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Thursday, September 15, 2011

A rash of wildfires in Texas in recent days has left many fire departments stretched thin on resources. Officials say firefighters handled over 18,000 wildfires in the state thus far in 2011; in a recent week there were nearly 200. President Obama declared Texas a disaster area recently.

A number of wildfires around the state have struck near or even within populated areas. One of the worst fires yet struck near the city of Bastrop. That fire alone destroyed 45 square miles of land and over 700 residences, according to the Texas Forest Service.

Wes Johnston, a captain with the Chandler Fire Department, told Wikinews that earlier this month, his department spent 7 hours extinguishing a single blaze near Brownsboro. Captain Johnston, who is also an accountant, explained that the excessive number of fires has placed stress on his department’s ability to cope with the demands. “Most volunteer fire departments [depend on] donations, completely; and donations have been down due to the economic conditions.” He went on to describe how fuel and maintenance costs put further strain on most departments’ ability to function effectively. “Even the cities have a set budget, for the paid departments, so they don’t factor in a’ lot of the variables for these types of incidents.”

Some volunteer firefighters in the eastern part of the state have averaged 2–3 hours of sleep per night recently, due to heavy demands. Even spouses of some firefighters have voiced concern over workloads.

A compilation of brief news reports for Sunday, December 7, 2008.

Officials say that progress is being made in a deal to bail out three United States carmakers. The U.S. government will be holding weekend talks on the plan after two days of Congressional hearings.

Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, stated that discussions with both parties had been “constructive”.

Executives from the three companies – General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler – have pleaded before two Congressional committees, asking for $34 billion in order to stop collapse.

“I’m convinced that by Sunday we will have an agreement that people can understand on this bill,” said Barney Frank, a representative from the state of Massachusetts.

Sources

• “‘Progress’ in US auto bail-out” — BBC News, December 6, 2008
• “Bailout Progress: Accord by Sunday?” — ABC News, December 6, 2008

The people of Ghana, a country often shown of as an example of a good democracy in Africa, will vote for a new president and parliament.

The current president, John Kufuor, will resign after serving the maximum of two terms in office. The elections are expected to be close.

The three main contenders for the presidency are: the Nana Akufo Addo from New Patriotic Party, who was the foreign minister under the current president, John Atta Mills running for the National Democratic Congress, and the Convention People’s Party’s candidate, one Paa Kwesi Nduom.

Sources

• Douglas Mpuga. “Ghanaians Enthusiastic About Sunday Poll” — VOA News, December 6, 2008
• Will Ross. “Ghana to vote for new president” — BBC News Online, December 6, 2008

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, said that Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe must be forced out of office and face trial for his crimes against humanity.

“The time has come for Robert Mugabe to answer for his crimes against humanity, against his countrymen and women and for justice to be done. The winds of change that once brought hope to Zimbabwe and its neighbours have become a hurricane of destruction, with the outbreak of cholera, destitution, starvation and systemic abuse of power by the state,” said Sentamu.

Sentamu that the power-sharing deal that was signed by Mugabe and the Zimbabwean opposition in September was “now dead”.

Dr Sentamu’s statement comes after a severe cholera outbreak spread in Zimbabwe, and saw 12,545 cases reported and 565 people dead.

Sources

• “Archbishop urges Mugabe overthrow” — BBC News Online, December 6, 2008
• “Mugabe must be toppled now – Archbishop of York” — guardian.co.uk, December 6, 2008

Republicans experienced another victory late Saturday, as the Associated Press called the race in Louisiana’s 2nd district at 22:35 CST in favor of Anh “Joseph” Cao, heralding the first Vietnamese-American member of Congress and sending the incumbent scandal-ridden Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson home after nine terms.

Sources

• “Beleaguered congressman trails in Louisiana vote” — CNN, December 6, 2008
• “APNewsShort” — Associated Press, December 6, 2008

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets across France this weekend to pressure the conservative government to discard a new law, which they say will erode job security.

The marches were mostly reported as festive and peaceful. Other reports indicate that youths pelted police with objects, overturning and setting fire to a car at the end of the main protest in Paris. Police fired many rounds of tear gas. Demonstrations were also reported in Marseille, Rennes and Lille, where police charged and teargassed crowds.

Rally organisers estimate the turnout across the country at over a million people, with around 500,000 of them in Paris. However, the Interior Ministry reported 503,000 nationwide, with 80,000 in Paris.

The protesters are demanding that the Government withdraw the “First Job Contract” (CPE) – which allows employers to fire workers under the age of 26 without explanation in their first two years on the job. The aim of this new law is to encourage businesses to employ more young workers, given that their employment will be more flexible and convenient in economic terms. In the western city of Rennes, students wore plastic garbage bags with signs declaring: “I am disposable.”

The Paris march began with students in front and workers behind, but turned into a multi-generational mix including many parents who joined their teenage children. Banners declared “No to throw-away youths” and “Tired Of Being Squeezed Lemons.” The actions are only the third time in almost four decades – after 1968 and 1994 – that students and workers marched together.

“I risk working for two years for nothing, just to be fired at any moment,” said Paris student Coralie Huvet, 20. Unemployment is currently a major political issue in France. The French national average is 9.6 percent, and youth unemployment is nearly 21 per cent. The rate rises to 40-50 percent in some of the poor suburbs hit by several weeks of youth rioting last year.

Recent opinion polls show that 68 percent of French people oppose the new law, a rise of 13 percentage points in a week, and that French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin‘s popularity has dropped six points to 37 percent.

Since the beginning of March, protests, occupations and direct action against the new CPE employment law in France have been increasing, with university and school students leading the dissent.

Railways have been blockaded, airports disrupted, and up to two thirds of France’s universities have been occupied or disrupted, as well as many schools. Clashes with police have occurred throughout the country.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) announced today that computer systems involved with the processing of tax returns for individuals are back online.

Tax processing had been halted on March 6, 2007, due to a computer glitch. The source of the problem had been traced back to software maintenance performed on March 4.

In an update on the CRA website, dated March 14, Michel Dorais, Commissioner of the Agency, stated that all of the databases had been restored and CRA employees are processing the backlog of returns and payments.

Tax processing for businesses had not been affected by the computer shutdown.

In his statement, Dorais thanked taxpayers “for their patience and understanding” during the service outage. He also stated that “the integrity and safety of personal data was never at risk”.

The CRA suggests that it would work quickly to process the resulting backlog of tax returns.

Friday, January 27, 2006

A oil spill in Queensland, Australia has been described as a tragedy for the area’s marine life and the biggest oil spill in 35 years. The clean-up is expected to take up to a week and cost more than AU$3 million.

The spill occurred in Gladstone Harbour on the central Queensland coast, late on Tuesday night, after 25,000 litres of heavy fuel poured from a coal carrier. The accident happened when a tug rammed into a Korean coal carrier, rupturing its fuel tank.

Several government agencies and four skimmer vessels were called in after the “Tom Tough” struck the Korean-owned, Panamanian-registered bulk coal carrier “Global Peace” – puncturing its fuel tank as it was about to berth.

“It’ll just annihilate the stocks plus everything up and down the food chain in relation to what the different fishermen catch,” local fishing spokesman Warwick Sheldon said. “It’s right in the middle of the commercial banana prawn fishing season at the moment – this has the potential to just wipe out their stocks.”

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said an investigation was under way to determine whether anyone would be prosecuted. “There will be no cost to the taxpayer because of the law,” he said. The clean-up costs will be met by the ship’s owners in accordance with international maritime law.

The Wildlife Protection Association of Australia (WPAA) says the spill inside the harbour occurred in the worst place possible. “It’s probably the worst place that we could ever have a spill because it’s inside the harbour,” said WPAA president Pat O’Brien. “It’s an area where there’s a whole range of animals there that’ll be affected by it. There’s dugongs and porpoises and animals like that, that breathe air, that come to the surface regularly. Turtles again too, they’ll finish up with oil all over them.”

It is the worst oil spill in Queensland since the Oceanic Grandeur ran aground in the Torres Strait in 1970 and the second spill in Gladstone’s Harbour within a week. About a tonne of oil spilled in the harbour last week.

A marine investigator from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is investigating the incident. Investigation leader Peter Foley says the type of oil involved has added to problem. “It’s certainly more difficult to control than perhaps crude oil because it tends to be around the same specific gravity or same density as sea water,” he said.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

In May, periodical cicadas with 17 years life cycle emerged on the East Coast of the USA after underground development as juveniles since 1996. Researchers and scientists worked to map and study the rare wave, and the locals prepared for the noisy event. First recorded in 1666, the Magicicada septendecim species recently emerged in 1979, 1996, this year, with a next wave due in 2030.

This week, Wikinews interviewed Chris Simon, an ecology and evolutionary biologist at University of Connecticut, about the cicadas.

((Wikinews)) What caused your initial interest in periodical cicadas?

Chris Simon: As an undergraduate student, I was interested in the formation of species so when I went to graduate school I looked for a study organism that was likely to be in the process of forming new species. I chose periodical cicadas because they are broken up into reproductively isolated broods (or year classes). Reproductive isolation leads to speciation so I planned to study biochemical differences among the broods.

((WN)) You study the emergence of the periodical cicadas. What do you study? What observations are you making?

CS: We record exactly where each cicada population emerges (using GPS automated mapping and crowd sourcing). We record the presence or absence of each of the three morphologically distinct species groups of periodical cicadas (Decim group, Cassini group, and Decula group). We collect specimens for DNA analysis. We look for cicadas coming up one and four years early and late. We dig up cicada nymphs and monitor their growth rates.

((WN)) What equipment do you use?

CS: Nets, shovels, automated GPS recorders, cameras, laptop computers, automated DNA sequencers.

((WN)) Do you study the periodical cicadas with anyone else? What is their role?

CS: Yes, there are a large number of people studying periodical cicadas in my lab and in other labs. My lab is made up of Research Scientists, Postdoctoral Researchers, a technician, graduate students, and undergraduates. Research Scientist John Cooley is the leader of the GPS mapping project; he invented the automated GPS recorder; he built our crowd-sourcing website, and he is instrumental in public outreach. Postdoctoral research David Marshall also participates in the mapping project and leads the part of the research related to the mapping of stragglers. John and Dave and Technician Kathy Hill all study periodical cicada mating behavior and conduct mating and hybridization experiments. One of my graduate students Beth Wade has participated in the nymph collections and will soon start genetic work involving genome wide association mapping designed to locate genes related to life cycle. My graduate student Russ Meister is studying the genes of the bacterial endosymbionts of cicadas. My current undergraduate honors student Erin Dwyer is also studying the development of Magicicada nymphs and is helping to design a lab exercise for college students around the eastern US to do the same. Many of my past undergraduate students have studied the biochemical genetics and development of periodical cicadas. See the Simon Lab website.

CS: We are collaborating with Teiji Sota at the University Kyoto and Jin Yoshimura at Shizuoka University in Japan. They are studying the phylogeography of Magicicada. We are collaborating with John McCutcheon of the University of Montana who is studying the endosymbiont genomes.

CS: We are also collaborating with ecologists Rick Karban and Louie Yang, both professors at UC Davis who have an interest in cicada population dynamics and nutrient cycling in the ecosystem.

((WN)) You studied the periodical cicadas in 1979 and 1996 too. What changes with time?

CS: I have studied periodical cicadas since I was a student back in 1974. What changes with time is increased human development constantly shrinking the patch size of cicada populations.

((WN)) What are your thoughts on the long life span of the periodical cicadas? Why could it be so? What advantages and what disadvantages does it have?

CS: Most or all cicadas have long life cycles compared to your typical annual insect. Examples have been found of two-year to 9-year cycles in different species. Periodical cicadas evolved an even-longer life cycle and I think that part of this relates to the evolution of their synchronized life cycles and peculiar safety-in-numbers strategy for survival. To become synchronized, periodical cicadas had to evolve an exact length life cycle and all adults would have to appear in the same year. Because the nymphs grow at different rates underground, a longer life cycle and a way of counting years must have evolved so that the individuals that get to the last nymphal (underground juvenile) stage first would wait long enough for all other individuals in the population to become ready to emerge.

((WN)) News reports mention this is ‘Brood II’ of the periodical cicadas. What are the distinctive features of this specific species and what is its full scientific name?

CS: The same species exist in multiple broods. No species is restricted to Brood II. The three species present in Brood II are: Magicicada septendecim, M. cassini, and M. septendecula. These same three species are found in every 17-year brood (except the farthest north which only has M. septendecim).

((WN)) At what depth do the cicadas juveniles live underground?

CS: Most live within the top foot of soil but some have been found deeper. We do not know if they go deeper in winter. We need to do much more digging to understand the nymphs.

((WN)) How do people prepare for the cicada emergence?

CS: Of course various people prepare in different ways. Ideally, everyone prepares by studying information available on the web (especially on our websites Magicicada Central and Magicicada.org).

((WN)) Do cicadas affect transport in the local area?

CS: No, not really. Occasionally individuals can be seeing flying across highways and sometimes they smash into cars.

((WN)) Do cicadas usually stay outside or do they also invade houses too?

CS: They stay outside. One might accidentally fly in through an open window but that would be rare.

((WN)) What do the cicadas eat?

CS: Cicadas suck xylem fluid (the watery fluid coming up from the roots of plants) in deciduous forest trees and herbs. Essential amino acids in the cicada diet are supplied by their bacterial endosymbionts. There are two species of endosymbionts. One makes 8 essential amino acids and one makes two essential amino acids.

((WN)) Do cicadas damage crops or city vegetation? What damage?

CS: Cicadas do not chew leave so they do not damage crops like other insects. They can inflict some damage by their egg laying. Cicadas lay eggs in pencil-sized tree branches. If there are not enough branches available, too many female cicadas may lay eggs in a single branch weakening it and making it susceptible to breakage by wind. This can sometimes cause damage in fruit orchards. If the branches break, the eggs die so this behavior is selected against by natural selection.

((WN)) Thank you.

CS: You’re welcome. I am happy to have this opportunity to communicate with your readers!

Monday, June 7, 2010

Access to search engine Google has been limited and most of Google’s online services cannot be accessed in Turkey. The access limitation happened due to the blocking of an IP set that belongs to Google. These IP addresses were shared between YouTube and other Google services.

The Turkish news site Hürriyet Daily News reports that Turkey’s Telecommunications Communication Presidency (TCP) (a government agency that manages Turkish ISPs) indefinitely shut off access to several Google services. The shut-off came after the banning of YouTube for alleged insults against Turkish Republic founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. TCP released an official statement Friday, saying it had blocked access to some Google IP addresses “because of legal reasons”. Under Turkish law, it is an offence to “insult Turkishness.”

Softpedia states that the limited access to Google could be a result of the government trying to block specific DNS addresses that relate to Google, as part of its ongoing attempts to block YouTube. Since Google services share common software and IP addresses, the search engine itself suffers from access restrictions. Turkish citizens are concerned that this move of the governmental agency was another step towards a complete ban on Google, as exists in China.

Several Internet sites have been banned in Turkey in recent years, and although some of them were subsequently unbanned, most of them remain inaccessible. Engelli Web, a website listing banned sites reports that currently YouTube (since May 2008), Last.fm (since June 26, 2009), and Spanish newspaper El Mundo (since May 14, 2010) are among the banned sites in Turkey. MySpace and WordPress were also among banned sites for a period of time. Websites will be blocked following a court decision or if TCP decides to block on its behalf.

RetweetToday reports that Turkish citizens on Twitter have also reported access problems. Comments about the blockage are being shared using hashtags such as TurkeyCensorGoogle and TurkeyGoogleBan, as well as NoGoogleNoWeb.