Greece, the truckers strike..[ 1544 ]

Greek truckers told to end strike

irishtimes.com - 

Last Updated: Thursday, July 29, 2010, 06:34

The Greek government ordered striking truck drivers to go back to work yesterday, the third day of their nationwide stoppage, as fuel shortages started to hurt the country.

"[The strike] has caused serious disruption of public and economic life and endangers public health with a lack of sufficient supply of fuel, food and medicine," government spokesman George Petalotis said in a statement.

Thousands of striking truck drivers have been lining the highways since Monday to protest against plans to open the sector to competition, a key reform in a multi-billion euro EU/IMF package aimed at pulling Greece out of a debt crisis.

The truck drivers now have 24 hours to return to work or face arrest and the risk of losing their licences.

Union members said they would ignore the order. "We will not obey. They can come and get our trucks if they want," said unionist Spyros Kapetanios.

A team of EU, IMF and ECB officials is visiting Athens to monitor progress in implementing the bailout plan and decide whether to release a 9 billion euro tranche of aid in September.

The EU/IMF plan requires Greece to open up road freight to increased competition by September and to adopt legislation to liberalise other closed professions such as lawyers and architects by June 2011.

The socialist government's first attempt to open up closed professions - lifting restrictions on cruise ship crews - was met with heated protests last month that affected tourism, a key pillar of the €240 billion economy.

Road freight is one of the most closed professions in Greece and no new licences have been issued for decades. Some economists say opening up the sector could lower business costs and boost GDP by 1 percentage point per year.

The truckers' strike has affected fuel supplies, and worried holiday-makers have been queueing to fill their tanks.

The economic crisis has pushed Greece into its first recession in 16 years, lifting unemployment to a 10-year high.

Reuters

Military cargo plane crashed in flames..[ 1543 ]

Military cargo plane crashes in Alaska

'It's likely there are fatalities involved in this mishap,' official says

Roger Herrera / AP

A plume of smoke rises Wednesday after a plane crashed near Elmendorf Air Force in Anchorage, Alaska.-

ANCHORAGE, Alaska 29 / 7 / 2010— 

A military cargo plane on a training run crashed in flames Wednesday at an Air Force base near downtown Anchorage, officials said. Witnesses reported seeing a ball of fire rising hundreds of feet high.

Four people were onboard the C-17 Globemaster, Air Force Capt. Uriah Orland said.

After the 6:14 p.m. crash at Elmendorf Air Force Base, access routes to the site, which was not on a runway, were closed.

Lt. Gen. Dana Atkins said the plane had been training for an upcoming weekend air show.

Atkins noted the plane was not an ejection aircraft, and said no one was expected to have survived. "It's likely there are fatalities involved in this mishap," Atkins said.

The plane was from the 3rd Wing, based at Elmendorf.

'I saw a fireball' Anchorage Fire Dept. Captain Bryan Grella said his crew was eating dinner at about 6:30 p.m. at the downtown fire station when something caught his eye.

"It was a big, gray plume of smoke, and I saw a fireball go up in it," he said.

The fireball extended about 750 feet in the air. He estimated the plume to be about two miles from downtown.

A board of officers will investigate the crash, which occurred in a wooded area.

The 3rd Wing at Elmendorf is a unit consisting of 6,000 Air Force personnel who fly fighter jets and other military aircraft.

The Boeing C-17 is a high-wing, four-engine aircraft that Boeing touts on its website as capable of carrying "large equipment, supplies and troops directly to small airfields in harsh terrain anywhere in the world day or night."

"The massive, sturdy, long-haul aircraft tackles distance, destination and heavy, oversized payloads in unpredictable conditions."

It's the third airplane incident in Anchorage this summer. In June, one child was killed and four others burned when a small plane crashed after taking off from the city's small-airplane airport in downtown Anchorage.

Days later, a small plane landed on the busy Glenn Highway, the only highway leading north out of Anchorage. There were no injuries in the latter mishap.

Gov. Sean Parnell and Sen. Mark Begich issued statements late Wednesday expressing sadness over the crash and sending well-wishes to members of the military.

"Alaskans are very connected to the military, and our thoughts and prayers are with Alaska's Air Force family," Parnell said.

Elmendorf's worst air crash was in September 1995, when several geese were sucked into the engine of an AWACS plane just after takeoff. That plane was on a training mission as well. All 24 crew members perished.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this story.

Russians want to move to a small town in Sweden, ..[ 1542 ]

Hundreds of Russians drawn to Swedish town

Published: 29 Jul 10 09:06 CET

Hundreds of Russians have said they want to move to a small town in the far north of Sweden, after council leaders earlier this year launched an appeal for immigrants.
The Local reported in May how the town of Sorsele, population 2,800, was hoping to reverse decades of depopulation by tempting young, highly-qualified Russians to move in.

Two months later, the initiative has been a success - 700 Russians have expressed interest after widespread media attention in Russia. The Local received dozens of emails from Russians looking for contact details for the Sorsele authorities.

"There has been a huge interest in our initiative in Russia. It’s even been reported on Russian television," said council leader Göran Wikström.

Much of the municipality's focus has been on attracting immigration from Sorsele's twin town Apatity, on the Kola Peninsula in northern Russia, which borders with Finland and Norway. Municipal leaders believe that people from Apatity will adapt well to life in Sorsele, as both towns are remote and have similar climates.

The council now plans another trip to the Kola Peninsula, after which they will discuss their plans with the Swedish Board of Migration. If all goes to plan, the first Russians will move in late 2011 or 2012.

Without migrant labour, Sorsele will face a shortage of qualified workers, particularly in the public sector. Around 35 percent of the council's employees are expected to retire in the next 10 years.

Japan. Death penalty..[ 1541 ]

Death row inmates executed for first time under DPJ-led administration

Justice Minister Keiko 

 

Mainichi, July 28.2010

Two death row inmates were executed at the Tokyo Detention Center on July 28, the Justice Ministry has announced.

This is the first time that death row inmates have been hanged in a year and since the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) took over the reins of government in September last year.

Justice Minister Keiko Chiba told a subsequent news conference that she was present as the two inmates were hanged at the detention center. She also announced that a study panel will be set up to discuss whether the death penalty should be abolished and that she has instructed ministry bureaucrats to show the execution facility to the media.

Chiba apparently placed priority on fulfilling her duty as justice minister over her belief that the death penalty should be abolished. The Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that the death penalty must be carried out on the orders of the justice minister.

Chiba was a member of a nonpartisan parliamentary league on the promotion of the abolition of the death penalty. However, she left the organization after she was appointed as justice minister saying, "I'd like to distance myself from the campaign as a member of the executive branch of the government."

The two death row inmates executed on July 28 were Hidenori Ogata, 33, and Kazuo Shinozawa, 59.

In August 2003, Ogata fatally stabbed a 28-year-old man in Saitama Prefecture after getting into a row over a 16-year-old girl he was dating, and strangled a 21-year-old man who came to the scene, according to court rulings.

Shinozawa broke into a jewelry shop in Utsunomiya in June 2000, tied up six employees and set fire to the shop, killing all of them. He then stole 293 jewelry items worth over 140 million yen, according to rulings. He carried out the murder-robbery because he was heavily in debt.

Death row inmates had been executed once every two months on average since then Justice Minister 

Kunio Hatoyama ordered executions in December 2007. However, executions had been suspended since those carried out under then Justice Minister Eisuke Mori on July 28, 2009.

Click here for the original Japanese story

NASA image of the Day. July 28th..[ 1540 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Into the Looking Glass

Recently, technicians at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., completed a series of cryogenic tests on six James Webb Space Telescope beryllium mirror segments at the center's X-ray & Cryogenic Facility. During testing, the mirrors were subjected to extreme temperatures dipping to -415 degrees Fahrenheit, permitting engineers to measure in extreme detail how the shape of the mirror changes as it cools. 

 

The Webb telescope has 18 mirrors, each of which will be tested twice in the Center's X-ray & Cryogenic Facility to ensure that the mirror will maintain its shape in a space environment -- once with bare polished beryllium and then again after a thin coating of gold is applied. 

 

The cryogenic test gauges how each mirror changes temperature and shape over a range of operational temperatures in space. This helps predict how well the telescope will image infrared sources. 

 

The mirrors are designed to stay cold to allow scientists to observe the infrared light they reflect using a telescope and instruments optimized to detect this light. 

 

Warm objects give off infrared light, or heat. If the Webb telescope mirror is too warm, the faint infrared light from distant galaxies may be lost in the infrared glow of the mirror itself. 

Thus, the Webb telescope's mirrors need to operate in a deep cold or cryogenic state, at around -379 degree Fahrenheit. 

 

Image Credit: NASA

Τετάρτη, 28 Ιούλιος 2010 7:00:00 πμ