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Thursday, June 21, 2007

Seeking to stave off the forest fires that have blanketed five Southeast Asian countries with choking haze for the past two years, Indonesian environmental and forestry officials said yesterday they would be able to reduce the number of hot spots this year by more than half.

Meeting in Jambi, Sumatra, cabinet ministers from Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand heard what Indonesia plans to do this year to combat the illegal forest fires, which start each year during the August-November dry season.

“We are targeting a drop of about 50 percent in forest fires but we are entering the dry season between July and August so we have to increase our alertness,” Indonesian deputy environment minister Masnellyarti Hilman was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse. “We explained the efforts that we’ve taken to prevent a repeat of the choking haze…and they praised our efforts,” he said.

A statement issued by the ministers after the meeting said Indonesia’s efforts would reduce the number of hot spots by 58 percent from the previous year.

Caused by slash-and-burn cultivation on palm oil and timber plantations on Borneo and Sumatra, the haze has covered parts of the affected countries for the past two years. It was first problematic in 1997, due to the El Niño weather pattern.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

A man living in South Wales, United Kingdom was ordered to destroy his entire music collection after creating a ruckus by listening to the music at an extremely high volume. Police seized his stereo equipment in a raid. Karl Wiosna, a 44-year-old resident of Graig in Pontypridd, was playing Cher‘s album Believe at extremely high volume. His neighbours complained under the Environmental Protection Act and he was warned not to play the album at such high volume. However, he thought the warning was only for the Cher album, and he then started to listen to a U2 album a week later. His neighbors said they could hear the lyrics in their living room.

Before the Rhondda Magistrates’ Court Wiosna admitted breaching the noise abatement notice, with which he was served. He was ordered to pay a £200 fine. He was also ordered to pay £50 in costs, £15 in victim surcharge, and to destroy his music collection.

“They took £500 to £600 worth of stuff,” complained Wiosna. “I don’t think they should be able to do it, it isn’t right.”

“A legal notice under the Environmental Protection Act was served on Wiosna demanding he reduce the volume or stop playing music,” read a statement by the Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council. “Just a week after the legal notice was received, officers were called to the address during an out-of-hours emergency by a neighbour.”

“In this case, the swift and effective actions of environmental health officers enabled the issue to be dealt with and I hope it serves as a reminder to others, that we can take them to court and seize their belongings if they do not cease causing a nuisance to others,” said Councillor Mike Forey, the cabinet member for environmental health.

Friday, June 23, 2006

Ukraine beat Tunisia by an Andriy Shevchenko penalty in Berlin to advance to the round of sixteen, Friday.

Roger Lemerre, coach of Tunisia, might consider his team were unlucky as the match seemed to turn on officiating decisions that favoured the Ukrainians.

Ukraine went into the last Group H game needing a draw to go through to the round of sixteen while Tunisia needed a win. It was a competitive match without much flair or accurate passing.

A total of just nine shots and six corner kicks and the 42 fouls amassed suggested that the game was mostly played in the centre third of the pitch.

The first of three things to go wrong from the Tunisia perspective was the sending off of arguably their best player Zied Jaziri. He got his second yellow card a minute before half-time for a mistimed challenge which followed a yellow card for foul simulation earlier in the game.

The second crucial moment, when the score was still 0-0, appeared to follow from an Andriy Rusol foul a few yards away from his penalty area on 64 minutes. The caution Rusol received meant he would miss Ukraine’s next Fifa World Cup match.

Anis Ayari took the freekick and got it up over the wall; it was close enough to going in that it landed on the netting on top of the goal. Unfortuantely for Tunisia television replay showed a Ukrainian player in the wall, inside the penalty area, stuck his arm up and the ball had clipped his arm on the way through.

This was the fifth time in three days at the World Cup players in defensive positions had put their hand up in their own penalty area to stop balls; it also happened in Portugal versus Mexico; Serbia and Montenegro versus Ivory Coast; and Croatia versus Australia. In this match no penalty was awarded for the handball.

Four minutes later Andriy Shevchenko made it 1-0 for Ukraine from the penalty spot. There was some question about whether the award was just. Although Shevchenko had done well to nip past the Tunisian keeper, and had two defenders in close vicinity, he had appeared to trip himself when he tapped his own left ankle with his right foot.

For neutral fans in the Olympiastadion a bright spot in a scrappy match came on on 89 minutes when Ali Boumnijel made a brilliant save from Andriy Voronin. Voronin was one-on-one with the Tunisian and the save seemed to block an almost certain second goal for Ukraine.

By that time the game was done and dusted and Ukraine were through to the round of sixteen of the Fifa World Cup for the first time in its history.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Toronto, Ontario’s 2016 Fan Expo Canada, scheduled for September 1–4, includes farewells to some US icons, and the debut of a new work by a Canadian icon. The first batch of programming was announced in a media release late last week.

Saturday, September 3, acclaimed Canadian author Margaret Atwood is to launch her graphic novel Angel Catbird, with illustrator Johnnie Christmas. The panel includes a question and answer session and an opportunity to purchase the book before its general release date. Other recent firsts from the 76-year-old Booker Award-winning Atwood include a chamber opera that debuted in 2014, participating in the Twitter Fiction Festival in 2015, and being the first writer included in the Future Library project, her Scribbler Moon not to be read until 2114.

Stan Lee, now 93, is in the midst of what he claims to be his final convention tour. As first announced in February, the Spider-Man, Iron-Man, and X-Men creator is to make his final Canadian convention appearance at Fan Expo. Also bidding adieu to the convention circuit are Adam West and Burt Ward, from the original Batman television series, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

The remainder of the announced schedule includes various programs for the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, including appearances by actors William Shatner, George Takei, and Nichelle Nichols, the four day long Geekfest Film Festival, and a live script reading of Ghostbusters by voice acting legends Rob Paulsen, Bill Farmer, Maurice LaMarche, and David Hayter. Panels include The Dark Knight III team, including a rare appearance by Frank Miller, the cast of Sailor Moon, and an exclusive panel of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes.

The 750,000 square foot event projects “over 140,000” attendees this year to Toronto’s Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

The death toll from yesterday’s suspension bridge collapse on the Indonesian island of Borneo has risen from three to four, with a six-month-old baby among the dead. Search and rescue teams continue to look for survivors in the Mahakam River.

The initial death toll was raised at first to five, but was revised back down to four. The number of wounded rose from at least seventeen to at least nineteen, but Monsters and Critics offers a figure as high as 39 injured; Indonesia Today yesterday suggested the actual figure was 100 hospitalised. Roughly 40 people remain missing at the scene in East Kalimantan’s Kutai Kartanegara district, where “Kalimantan’s Golden Gate Bridge” linked the towns of Tenggarong and Samarinda.

At least three cars, several motorbikes, and at least one public bus all fell into the Mahakam River. Another car was left overturned and balanced upon wreckage over the water. State-owned builders PT Hutama Karya completed the bridge about a decade ago in the image of California’s Golden Gate Bridge, and it is now reported it was under repair at the time of the failure. New information suggests a cable on the 720-metre structure failed as workers dealt with it; six of the repair crew are among the missing.

National police representative Boy Rafly Amar said “It is believed that some victims are still in the river. There are two buses in the river and efforts are under way to lift them.” He said 39 were rescued with 20 still in hospital. Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih visited survivors in Parikesit Hospital and promised them medical treatment at government expense.

“It happened so fast, only about 30 seconds,” according to National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Sutopo Nugoroho. National search and rescue head Daryatmo said Monday will see cranes attempt to move debris.

The president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has sent three ministers to the site to investigate the accident, while Bambang Widaryatmo, head of East Kalimantan’s police, promised “parties found to be negligent will be prosecuted”. The government has promised a replacement ferry service. The river is closed to boats as rescue operations continue, and a 22-strong team has been dispatched from the national police, comprising six forensics experts, five disaster victim identification specialists, and eleven investigators. They are there to augment the East Kalimantan Police.

Some people swam ashore after falling, with the aftermath filled with screams. 40-year-old Adam Nur describes breaking free from a car and swimming 300 metres with one arm after his other arm was injured in the fall. Syakrani, 24, says he survived by clinging to empty plastic containers when he fell from the bridge after leaving his truck to investigate a traffic jam. “The authorities should have closed the bridge if it was under repair,” he said.

Monday, April 3, 2006

High winds and multiple tornadoes caused destruction across the American Midwest yesterday, killing 18 people when they hit five states in the early evening, although that figure is expected to rise.

In Dyer County, Tennessee alone, 12 people were killed, and in Gibson County, Tennessee, a further three were lost, bringing the death toll up to 15 in that state alone. The remaining three lives were lost in Missouri as a result of high winds, although the freak weather also hit the states of Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio and Illinois.

When asked about the storms which caused chaos in Tennessee, Dyer County Sherriff Jeffrey Holt said, “This hit about 7:40 last night, so the warnings were out. They were being tracked all the way across Arkansas and Missouri as it was coming in. We had plenty of warnings, I think, just the amount of destruction in the area is what caused our fatality count to get so high. Destruction is almost absolute total destruction along some of the path of this. There’s just nothing left of houses but foundation.”

Numerous power failures were reported across the affected areas, with some county authorities reporting that the blackouts may go on for several days.

A dispatcher in Pemiscot County, Missouri informed the press that, as of Monday morning, some people were still trapped in their houses as a result of the storms.

In Illinois, tornadoes touched down across at least seven counties according to local emergency officials, but no-one was severely injured or killed. The Emergency Management spokesperson for Illinois Patti Thompson reported that a large storm front which spanned the breadth of America from Illinois southwards was the cause of last night’s dramatic weather.

In the state of Ohio, a Wilmington-based meteorologist informed members of the Associated Press that “In every county in southwest Ohio there has been some type of damage.”

Repair costs for damage across the affected area are expected to be six-figure sums, and extensive work to replace destroyed segments of the infrastructure such as gas and power supplies is already underway, said officials in all seven of the states hit this morning. The current death toll is expected to rise today, with at least one more unconfirmed death reported in Missouri already.

Monday, June 1, 2009

British singer Susan Boyle has agreed to be admitted to a local clinic for exhaustion, according to media reports. Boyle is said to have been taken by ambulance to the Priory clinic after she began to act strange in her hotel room, reportedly suffering an “emotional breakdown.”

Staff for Britain’s Got Talent allegedly called police after they noticed her acting strange while backstage after the finale of the popular talent contest. Boyle went to her hotel room and on the arrival of police she was ordered to be taken to a clinic under the Mental Health Act.

“Police were called to doctors assessing a woman under the Mental Health Act. The woman was taken voluntarily by ambulance to a clinic. At the request of doctors, police accompanied the ambulance,” said Scotland Yard as quoted by The Sun.

Boyle, 47, from Blackburn, West Lothian, in Scotland, came in second place on Britain’s Got Talent. Boyle was beaten by the dance group Diversity on Saturday who got 24% of the public vote, with Boyle receiving 20%. She took the world by storm after her debut appearance on April 11 singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from the award-winning musical Les Misérables. Just a day after appearing on the show, Boyle became a YouTube sensation with her performance receiving nearly 9 million views. To date, the YouTube clip has been viewed by nearly 65 million people worldwide.

Britain’s Got Talent issued a statement supporting Boyle saying, “Following Saturday’s show, Susan is exhausted and emotionally drained. We offer her our ongoing support and wish her a speedy recovery.”

Simon Cowell, the show’s owner and panel judge of the contestants, also issued a statement saying, “We’re going to look after her. We’ve never had a runner-up like Susan before. She won over a lot of fans – not just with her voice, but with her graciousness.”

It is not known how long Boyle will be staying at the clinic, but according to reports, she agreed to take time off from singing on advice of her doctor not long before being admitted.