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Saturday, September 10, 2005

On Friday, all six major American television networks; ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, WB, and UPN, along with most PBS stations, united in a rare show of solidarity to air a one hour charity concert called Shelter from the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast.

The concert aired live at 8pm in the Eastern time zone and 7pm in the Central time zone and on tape-delay in the Mountain and Pacific time zones. It was also shown on the Internet and many cable networks such as USA, Bravo and G4.

The show was produced by Joel Gallen, the same man behind the September 11th tribute concert America: A Tribute to Heroes. The show was not censored for political statements but was for obscenities. Gallen did not expect any political statements. Last week, rapper Kayne West made a remark on an NBC charity show A Concert for Hurricane Relief, in which West claimed that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”, which caused controversy.

The concert began with Randy Newman singing “Louisana 1927.” Throughout the concert there were notable acts, such U2 performing “One” with Mary. J Blige. Another moment was Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood and the house band from The Late Show with David Letterman doing a cover of John Fogerty’s “Who’ll Stop The Rain”.

Donations were being solicited for the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

Telecom company AT&T provided toll-free calling and 10 call centers for the event and MCI provided volunteers from their call centers.

BET also held a charity concert called S.O.S (Saving OurSelves), a half-hour before cutting to the main one.

MTV, MTV Overdrive, VH1 and CMT will air a charity show Saturday called ReAct Now: Music & Relief.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

The auction hammer came down Wednesday, in London, on Judy Garland’s blue gingham dress, worn in the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz.” It sold for £140,000 (about US$262,157.40).

The identity of the buyer, who sealed the deal on the telephone, was not immediately revealed. Bonham auctioneers told reporters there was a pre-sale estimate of £35,000 (about US$65,529.47).

The dress, one of the most recognizable in the movie world, was made for the 17-year-old Garland who had a 27-inch (68-centimetre) waist. Her name is still on a tag on an inside hem. It was auctioned as part of a sale of rock and film memorabilia and was described as a “cherished memory for millions of fans worldwide.”

The story of the “Wizard of Oz,” which sealed Garland’s legend as a worldwide star, tells the story of a young Kansan, Dorothy (Judy Garland) and her dog Toto. They are whisked away from their rural Kansas home by a tornado to a magical realm called OZ.

In their travels, they meet other now-famous characters, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion.

Although the film started with only modest success, it has since become a screen classic.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Local municipal and provincial volunteers in Manitoba, Canada are exhausted in their efforts to divert the rising waters of the Red River of the North.

It has been hard work with little sleep for the residents who live on the shores of the Red River to shore up their defences with sandbags, build dikes, clear frozen culverts and break ice jams

Volunteers to spell relief for local volunteers and food are desperately needed.

“It’s a week now we’ve been doing this … you’re talking four, five, six public works guys. In my one community we’ve got 25 volunteer firefighters and those guys have been going 24/7, so of course it’s wearing them down.” said Paul Guyader, Manitoba’s emergency measures coordinator.

“We’re dealing with one of the biggest floods the province has ever seen,” said Steve Strang, mayor of St. Clements, Manitoba “We’ve put out hundreds of thousands of bags already. The municipalities are working very well, we’re working with the provincial government, we’ve brought in every possible resource we could to address this issue. The volunteerism within the community has been phenomenal.”

The Portage Diversion has taken some spring waters from the Assiniboine River and diverted the flow to Lake Manitoba.

Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation has been totally evacuated, as well as many homes near the Canada – United States border.

The cold weather is freezing the ice jams into place. Guyader has had 2 Amphibex Excavators operating on the river breaking up ice.

The Red River is right now 16.7 feet (5 metres) above spring ice conditions. The Red River Floodway gates cannot be opened with the current ice jams.

“If we operate now, we can get ice jamming going into the floodway, jamming up against the St. Mary’s bridge, as such, the floodway capacity would be reduced and would cause higher water levels in the city of Winnipeg.” said Steve Topping, Manitoba Water Stewardship spokesman

The floodway was constructed in 1968 following the 1950 flood to divert the overflow spring flooding waters of the Red River. The floodway has been widened the since the 1997 “flood of the century” and the expansion is expected to be completed this spring. As well Manitoba built permanent dikes around communities within the flood plain since the last two major floods..

The Red River waters will crest between the beginning of April to mid April, at which time also the weather should be warming up. Communities are bracing for higher water levels, more ice jams as well as melting snow in the warmer spring temperatures.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

NASA is beginning the final preparations for next Wednesday’s launch of the Dawn probe, aboard a Delta II rocket. The Dawn probe, costing over US$250 million, will visit the dwarf planet Ceres and the asteroid Vesta. The launch was originally planned for mid-June, however due to a damaged crate, shipping delays, and a damaged solar panel, NASA chose to delay it until now. Last week the spacecraft was delivered to the launch pad, and engineers performed tests to ensure that it is ready for launch. Today, the payload fairings were installed, and the probe is ready for its launch next week onto its 5 billion kilometer (3.2 billion mile) mission.

As the Delta II launches, three stages of rockets will propel the probe towards its first target. With the help of ion thrusters, it will reach Mars in mid-2009. Using Mars’ gravity, the probe will speed up and proceed towards the first asteroid, Vesta, in late 2011. After orbiting for seven months, it will leave Vesta in mid-2012, and arrive at Ceres in 2015. After making scans of Ceres, it will enter an orbit around Ceres that will ensure that it does not impact the asteroid for half a century. This is required due to the United Nations’ “Outer Space Treaty”, which states that “harmful contamination” of these asteroids must be avoided.

The targets of this mission, Ceres and Vesta, couldn’t be less alike. Ceres (diameter 975 km, 600 miles) is larger than Vesta (578 km, 350 miles). This makes Ceres approximately the size of Texas. NASA believes Ceres could contain water beneath its outer crust because, like Earth, its inner layers are heavier than the outer layers, and Ceres’ outer layer is lighter than water. Vesta, on the other hand, is the size of Arizona, and has a surface of volcanic rock, which astronomers believe came from its hot inner layers. Vesta also has a large crater – almost 500 km (300 miles) across – on its southern pole. The collision that caused this likely blasted enough rock into space to fill a container 160 by 160 by 80 km (100 by 100 by 50 miles).

The probe will make several observations of these asteroids: it will compare the makeup, shape, size, and densities, analyze craters, and determine mass, gravity, rotation. To determine the makeup, the probe carries a mapping spectrometer, and tools to map emissions of neutrons and gamma rays. Using this information, NASA can compare the formation of these bodies to learn more about our solar system, for example, to test a theory which states that a number of stony meteorites may be debris from Vesta.

There’s one more piece of equipment aboard the probe: A small silicon chip containing the names of 350,000 people who submitted their names to the “Send Your Name to the Asteroid Belt” campaign. After next week’s launch, the spacecraft will deploy its solar panels and undergo two months of testing before it begins the cruise to Mars.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry’s Department for Own Safety says it will begin a “check” on Russian Militsiya lieutenant colonel Artem Kuznetsov, who is publicly accused by a group of American lawyers of illegitimately imprisoning and then torturing Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky to death. Later, head of Investigating Committee of the Prosecution Office Alexander Bastrykin said he will “personally check” the course of investigation into actions by Kuznetsov and his coworkers. In 2007 and 2008, Magnitsky worked in Russia for American investment fund company Hermitage Capital Management and was involved in the disclosure of a large-scale corruption among several top law enforcement officials in Moscow.

Lawyers concerned with the death of Magnitsky, which occurred in Butyrka prison on November 16 of last year, started the bilingual website russian-untouchables.com, where they presented evidence of Artem Kuznetsov’s alleged efforts to cloak the crimes. As reported by the website’s authors, Kuznetsov was a key player in a US$230 million theft from the Russian government and then successfully brought criminal charges against everyone who reported his theft.

The central part of website material is a ten-minute video providing a summary of the case. Its main point is the fact that multiple large-scale luxury buyings registered to members of Kuznetsov’s family; they are not comparable to official income of all of these persons. It is emphasized in the video that Kuznetsov’s official monthly income is $850 per month (in roubles), and to gain all the assets found to be connected with him he would have to work for 322 years. The video was released in the middle of last week, and gained enormous popularity within Russian blogosphere, and drew attention of some mass media.

One of the American lawyers, Jamison Firestone, states at the website that last month he directed several petitions to check the sources of Kuznetsov’s family wealth to Russian authorities: the President of Russia, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, Department for Own Safety and Department for Preventing Corruption and Other Crimes of Interior Ministry. News website Lenta.ru states that addresses were directed on May, 21, but there were no replies since then.

Magnitsky’s case has received international attention for several months. In April 2010 US Senator Ben Cardin proposed the cancellation of US visas to 60 Russian officials allegedly connected with Magnitsky’s death. He directed an appeal to US State Secretary Hillary Clinton.

There has been no decision on it yet, but last Tuesday Clinton urged Russia to bring officials responsible for the death of Magnitsky to justice, The Daily Telegraph says. She told the US-Russia “Civil Society to Civil Society” summit in Washington that the Obama administration is “deeply concerned about the safety of journalists and human rights activists in Russia”. In the meantime Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev were meeting last week during Medvedev’s visit to US.

Magnitsky’s advocates emphasize that Kuznetsov, since committing his crimes, was promoted in service; previously, he was working for the Department of Tax Crimes of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of Moscow, and at the start of 2010 began to work in Department for Economic Safety of the Interior Ministry. Recently there were many cases when civil groups and private persons publicly reported alleged large-scale corruption crimes within top Russian authorities, with some evidence provided.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

The Romanian government has allocated 16.6 million euros for the modernisation of two thermoelectric power plants that serve a residential area in the city of Arad, western Romania. The funds come in response to a request sent at the beginning of this year by the Arad municipal government.

The mayor of Arad, Gheorge Falc?, said that the modernisation was necessary because, up until now, apartments in the area could not be properly heated due to a significant loss of hot water caused by problems in the pipe network. According to the mayor, the installations will be fully modernised by this winter (December 2005). Falc? also added that, in years to come, he would request more funds from the national government in order to modernise all out-of-date power plants in the city, and therefore reduce the costs for consumers.

At the same time, the Romanian government has pledged to reduce pollution levels, especially in industrial cities like Arad, in order to comply with European Union environmental standards. Romania is set to join the EU in 2007. The government’s target is that, by 2015, all plants or facilities using large combustion installations will have to align to EU environmental standards or will be forced to shut down. One of such plants is the Arad District Heating Plant, CET Arad, which is going to be modernised in the future. The modernisation is expected to take 100 million euros to complete.

Sunday, October 8, 2017

In a study scheduled for publication in the December 1 issue of Forest Ecology and Management, scientists from the University of California, Davis; USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station; and University of Washington have found a way to resolve the conflict that has sprung up between protecting forests from increasingly frequent wildfires and droughts and preserving sufficient habitat for the endangered spotted owl, Strix occidentalis. The study was performed in two national parks in California, United States.

For the past twenty-five years, spotted owl habitat preservation has focused on keeping 70% or more of the total ground area covered by natural tree canopy, a tree density that leaves forests prone to wildfires and trees more likely to die during droughts. Both wildfires and droughts have become more frequent in the years since the program began.

However, the previous studies upon which the 70% figure was based only measured overall canopy coverage. In this work, researchers used aerial LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) imaging technology to scan areas within Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park in California. The regions were analyzed by distribution of foliage, tree height, and the sizes of the spaces between trees and stands. These data were then cross-referenced with decades of field studies showing the locations of hundreds of owl nests. They found that spotted owls clustered in areas with very tall trees and stands almost exclusively, over 150 feet (48 m), avoiding areas that only had moderate or low canopy, regardless of how dense or wide.

“This could fundamentally resolve the management problem because it would allow for reducing small tree density, through fire and thinning,” said lead author Malcolm North, of UC Davis and the USDA Pacific Southwest Research Station. “We’ve been losing the large trees, particularly in these extreme wildfire and high drought-mortality events. This is a way to protect more large tree habitat, which is what the owls want, in a way that makes the forest more resilient to these increasing stressors that are becoming more intense with climate change.”

The spotted owl gained national prominence in the United States during the 1990s, when environmentalists’ efforts to preserve its habitat resulted in federal measures forbidding logging on large swaths of land, as well as federal limits on the sales of harvested wood. There was a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court case which was preceded by lawsuits on the part of timber companies and by years of large protests by timber workers and their communities who feared job losses. For a time, it seemed that the spotted owl was also threatened by competition from the faster-breeding barred owl, which had moved west into its territory.

This is not the only major study of spotted owls to reach the public eye this week. On Thursday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released the California Spotted Owl Conservation Objectives Report, which analyzes the past several decades of research on the California spotted owl and provides recommendations for ecologically and economically viable conservation.

Monday, May 23, 2016

In the German DFB-Pokal final, on Saturday, Munich-based football club FC Bayern Munich defeated rivals Borussia Dortmund 4–3 in a penalty shoot-out decider as the match ended 0–0 after 120 minutes at Olympiastadion in Berlin. This marked the third consecutive loss for Dortmund in the German Cup final. This was the eighteenth German Cup win for Bayern and eleventh domestic double.

Bundesliga winners Bayern Munich had 70% ball possession in the game and had seventeen shots while Dortmund hit just nine. With a total of seven yellow cards shown in 120 minutes, 35 fouls were committed.

Dominating Bayern faced a shot from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang which was saved in the 85th minute. Erik Durm’s sliding tackle saved a goal for Robert Lewandowski’s shot in the fourth minute of the extra time.

As normal time ended goal-less, the match progressed to additional time. Roman Bürki delayed the Bavarian victory by disallowing Douglas Costa’s 113th minute shot as well as David Alaba’s shot in the next minute.

In the penalty shootout, Manuel Neuer saved Sven Bender’s spot kick, and Sokratis Papastathopoulos missed while Joshua Kimmich failed to score for Munich.

In the end, Munich won the cup defeating their rivals 4–3 on penalties. This match was the last match for Dortmund for their captain Mats Hummels as he is due to move to Munich next week.

In a pre-match conference, Thomas Tuchel, Borussia Manager, said, “Once you’ve reached five finals over the course of five years, simply reaching the final is no longer enough!” ^{((de))German Language: ?Wenn man fünf Mal in fünf Jahren in einem Endspiel steht, ist eine Final-Teilnahme nicht mehr genug!}

Dortmund has won the DFB-Pokal three times. Including the 2012, 2014 and 2015 DFB-Pokal finals they have featured in five finals in the last five seasons in various competitions including the 2013 UEFA Champions League Der Klassiker final. This was Pep Guardiola’s seventh trophy with Bayern Munich in his three years as the club manager. He won the Bundesliga title each season and he is set to join Manchester City next season.

Friday, September 2, 2005

The United States Senate has cut short their summer recess and has arrived in Washington to approve a $10.5 billion aid bill to victims of Katrina as requested by President George W. Bush.The United States House of Representatives is expected to pass a similar bill later today.

Bush has told Congress he will ask for more funds in the coming weeks. Most of the money will go to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the rest will go to the Pentagon which is dispatching ships to the area.

Bush has also asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton to help raise private funds for relief like they did for the December 2004 tsunami in Asia.

Over two dozen nations, some with assets in the area, have offered aid to the city of New Orleans, but President George W. Bush has refused any aid from foreign nations which does not take the form of cash.