Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Tropical Storm Danielle is now a Category 1 hurricane, with winds up to 130 km/h (80 mph). The storm is headed towards Bermuda and forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida expect it to strengthen over the next two days. Hurricane Danielle is the second hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season.

North America is simultaneously threatened by Tropical Storm Frank. The 80 km/h (50 mph) storm in the Pacific Ocean is about 210 km (130 miles) south-south west of Acapulco, Mexico. Mexico has issued a tropical storm watch in the area.

Hurricane Danielle formed near the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of West Africa, being classified as Tropical Depression Six. It then developed into a more organized cyclone.

Meteorologists predict that Danielle will be the first of several storms to form within the next two weeks, as the Atlantic hurricane season is currently at its peak. “There are signs that the Atlantic is acting like it should in August and September. We’re seeing more activity than we did earlier in the season,” said Rick Knabb of the Weather Channel.

Even though the 2010 season seems to be one with low activity, emergency officials are still stressing safety and awareness to residents in hurricane-prone areas. “It only takes one storm to cause a loss of lives and devastating property damage,” Lauren McKeague, Florida Division of Emergency Management, says. Hurricane Andrew was a catastrophic Category 5 storm that came during a year when it was a lower-than-average season.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday party.

The boy was today awake and smiling, still in some pain but in good spirits and expected to make a full recovery, according to plastic surgeon, Mr Robert Love.

“What we have is parts that are very much alive so the reattached limbs are certainly pink, well perfused and are indeed moving,” Mr Love told reporters today.

“The fact that he is moving his fingers, and of course when he wakes up he will move both fingers and toes, is not a surprise,” Mr Love had said yesterday.

“The question is more the sensory return that he will get in the hand itself and the fine movements he will have in the fingers and the toes, and that will come with time, hopefully. We will assess that over the next 18 months to two years.

“I’m sure that he’ll enjoy a game of basketball in the future.”

The weight and force of the collapse, and the sharp brick edges, resulted in the three limbs being cut through about 7cm above the wrists and ankle.

Terry’s father Tan said of his only child, the injuries were terrible, “I was scared to look at him, a horrible thing.”

The hands and foot were placed in an ice-filled Esky and rushed to hospital with the boy, where three teams of medical experts were assembled, and he was given a blood transfusion after experiencing massive blood loss. Eight hours of complex micro-surgery on Saturday night were followed by a further two hours of skin grafts yesterday.

“What he will lose because it was such a large zone of traumatised skin and muscle and so on, he will lose some of the skin so he’ll certainly require lots of further surgery regardless of whether the skin survives,” said Mr Love said today.

The boy was kept unconscious under anaesthetic between the two procedures. In an interview yesterday, Mr Love explained why:

“He could have actually been woken up the next day. Because we were intending to take him back to theatre for a second look, to look at the traumatised skin flaps, to close more of his wounds and to do split skin grafting, it was felt the best thing to do would be to keep him stable and to keep him anaesthetised.”

Professor Wayne Morrison, director of the respected Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and head of plastic and hand surgery at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said he believed the operation to be a world first.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A Grenadian cabinet Minister has resigned after he boycotted his own swearing-in ceremony. Michael Church handed his resignation to Tillman Thomas, the Prime Minister of Grenada yesterday. Church boycotted the ceremony after he was demoted from Minister of Labour, Social Security and Ecclesiastical Affairs. He was then given the post of Junior Minister in the Ministry of Works, Physical Development and Public Utilities.

Church was demoted after he made a visit to Italy with a former trade advisor without the government’s consent. He then boycotted the ceremony along with two other ministers. Peter David and Glynnis Roberts also had their posts changed in the cabinet reshuffle. They have since accepted their new posts.

Prime Minister Tillman issued a statement on Church’s decision to leave the cabinet. He said “It is always a traumatic experience for a government to lose one of its members, especially at a time when all hands are needed in the rebuilding of our nation.”

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

In February 2017, the Iranian Chess Federation announced two teenage chess players, Dorsa Derakhshani and her younger brother Borna Derakhshani, were banned from representing the national team. The federation announced their decision although Dorsa Derakhshani had previously decided and informed the chess federation she did not wish to play for Iran.

Dorsa Derakhshani is currently 21 years old and holds the International Master (IM) as well as Woman Grand Master (WGM) titles. Her brother, Borna, plays for the English Federation and holds the FIDE Master title.

Dorsa Derakhshani was banned since she did not wear a hijab, an Islamic headscarf, while competing at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival in January 2017. Under the laws of Islamic Republic of Iran, hijab is a mandatory dress code. Her brother Borna Deraskhsani was banned for playing against Israeli Grand Master (GM) Alexander Huzman at the same tournament. Iran does not recognise the existence of Israel, and previously, Irani athletes have avoided playing against Israeli athletes.

Mehrdad Pahlavanzadeh, the president of the country’s chess federation, explained the decision to ban the players saying, “As a first step, these two will be denied entry to all tournaments taking place in Iran and in the name of Iran, they will no longer be allowed the opportunity to be present on the national team.” ^{((fa))Farsi language: ?????? ????? ?? ??? ??? ?? ??? ????? ?? ?? ???? ???????? ?? ?? ????? ? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ??????? ????? ??????? ? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? ?? ??????? ????.} He further stated, “Unfortunately, something that should not have happened has happened and our national interest is paramount and we have reported this position to the Ministry of Sports.” ^{((fa))Farsi language: ????????? ?????? ?? ????? ????????? ?????? ??? ? ????? ??? ?? ?? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ? ?? ??? ???? ?? ?? ????? ???? ?? ????? ?????.}

IM Dorsa Derakhshani, who currently studies at Saint Louis University in the United States and plays for the United States Chess Federation, discussed her chess career, time in Iran and the 2017 controversy, and her life in Saint Louis with a Wikinews correspondent.

Friday, July 22, 2005

Administrators PriceWaterHouseCoopers (PWC) have announced that the British car company MG Rover and its engine manufacturer Powertrain Ltd has been sold to Chinese company Nanjing Automobile for an unknown sum of money. The company beat bids from Shanghai Automotive (SAIC), despite being the smaller of the two.

MG Rover collapsed this Spring, after struggling to make a profit for several years.

SAIC had tried to buy only the engine plant and then transfer it to China, but in June Nanjing Automobile approached PWC with a combined bid for both the car manufacturing company and Powertrain. This Monday SAIC bid for both but the offer was inferior to Nanjing’s.

Nanjing has indicated that it too will move the engine production plant to China, along with some car manufacturing. However it also intends to continue building cars in Britain, and establish an engineering research and design centre there in an effort to expand its sales globally. Nanjing intends to start hiring at once.

Saturday, June 11, 2005

A House subcommittee voted Thursday to sharply reduce the federal government’s financial spending for Fiscal Year ’06, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help produce such shows as Sesame Street and Arthur.

The spending cutbacks far exceeded even those requested by the White House. Among initiatives slated for reduction are $39 million for conversion to digital programming and $50 million for upgrading PBS’s aging satellite technology.

The subcommittee also acted to eliminate federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a body created by Congress to pass funds on to public broadcasters. The CPB would see a 25 percent reduction in next year’s budget, down from $400 million to $300 million, funds that currently account for 14.9% of all public broadcasting revenues[1].

Ideological concerns over publicly-financed content have recently become a point of contention for the Republican-controlled CPB. The day after the new budget was approved, CNN obtained an internal memo by NPR’s executive vice president Ken Stern that blamed the cuts on “recent public turbulence caused by CPB chairman Ken Tomlinson’s irresponsible attacks on public broadcasting.” Stern’s memo also told staffers the cut would not hurt NPR directly because it receives little direct support from the CPB. Instead, he emphasized, smaller local stations that rely upon federal dollars are most likely to be affected, which could in turn take a bite out of regular dues and fees, NPR’s largest revenue source.

Under the budget, the Ready to Learn program’s $23 million appropriation for children’s shows is rescinded in its entirety. John Lawson, president of the Association of Public Television Stations, said the cut was retribution for an episode of “Postcards From Buster” featuring a pair of lesbian parents from Vermont. A spokesman for the Appropriations Committee, John Scofield, denied the claim.

“Ready to Learn was one of more than 50 programs terminated in the spending bill,” he told the New York Times. “It might be a nice program to do, but not in a flat budget with large budget deficits. We felt the same way about 49 other programs.”

Overall, the cuts would signal the most dramatic cutback of public broadcasting since Congress created the CPB in 1967. The spending bill is expected to pass the Appropriations Committee and the House, but final legislation will be negotiated with the Senate.

Monday, April 10, 2006The family of a Detroit, Michigan woman plans to file a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city after her six-year-old son’s calls to emergency operators were allegedly dismissed as a prank. The family released the tapes of the emergency calls to the media on Friday.

Sherrill Turner, 46, died on February 20 of complications from an enlarged heart. Her son Robert made two calls to 911 to report the emergency.

“My mom is passed out,” said Robert Turner when he called 911 the first time.

“Where’s Mister Turner at?” asked the operator. Robert replied that his mother was unable to speak.

“Okay, well, I’m going to send the police over to your house to find out what’s going on,” added the operator, before hanging up on the boy. However, the police never came, and an ambulance was never dispatched to the home.

The boy called 911 three hours later, and reports say the operator who answered the call may have been the same operator that answered the first call. The operator asked to speak to the mother before saying “before I send the police over there.” Then she said to the boy, “You shouldn’t be playing on the phone. Now put her on the phone before I send the police over there to knock on the door, and you’re going to be in trouble.”

“It was taking too long,” said Robert.

Delaina Patterson, the boy’s older sister, who lives in Novi, Michigan, said that after 9:00 p.m. help did come, but only the police and no EMS or medical personnel.

The operator, whose name has not been released, remains on the job pending an investigation by city officials.