long-term development cooperation projects with national and international partner organisations.*
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Droughts
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Former Uzbek Diplomat Yusupov Reportedly Beaten, Mistreated In Prison
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An international rights group is expressing concern about the condition of former Uzbek diplomat Kadyr Yusupov -- who activists say was wrongly convicted -- after reports he was beaten while in prison and refused treatment afterward. Yusupov is currently in Prison Colony No. 4 in the city of Navoi, serving a sentence of 5 1/2 years after being convicted of treason at a closed trial in January 2020. Yusupov, 69, suffers from schizophrenia and the circumstances surrounding his alleged confession and the trial process against him have been questioned by his family and international rights organizations. The Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA) said Yusupov was beaten by a fellow prisoner on September 2021 and again in October when he complained about another inmate and, “in retaliation, the latter violently beat Yusupov in front of the other prisoners.” Yusupov believes he sustained a concussion in the attack and has many bruises on his body. Yusupov’s son, Babur, spoke with RFE/RL and said a doctor later examined Yusupov and said there was no evidence of a concussion, though he continues to suffer from headaches since the assault. Yusupov also lost two teeth in the attack, but his son said prison officials have so far not allowed Yusupov to be temporarily transferred to a facility that provides dental treatment. Yusupov was a career diplomat who served in Uzbekistan’s diplomatic missions in the United Kingdom, Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria, including international organizations based in Vienna, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), until he retired in 2009. On the morning of December 3, 2018, Yusupov tried to kill himself by jumping onto the tracks in a Tashkent metro station as a train was entering .He was taken to the hospital and was treated for his injuries. Authorities did not notify the family about the incident until that evening. Family members arrived at the hospital just before two employees of the State Security Service (SGB). 'A Case Riddled With Rights Violations' The two questioned Yusupov as he lay in his hospital bed with broken ribs and a concussion without any family members present. After an hour they emerged from the room and told the family that Yusupov had confessed to spying for “the West.” Security agents came to the hospital on December 10 and took Yusupov into custody without informing his family. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said, “Security service officials handling the case refused to allow Yusupov’s attorney or family members to meet with him for nearly five months after his arrest and pressured Yusupov to reject his attorney’s representation.” When a lawyer was finally able to meet with Yusupov, he had to sign a confidentially document promising not to disclose any details of the case. HRW added that “between December 2018 and late March 2019, two State Security Service officers entered his cell two or three times each day and threatened that if he did not admit his guilt they would rape him with a rubber baton, rape his wife and daughter, and arrest his two sons, including a son who lives abroad, by means of extradition.” The AHRCA -- which is registered in France -- said Yusupov had written two complaints; one on October 17 to the Navoi regional prosecutor in connection with the prisoner who assaulted him in October and a second one to a regional prosecutor on October 29. AHRCA said it was unclear if the first complaint was even forwarded by the prison administration to the prosecutor’s office. Steve Swerdlow, a human rights lawyer and associate professor at the University of Southern California who has years of experience in Central Asia, told RFE/RL: “What is troubling here is that a 69-year-old man in such obviously poor physical and mental health and with a case so riddled with human rights violations would be kept so long in these conditions and would be subjected to violence in prison after repeated calls for his freedom.” Yusupov asked in 2020 for better working conditions for all prisoners and also that prisoners who wished to observe Ramadan be allowed to do so. Prison officials moved Yusupov to a what the AHRCA described as a “punishment cell" and "subjected him to two weeks’ solitary confinement.” Babur Yusupov said a solitary confinement cell at the Navoi prison is 2 square meters by 1.5 square meters and was overrun with mice, fleas, and other vermin. Babur added that the guards came and took away his father’s mattress during the day, so he did not have a place to lie down. Yusupov’s case was included in a recently released report from the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which was authored by Swerdlow. The USCIRF report questioned “the ongoing imprisonment of ex-diplomat Kadyr Yusupov, arrested on politically motivated treason charges” and said it considered Yusupov a “religious prisoner of concern.” “While Yusupov was not imprisoned on religious grounds, prison officials retaliated against him for daring to raise the rights of his fellow religious prisoners to observe the fast during Ramadan earlier in 2020," said Swerdlow. "For this he was cruelly placed in solitary confinement.” 'A New Low' In May 2021, the Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention released its findings on Yusupov’s case, saying he had not been given the right to a fair trial and that his pretrial detention was also unfair. The Working Group issued an opinion on June 4, 2021, that cited numerous violations in the detention, trial process, and incarceration of Yusupov. The opinion called on the Uzbek government to “take urgent action to ensure [the] immediate release of Mr. Yusupov” and “to take appropriate measures against those responsible for the violation of his rights.” It is unlikely that either of those things will be done. Yusupov’s situation in prison is following an unhappy and all-too-familiar pattern in Uzbekistan. His requests for better working conditions and allowing prisoners to observe Ramadan were also reason for prison authorities to reject Yusupov’s request to be transferred to an open prison colony where conditions are better. His second request in March 2021 for such a transfer was refused because, according to the AHRCA, Yusupov made “an authorized telephone call to his family at ‘the wrong time.’” Officials rejected Yusupov’s third request in October 2021, saying the previous reason for not granting the transfer was still in effect. One prison official reportedly told Yusupov he should stop applying for a transfer as it is unlikely to happen. Babur Yusupov said prison officials have combined family visits with visits by Yusupov’s lawyer, Allan Pashkovsky, meaning the family and the attorney have to divide the time they have with him during visits. He added that Pashkovsky has attempted to telephone his client at the prison but officials do not allow the calls to go through. “The list of organizations calling for Kadyr Yusupov’s immediate and unconditional release has been piling up for years, and includes several United Nations bodies," said Swerdlow. "But this new despicable development is a new low." Bruce Pannier writes the Qishloq Ovozi blog and appears regularly on the Majlis podcast for RFE/RL. Qishloq Ovozi is a blog by RFE/RL Central Asia specialist Bruce Pannier that aims to look at the events that are shaping Central Asia and its respective countries, connect the dots to shed light on why those processes are occurring, and identify the agents of change. Content draws on the extensive knowledge and contacts of RFE/RL's Central Asian services but also allow scholars in the West, particularly younger scholars who will be tomorrow’s experts on the region, opportunities to share their views on the evolving situation at this Eurasian crossroad. The name means "Village Voice" in Uzbek. But don't be fooled, Qishloq Ovozi is about all of Central Asia.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release
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Stone mine collapses in Rajasthan's Bhilwara, 7 workers dead
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Seven workers died after a stone mine collapsed in Bhilwara district of Rajasthan on Wednesday. This includes three women and four men. The accident occurred at a mining site for quartz stones in Lachhuda village under the Asind Police Station area. According to sources, the stone mine was illegal. Efforts are underway to retrieve the bodies of the workers. Five bodies - two women and three men - have been recovered so far.
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Mine Collapses
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Celebrity breakups of 2021: All the couples who split this year
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December 14, 2021 | 10:14am | Updated
Another year, another batch of celebrity breakups. We are breaking down all the celebrity splits of 2021 and what went wrong.
From Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, to Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez, here’s a look at the couples whose love didn’t last.
Julia Haart and Silvio Scaglia
Julia Haart and hubby Silvio Scaglia are splitting, a source tells us.
Getty Images
“My Unorthodox Life” star Julia Haart and her mogul husband, Silvio Scaglia Haart, called it quits after two years of marriage, a source told Page Six in December.
The insider revealed that while the pair are still working at Elite World Group together, “they are living separate lives.”
Julia and Silvio’s split will be a storyline on the upcoming season of “My Unorthodox Life,” which will also showcase her daughter Batsheva Haart’s divorce from estranged hubby Ben Weinstein.
Eiza González and Paul Rabil
Eiza González and Paul Rabil have split after less than a year together.
GC Images; Splashnews
Eiza González and Paul Rabil broke up after seven months together, according to a new report.
“The split happened a few weeks ago and it wasn’t ugly at all,” a source told Just Jared on Dec. 6. “Their work schedules just weren’t aligning and it put a strain on their relationship. They’re going to remain friends though!”
Page Six broke the news that González, 31, and Rabil, 35, had started dating in May after attending billionaire heir Jamie Reuben’s 34th birthday together.
Raquel Leviss and James Kennedy
It’s over for James Kennedy and Raquel Leviss from “Vanderpump Rules.”
“Vanderpump Rules” stars Raquel Leviss and James Kennedy called off their engagement in December.
The couple announced the news on social media with a joint statement, writing, “After these 5 wonderful years we had together, we decided we have two different goals and made the decision to call off the engagement.”
“We love each other very much, but we aren’t in love anymore. We want nothing but the best for each other so please keep any thoughts positive. Sending Love.”
The couple got engaged in May.
Common and Tiffany Haddish
Common and Tiffany Haddish have broken up after more than a year of dating.
Getty Images for The Recording A
Common and Tiffany Haddish broke up in November after more than a year of dating because of distance and busy schedules.
The pair got together after going on a Bumble date in 2020, though they initially met in 2019 on the set of “The Kitchen.”
Tayshia Adams and Zac Clark
Tayshia Adams and Zac Clark have called off their engagement, a rep for the former “Bachelorette” tells Page Six.
Getty Images for iHeartMedia
Tayshia Adams and Zac Clark called off their engagement in November 2021, nearly one year after their proposal aired on “The Bachelorette.”
“They both felt the pressure of navigating a public relationship, but in different ways,” a source exclusively told Page Six. “It really started to wear on them each as individuals.”
Adams and Clark met while filming Season 16 of the hit ABC reality series. They fell in love quickly and got engaged while cameras were rolling.
Batsheva Haart and Ben Weinstein
Reality stars Batsheva Haart and Ben Weinstein are calling it quits.
Getty Images for Elite World Gro
Stars of Netflix reality series “My Unorthodox Life” Batsheva Haart and Ben Weinstein are headed towards Splitsville , breaking up after nine years of marriage.
The reality stars, who were married at 19 years old, recently admitted that marrying at a young age was not the best idea.
“I never like to say I regret anything in my life, but if circumstances happened again, I definitely would not get married so young,” Haart admitted. “Getting married at 19 is too young.”
Kaia Gerber and Jacob Elordi
Kaia Gerber and Jacob Elordi, seen here at a gala in September, have broken up.
FilmMagic
Kaia Gerber and Jacob Elordi broke up after a year of dating , Page Six exclusively confirmed in November.
A source told us the split was “amicable.” They first sparked dating rumors in September 2020, when they were spotted packing on PDA in New York City.
Getty Images
Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello announced in a joint statement in November that they had called it quits after two years of dating.
“Hey guys, we’ve decided to end our romantic relationship but our love for another as humans is stronger than ever,” the statement began.
“We started our relationship as best friends and will continue to be best friends. We so appreciate your support from the beginning and moving forward. Camila and Shawn.”
Nina Agdal and Jack Brinkley-Cook
Nina Agdal and Jack Brinkley-Cook have split after four years of dating.
GC Images
Model Nina Agdal and Jack Brinkley-Cook broke up in the fall of 2021, Page Six exclusively revealed in November.
The two began dating in June 2017 after Agdal had split from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and became Hamptons mainstays.
Stevie J and Faith Evans
Stevie J filed for divorce from Faith Evans on Monday, Nov. 8.
Getty Images for Ashley Stewart
Stevie J filed a petition for divorce from Faith Evans in November after three years of marriage, according to court documents obtained by Page Six.
The famed record producer and “I’ll Be Missing You” singer married in July 2018 inside of their Las Vegas hotel room.
Christine Brown and Kody Brown
Christine and Kody Brown broke up after 25 years together.
TLC
“Sister Wives” star Christine Brown ended her 25-year “spiritual union” with patriarch Kody Brown, who she shares with three other women.
“Kody and I have grown apart and I have made the difficult decision to leave,” Christine wrote via Instagram. “We will continue to be a strong presence in each other’s lives as we parent our beautiful children and support our wonderful family.”
Chase Stokes and Madelyn Cline
“Outer Banks” co-stars Madelyn Cline and Chase Stokes’ relationship is over.
Getty Images for Netflix
“Outer Banks” co-stars Chase Stokes and Madelyn Cline called it quits in October after more than a year of dating.
An insider told Page Six that “things got rocky between Chase and Madelyn in September, and they were openly talking to friends about the breakup by October.”
The pair met on the set of the Netflix teen drama and linked up romantically in April 2020.
Jaime King and Sennett Devermont
Jaime King and Sennett Devermont called it quits in October, two months after going Instagram official.
Instagram
Jamie King and her activist boyfriend, Sennett Devermont, broke up in October , two months after they first shared their love on social media.
A source told Page Six the actress’ busy work schedule contributed to the split and that the relationship had “run its course.”
Gigi Hadid and Zayn Malik
The former One Direction singer shares baby girl Khai with Gigi Hadid, Yolanda’s daughter.
Mike Coppola
Zayn Malik and Model Gigi Hadid called it quits on their on-again, off-again relationship after five years.
The news of their split came after the model’s mother, “RHOBH” alum Yolanda Hadid, accused Malik of striking her and calling her a “Dutch slut” during an altercation in late September. The former One Direction member pleaded no contest to the harassment charges and denied getting physical with Yolanda.
Malik and Gigi welcomed daughter Khai in September 2020. Both parties have asked for “privacy” during this time in order to successfully “co-parent” the child.
Katie Thurston and Blake Moynes
Katie Thurston and Blake Moynes have parted ways following their engagement on “The Bachelorette.”
Getty Images; ABC via Getty Imag
Katie Thurston and Blake Moynes announced their split in October, just three months after getting engaged in front of millions of viewers on “The Bachelorette” Season 17 finale.
A source exclusively told Page Six that the long-distance nature of their relationship became “too difficult to navigate,” while the pair called the breakup “the most caring choice” for both parties.
Lala Kent and Randall Emmett
Lala Kent has broken up with Randall Emmett.
Getty Images
“Vanderpump Rules” star Lala Kent broke up with Randall Emmett in October after he allegedly cheated on her in Nashville, Page Six exclusively revealed. She temporarily relocated to the Beverly Hills Hotel after she left him.
The couple had gotten engaged in 2018 and share one child together, a baby girl named Ocean.
Michael Jessen and Juliana Custodio
“90 Day Fiancé” stars Michael Jessen and Juliana Custodio split.
Instagram
“90 Day Fiancé” stars Michael Jessen and Juliana Custodio announced their separation on their second wedding anniversary on Oct. 12, calling it a “casualty” of the pandemic.
“Our marriage is a COVID-19 casualty that will not be showing up in any statistics,” Jessen wrote on Instagram. “Thankfully, you are quickly emerging healthier and stronger than ever. Some of the rest of us will likely be staying in intensive care for quite some time.”
Ray J and Princess Love
Ray J and Princess Love are attempting to divorce for the third time.
Getty Images
Ray J filed for divorce from Princess Love in October, which is the third time the pair have decided to end their marriage.
“It’s a wrap,” a source told Page Six of their marriage. “They’re not in a healthy relationship, but there’s definitely love there.”
Our insider said they’re just going to focus on co-parenting their two kids, son Epik, 3, and daughter Melody Love, 1.
Taryn Manning and Anne Cline
Taryn Manning and Anne Cline broke up just three months after getting engaged.
Getty Images
Taryn Manning ended things with her fiancée Anne Cline just months after their engagement in September.
A source close to the “Orange Is The New Black” alum said at the time that Manning felt pressure to accept Cline’s very public proposal , adding that Manning broke things off and has moved on with someone new.
Vicki Gunvalson and Steve Lodge
Former “RHOC” star Vicki Gunvalson and Steve Lodge’s relationship is over.
NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Former “Real Housewives of Orange County” star Vicki Gunvalson and Steve Lodge called it quits in September, a source confirmed to Page Six. The two had gotten engaged in April 2019 after three years of dating.
Elon Musk and Grimes
Grimes and Elon Musk ended their three-year relationship in September 2021.
Getty Images
Page Six exclusively broke the news of Grimes and Elon Musk’s split in September. The Tesla CEO told us that he and the musician, who started dating in 2018, “see each other frequently and are on great terms” as they co-parent son X Æ A-Xii.
“It’s mostly that my work at SpaceX and Tesla requires me to be primarily in Texas or traveling overseas and her work is primarily in LA,” he added. “She’s staying with me now and Baby X is in the adjacent room.”
Alana Paolucci and Charlie Lynch
Page Six can exclusively reveal that Alana Paolucci has cut ties with Charlie Lynch after appearing on “Love Island USA” together.
CBS
“Love Island USA” stars Alana Paolucci and Charlie Lynch are over following a brief romance, Page Six exclusively revealed in September. Production sources told us that Paolucci ended the tumultuous relationship after Charlie told fellow contestant Cashay that he missed her.
Scott Disick and Amelia Hamlin
Scott Disick and Amelia Gray Hamlin have ended their relationship.
Getty Images
Page Six confirmed on Sept. 7 that Scott Disick and Amelia Gray Hamlin broke up after less than a year of dating .
The news came one week after model Younes Bendjima exposed Disick on Instagram for allegedly DMing him to complain about their mutual ex Kourtney Kardashian’s PDA with her current boyfriend, Travis Barker. However, the social media drama reportedly was not the reason for Disick and Hamlin’s split.
Kaley Cuoco and Karl Cook
Kaley Cuoco and Karl Cook, pictured here in 2019, have called it quits.
Getty Images
Karl Cook and Kaley Cuoco announced their split in September after just three years of marriage.
“Despite a deep love and respect for one another, we have realized that our current paths have taken us in opposite directions,” they said in a joint statement. “We have both shared so much of our journey publicly so while we would prefer to keep this aspect of our personal life private, we wanted to be forthcoming in our truth together. There is no anger or animosity, quite the contrary.
“We have made this decision together through an immense amount of respect and consideration for one another and request that you do the same in understanding that we will not be sharing any additional details or commenting further.”
Ed Westwick and Tamara Francesconi
Ed Westwick and his girlfriend, Tamara Francesconi, have reportedly gone their separate ways.
Instagram
Ed Westwick and his girlfriend, Tamara Francesconi, broke up in September after nearly two years together. A source told E! News that the South African influencer, 25, called it quits over “rumors of infidelity.” Francesconi and the “Gossip Girl” alum, 34, first began dating in October 2019.
Skylar Astin and Lisa Stelly
Skylar Astin and Lisa Stelly went public with their relationship in July 2020.
Getty Images for Wynn Las Vegas
“Pitch Perfect” star Skylar Astin and his girlfriend, Lisa Stelly, reportedly broke up in September after more than a year of dating. An insider told People , “They’re both so busy, but there is no drama between them at all.” The couple previously went Instagram-official in July 2002.
Juliette Porter and Sam Logan
“Siesta Key” star Juliette Porter and Sam Logan have broken up.
Instagram
Sam Logan confirmed in August that he and “Siesta Key” star Juliette Porter split after nearly two years of dating. Logan shared the news on Instagram after inquiring minds wondered why he was partying with bikini-clad women without Porter present.
Pete Davidson and Phoebe Dynevor
“Bridgerton” star Phoebe Dynevor and Pete Davidson have reportedly split.
Paul Marriott/Shutterstock
“Bridgerton” star Phoebe Dynevor and “Saturday Night Live” comedian Pete Davidson split in August after five months of dating. The former couple’s breakup was due to busy schedules and long distance.
Tyler Cameron and Camila Kendra
Tyler Cameron’s relationship with model Camila Kendra is over.
Shutterstock; Getty Images
Tyler Cameron and model Camila Kendra’s relationship fizzled out after eight months , a source confirmed to Page Six. Fans speculated there was trouble in paradise when the “Bachelorette” alum and model unfollowed each other on Instagram in August 2021.
Cameron — who previously dated “Bachelorette” Hannah Brown — did not appear to be too brokenhearted by the split, however, as he was seen getting cozy with a mystery woman at a bar in Florida shortly after breakup rumors swirled.
Kate Bosworth and Michael Polish
Kate Bosworth and Michael Polish, seen here in 2020, have split.
AFP via Getty Images
Kate Bosworth and Michael Polish called it quits after nearly eight years of marriage.
The “Blue Crush” star announced her split from the director with a loving post on Instagram that featured a black-and-white photo of the former couple kissing.
“The connection does not simply disappear,” she wrote in part. “The love deepens, the heart expands.”
The former couple first met on the set of “Big Sur” — a film which Bosworth acted in and Polish directed — back in 2011. They do not have any children together.
Nelly and Shantel Jackson
Nelly and Shantel Jackson are over.
Getty Images
It looks like Nelly needs a new woman to ride wit him.
The “Country Grammar” rapper’s longtime girlfriend, Shantel Jackson, revealed in late July that she and the star had broken up .
When a fan asked Jackson on Instagram whether she’s still dating Nelly, she wrote, “No we’re not ….. Just friends.”
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Famous Person - Divorce
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1875 Cúcuta earthquake
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The 1875 Cúcuta earthquake (also known as earthquake of the Andes) occurred on 18 May at 11:15 AM. It completely demolished Cúcuta, Villa del Rosario (Colombia), San Antonio del Tachira and Capacho (Venezuela). The earthquake killed many Venezuelans in San Cristóbal, La Mulata, Rubio, Michelena, La Grita, Colón, amongst others, and was felt in both Bogotá and Caracas. That day, the city of Cúcuta and the town of Villa del Rosario, in the Norte de Santander department (Colombia) and the municipalities of San Antonio del Táchira and Capacho, Táchira State (Venezuela) were destroyed totally by this catastrophic earthquake. Villa del Rosario was a historical and calm population. In 1821 had met in the main church (Historic church) to means to construct, the members of the First Congress of the Great Colombia, known as Congress of Cúcuta. Still it is observed the rest of the church that collapse during the great seismic movement, the houses of that time in the zone were of the purest Spanish colonial style. The exact number of victims is not known; Spokane Daily Chronicle reported that the figure was as many as 2,500,[1] while other sources say that the death toll was about 1,000. Early newspaper reports put the number at 8 to 10,000. The Evening Post wrote that 5,000 died outright with a further 9,000 dying from the after effects such as fever and lockjaw. [6]
The earthquake covered 5 degrees of Latitude and was 500 miles long. [7] Populated areas affected were, Villa of the Rosary, San Luis, Salazar, Woods of the Palms, Gramalote, Bochalema and San Faustino in Colombia. San Antonio, Capacho, San Cristóbal, the Mulata, Rubio, Michelena, La Grita, Colón in Venezuela. In addition it was also felt in Bogota and Caracas.
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Earthquakes
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Skydive Umeå Gippsland GA8 Airvan crash
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On 14 July 2019, a Gippsland GA8 Airvan crashed on a river islet in Sweden, killing all nine people on board. Structural failure of a wing is suspected as the cause of the accident. Consequently, the Gippsland GA8 Airvan was grounded by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) in Australia, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAANZ) in New Zealand and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in the European Union. The grounding order was issued on 20 July and was due to run until 3 August, but was lifted early as CASA found there was no evidence for an unsafe condition, and the EASA said the wrecked aircraft had been exposed to aerodynamic loads beyond the limits specified in the type-certification basis. [1]
At 13:33 local time on 14 July 2019, the aircraft took off from Umeå Airport with the pilot and eight parachutists on board. [2] A radio report was made that aircraft was at an altitude of 4,000 metres (13,000 ft),[3] and the parachutists were ready to jump,[4] but the aircraft crashed shortly after 14:00 on Storsandskär, an islet in the Ume River adjacent to Umeå Airport; all on board were killed. [2] Witnesses reported that some of the parachutists tried to jump from the aircraft before it crashed. [5] The Bothnia Line was consequently closed, but reopened at 18:30. [2] The descent of the aircraft was filmed by a local inhabitant. [6] The accident is the deadliest involving the GA8 Airvan. [7]
On 19 July, EASA issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive prohibiting the operation of the Gippsland GA8 Airvan in European Union airspace, effective 20 July until further notice. CASA also prohibited operation of the aircraft in Australian airspace effective 20 July for 15 days, but with an option to extend the timescale. [3][8] On 20 July, the CAANZ suspended the airworthiness certificates of all Gippsland GA8 Airvan aircraft operating in New Zealand. [9] CASA and EASA lifted the grounding order on 25 July. [10]
The accident aircraft was a Gippsland GA8-TC320 Airvan, with the registration SE-MES, c/n GA8-TC 320-12-178. Manufactured in 2012, the aircraft had previously operated in Australia under the registration VH-EZS. [11][12]
The Swedish Accident Investigation Authority (Statens haverikommission, SHK) opened an investigation into the accident. [2] Investigators from the SHK arrived on Storsandskär on 15 July, and on 16 July it was announced that the wreckage would be moved to the SHK's headquarters for further investigation. [11] One avenue of investigation is the structural failure of a wing in flight. [3]
A preliminary report was released on 18 September 2019. [13][14] This report does not make any final conclusion but noted that the aircraft did dive very quickly and disintegrated in air. The final report was issued on 9 September, 2020. [15] This report concluded that, approximately 30 seconds before the parachutists were due to jump, the aircraft stalled and subsequently entered cloud in a rapid and accelerating descent. Lack of pilot experience and loss of visual cues precluded a subsequent recovery to controlled flight. Excessive loads experienced during the uncontrolled descent led to the break-up of the aircraft. SHK calculated that the aircraft was probably overweight at takeoff with a centre of gravity (cg) aft of the permitted limit and noted that normal preparations for a parachuting run would have been expected to cause the cg to shift further aft at a time coincident with the stall. The resultant loss of longitudinal stability, combined with already low and decreasing airspeed at a time of high pilot workload probably led to the departure from controlled flight. The report observed that:
Corresponding recommendations to the European Aviation Safety Agency and the Swedish Transport Agency were made.
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Air crash
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Amitabh Reza Chowdhury-directed film Rickshaw Girl won the top prize at the Schlingel International Film Festival 2021 held in Germany
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Cultural Correspondent | Published: 20:32, Oct 18,2021 | Updated: 21:48, Oct 18,2021 The poster of Amitabh Reza Chowdhury-directed film Rickshaw Girl. -- New Age photo
Amitabh Reza Chowdhury-directed film Rickshaw Girl won the top prize at the Schlingel International Film Festival 2021 held in Germany, said a press release.
The film won the SLM Top Award in the Junior Film category at the festival, which was held from October 9 to October 16.
The festival featured 77 feature films and 116 short films.
Rickshaw Girl revolves around Naima, a painter of traditional motifs, and her struggles. It is based on Mitali Perkins’ 2007 best-selling novel Rickshaw Girl, which was chosen by New York Public Library as one of the 100 best children’s books in the past 100 years.
Bangladesh-born American writer Sharbari Z Ahmed, who has earned plaudits as a screenwriter for ABC’s TV show ‘Quantico,’ has written the screenplay for the film.
Rickshaw Girl is Reza’s second feature film, which stars Novera Rahman, Naresh Bhuiyan, Allen Shubhro Gomes, Momena Chowdhury, Champa and others.
Earlier, Rickshaw Girl had been selected for the Mill Valley Film Festival in the United States and the Durban International Film Festival.
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Awards ceremony
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1983 Balkan Bulgarian Hijacking crash
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On March 7, The 1983 Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Hijacking occurred. A Balkan Bulgarian Airlines An-24 was hijacked by four hijackers demanding to go to Austria. [1]
The aircraft involved was an Antonov An-24, registration LZ-AND with the manufacturer's serial number 77303301. The aircraft first flew in 1968. [2]
A Balkan Bulgarian Airlines An-24 was hijacked shortly after taking off at 18:00 local time for a regular flight from Sofia to Varna. Four men, aged from 17 to 22 (Lachezar Ivanov, Krasen Gechev, Ivaylo Vladimirov and Valentin Ivanov), produced knives and took the 40 passengers and crew hostage. They claimed to the passengers that they were recently escaped recidivist criminals and threatened that they would depressurise the plane if an attempt were made to disarm them or impede the takeover. The hijackers proceeded to threaten the stewardess and demanded the plane be diverted to Vienna. A passenger was sent to the cockpit to communicate their demands to the pilot, who in turn relayed them to local authorities and received orders to simulate compliance, while actually maintaining a course to Varna. Meanwhile, authorities cut off all electrical power to Varna, in order to prevent the hijackers from recognising the Black Sea coast. After landing at the Varna airport, a Bulgarian police officer and an airport worker, who spoke fluent German were disguised as Austrian airport staff as they attempted to convince the hijackers that they were in Vienna and to lure them out of the plane. The hijackers asked for a translator to negotiate their surrender, until one of them noticed that the disguised police officer was wearing a Bulgarian made leather jacket, which led them to panic and threaten to start executing hostages. At this point the crew managed to let four commandos aboard the plane through a hatch in the luggage compartment. The commandos stormed the plane, disarmed and arrested three of the hijackers. The only remaining hijacker, Valentin Ivanov, had locked himself in the airplane bathroom and threatened to kill the stewardess. Two more commandos entered the plane through the passenger hatch, kicked in the bathroom door and shot Ivanov as he attempted to kill his hostage. Ivanov was the only victim of the incident. The stewardess, having sustained a wound in her neck and bleeding heavily, was quickly transported to a nearby hospital and made a full recovery. [3][4][5]
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Air crash
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Panic of 1819
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The Panic of 1819 was the first widespread and durable financial crisis in the United States and some historians have called it the first Great Depression. It was followed by a general collapse of the American economy that persisted through 1821. The Panic heralded the transition of the nation from its colonial commercial status with Europe toward an independent economy. Though the downturn was driven by global market adjustments in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, its severity was compounded by excessive speculation in public lands, fueled by the unrestrained issue of paper money from banks and business concerns. The Second Bank of the United States (SBUS), itself deeply enmeshed in these inflationary practices, sought to compensate for its laxness in regulating the state bank credit market by initiating a sharp curtailment in loans by its western branches, beginning in 1818. Failing to provide gold specie from their reserves when presented with their own banknotes for redemption by the SBUS, the state-chartered banks began foreclosing on the heavily mortgaged farms and business properties they had financed. The ensuing financial panic, in conjunction with a sudden recovery in European agricultural production in 1817, led to widespread bankruptcies and mass unemployment. The financial disaster and recession provoked popular resentment against banking and business enterprise, along with a general belief that federal government economic policy was fundamentally flawed. Americans, many for the first time, became politically engaged so as to defend their local economic interests. [1]
The New Republicans and their American System[2]—tariff protection, internal improvements, and the SBUS—were exposed to sharp criticism, eliciting a vigorous defense. The United States and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814, ending the War of 1812. [3] The British government effectively relinquished its effort to impose mercantilist policies on the United States, preparing the way for the development of free trade and the opening of America's vast western frontier. [4]
Europe was undergoing a period of disorganization as it readjusted to peacetime production and commerce in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. The general effect was a decline in prices throughout the Western world, due to a scarcity of gold and silver specie. [5] Britain had advanced its industrial capacity to fully meet its wartime demands, but post-war continental Europe was temporarily too devastated to absorb Britain's surplus manufactured goods. Moreover, European agriculture production, exhausted by years of warfare, was unable to feed its own population. [5] The economy of the United States was not immune to the chaos that afflicted Europe, and therein lay the roots of the Panic of 1819. [6]
American manufacturers faced U.S. markets swamped with British products, produced by low-paid workers and priced well below competitive rates and forcing many factories out of business. [7] Continental Europe, its agrarian output crippled by the recent war, offered new markets for American staple crops, particularly cotton, wheat, corn and tobacco. [8] As prices soared for agricultural goods, a speculative agrarian land boom ensued in the South and West United States,[9] encouraged by liberal terms for government public land sales. [10] "The entire postwar American economy" observed historian George Dangerfield was "based on a land boom". The inflationary bubble grew from 1815 to 1818, obscuring the general deflationary trends in world prices. [11]
With the failure to recharter the First Bank of the United States in 1811,[12] regulatory influence over state banks ceased. Credit-friendly Republicans—entrepreneurs, bankers, farmers—adapted laissez-faire financial principles to the precepts of Jeffersonian political libertarianism[13]—equating land speculation with "rugged individualism"[14] and the frontier spirit. [15][16] Private banking interests and their allies sought to evade or resist any threat to the profitability of their local enterprises, including the regulatory influence of a government bank limiting easy credit. [17] There followed an enormous expansion in state-chartered banking,[18] with chartered institutions increasing from 88 in 1811 to 208 in 1815, mostly in the mid-Atlantic states. [19]
During the War of 1812 (1812–1815) with the United Kingdom, the American government turned to these new banks for loans, encouraging a proliferation of paper money. [20] This practice tended to shift specie into the more conservatively lending New England banking apparatus, depleting the newer banks of their hard money reserves. [21] In response, the U.S. government acquiesced in a suspension of specie payments from state banks in order to prolong the liberal wartime lending. The arrangement persisted in the war's aftermath, allowing old and new banks to profitably lend without regard to their hard money currency reserves. [22][23][24] A speculative bubble formed as a result of these inflationary practices, threatening the health of the economy. [20][23][25]
By 1814, calls for a new central bank and a resumption of regulatory controls were heard from powerful capitalists and economic nationalists in the Republican party leadership. [26]
The Democratic-Republican party found itself in control of the national government with the collapse of the Federalist party at the end of the War of 1812. [27] Some of the traditional Jeffersonian agrarian precepts—especially strict construction of the Constitution—had softened due to difficulties during the war arising from a lack of infrastructure, unregulated banking and a shortage of manufactured material, as well as the prospect of developing the vast natural resources with westward expansion. [28] A mild nationalist outlook took hold among the "New Republicans",[29] neofederalists led by Speaker of the House Henry Clay and Congressman John C. Calhoun. [14][30] A three-part program dubbed the American System, incorporating some of the Hamiltonian projects championed by the Federalists, proposed "to create a stable economy through a centralized banking system, stimulated by an ever widening web of transportation and communication, through which domestic manufactures could eventually reach all parts of the Union". [31]
Advocates of the American System called for a protective tariff to encourage manufacturing, a federally funded program for internal improvements and a revival of the First Bank of the United States to regulate finance. [28]
In the crucible of the War of 1812, the Treasury of the United States had been compelled to offer $16 million in government war bonds in order to stave off bankruptcy due to military costs and wartime loss of revenue. [30]
Financier Stephen Girard, business magnate John Jacob Astor and merchant David Parish bought up these government securities and rescued the nation's credit. [27] Through their influence, and in alliance with Republican Congressmen John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay,[32] they sought to augment their investment by proposing that the securities be exchangeable for stock in a new central bank, the Second Bank of the United States (SBUS). [30][33]
Secretary of State James Monroe supported the new bank initiative,[34][35] wishing to bind these highly regarded and pro-Republican business figures to government financial operations. [36][37] Republicans in the South and West joined with monied interests in the mid-Atlantic states. Pro-SBUS Congressman John C. Calhoun argued forcefully that the federal government had a constitutional obligation to regulate bank credit as part of the national money supply. [38] In January 1816, he introduced a bill of incorporation in the House of Representatives for a government bank (which would become the Second Bank of the United States). [39] The measure was passed by Congress and signed by President James Madison in April 1816. [40][41]
Opposition to the Bank came from two fronts: the orthodox Tertium quids (or "Old Republicans") who reflexively regarded an enlargement of the central government as an assault on personal liberty and a violation of Jeffersonian agrarianism,[42][43] and state-chartered private banking interests, who favored paper money but considered federal regulation of local banking operations to be anti-Republican. These ideologies and interests would be arrayed against the central bank during the Andrew Jackson administration (1829–1837), erupting in a Bank War that would destroy the institution by 1833. [44]
The Second Bank of the United States began operations in January 1817 under a twenty-year charter. [23][45]
The revival of the Bank of the United States had two primary objectives: first, to reverse the post-war inflationary practices of state-chartered banks by inducing resumption of convertibility, and second, to expand the opportunities for the common man to acquire bank credit, promoting enterprise and an orderly and profitable westward expansion.
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Financial Crisis
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No, It’s Not An ‘Annual’ Solar Eclipse. Discover The Celestial Cycles Behind This Week’s ‘Ring Of Light’ Solar Eclipse
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Map of the world by Edward Stanford Limited marked with the paths of totality for the Saros cycle of ... [+] eclipses from 1927-2164. The time and location of solar and lunar eclipses repeat themselves over a period of about 18 years. This series was discovered by Chaldeans over 2,500 years ago, and named by them the Saros. This map was modified by the drawing office of the Science Museum, London, for an exhibition held in 1927. The display at the Science Museum was to celebrate the total solar eclipse that was going to pass over North Wales and North West England that year. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images) Go type “annular” into your word processing software. It got changed to “annual,” right? The rare solar eclipse coming to North America on June 10, 2021 is one that commonly gets mis-named and, therefore, completely misunderstood. So let’s clear this up: there is no such thing as an “annual solar eclipse.” What happens on June 10, 2021 will be an annular solar eclipse. Here’s everything you need to know about the science that makes it happen: XIAMEN, CHINA - JUNE 21, 2020 - An annular eclipse of the sun, photographed on the rooftop of the ... [+] tallest hotel in kulangsu, Xiamen City, Fujian Province, China, June 21, 2020. - PHOTOGRAPH BY Costfoto / Barcroft Studios / Future Publishing (Photo credit should read Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images) PROMOTED Annular means ring-shaped—hence the colloquial term “ring of fire” (though “ring of light” is more accurate). During this event 89% of the Sun will be blocked by the Moon—as seen from a path through Canada, Greenland and Russia—to create a bright ring around the Sun. Much of northeast U.S. will see a big partial eclipse of the Sun around sunrise. Everyone will have to wear solar eclipses glasses and use solar filters on their cameras and telescopes. So the “annual” thing is a complete mis-type or auto-correct? Don’t solar eclipses happen every year? Well, actually, yes they do—usually—but there is no annual pattern whatsoever. It’s way more intricate and incredible than that. “About every 18 months” is usually what’s quoted for the recurrence of a particular kind of solar eclipse, but that’s not actually correct. Here are the annular solar eclipses coming up in the next decade: You can see no pattern at all, right? And yet there is usually an annular solar eclipse every year or two. So what’s going on? How an annular eclipse appears depending on whether your location is in the antumbra or penumbra. Rather, eclipses of the Sun and Moon occur every Saros—Greek for cycle. A Saros lasts for 6,585 days—18 years, 11 days and eight hours. Every Saros the Sun, Moon and Earth come full circle and for a few brief minutes they line-up to cause a spectacular totality (or annularity, which depends on the distance of the Moon from Earth). The eclipses in the same Saros throw a shadow onto the Earth that’s incredibly similar in geometry. The 18 years, 11 days difference means their date drifts 11 days forward for each subsequent eclipse, and the eight hours means that the Earth rotates a third, so the path shifts roughly 120º west. This pattern repeats, though each Saros begins as a set of repeating partial solar solar eclipses, then becomes annular, then total, then annular, then partial again before fizzling out. This process takes centuries. Let’s take this week’s solar eclipse on June 10, 2021 as an example. It’s an annular solar eclipse and it’s a member of Saros 147. It’s been causing eclipses since 1624 and will do so until 3049. Here’s what it’s been doing, and will do, in our immediate era—with each event exactly 18 years, 11 days and eight hours apart: You can see the pattern in the dates, above, and the westward drift of the paths of annularity. It’s exactly the same process for total solar eclipses, which are from a Saros that is currently producing totalities. In the same way, the totality experienced by 12 million Americans on August 21, 2017’s “Great American Eclipse” was part of Saros 145, so was witnessed 18 years, 11 days and eight hours previously on August 11, 1999 in the U.K. and Europe. Almost precisely the same shadow across Earth will fall on September 2, 2035, but this time on China, Japan and the Pacific Ocean. That’s not to say that eclipses close to each other aren’t related. “Most people don’t realize that eclipses follow each other,” said Dr. Jackie Faherty, Senior Scientist and Senior Education Manager jointly in the Department of Astrophysics and the Department of Education at the American Museum of Natural History. “It’s not a coincidence that two weeks prior to this we had a total lunar eclipse—it’s the way it goes.” We’re in the middle of an eclipse season. “The Earth, Moon and Sun line up on one side and it takes a while for it to move out of that lined-up position, so just two weeks later it’s going to bring you right back into that lineup,” said Faherty. “You’re either lined-up where you get the Earth’s shadow on the Moon or your lined-up where the Moon throws a shadow on the Earth.” The Moon’s orbit of Earth is tilted by 5º to the ecliptic, but it must cross the ecliptic twice each month. Those two positions are called nodes. Usually it reaches these nodes when the the Sun and Moon seem far apart from our point of view on Earth. This is why an eclipse does not occur each and every New Moon (because the Moon is above or below the Sun) and full Moon (because the Moon is above or below Earth’s shadow). But solar eclipses occurring outside the same eclipse season are unrelated. So when you’re watching a solar eclipse, remember that it’s part of a pattern that’s far larger than a human lifespan. It repeats through the ages, almost like a mathematical heartbeat as our Sun, Moon and Earth come full circle. Disclaimer: I am the Editor of WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes. I'm an experienced science, technology and travel journalist and stargazer writing about exploring the night sky, solar and lunar eclipses, moon-gazing, astro-travel,... Read More I'm an experienced science, technology and travel journalist and stargazer writing about exploring the night sky, solar and lunar eclipses, moon-gazing, astro-travel,
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New wonders in nature
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‘Potentially the worst drought in 1,200 years’: scientists on the scorching US heatwave
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Researchers had long forewarned of this crisis and now they’re seeing their studies and models become real life Last modified on Wed 25 Aug 2021 14.43 BST The heatwave gripping the US west is simultaneously breaking hundreds of temperature records, exacerbating a historic drought and priming the landscape for a summer and fall of extreme wildfire. Salt Lake City hit a record-breaking 107F (42C), while in Texas and California, power grid operators are asking residents to conserve energy to avoid rolling blackouts and outages. And all this before we’ve even reached the hottest part of the summer. Among the 40 million Americans enduring the triple-digit temperatures are scientists who study droughts and the climate. They’d long forewarned of this crisis, and now they’re living through it. The Guardian spoke with researchers across the west about how they’re coping. Kathleen Johnson, CaliforniaAssociate professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine I feel a little bit lucky because I’m in Orange county, relatively close to the coast – so the temperatures are not as severe here as they are in other parts of California and the west. I’m worried about this summer – this doesn’t bode well, in terms of what we can expect with wildfire and the worsening drought. This current drought is potentially on track to become the worst that we’ve seen in at least 1,200 years. And the reason is linked directly to human caused climate change. As a paleoclimatologist my main point, always, is that we are able to look into the past. By looking at tree rings and other paleoclimate records, we’re able to gain really important perspectives about how climate has varied and changed in the past. And having done that, it’s clear that what we’re experiencing now is not natural. This is undoubtedly being caused by human activities, by greenhouse gas emissions. The more we see these extreme events, piled on top of each other, and not just in the western US but globally, the more I think the reality of climate change becomes inescapable. And it feels absolutely overwhelming and sad. We are going to have less water, increased wildfires and more extreme heatwaves. But it’s also motivating. We need to continue to push for urgent action on climate change Daniel Swain, ColoradoClimate scientist, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability,University of California, Los Angeles This is really, really bad. Here on the eastern side of the Rockies, here in Boulder, we’re seeing record high temperatures. That’s the case in other parts of the state and in other states. And we’re seeing smoke plumes – not from local fires but from fires in Arizona and Utah. I think for a lot of people, it’s traumatic. The fires we saw in the last couple of years were really awful, and this year it seems like we’re on that same trajectory. It kind of feels like deja vu. It does get rough sometime – talking about these things year after year. I live in the west, and all my family, pretty much, lives in the west. Most of my friends live in the west. It’s where I grew up, and seeing the landscape-scale transformations that are happening here, and seeing how it’s affecting people is overwhelming sometimes. But actually to me, the most distressing part is that this is very much in line with predictions. Climate scientists have been repeating essentially the same messages and warnings since before I was born. Climate change is a major contributor to, if not the dominant factor, in a lot of the changes that we’re seeing out west and elsewhere. And it just is going to keep getting worse unless we do something about it. And so far, you know, we have yet to do the kinds of things, on a large enough scale, that are actually going to make a meaningful difference. Katharine Hayhoe, TexasClimate scientist and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy The extreme heat and the wildfires aren’t surprising. But it is just surreal to see what you only ever saw before in your research studies and models, actually happening in real life. And you’re almost dumbfounded by the speed at which your projections have become reality. Climate change is loading the weather dice against us. We always have a chance of rolling a double six naturally, and getting an intense record breaking summer heatwave. But decade by decade as the world warms, it’s as if climate change is sneaking in and taking one of those numbers on the dice and turning it into another six, and then another six. And maybe even a seven. So we are seeing that heatwaves are coming earlier in the year, they are longer, they are stronger. Still, public opinion data shows that there’s a disconnect, where even though about 72% of people in the US say global warming is happening, only 40% say that they think that it will affect them directly. But we actually did a recent study, looking at climate and weather extremes – and we found that really hot, dry conditions are the only thing that most people in the US directly connect to climate change. So right now is a really important time for scientists to communicate with the public that climate change is here, and climate action matters. Simon Wang, UtahProfessor of climate dynamics at Utah State University Yesterday, when Salt Lake City hit record temperatures, we went to one of our grad students’ back yards to barbecue some burgers and do some work. But it was so hot – oh my gosh, 107F (42C). So hot that, actually three out of five students’ computers overheated and broke. I was the first to throw in the white flag and ask to go home – I really hurting. As a meteorologist, of course this isn’t a surprise. The warming climate is making these dry, hot periods even drier and hotter. Since we’re in a drought, we don’t really have much moisture in the soil. And without that moisture, the sun really heats up the ground and the air much faster. So, really what we’re seeing in the south-west is, the ground is burning like a hotplate. And we’re standing on it. But you know, I actually feel kind of optimistic. In the restaurants and beer houses right now, everybody is talking about the weather, and how hot it is. And a few of them will even comment, “This is the new normal.” And I mean – we’re in Utah! Whatever people believe in, they know it’s really hot, and the climate is changing – and they don’t like that. These compounding extreme weather events are really bad – but they’re going to keep happening, no matter what. Maybe if there’s some good to come out of it, it’s that people are becoming more aware. And the sooner the general public starts to become aware of this issue, the sooner, hopefully, they’ll push for changes to address the crisis. So actually, if you saw me walking around outside this week, I probably had a smile on my face as I listened to some of these conversations.
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Droughts
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Egypt and Greece signed an agreement on Thursday designating an exclusive economic zone in the eastern Mediterranean between the two countries
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Egypt and Greece signed an agreement on Thursday designating an exclusive economic zone in the eastern Mediterranean between the two countries, an area containing promising oil and gas reserves, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said.
Shoukry made the announcement at a joint press conference with his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias in Cairo.
“This agreement allows both countries to move forward in maximizing the utilization of the resources available in the exclusive economic zone, especially promising oil and gas reserves,” Shoukry said.
“The agreement with Egypt is within the framework of international law, respects all concepts of international law and the law of the sea and good neighbourly relations, and contributes to security and stability in the region,” Dendias said.
Egypt and Greece are at odds with Turkey, which last year angered the two countries by signing a maritime delimitation agreement with the internationally recogniζed Libyan government, in a move that escalated disputes over potential offshore gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean.
Egypt and Greece condemned the deal as “illegal” and a violation of international law.
Tensions were already high between Greece and Turkey because of Turkish gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Cyprus. The NATO members are also at odds over mineral rights in the Aegean Sea.
Earlier this month, Egypt said that part of a seismic survey planned by Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean potentially encroached on waters where Cairo claims exclusive rights.
In June, Greece and Italy signed an agreement on maritime boundaries, establishing an exclusive economic zone between the two countries and resolving longstanding issues over fishing rights in the Ionian Sea. [Reuters]
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Sign Agreement
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Update: Robber steals NT$400,000 from Taipei bank customer, flees on MRT
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Scene of the crime. (Taipei Police Department photo) Scene of the crime. (Taipei Police Department photo) TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A customer at a bank in the heart of Taipei was robbed of more than NT$400,000 (US$14,000) in cash in broad daylight on Tuesday (Oct. 20). At 2 p.m. on Tuesday, a CTBC Bank customer at the Dongmen branch on Xinyi Road, Section 2 withdrew NT$424,000 from the bank. However, the customer was assailed by a robber who made off with the cash and escaped via Dongmen MRT station, reported Liberty Times. The 69-year-old customer, who is surnamed Yan (顏), had reportedly withdrawn the money to exchange it with the suspect for Chinese yuan. Meanwhile, the Taipei City Police Department has already dispatched officers to the scene to collect evidence and track the movements of the thief. Witnesses said that when they saw the customer leave the bank only to be robbed by a man about 175 cm in height wearing a white coat. The victim tried to chase him down while yelling "robbery!" but the assailant was too fast and was last seen entering the Dongmen MRT station. Update: 10/21 1:00 p.m. Taipei police managed to track down and arrest the suspect on Tuesday evening in New Taipei City's Banqiao District, nine hours after the incident.
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Bank Robbery
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KS man gets life sentence in Wichita psychiatrist’s stabbing
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A mentally ill man who killed a Wichita psychiatrist in 2017 will spend at least 25 years in prison. Sedgwick County District Judge Tyler Roush on Tuesday ordered Umar Rashid Dutt, 26, to serve a life sentence for the Sept. 13, 2017, stabbing death of one of his doctors, 57-year-old Achutha Reddy. Dutt must serve 25 years of the life sentence before he will be eligible for parole, said Dan Dillon, a spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office. He will receive credit toward that time for the four years he’s already spent in jail waiting for his case to resolve, Dillon said. Dutt pleaded guilty to an amended charge of first-degree felony murder in September, court records show. Prosecutors and police have said he terrorized Reddy inside of his clinic, Holistic Psychiatric Services near Central and Edgemoor, stabbed him more than 160 times with a knife and ran over the doctor with a car in an alley when Reddy tried to escape. This story was originally published November 9, 2021 2:44 PM. By Amy Renee Leiker Police cracked the case after the victim’s father phoned authorities with a tip that the defendant not only had been involved in a feud with his son but also drove the kind of vehicle authorities had been searching for.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence
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1901 World Figure Skating Championships
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The World Figure Skating Championships is an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union in which figure skaters compete for the title of World Champion. The competition took place from February 10 to 11 in Stockholm, Sweden. Originally allotted to London the competition was transferred to Stockholm due to the death of Queen Victoria. [1] There were only two contestants. Four out of six judges came from Sweden. None of the judges came from the German Empire. Still the placings were the same. Adams, Pettersson, and Westergren put Salchow in first position, the other three judges Fuchs. Judges:
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Sports Competition
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With no successor in sight, Xi Jinping heads to major Party meeting with more power than ever
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With no successor in sight, Xi Jinping heads to major Party meeting with more power than ever Analysis by Ben Westcott , CNN Updated 0435 GMT (1235 HKT) March 5, 2021 JUST WATCHED Is he the most powerful man in the world? (CNN) In March 2020, the annual meeting of China's national legislature in Beijing was delayed for the first time in decades , as Chinese President Xi Jinping attempted to gain control over what would fast become a global pandemic. One year on, the high-profile event is due to start on Friday, in line with pre-pandemic traditions, in an atmosphere of triumph for the Chinese Communist Party and Xi, who has emerged from the crisis more powerful than ever. The coronavirus has mostly been brought under control inside China's borders, while the country's economy has rapidly rebounded from the damage dealt by the pandemic. China is expected to overtake the United States as the world's largest economy in 2028, five years earlier than previously estimated. Xi's success in handling the pandemic has demonstrated to the Party and any remaining critics that "even the pandemic couldn't affect him," said Steven Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute. Now Xi is working to cement his place in the pantheon of Chinese leaders ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party's founding in July, experts said, looking to place himself alongside the founder of the People's Republic of China -- Mao Zedong. Read More Xi's initial 10-year term as general secretary of the Party ends in November 2022. But at a time in China's political calendar when a clear successor would usually be expected to emerge, Tsang said there is only one likely candidate for the Communist Party's top job. "We know exactly who the successor to Xi Jinping is, it's even clearer than ever," said Tsang. "Xi Jinping." Delegates applaud as Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives for the opening ceremony of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 4. Xi triumphant Traditionally, every March the National People's Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) gather for a dual meeting to pass or endorse legislation, known colloquially as the Two Sessions. The meeting this year will approve the 14th Five-Year Plan, the vast blueprint that will lay out administrative priorities for China until 2025 and cover everything from economic development, to climate change and technological research. But this year the Two Sessions will also discuss a vision for China's development by 2035 , an unusually long-sighted plan for which the details are mostly unknown. This long-term plan could indicate the length of time Xi sees himself staying in power, said Bill Bishop, China politics expert and author of the Sinocism newsletter. It is just one way experts see Xi tightening his grip in the wake of China's successful handling of the pandemic. Last November, the Chinese Communist Party announced it had reached its goal of eliminating "absolute poverty" in China, fulfilling a promise made by Xi in a speech in 2015. At a huge ceremony held to honor the achievement on February 25, in a speech, Xi praised his own vision to look at the issue of "real poverty." President Xi Jinping and the Politburo Standing Committee attend a grand gathering to mark the nation's poverty alleviation accomplishments at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, on February 25. In recent months, Chinese state-run media has elevated its praise for Xi's role in ending absolute poverty. On February 23, in a full-page article in Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily, Xi was lauded at length. "General Secretary Xi Jinping's eyes always pay attention to the people," the article said. Just days before the Two Sessions was due to begin, People's Daily published another long piece praising Xi's involvement in the 14th Five Year plan, describing him as having "the broad vision and extraordinary courage of a Marxist politician and strategist." Fordham Law School professor Carl Minzner pointed out in a series of tweets posted to his official account on March 3 that the way in which some Chinese state media outlets were writing about Xi was beginning to change. "In these articles, Xi is the focus. He is the one that is making things happen. It isn't about the Party. It isn't about institutions. It isn't about other leaders. It's about him," Minzner said. At the same time, ahead of the Communist Party's 100th anniversary, Beijing in February launched a "Party History Study Campaign." In a commentary, state news agency Xinhua said it was necessary to "unify members' thought, and boost their morale." But Bishop said the campaign would also reinforce Xi's place in the history of the Communist Party, dividing the past 70 years of Party-rule into three eras -- Mao's, Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's and now Xi's. "I don't think we're going to see erasure of Deng or Mao but certainly an attempt to elevate Xi into at least Mao's level," he said. Souvenir plates featuring Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) and late communist leader Mao Zedong are seen at a store in Beijing on March 2, Succession Nothing shows Xi's grip of power quite as strongly as the lack of a successor in the wings. Since 2002, the tradition has been for Chinese leaders to serve two five-year terms in power and then hand the reins to a new general secretary, chosen by the rival factions within the ruling Communist Party. But in 2018, the government removed constitutional term limits on the position of China's president, effectively allowing Xi to rule for life, if he chose. Xi also heads the Party and the military, two posts which are both more powerful than the presidency with no term limits. The official explanation for the constitutional move has been to align the three positions. Now with less than 18 months until the 2022 Party Congress, at which Xi would be expected to relinquish power if he were to stick to recent practice, there is no likely successor in sight. In the seven-person Politburo Standing Committee, where the next general secretary would usually be found, all of the leaders are considered too old to serve for another 10 years before hitting the informal retirement age of 68. All experts agree that the message is clear -- Xi is almost certainly planning to serve another term. "Unless something extraordinary happens that we can't foresee, like some enormous disaster struck or Xi dies or something, he will have his third term," said Tsang. President Xi Jinping addresses the opening of a training session for young and middle-aged officials at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee National Academy of Governance on March 1. But there isn't even clear agreement on who might be in line for other major political posts, including a successor for Premier Li Keqiang, who is likely to retire in November 2022. Bishop said Xi's anti-corruption campaign, which he put in place as one of the first major policies after taking power, had effectively wiped out a generation of potential leadership contenders. Xi has also choked off the ambitions for future leaders simply by refusing to name a successor, according to Richard McGregor, senior fellow at Sydney's Lowy Institute and author of "Xi Jinping: The Backlash." But that might change. McGregor said with a third term for Xi now likely, the question was moving to whether or not he would appoint a possible successor at the 20th Party Congress in November 2022, to potentially take over in 2027. If there is another congress without a potential successor to Xi, McGregor said it could indicate plans for the Chinese leader to serve for a fourth term or longer. "China's ability to have peaceful transfers of power has been one of the Party's greatest achievements and I don't see how that's a good idea to throw that out the window," McGregor said. No place for criticism At the height of the uncertainty around the Covid-19 pandemic in China, experts began to mull whether this might be Xi's "Chernobyl moment" -- referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster some believe helped spark the end of the Soviet Union. For a moment, Xi's grip on power seemed the most tenuous it had been in years. But almost as soon as the pandemic began to abate in China, Xi moved to silence the critics who had questioned his leadership during the crisis.
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Famous Person - Give a speech
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1997 Ardabil earthquake
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Several earthquake catalogues and historical sources describe the 893 Ardabil earthquake as a destructive earthquake that struck the city of Ardabil, Iran, on 23 March 893. The magnitude is unknown, but the death toll was reported to be very large. The USGS, in their "List of Earthquakes with 50,000 or More Deaths", give an estimate that 150,000 were killed, which would make it the ninth deadliest earthquake in history. [2]
Although the Ardabil area is prone to numerous earthquakes and was struck by a major earthquake in 1997, the 893 event is, in fact, considered to be a "mistaken" earthquake, derived from misreadings of the original Armenian writings about the 893 earthquake in Dvin, Armenia; the Arabic name for Dvin is Dabil.
At about midnight on 28 December 893, the night after a lunar eclipse, Dvin, then the capital of Armenia, was devastated by an earthquake. Most buildings were destroyed, and at least 30,000 people died. [5] This event was recorded by contemporary Armenian and Arabic chroniclers, including Ibn al-Jawzi. However, the Arabic name for the city is Dabil, and this led the 14th-century writer Ibn Kathir to place the earthquake in Ardabil in Azerbaijan. Ibn Kathir was then quoted by al-Suyuti in the 15th century. Further writers also placed the earthquake in Ardabil, and added some details, such as waters drying up, while changing others, such as making the eclipse preceding the earthquake solar instead of lunar. It is clear, however, that all these reports are descriptions of the 893 Dvin event. [5]
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Earthquakes
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Jailed: Robbers who targeted OAPs at east London cashpoints
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A man and woman have been jailed after carrying out at least 11 robberies on pensioners at cashpoints across east London. Anton Welio grabbed the cash while his accomplice Stephanie Smillie kept lookout. The 34-year-olds from Philpot Street in Stepney targeted elderly men and women withdrawing money from cash machines outside banks in Stratford, Whitechapel, Forest Gate and Plaistow. The biggest hit was a £500 robbery in Whitechapel at the cashpoint outside Lloyd's Bank in Commercial Road. Welio approached the victims from behind and started talking to them, then pushed them aside and grabbed their money as it came out of the machines while Smillie kept watch, before both run off. But they were identified by Det Con Raf Patel and Det Sgt Keith Faris, from the Met’s North East burglary and robbery unit, while trawling through CCTV footage. Both were arrested in January. “This pair carried out cowardly robberies on elderly people,” Det Con Patel said. “This sort of crime creates fear in some of the most vulnerable people who may already been concerned about going out in public during the height of the pandemic.” They have each been jailed for five years. Anton Welio admitted 13 robberies and Stephanie Smillie 11, both pleading guilty when they appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court on September 10. Anton Welio from Philpot Street, Stepney... 13 robberies at cashpoints - Credit: Met Police Diary of Welio's robberies outside banks in 2020: January 9 and 29: Barclays, Romford Road, Forest Gate, £300 both times from women. September 11: Nat West, Stratford Broadway, £200 from a man. October 19 and November 10: Nat West, Stratford Broadway, £200 each time from men. December 17: Lloyd's, Whitechapel Road, £200 from a man. December 23: Barclay's, Barking Road, £10 from a man. December 21: Nat West, Stratford Broadway, £206 from a man. December 23: Nat West, Whitechapel Road, £200 from a man. Diary of Welio's 2021 Whitechapel robberies in January: 2: HSBC, Whitechapel Road, £200 from a woman. 11: Lloyd's, Commercial Road, £500 from a man. 12: HSBC Whitechapel Road, £100 from a man. 19: HSBC Whitechapel Road, £200 from a woman. Stephanie Smillie from Philpot Street, Stepney... 11 robberies at cashpoints - Credit: Met Police Diary of Smillie's robberies with Welio in 2020: January 29: Barclay's, Romford Road, £300 from a woman. September 11 and October 19: Nat West, Stratford Broadway, £200 each time from men. November 11: Nat West, Stratford Broadway, £200 from a man. December 17: Lloyd's, Whitechapel Road, £200 from a man. December 20: Barclay's, Barking Road, £10 from a man. December 21: Nat West, Stratford Broadway, £206 from a man. December 23: Nat West, Whitechapel Road, £200 from a man. Diary of Smillie's 2021 Whitechapel robberies with Welio in January: 2: HSBC, Whitechapel Road, £200 from a woman. 11: Lloyd's, Commercial Road, £500 from a man. 12: HSBC, Whitechapel Road, £100 from a man.
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Bank Robbery
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Juice company Lencia fined after bottler's hand became trapped in machine
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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
A fruit juice manufacturer has been fined $30,000 over an incident at its Mildura bottling plant in which one of its workers had the skin ripped off part of his hand.
Lencia Fruit Juices bought a second-hand bottling machine in June 2019 to replace an older model, the Mildura Magistrates Court heard, but it did not install protective guarding.
On June 17 last year, Lencia employee Joshua Parker's hand became caught in the machine after he reached in to remove empty bottles that had fallen underneath a filler bowl.
Another employee hit the machine's emergency stop button and called triple-0 but the machine had to be partially dismantled and cut open so Mr Parker could be freed.
The court heard an interchangeable plate that guided bottles through the machine did not fit the bottles the company was using.
Empty bottles would also fall from the conveyor belt because a component was missing, the court heard, and employees would retrieve them by hand.
The court heard WorkSafe Victoria inspectors attended Lencia's plant the day of the incident and noticed numerous areas where access could be gained to working components, putting staff at risk of injuries from entanglement or crushing.
Lencia was charged with breaching the Occupational Health and Safety Act by failing to provide and maintain a safe working environment, which carried a maximum fine of $402,975 if dealt with summarily.
Lencia has gone into liquidation since the incident and its plea hearing went ahead in the magistrates court without any company representative present.
Mr Parker was flown to The Alfred hospital after the incident and later underwent further operations to his hand.
He attempted to return to work last November but was only able to do so for a few days.
In a statement to the court, Mr Parker said he struggled to do work around the house and had not been able to pursue his hobbies of tinkering with cars, riding motorbikes, or playing computer games.
"I have become very withdrawn from people and struggle to see the positives of life," he said.
After the incident, Lencia fitted a cage around the bottling machine with sensors that stopped it from operating if a door was opened, the court heard.
Employees were also trained in a new safe operating procedure and warning signs were installed.
Magistrate Michael Coghlan said the incident was preventable and a fine would not wind back the clock.
"I do hope for your sake you are appropriately compensated when it goes through the normal litigation processes," he said.
Lencia was also ordered to pay WorkSafe's court costs.
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Organization Fine
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Tigray: As famine looms, first WFP humanitarian flight arrives
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Lifesaving assistance arrived for the beleaguered Tigray region of Ethiopia on Thursday as the first UN World Food Programme (WFP) plane carrying humanitarian workers touched down in the capital Mekelle. It was the first UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) aircraft to arrive in the region since commercial flights were halted on 24 June, carrying more than 30 staffers from multiple aid organizations. The first @WFP_UNHAS passenger flight to #Tigray has touched down, carrying more than 30 employees from humanitarian organisations working to deliver urgently needed assistance to conflict-affected communities across Tigray.??️Operational update: https://t.co/jzplPuuF5o pic.twitter.com/TCuBsqgUQA “WFP and our fellow emergency responders on the ground in Mekelle are all enormously relieved to see this UNHAS flight arrive today, bringing in colleagues who are all essential in our collective efforts to scale up the humanitarian response and for WFP to reach 2.1 million people with life-saving food assistance”, said Michael Dunford, WFP’s Regional Director for Eastern Africa. In early November, conflict between the Ethiopian Government and regional forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) began when the Prime Minister ordered a military offensive after rebels attacked a federal army base. Within days, militias from the neighbouring Amhara region joined the fray, reportedly followed by some troops from neighbouring Eritrea – a long-time rival of Tigray. Government forces reported that the region had been secured at the end of November, but last month the TPLF reportedly recaptured Mekelle, as the Ethiopian Government declared a unilateral ceasefire. Moving forward UNHAS flights will operate twice weekly, facilitating humanitarian personnel to move into and out of Tigray. However, the humanitarian response in the region continues to be challenged by a lack of adequate food and humanitarian supplies, supply chains, and limited communication services. Moreover, as conflict escalates in the surrounding regions, including neighbouring Afar, safe passage for humanitarian convoys into Tigray remains a primary concern for WFP and the humanitarian community. The UN agency is particularly worried after one of its convoys was attacked just four days ago while attempting to move essential humanitarian cargo into the region. Meanwhile, a WFP-led convoy of over 200 trucks containing food and other essential humanitarian supplies is currently held up in Semera, capital of the Afar region, waiting to leave for Tigray, pending security clearances. On Wednesday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) acknowledged access improvements within the region, but said “the last entry point open to Tigray, the road between Afar and Tigray region via Semera city, remains blocked due to security reasons, preventing movement of humanitarian personnel, food stock, fuel and other humanitarian goods from entering the region”. “Famine is preventable and the power to avert it is in the hands of all parties concerned”, the agency said, calling for “all parties to agree to a ceasefire so the humanitarian response can be rapidly scaled up and all routes can be used urgently to reach those most in need”. Despite numerous challenges, over the past month WFP has managed to deliver food to over 730,000 people in parts of the south and northwest, including 40,000 people in the town of Zana – who were reached with food assistance for the first time. In the coming days, WFP hopes to reach an additional 80,000 people in the northwest, warning that once distributed, food stocks are likely to run out thereafter. The agency said that it needs some $176 million to continue to scale up its response to save lives and livelihoods in Tigray, through to the end of the year. UN humanitarians appealed on Tuesday for far quicker access to Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region, after the first aid trucks in days to reach the local capital, Mekelle, encountered multiple checks delaying their arrival. The head of the World Food Programme (WFP) appealed on Thursday for immediate access to deliver lifesaving assistance to Ethiopia’s Tigray region, where ongoing fighting between government and regional forces has put some 350,000 people at risk of famine.
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Famine
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McLaughlin defeats Muhammad, shatters own 400m hurdles WR for Olympic gold
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Sydney McLaughlin roared back after the final set of barriers to capture 400m hurdles gold Wednesday in Tokyo, shaving nearly a half-second off her own world record from U.S. Trials in 51.46 and dethroning defending title-winner and teammate Dalilah Muhammad as Olympic champion.
Muhammad, also the reigning world gold medalist, hung on for silver in a personal-best 51.58, also well below McLaughlin's previous all-time best of 51.90.
Rising star Femke Bol of the Netherlands, who entered the race fourth-fastest in history, captured bronze in 52.03 to pass Russian Yulia Pechonkina for the No. 3 spot.
After finishing second to a pair of Muhammad's world record-breaking races at the 2019 U.S. Championships and World Championships, McLaughlin finally answered back at U.S. Olympic Trials in 2021 with a record-setter of her own in 51.90, becoming the first 400m hurdler to go sub-52.
She made her Olympic debut as a 17-year-old prodigy at the 2016 Rio Games, becoming the youngest U.S. track and field Olympian in 44 years, but had an early exit in the semis.
After finishing high school, the Dunellen, New Jersey, native attended the University of Kentucky before turning pro.
Under first coach Joanna Hayes, the 2004 Olympic 100m hurdles champion, she won a silver medal at the 2019 World Championships behind Muhammad.
But near the start of this year she announced a transition to work under Bobby Kersee, husband of six-time Olympic medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and longtime coach of Allyson Felix.
After a season with several high-hurdle races, presumably chosen by Kersee to increase McLaughlin's speed, she waited until early June to lace up for her first 400m hurdles race of 2021.
Muhammad's silver matches Deon Hemmings for most medals in the event with two — the Jamaican won gold at the 1996 Atlanta Games and silver at the 2000 Sydney Games.
Men’s event gold medalist Norwegian Karsten Warholm also shattered his own world record Tuesday, clocking a 45.94 to win a final in which nearly the entire field set personal bests.
Both McLaughlin and Muhammad could be chosen to compete on the U.S. women's 4x400m relay team.
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Break historical records
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