Wednesday, January 17, 2018

On Sunday, a boat ferrying people to a floating casino in the Gulf of Mexico caught fire and burned near New Port Richey, Florida, US. All 50 passengers aboard abandoned ship and jumped into the sea, but one died in hospital that evening.

Beth Fifer, assistant chief executive of the Tropical Breeze Casino Cruise, said that the fire started at about 3:30 PM, local time, as the boat was outbound to the casino. According to Gerard DeCanio, the police chief of Port Richey, the captain saw smoke coming from the engine and turned back, then grounded the boat in shallow water.

The boat was rapidly engulfed in flames. Those aboard had to jump about ten feet into waist-high water and swim or wade ashore to safety. The police said that about fifteen were treated at local hospitals, including for possible hypothermia from exposure to the cold sea water. The one fatality, a 42-year-old woman, went to the emergency room at Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point hours later and died at 10:42 p.m., according to Kurt Conover, a spokesman for the medical center and Kevin Doll, a spokesman for the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.

Passenger Qaadia Culbreath told WFLA-TV that he couldn’t swim and didn’t see any life jackets, so he found himself “dangling off the metal hanger in the front of the boat because I didn’t want to let go”. Andrew Fossa, deputy fire chief of Pasco County, described locals who assisted the passengers as they scrambled to shore as “phenomenal”.

According to police chief DeCanio, the boat captain had reported engine trouble on earlier trips. Fifer said, “It would’ve never left the dock if we knew something was wrong with it.” The Coast Guard has announced that they will review maintenance records. The casino operates offshore, requiring a boat to ferry gamblers to and fro, because casino gambling is not legal in the state of Florida.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Over 60 miners were killed in an abandoned gold mine shaft near Welkom, in the Free State province of South Africa, after a fire broke out inside the mine.

36 bodies from the Harmony Gold mining company Eland mine shaft were brought up earlier on the weekend from depths up to 1.4 kilometers (1 mi). On Tuesday, 25 more bodies were recovered by other illegal workers.

“We suspect there was a fire on the 18th of May. We never saw any smoke. Over the weekend [30 May] we were informed by other illegal miners that people had died,” said Tom Smith, Chief Operating Officer for Harmony’s South Region, “The bodies are not burnt. It seems more of a case of gas or smoke inhalation. I don’t know if there are any more bodies down there, we just have to wait.”

The workers may have died from poisonous gasses, smoke inhalation, suffocation, cave-ins or carbon monoxide poisoning.

Harmony gold mine will not send anyone in to the mine as the conditions are extremely dangerous and abandoned shafts are without safety equipment. Illegal workers may gain access bypassing security at one mine site, and exit via a series of interconnected underground tunnels many miles away.

Harmony is internationally the fifth largest gold mining company and has bought up old, abandoned mines.

Police were seeking relatives to help identify the bodies, and are instigating an investigation into the circumstances.

Almost 300 “gold pirates” were arrested over the past two weeks at the Eland mine shaft alone. Thousands of illegal workers can be underground, and remain working for weeks and months continuously. “These are ex-miners and unemployed people – we need to target the syndicates,” said Smith.

There are over 4.18 million unemployed in South Africa due to the economic decline, and another 1 million may soon join the ranks.

Susan Shabangu, the minister of mining, extended her condolences.

Welkom, with a population of over 400,000 is located 160 kilometers (99 mi) northeast of Bloemfontein, the provincial capital.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Wikinews reporter Iain Macdonald today interviewed Petros Tzomakas, a Greek far-left activist and member of Xekinima, which is the Greek division of the Committee for a Workers’ International. The party is a member of Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA).

Tzomakas also sits on his local 5th Athens Municipal District committee, which is a joint effort by left-wing parties including SYRIZA, the Anticapitalist Left Cooperation for the Overthrow and a number of other political parties to oppose austerity measures proposed by the government. All left-wing parties in the country except the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) are involved. Tzomakas explained that the KKE prefers not to co-operate with other radical left-wing groups.

The interview comes amid tensions in cash-strapped Greece, where the government is introducing controversial austerity measures to try to ease the nation’s debt-problem. An international rescue package has been prepared by European Union member states and the International Monetary Fund – should Greece require a bailout; protests have been held against government attempts to manage the economic situation.

Thursday, December 8, 2005

The Australian Senate has passed legislation to force a national nuclear waste dump on the Northern Territory (NT). Despite opposition from Aboriginal land owners, the NT government, environment groups and Labor the Federal Government can now officially build a nuclear waste repository in the NT after the legislation for the waste dump passed the Senate today. The Radioactive Waste Management Bill was passed with 34 in favour and 29 against.

The two bills override the Northern Territory’s objection to the radioactive waste dump after the South Australian government opposed a previous preferred site near Woomera. According to Federal Labor opposition MP, Warren Snowdon, it is the first time since 1978 that Territory law has been overridden. “It’s an absolute disaster and it shows contempt for the Northern Territory community, it shows absolute contempt for land use planning in the Northern Territory,” he said.

The Territory Labor Government has been a resolute opponent of the plan, saying a nuclear dump will expose residents to a new security threat.

The Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Clare Martin, says transporting nuclear waste to the Territory would make it vulnerable to terrorists looking to make a dirty bomb. Ms Martin says experts on the issue have raised concerns about security at a national nuclear waste facility.

She says scientific debate played no part in the Federal Government’s decision to build a dump in the Territory and nuclear waste could be a target while it is being moved to the Territory. “You’d have to look at how far around a country you’re going to be transporting things like intermediate nuclear level waste,” she said.

“And if you’re going to put such a nuclear facility in the middle of central Australia you’ve got to get the waste there by road and that’s thousands of kilometres.” She says the Commonwealth should not expect any cooperation from her Government.

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s (ANSTO) Craig Pierce says there would be no point trying to use low level waste to make a dirty bomb because the waste is mostly gloves and labcoats. “It simply would make no sense to get this material and want to blow it up,” he said.

“It would have no impact at all. On the intermediate level, that will have a high level of security when it is transported. It won’t be transported for very far on road, on land, and it will have an appropriate level of security.”

The Australian Conservation Foundation said it expected community anger would escalate, now the bills had passed. “Last year the federal government gave the people of the NT an absolute categorical assurance there would be no dump in the NT,” ACF nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney said. “Today they have broken this promise and bulldozed through bad law in an attempt to gag community concern.”

“Under the government’s proposal, 130 truckloads of radioactive waste would be driven from Sydney’s Lucas Heights reactor, through NSW, to an as-yet unnamed site in the NT in the first year alone, with dumping to continue for decades,” he said.

The Australian Greens say the legislation could be manipulated to allow waste from other countries to be stored in the Northern Territory. The party is angry that amendments they proposed were not considered when the bill was passed. Greens Senator Rachel Siewert says the legislation is not strong enough.

“In the bill, there were some provisions to supposedly keep out international waste,” she said. “We don’t think they go far enough and that they are open to manipulation and interpretation. So what we were trying to do is absolutely positively ensure that international waste will not be brought into this facility.”

The NT Environment Centre’s Gary Scott has hinted at civil disobedience similar to that seen during the anti-uranium mining protests at Jabiluka. “I don’t think Territorians are going to take this lying down unless that is in front of bulldozers,” Mr Scott said.

The Centre’s Peter Robertson has emphasised the importance of the waste dump for the federal government to realise its plans for a second nuclear reactor. “If we get the dump, Sydney gets the reactor”. Establishing a national waste dump is a precondition for the operating license for the proposed OPAL nuclear reactor which will replace Lucas Heights in Sydney.

Robertson pointed out that the issue of waste is creating an international crisis for the nuclear industry, with no storage plans for the more than 250,000 tonnes of high-level radioactive waste currently in existence.

A detailed study of three Defence sites – Fishers Ridge, 43 km south-east of Katherine, Harts Range, 100 km north-east of Alice Springs, and Mount Everard, 27 km north-west of Alice Springs – will be conducted next year, with the facility to be operational by 2011.

Traditional owners of Athenge Alhere – an estate group of the Arrernte Nation – have voiced their dissent to the nuclear dump and say they don’t want waste from Sydney’s Lucas Heights nuclear reactor brought to their land. “Because the land we take care of, because all our ancestors lived in this land and hunted on this land as well, so it’s mainly because of the animals and the next generation of our kids and their children, so we still say no,” traditional owner Benedict Stevens said.

Coalition MPs, including Northern Territory Country Liberal senator Nigel Scullion, secured a number of amendments to the bill. They included the ability of the NT government and indigenous land councils to decide on other site options, a prohibition on the storage of high level and overseas waste and the free storage of the NT’s own waste.

The South Australian Government says tenacity staved off a nuclear dump on its land. SA Environment Minister, John Hill, says there could be a federal election before the facility’s finally built. “It will take them some time to construct this facility and that gives you some opportunities,” he said.

Mr Hill says waste should be stored closer to Lucas Heights in Sydney where it is generated. Radioactive waste is currently stored at over 100 locations across the country, including in hospital basements in major capital cities and at universities.

Update: NT farmers have threatened to take action if a site near their farms is selected for the dump. Fishers Ridge, south of Katherine, is one of three Commonwealth sites earmarked for the facility. Sharon Shaw’s farm 12 kilometres from the Fishers Ridge site. “The thing that worries us the most, it’s on top of a Tindal Aquifer which really concerns us in the fact that there’s many sink holes that turn up every wet as the ground is always shifting,” she said. “Any normal person without an environmental degree or anything would realise that this ground is unstable.”

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Aylesbury, England – The Arsenal F.C. midfielder Jermaine Pennant, currently on loan to Birmingham City, has today pleaded guilty to drink-driving, driving while disqualified, and driving without insurance by Aylesbury magistrates court. Pennant received a sentence of three months imprisonment. Pennant’s lawyer, Bary Warbutton, has said that the footballer will appeal against the severity of the sentence.

The incident occurred on January 23 of this year, Pennant was arrested after crashing teammate Ashley Cole’s car into a lamppost. The 22-year-old claimed that he crashed the car after attempting to operate the car’s Satellite navigation system.

Despite the claim by Warbutton that imprisonment “could completely destroy his career”, Birmingham City have said that they will stand by the player, and help to rehabilitate him. Arsenal released a statement saying that the sentence would not impact the player’s future with the club; his contract with club expires in the summer, at the same time as his loan-spell with Birmingham ends.

Saturday, July 2, 2016

On Wednesday, U.S. President Barack Obama met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in Ottawa. This marks the first time Canadian, U.S., and Mexican leaders have met since 2014, as 2015’s summit was not arranged in the harsh political relations at the time.

Among the topics discussed were trade and the countries’ economies, and current world events such as the U.S. presidential candidates and the United Kingdom’s recent vote to leave the European Union.

North America has a combined economy representing over 25% of the world’s GDP (gross domestic product) with a little over 7% of the world’s population. The countries’ combined GDP has risen since 1993 from US$8 trillion to about US$20 trillion in 2016.

The “Three Amigos” have shown an agenda geared towards green energy: pledging to generate 50% clean power across North America by the year 2025, implement a joint study about the addition of renewable energy sources in North America, and implement ten energy-efficiency standards and tests on equipment being traded throughout the continent.

Trade was also a big topic of discussion, with the leaders affirming support not only for NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) — something controversial in the U.S. political campaign — but also the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), with Mexican President Peña Nieto stating: “We are fully convinced that by working together […] we can be the most competitive region in the world”. Justin Trudeau also said by December 1 of this year Mexicans will no longer require visas in order to come to Canada.

The leaders held a trilateral press conference with the media after the summit. During the conference, President Obama scorned presidential candidate Donald Trump, calling his rhetoric “nativism or xenophobia”.

President Barack Obama also addressed a joint session of the Canadian Senate and House of Commons. Obama was the seventh president to do so — his other six predecessors being Harry Truman in 1947, Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 and 1958, John F. Kennedy in 1961, Richard Nixon in 1972, Ronald Reagan in 1981 and 1987, and Bill Clinton in 1995.

Obama spoke about the relationship between Canada and the United States, saying the border was the “longest border of peace on Earth”. He also said the United States “could not ask for a better friend or ally than Canada.”

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

A footpath in the Pennine hills, England, has been closed after a number of attacks by a rare breeding pair of Eagle Owls, who have chosen to build their nest near the footpath near Dunsop Bridge, Bowland. The path runs between the nest site and a favourite perch of the adult birds.

Birdwatchers at the site explained that the only other Eagle Owl nest in England is at an inaccessible location on military ground, making this site incredibly rare and important as one of just two nest sites, and the only one accessible to the general public. The birds are raising three chicks.

Multiple attacks have been reported involving people walking on the nearby footpath, mainly involving dog owners. One person required hospital treatment for minor injuries. Local police were forced to close the footpath, the entrances to which now display signs reading “Police Warning: This Footpath Has Been Closed For Public Safety”. The council had originally simply posted their own signs, but subsequently consulted with police, resulting in the closure of the footpath.

However, birdwatchers, who arrive from across the UK, have not been deterred from coming to see the owls. They are able to watch from a safe distance on another footpath, located on the other side of the valley in which the birds have made their nest.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Zimbabwe has decided to abandon its currency, the Zimbabwean dollar, in favour of other currencies.

Acting Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa announced today that Zimbabweans will be allowed to make transactions in other currencies along with the local currency. “In line with the prevailing practices by the general public, [the] government is therefore allowing the use of multiple foreign currencies for business transactions alongside the Zimbabwean dollar,” he said, adding that the Zimbabwean dollar will not be removed from circulation and would be used alongside other currencies.

This decision comes during the current period of hyperinflation, which has massively devalued the Zimbabwean dollar. Banknotes up to $100 trillion have been printed, despite the removal of ten zeroes from the currency last summer to try to make transactions easier. The official inflation rate, last updated in July 2008, was 231,000,000% a year, although independent estimates place the number as high as 6.5×10¹⁰⁸, or 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion, percent.

Up to now, only vendors with licenses were legally able to accept foreign currencies, although the practice was widespread — private businesses altogether refuse to accept the unstable Zimbabwean dollar.

Large sections of the workforce, including teachers and doctors, have gone on strike because hyperinflation rapidly renders their wages worthless. Representative groups said salaries, now measured in trillions of dollars, are insufficient to pay for even the bus fare to work.

Zimbabwe also faces other crises, including a cholera epidemic that has claimed the lives of over 3,000 people, according to statistics from the World Health Organisation.

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