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Tuesday, February 12, 2008

The 2008 Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE 2008), organized by the Taipei Book Fair Foundation (TBFF), will start tomorrow and end next Monday (Feb. 18) at the Taipei World Trade Center in Hall 1 & 3 and in the Taipei Show (TWTC Hall 2). Before the opening of the main show, the TIBE changed significantly.

Since the Preview Exhibition was held in 1992 in Jhonghe City, Taipei County with the “History of books in China” theme, the preview exhibition wasn’t eventually held before the main show every year.

This pre-main-show exhibition style was replaced by a consuming battle between bookstores from actual to virtual (via Internet) and reading festivals from municipal libraries in Taiwan that the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China promoted. But in 2008, after the TBFF was regrouped last year, the preview exhibition finally returned on Feb 2 & 3 with the “Book Market” and “Arts and Crafts” in the Huashan Culture Park, Taipei. With the preview exhibition, the reading population is expected to expand rapidly and widely in Taiwan.

To gather on different cultures, the TBFF not only arranged a variety of seminars from book-cover designing, changes of publishing industry, publishing style, and strategies from global publishing industry, but also invited executives from the publishing industry worldwide such as Michel Le Bris, Gilles Lapouge, Shaun Tan, Markus Zusak, Tony Wheeler, and Maruen Wheeler and executives from the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Apart from seminars and executives, the Stiftung Buchkunst (Book Art Foundation) will showcase several awarded books from “Giant of Japanese Design” and some book design awards in the “Most Beautiful Book Designing” pavilion. Two book design awards by TBEE named the “2008 TIBE Prize” and “2008 Golden Butterfly Award” will be successively announced on Feb 13 & 14.

Not only on book-designing and pavilions, even though Australia was named as the main international pavilion, the TBFF chose the opening movie “What My Eyes Have Seen” from France and a closing movie named “The Edge of Heaven“ from Germany, those selected movies including the opening and closing ones will be screened at the movie pavilion. The Travel Literature Pavilion will show a different style varied from the 2007 Taipei International Travel Fair, not only just about traveling but also mixed with cultures and literature.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

An alarm for heavy chemical pollution has been issued in the Lviv region, Ukraine, where yesterday evening a railway disaster led to a fire involving 15 containers of liquid yellow phosphorus.

Extinguishing the fire proved extremely difficult because water cannot be used: in contact with phosphorus, water creates poisonous gas. It took six hours before the flames were extinguished. Gas was generated nonetheless, and at the moment the poisoned area extends about 90 sq. km. The casualties count is already heavy: 20 people are reported injured, 13 of them in critical condition. They have been carried to the Lviv hospital. Podrobnosti reports that the fire started when one of the containers started to leak and the phosphor caught fire.

The poisoned area includes 14 villages. From the five villages that are closer to the disaster area some 800 people have already been evacuated. Half of the evacuees had to manage on their own as there was not enough public transport for all.

At the moment there is no available data about the wind direction or next expected movements of the phosphorus cloud. Special firemen units remain on place to control the possibility of a new fire, while the administration of the Lviv Oblast tries to forecast the possible short- and mid-term evolution of the situation.

The Ukrainian Railways have officially excluded the possibility of a terrorist act as a cause for the disaster.

Podrobnosti reports the deadly dose of yellow phosphor at 0.1 g. According to that source, when poisoning living beings, phosphor causes liver necrosis and attacks the bones and spinal cord.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

US stock markets dropped to twelve-year lows on Thursday, amidst falling confidence in the financial sector and worries over whether the US automobile manufacturer General Motors will be able to keep operating.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 4.08%, or 280.52 points, at the closing bell, reaching a level of 6595.32, a new 12-year low. The Nasdaq Composite lost 54.15 points, or 4%, to 1299.59, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 plunged by 30.27 points, or 4.25%, closing at 682.60.

Every stock in the Dow Jones, other than Wal-Mart, either lost ground or remained even, and all stocks in the S&P 500 index lost ground.

General Motors’ shares lost 15.5% after the auto firm announced that its auditors had “substantial doubt” over whether it would be able to keep operating.

Shares of financial companies were lower by nine percent, with Bank of America losing 11.7% and Citigroup falling by 9.7%.

“What’s most worrisome is that we haven’t hit the crescendo yet,” said Bill Groeneveld, the head trader for vFinance Investments. “Asset-management divisions are getting calls to just liquidate everything, and we haven’t seen the big players come back in at all.”

“This is one of the worst bear markets in the last 100 years; it started out with the credit crisis and the subprime [loans], but it is like a forest fire that has raced across the clearing and ignited other parts: Autos, auto parts, the insurance companies have been hit very hard. The credit crisis is causing an unraveling of industry after industry because the banks don’t lend,” said David Dreman, the chief investment officer of Dreman Value Management.

European markets were also lower today, with the London’s FTSE index losing 3.2% and the DAX index of Germany falling by five percent.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Last week fifty volunteers, from nine countries covering nineteen languages, spent four days at the European Parliament buildings in Strasbourg photographing and filming members of the parliament (MEPs). This being an effort to significantly increase the audio-visual content available in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects.

Members of the team, who were all granted guest press accreditation, began arriving at the hotel in the small town of Kork, not far from the France–Germany border, on Saturday. The team base, Hotel Ochsen, has an interesting history. Placards on the courtyard wall explain it served as headquarters for Field marshal Kollowrat-Krakowsky battling Napoleonic forces in the 1796 Siege of Kehl.

Those arriving later came directly to the Louise Weiss building, which hosts the parliament’s plenary sessions and all voting on EU matters. Whilst staying in the hotel, the Wikimedian group met two MEPs who chose it in-preference to dramatically more-expensive Strasbourg accommodation. One of the ushers from the parliament also chatted with volunteers at the hotel, self-depricatingly describing his ceremonial attire as a “penguin suit” due to the long-tailed jacket.

One of the first day’s MEPs to introduce themselves to the visiting Wikimedians was Christian Engström; delivering copies of his book, The Case for Copyright Reform, co-authored with Swedish Pirate Party founder Rickard Falkvinge. Engström explained that, in the book, he argues Wikipedia is one of the losers under current copyright legislation. One of numerous MEPs who recorded video introductions in multiple languages, he was more-confident than some colleagues — the most-challenging taking thirteen takes to successfully record.

Over 1,000 new, high-quality, photographs were taken and uploaded for use on Wikimedia projects during the visit. The second and third days in the parliament saw the highest number of MEPs coming to see the visiting Wikimedians and have their photographs taken. Once photographed, MEPs were encouraged to make video introductions in languages they were comfortable speaking in. In excess of 200 video clips of MEPs introducing themselves were captured; this providing freely-reusable audio and video records available via Wikimedia Commons.

Parliamentarians became more-enthusiastic about the project in its later days, with significantly more turning up to be photographed and filmed. Given some turned up as Wikimedians were packing up on the last day, some still lack freely-licensed photographs for their Wikipedia entries. French MEP, and National Front member, Bruno Gollnisch was amongst those disappointed when turning up after much of the equipment was packed up; although Gollnisch has already provided some video recordings, he had returned with additional prepared texts — including Japanese — for use in a video introduction.

Despite much of two levels within the parliament set aside for the press, the event received little coverage from mainstream media. France TV’s channel three broadcast a report on the Thursday, making footage available via their website on the Friday.

In contrast the Voice intro project (WikiVIP) started by Andy Mabbett, and brought to a far-wider audience with Stephen Fry’s endorsement, saw Mabbet give an interview from one of the parliament’s radio studios with United States’ public radio network NPR. With Fry’s recording catching the attention of the press, that project has received coverage from as-far afield as Italy, Russia, and Japan.

Audio for use on Wikipedia is to be extracted from video recordings of MEPs for use on Wikimedia projects. As available storage and bandwidth increases, it is a longer-term goal of the Wikimedia Foundation to increase freely-available, and reusable, multimedia content across all projects hosted by the Foundation.

The project also served as an opportunity to emphasise that all Wikimedia content is created through people donating their time and effort. Whilst MEPs knew anyone could edit Wikipedia, meeting a group representing all ages, and much of Europe, served as an effective public-relations exercise.

Saturday, October 7, 2006

The city of Bratsk in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, received a new turbine for its famous 4,500 megawatt hydroelectric plant founded in the mid-1950s on the Angara river. In future this new unit will cause an efficiency rise up to 255MW for each turbine.

Currently, the Bratsk Power Station operates 18 hydro-turbines, each with capacity of 250MW, produced by the Leningrad Metal Works (“LMZ”) in the 1960s. The plant is the second level of the Angara Hydroelectric Stations cascade. Since its full commissioning in 1967, the station was the world’s single biggest power producer until Canada’s Churchill Falls in 1971. Annually the station produces 22.6 billion kWh.

The precious 80 tonne cargo was transported to Pulkovo International airport of Saint-Petersburg where it was loaded on Antonov An-124-100 Ruslan to made all the way to Bratsk by air. On October 4, 2006 it landed in the Bratsk airport. In two days the unit 16 replacement arrived to the assemble place on the Angara river.

Sergey Emdin, CEO of IrkutskEnergo JSC, noted the press that the Bratsk plant reconstruction project includes not only the economical, but the ecological aspect by reducing carbon dioxide emission for 6 million tonnes for the period of 2008-2012.

In 2006 and 2007 the old plant is scheduled to receive two more working wheels – by one for each year respectively, and in 2008 and 2009 another four – by two for each year.

Friday, October 6, 2006

The acrid haze situation in Southeast Asia is worsening. Visibility has been severely reduced in neighboring countries and some schools have been closed due to the health hazard posed. The annual smoke season is caused by illegal slash and burn clearance of land in Indonesia, particularly the island of Borneo.

The haze has spread over 2,250 miles (3,600 kilometers) into neighboring countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and even drifting to Guam in the western Pacific.

Aviation has been severely impaired in Indonesia, where in certain areas, visibility is only a mere 200 to 300 meters. Helicopter service in Malaysia’s Sarawak state, a key mode of transportation there, has been halted due to the poor visibility. A Mandala Airlines Boeing 737-200 carrying a 110 people had overshot the runway at Tarakan airport in Kalimantan province in Indonesia. The aircraft came partly to rest in a nearby swamp. Visibility at the time was around 400 meters, 600 meters short of Indonesian landing safety regulations.

Schools in Thailand, and Indonesia have also been forced to closed, and look likely to stay closed well into next week.

Air pollution indices around the region have also registered a spike in poor air quality. Sarawak state’s index came in at 106-188 with 100-200 being unhealthy. In Malay peninsula, the air pollution index in five states came in at 101-116. In Singapore, the Pollution Standards Index registered between 80-130 with 81-100 in the moderate range and 101-200 in the unhealthy range.

Wikinews journalist Timlee90 reports:

The air quality here in Singapore is so bad that I could feel the dust in my mouth as I was walking on the streets today. The air constantly smells of burning wood and visibility is never more than a kilometer. Singaporeans I know are concerned about the deteriorating situation.

Timothy Low, a Singaporean who’s just finished his national service says that he is concerned about the situation, “I can’t run to exercise. People with lung related problems have difficulty breathing; It causes tearing also.” The government here has advised citizens to reduce vigorous activity, especially those with existing heart or lung conditions.

The Indonesian government has been criticized by environmentalist groups such as Greenpeace, which claims that the allowed conversion of forests into cropland is the cause of the problem. The also call on the Indonesian government to “investigate and hold liable plantation companies responsible for slash and burn clearing”.

The Indonesian government has responded to the criticism that it is doing all that it can do. “We don’t know when we can put out the fires but we are working tirelessly and have spent billions of rupiah (hundreds of thousands of dollars) in our efforts,” Forestry Minister Malem Sambat Kaban said. “As for complaints from neighbouring countries, there’s nothing else we can do. We don’t cause the fires deliberately.”

In 1997-98, the haze cost the Southeast Asian region an estimated US$9.0 billion by disrupting air travel and other business activities

Friday, July 22, 2005

Hundreds of floating candles will be launched by young Quakers to mark Hiroshima Day at 9:00 p.m. GMT on Friday August 5.

The event will be held at the University of York towards the end of the annual Quaker Yearly Meeting where over 1600 Quakers are meeting.

The bombing of Hiroshima took place 60 years ago at 08:16am, Japanese time on August 6, 1945.

Throughout the week leading up to the Hiroshima day witness on August 5, young Quakers will be planning, organising and preparing the event, including contacting the local community and the media.

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Thursday, July 3, 2008

69-year-old grandfather John Walsh stands accused of murdering three victims in the small New South Wales town of Cowra. All victims were killed in different ways.

Media organisations have reported that the 69-year-old man killed his five year old grand daughter by drowning; her seven year old brother was killed by a blunt force trauma to the back of the head, and his wife was killed by multiple axe wounds to her body – including her head.

New South Wales Police could not confirm the post-mortem examination, saying that the results of the post-mortem examination are not expected to be finalised for a couple of days and may not be immediately made public.

The 69-year-old man, who went before Deniliquin Local Court on July 1, 2008, was refused bail and charged with three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. He is currently in a special holding cell on 24-hour watch at the Junee Correctional Centre. A further appearance is due in Wagga Wagga Local Court via an audio-visual link on July 7, 2008.