Saturday, November 14, 2009

Pakistani police said today that a suicide car bombing has killed at least eleven people and wounded more than twenty others, in the latest attack in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Officials reported that the bomber set off the explosives at a police checkpoint, and added that two police officers are among the dead.

“At least eleven people have been killed and 26 others wounded,” said Sahibzada Anis, the Peshawar district administration chief, to the Agence France-Presse news agency.

According to the man in charge of the checkpoint, Malik Jehangir, he noticed a black car across the barrier and asked security officers to check it. “I saw that there was some argument between the driver and the policeman and suddenly a blast downed me with shrapnel piercing my shoulder,” he said, as quoted by Al Jazeera.

The bombing came a day after a suicide bomber struck the Peshawar office of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, killing ten people. That blast caused a large portion of the three-story ISI building to collapse.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) selected Pyeongchang, South Korea as host of the 2018 Winter Games today. The committee meeting in Durban, South Africa, made its selection in the first round of voting. The South Korean city won over Munich, Germany and Annecy, France after failing in two previous tries.

It was an emphatic success for South Korea after its unsuccessful applications for the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics. This time its hour-long presentation to the committee focused on the sports with the theme “New Horizons” rather than geopolitical location and included South Korean president Lee Myung-bak and Kim Yu-na, the winner of the 2010 Olympic figure skating gold medal winner. On the first round of secret ballots, cast by the IOC’s 95 voting members from 76 countries, Pyeongchang received 63 votes to Munich’s 25 and 7 for Annecy.

IOC President Jacques Rogge opened the sealed envelope and made the announcement in front of the entire IOC membership and the representatives from the three candidate cities. A loud cheer erupted from the Pyeongchang detachment, as they jumped up, hugged each other, and waved South Korean flags.

The host for the Winter Olympics was awarded on the first ballot in 1995 to Salt Lake City, Utah for the 2002 winter games, the last time the host was selected on the first ballot. Only twice before have the Winter Games been awarded to a country in Asia, both times to Japan.

The 2016 Summer Games have previously been awarded to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which will be the first South American city to host the games. Sochi, Russia was selected in 2007 for the 2014 Winter Games, giving Russia its first hosting of the Winter Games.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

In a New York press conference at 16:15 UTC, June 1st, Fritz Henderson, the Chief Executive Officer of General Motors, which filed for bankruptcy and Chapter 11 protection from its creditors earlier today, outlined a plan for what he called a “New GM”.

Speaking to the press under safe harbor provisions of U.S. law, Henderson described the events of today as a “defining moment” in the history of General Motors. Speaking to the public he said that “The GM that let you down is history,” and described a “New GM” that he expected to result from the bankruptcy process.

Henderson stated that he envisioned the bankruptcy process would take between 60 and 90 days. He stressed several times his view that the process would be one that is executed quickly, saying that not just a sense of urgency but “pure unadulterated speed” was his expectation of the process. He emphasized that “GM remains open for business” during the bankruptcy period, continuing to sell and to support its products, and that day one motions had been filed in the bankruptcy court in order to allow this.

Regarding the bankruptcy process he said, “We will do it right. And we will do it once.”

He stated that the plan for General Motors had the support of the United Auto Workers union, the Canadian Auto Workers union, the GM VEBA, and a majority of the unsecured bondholders of GM. He also mentioned that GM had already received €1.5 million in bridge financing from the German government.

In response to questions about the possibility of the United States federal government, a majority shareholder in the restructured company, dictating future product development and strategy, such as the sale of more fuel-efficient and green vehicles; he first observed that the federal government had already stated to him that it had “no real interest in running our business” and that he expected that still to be his job. Of the specific hypothetical scenario where the management of GM wants to make one type of car, because it thinks that it is the right thing for the business, and the U.S. government wants to make another type of car, he stated that “I don’t think it’s going to happen.” Expanding on that point he stated that he expected the “New GM” to focus upon “highly fuel-efficient and green technology”, and that operating both in accordance with U.S. environmental laws and in response to customer demand would naturally result in the New GM producing the types of vehicles that the U.S. government would encourage.

The “New GM” he also expected to focus on “four core brands”, and will size its dealership to match that. He stated that GM would offer a “deferred termination” package to dealers, to allow them to cease dealing in GM vehicles in a managed and gradual way.

He stated that the bankruptcy filings did not cover General Motors’ businesses in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East, and Asia and the Pacific. Of GM’s profitable ventures in China, specifically, he stated that they were “a critical part of the New GM”. In response to questions of whether the New GM would import cars from China to the U.S., he stated the formative company’s core principle that “We build where we sell” applied in both directions, with GM building in China to sell in China and building in the U.S. to sell in the U.S., stating that this shortened supply chains.

He declined to predict when the New GM would return to profitability, stating that the goal was rather to lower the break-even EBIT point for the company. He also declined to speculate upon when the U.S. government would sell its stake in the company, saying that that was a question “better addressed to the U.S. Treasury”, and merely saying that he expected it to be “years, not months” when the U.S. Treasury felt it would give “the right return for taxpayers.”

Thursday, June 23, 2011

NASA’s Cassini–Huygens spacecraft has discovered evidence for a large-scale saltwater reservoir beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The data came from the spacecraft’s direct analysis of salt-rich ice grains close to the jets ejected from the moon. The study has been published in this week’s edition of the journal Nature.

Data from Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer show the grains expelled from fissures, known as tiger stripes, are relatively small and usually low in salt far away from the moon. Closer to the moon’s surface, Cassini found that relatively large grains rich with sodium and potassium dominate the plumes. The salt-rich particles have an “ocean-like” composition and indicate that most, if not all, of the expelled ice and water vapor comes from the evaporation of liquid salt-water. When water freezes, the salt is squeezed out, leaving pure water ice behind.

Cassini’s ultraviolet imaging spectrograph also recently obtained complementary results that support the presence of a subsurface ocean. A team of Cassini researchers led by Candice Hansen of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, measured gas shooting out of distinct jets originating in the moon’s south polar region at five to eight times the speed of sound, several times faster than previously measured. These observations of distinct jets, from a 2010 flyby, are consistent with results showing a difference in composition of ice grains close to the moon’s surface and those that made it out to the E ring, the outermost ring that gets its material primarily from Enceladean jets. If the plumes emanated from ice, they should have very little salt in them.

“There currently is no plausible way to produce a steady outflow of salt-rich grains from solid ice across all the tiger stripes other than salt water under Enceladus’s icy surface,” said Frank Postberg, a Cassini team scientist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

The data suggests a layer of water between the moon’s rocky core and its icy mantle, possibly as deep as about 50 miles (80 kilometers) beneath the surface. As this water washes against the rocks, it dissolves salt compounds and rises through fractures in the overlying ice to form reserves nearer the surface. If the outermost layer cracks open, the decrease in pressure from these reserves to space causes a plume to shoot out. Roughly 400 pounds (200 kilograms) of water vapor is lost every second in the plumes, with smaller amounts being lost as ice grains. The team calculates the water reserves must have large evaporating surfaces, or they would freeze easily and stop the plumes.

“We imagine that between the ice and the ice core there is an ocean of depth and this is somehow connected to the surface reservoir,” added Postberg.

The Cassini mission discovered Enceladus’ water-vapor and ice jets in 2005. In 2009, scientists working with the cosmic dust analyzer examined some sodium salts found in ice grains of Saturn’s E ring but the link to subsurface salt water was not definitive. The new paper analyzes three Enceladus flybys in 2008 and 2009 with the same instrument, focusing on the composition of freshly ejected plume grains. In 2008, Cassini discovered a high “density of volatile gases, water vapor, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, as well as organic materials, some 20 times denser than expected” in geysers erupting from the moon. The icy particles hit the detector target at speeds between 15,000 and 39,000 MPH (23,000 and 63,000 KPH), vaporizing instantly. Electrical fields inside the cosmic dust analyzer separated the various constituents of the impact cloud.

“Enceladus has got warmth, water and organic chemicals, some of the essential building blocks needed for life,” said Dennis Matson in 2008, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“This finding is a crucial new piece of evidence showing that environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life can be sustained on icy bodies orbiting gas giant planets,” said Nicolas Altobelli, the European Space Agency’s project scientist for Cassini.

“If there is water in such an unexpected place, it leaves possibility for the rest of the universe,” said Postberg.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Edward Stobart, famed for his construction of the Eddie Stobart truck empire and being its chief executive officer for over thirty years, has died at the age of 56. In a statement, the Stobart Group commented: “It is with great sadness and regret that Stobart Group shares the news that Edward Stobart, son of Eddie Stobart, passed away at 8:10 AM this morning at University Hospital Coventry, after heart problems yesterday.”

When Eddie Stobart — Edward’s father, who is aged over eighty — created the company during the 1950s in Cumbria in northern England, it originally involved itself in the business of agriculture. In the 1970s, the business was given the name Eddie Stobart Limited and became a haulage service. Eddie Stobart then handed over the company to his son. The enterprise subsequently became the most popular of that industry within the United Kingdom, according to BBC News Online; it extended to include transportation by air and railways, as well as warehousing and management of logistics.

Due to the cult following that they had achieved via a fanbase of ‘Stobart spotters’, which involves the observation of their company’s uniquely named vehicles, the Stobart Group decided to create an official followers’ group, which now has in excess of twenty-five thousand members. Eddie Stobart-branded merchandise has also been released.

William Stobert — the brother of Edward Stobart — and Andrew Tinkler purchased the business from Edward in 2004. Edward subsequently relocated to the Midlands and took over what was to become an unsuccessful truck trailer building firm in 2009.

Edward Stobart experienced his death in Coventry, England at 0810 BST (0710 UTC) on Thursday. The Stobart Group have expressed their condolences to “Edward’s wife Mandy, his children and family at this difficult time.”

Haulage firm Preston’s of Potto’s chairwoman Ann Preston described Edward as “the most iconic figure that has ever been in this industry” and that the death of a man who “was very passionate about road transport” and “didn’t want to do anything else” since he was a child was “a massive loss”. The Stobart Members’ Club have stated: “The club’s members will certainly have fond memories of the man who started the phenomenon off, created the iconic Eddie Stobart brand and made it cool to spot lorries. Stobart Spotting will continue and the legacy of Edward Stobart will live on.”