By MICHAEL WARREN, Associated Press Writer 
AP/Roberto Candia
Miner Luis Urzua, the last miner to be rescued, celebrates next to Chile's President Sebastian Pinera after being pulled to safety.
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile – The last of the Chilean miners, the foreman who held them together when they were feared lost, was raised from the depths of the earth Wednesday night — a joyous ending to a 69-day ordeal that riveted the world. No one has ever been trapped so long and survived.
Luis Urzua ascended smoothly through 2,000 feet of rock, completing a 22 1/2-hour rescue operation that unfolded with remarkable speed and flawless execution. Before a jubilant crowd of about 2,000 people, he became the 33rd miner to be rescued.
"We have done what the entire world was waiting for," he told Chilean President Sebastian Pinera immediately after his rescue. "The 70 days that we fought so hard were not in vain. We had strength, we had spirit, we wanted to fight, we wanted to fight for our families, and that was the greatest thing."
The president told him: "You are not the same, and the country is not the same after this. You were an inspiration. Go hug your wife and your daughter." With Urzua by his side, he led the crowd in singing the national anthem.
The rescue exceeded expectations every step of the way. Officials first said it might be four months before they could get the men out; it turned out to be 69 days and about 8 hours.
Once the escape tunnel was finished, they estimated it would take 36 to 48 hours to get all the miners to the surface. That got faster as the operation went along, and all the men were safely above ground in 22 hours, 37 minutes.
The rescue workers who talked the men through the final hours still had to be hoisted to the surface.
In nearby Copiapo, about 3,000 people gathered in the town square, where a huge screen broadcast live footage of the rescue. The exuberant crowd waved Chilean flags of all sizes and blew on red vuvuzelas as cars drove around the plaza honking their horns, their drivers yelling, "Long live Chile!"
"The miners are our heroes," said teary-eyed Copiapo resident Maria Guzman, 45.
One by one throughout the day, the men had emerged to the cheers of exuberant Chileans and before the eyes of a transfixed globe. While the operation picked up speed as the day went on, each miner was greeted with the same boisterous applause from rescuers.
"Welcome to life," Pinera told Victor Segovia, the 15th miner out. On a day of superlatives, it seemed no overstatement.
They rejoined a world intensely curious about their ordeal, and certain to offer fame and jobs. Previously unimaginable riches awaited men who had risked their lives going into the unstable gold and copper mine for about $1,600 a month.
The miners made the smooth ascent inside a capsule called Phoenix — 13 feet tall, barely wider than their shoulders and painted in the white, blue and red of the Chilean flag. It had a door that stuck occasionally, and some wheels had to be replaced, but it worked exactly as planned.
Beginning at midnight Tuesday, and sometimes as quickly as every 25 minutes, the pod was lowered the nearly half-mile to where 700,000 tons of rock collapsed Aug. 5 and entombed the men.
Then, after a quick pep talk from rescue workers who had descended into the mine, a miner would climb in, make the journey upward and emerge from a manhole into the blinding sun.
The rescue was planned with extreme care. The miners were monitored by video on the way up for any sign of panic. They had oxygen masks, dark glasses to protect their eyes from the unfamiliar sunlight and sweaters for the jarring transition from subterranean swelter to chilly desert air.
As they neared the surface, a camera attached to the top of the capsule showed a brilliant white piercing the darkness not unlike what accident survivors describe when they have near-death experiences.
The miners emerged looking healthier than many had expected and even clean-shaven. Several thrust their fists upwards like prizefighters, and Mario Sepulveda, the second to taste freedom, bounded out and led his rescuers in a rousing cheer. Franklin Lobos, who played for the Chilean national soccer team in the 1980s, briefly bounced a soccer ball on his foot and knee.
"We have prayed to San Lorenzo, the patron saint of miners, and to many other saints so that my brothers Florencio and Renan would come out of the mine all right. It is as if they had been born again," said Priscila Avalos. One of her brothers was the first miner rescued, and the other was due out later in the evening.
Health Minister Jaime Manalich said some of the miners probably will be able to leave the hospital Thursday — earlier than projected — but many had been unable to sleep, wanted to talk with families and were anxious. One was treated for pneumonia, and two needed dental work.
"They are not ready to have a moment's rest until the last of their colleagues is out," he said.
As it traveled down and up, down and up, the rescue capsule was not rotating as much inside the 2,041-foot escape shaft as officials expected, allowing for faster trips.
The first man out was Florencio Avalos, who emerged from the missile-like chamber and hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son, his wife and the Chilean president.
No one in recorded history has survived as long trapped underground. For the first 17 days, no one even knew whether they were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was captivated by their endurance and unity.
News channels from North America to Europe and the Middle East carried live coverage of the rescue. Pope Benedict XVI said in Spanish that he "continues with hope to entrust to God's goodness" the fate of the men. Iran's state English-language Press TV followed events live for a time. Crews from Russia and Japan and North Korean state TV were at the mine.
The images beamed to the world were extraordinary: Grainy footage from beneath the earth showed each miner climbing into capsule, then disappearing upward through an opening. Then a camera showed the pod steadily rising through the dark, smooth-walled tunnel.
Among the first rescued was the youngest miner, Jimmy Sanchez, at 19 the father of a months-old baby. Two hours later came the oldest, Mario Gomez, 63, who suffers from a lung disease common to miners and had been on antibiotics inside the mine. He dropped to his knees after he emerged, bowed his head in prayer and clutched the Chilean flag.
Gomez's wife, Lilianett Ramirez, pulled him up from the ground and embraced him. The couple had talked over video chat once a week, and she said that he had repeated the promise he made to her in his initial letter from inside the mine: He would marry her properly in a church wedding, followed by the honeymoon they never had.
The lone foreigner among them, Carlos Mamani of Bolivia, was visited at a nearby clinic by Pinera and Bolivian President Evo Morales. The miner could be heard telling the Chilean president how nice it was to breathe fresh air and see the stars.
Most of the men emerged clean-shaven. More than 300 people at the mine alone had worked on the rescue or to sustain them during their long wait by lowering rocket-shaped tubes dubbed "palomas," Spanish for carrier pigeons. Along with the food and medicine came razors and shaving cream.
Estimates for the rescue operation alone have soared beyond $22 million, though the government has repeatedly insisted that money is not a concern.
The men emerged in good health. But at the hospital in Copiapo, where miner after miner walked from the ambulance to a waiting wheelchair, it became clear that psychological issues would be as important to treat as physical ones.
Dr. Guillermo Swett said Sepulveda told him about an internal "fight with the devil" that he had inside the mine. He said Sanchez appeared to be having a hard time adjusting, and seemed depressed.
"He spoke very little and didn't seem to connect," the doctor said.
The entire rescue operation was meticulously choreographed. No expense was spared in bringing in topflight drillers and equipment — and boring three separate holes into the copper and gold mine. Only one has been finished — the one through which the miners exited.
Mining is Chile's lifeblood, providing 40 percent of state earnings, and Pinera put his mining minister and the operations chief of state-owned Codelco, the country's biggest company, in charge of the rescue.
It went so well that its managers abandoned a plan to restrict images of the rescue. A huge Chilean flag that was to obscure the hole from view was moved aside so the hundreds of cameras perched on a hill above could record images that state TV also fed live.
That included the surreal moment when the capsule dropped for the first time into the chamber, where the bare-chested miners, most stripped down to shorts because of the underground heat, mobbed the rescuer who emerged to serve as their guide to freedom.
"This rescue operation has been so marvelous, so clean, so emotional that there was no reason not to allow the eyes of the world — which have been watching this operation so closely — to see it," a a beaming Pinera told a news conference after the first miner safely surfaced.
The miners' vital signs were closely monitored throughout the ride. They were given a high-calorie liquid diet donated by NASA, designed to prevent nausea from any rotation of the capsule as it travels through curves in the 28-inch-diameter escape hole.
Engineers inserted steel piping at the top of the shaft, which is angled 11 degrees off vertical before plunging like a waterfall. Drillers had to curve the shaft to pass through "virgin" rock, narrowly avoiding collapsed areas and underground open spaces in the overexploited mine, which had operated since 1885.
U.S. President Barack Obama said the rescue had "inspired the world." The crews included many Americans, including a driller operator from Denver and a team from Center Rock Inc. of Berlin, Pa., that built and managed the piston-driven hammers that pounded the hole through rock laced with quartzite, some of the hardest and most abrasive rock.
Chile has promised that its care of the miners won't end for six months at least — not until they can be sure that each man has readjusted.
Psychiatrists and other experts in surviving extreme situations predict their lives will be anything but normal. Since Aug. 22, when a narrow bore hole broke through to their refuge and the miners stunned the world with a note, scrawled in red ink, disclosing their survival, their families have been exposed in ways they never imagined.
Miners had to describe their physical and mental health in detail with teams of doctors and psychologists. In some cases, when both wives and lovers claimed the same man, everyone involved had to face the consequences.
As trying as their time underground was, the miners now face challenges so bewildering that no amount of coaching can fully prepare them. Rejoining a world intensely curious about their ordeal, they have been invited to presidential palaces, to take all-expenses-paid vacations and to appear on countless TV shows. Book and movie deals are pending, along with job offers.
Sepulveda's performance exiting from the shaft appeared to confirm what many Chileans thought when they saw his engaging performances in videos sent up from below — that he could have a future as a TV personality.
But he tried to quash the idea as he spoke to viewers of Chile's state television channel while sitting with his wife and children shortly after his rescue.
"The only thing I'll ask of you is that you don't treat me as an artist or a journalist, but as a miner," he said. "I was born a miner and I'll die a miner."
Associated Press Writers Frank Bajak, Franklin Briceno, Peter Prengaman, Vivian Sequera and Eva Vergara contributed to this report.
Associated Press
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Last of Chilean miners is raised safely to surface
26 miners free as Chile rescue goes off flawlessly
Published October 13, 2010 | Associated Press
With remarkable speed — and flawless execution — miner after miner climbed into a cramped cage deep beneath the Chilean earth, was hoisted through 2,000 feet of rock and saw precious sunlight Wednesday after the longest underground entrapment in human history.
By midafternoon, 26 of the 33 miners, including the weakest and sickest, had been pulled to freedom, and officials said they might even be able to bring everyone out by midnight.
After 69 days underground, including two weeks during which they were feared dead, the men emerged to the cheers of exuberant Chileans and before the eyes of a transfixed globe. The operation picked up speed as the day went on, but each miner was greeted with the same boisterous applause from rescuers.
"Welcome to life," President Sebastian Pinera told Victor Segvia, the 15th miner out. On a day of superlatives, it seemed no overstatement.
They rejoined a world intensely curious about their ordeal, and certain to offer fame and jobs. Previously unimaginable riches awaited men who had risked their lives going into the unstable gold and copper mine for about $1,600 a month.
The miners made the smooth ascent inside a capsule called Phoenix — 13 feet tall, barely wider than their shoulders and painted in the white, blue and red of the Chilean flag. It had a door that stuck occasionally, and its wheels needed lubricating at least once, but it worked exactly as planned.
Beginning at midnight Tuesday, and sometimes as quickly as every 25 minutes, the pod was lowered the nearly half-mile to where 700,000 tons of rock collapsed Aug. 5 and entombed the men.
Then, after a quick pep talk from rescue workers who had descended into the mine, a miner would strap himself in, make the journey upward and emerge from a manhole into the blinding sun.
The rescue was planned with extreme care. The miners were monitored by video on the way up for any sign of panic. They had oxygen masks, dark glasses to protect their eyes from unfamiliar light and sweaters for the jarring transition from subterranean swelter to chilly desert air.
As they neared the surface, a camera attached to the top of the capsule showed a brilliant white piercing the darkness not unlike what accident survivors describe when they have near-death experiences.
The miners emerged looking healthier than many had expected and even clean-shaven. Several thrust their fists upwards like prizefighters, and Mario Sepulveda, the second to taste freedom, bounded out and led his rescuers in a rousing cheer.
"We have prayed to San Lorenzo, the patron saint of miners, and to many other saints so that my brothers Florencio and Renan would come out of the mine all right. It is as if they had been born again," said Priscila Avalos. One of her brothers was the first miner rescued, and the other was due out later in the evening.
Health Minister Jaime Manalich said some of the miners probably will be able to leave the hospital Thursday — earlier than projected — but many had been unable to sleep, wanted to talk with families and were anxious. One was treated for pneumonia, and two needed dental work.
"They are not ready to have a moment's rest until the last of their colleagues is out," he said.
As it traveled down and up, down and up, the rescue capsule was not rotating as much inside the 2,041-foot escape shaft as officials expected, allowing for faster trips.
The first man out was Florencio Avalos, who emerged from the missile-like chamber and hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son, his wife and the Chilean president.
The last out was slated to be shift foreman Luis Urzua, whose leadership was credited with helping the men endure the first two and a half weeks without outside contact. The men made 48 hours' worth of rations last before rescuers reached them with a narrow bore hole to send down more food.
No one in recorded history has survived as long trapped underground. For the first 17 days, no one even knew whether they were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was captivated by their endurance and unity.
Chile exploded in joy and relief when the rescue began just after midnight in the coastal Atacama desert. Car horns sounded in Santiago, the Chilean capital, and school was canceled in the nearby town of Copiapo, where 24 of the miners live.
News channels from North America to Europe and the Middle East carried live coverage. Pope Benedict XVI said in Spanish that he "continues with hope to entrust to God's goodness" the fate of the men. Iran's state English-language Press TV followed events live for a time. Crews from Russia and Japan and North Korean state TV were at the mine.
The images beamed to the world were extraordinary: Grainy footage from beneath the earth showed each miner climbing into capsule, then disappearing upward through an opening. Then a camera showed the pod steadily rising through the dark, smooth-walled tunnel.
Among the first rescued was the youngest miner, Jimmy Sanchez, at 19 the father of a months-old baby. Two hours later came the oldest, Mario Gomez, 63, who suffers from a lung disease common to miners and had been on antibiotics inside the mine. He dropped to his knees after he emerged, bowed his head in prayer and clutched the Chilean flag.
Gomez's wife, Liliane Ramirez, pulled him up from the ground and embraced him. The couple had talked over video chat once a week, and she said that he had repeated the promise he made to her in his initial letter from inside the mine: He would marry her properly in a church wedding, followed by the honeymoon they never had.
The lone foreigner among them, Carlos Mamani of Bolivia, was visited at a nearby clinic by Pinera and Bolivian President Evo Morales. The miner could be heard telling the Chilean president how nice it was to breathe fresh air and see the stars.
Most of the men emerged clean-shaven. More than 300 people at the mine alone had worked on the rescue or to sustain them during their long wait by lowering rocket-shaped tubes dubbed "palomas," Spanish for carrier pigeons. Along with the food and medicine came razors and shaving cream.
Estimates for the rescue operation alone have soared beyond $22 million, though the government has repeatedly insisted that money is not a concern.
The men emerged in good health. But at the hospital in Copiapo, where miner after miner walked from the ambulance to a waiting wheelchair, it became clear that psychological issues would be as important to treat as physical ones.
Dr. Guillermo Swett said Sepulveda told him about an internal "fight with the devil" that he had inside the mine. He said Sanchez appeared to be having a hard time adjusting, and seemed depressed.
"He spoke very little and didn't seem to connect," the doctor said.
The entire rescue operation was meticulously choreographed. No expense was spared in bringing in topflight drillers and equipment — and boring three separate holes into the copper and gold mine.
Mining is Chile's lifeblood, providing 40 percent of state earnings, and Pinera put his mining minister and the operations chief of state-owned Codelco, the country's biggest company, in charge of the rescue.
It went so well that its managers abandoned a plan to restrict images of the rescue. A huge Chilean flag that was to obscure the hole from view was moved aside so the hundreds of cameras perched on a hill above could record images that state TV also fed live.
That included the surreal moment when the capsule dropped for the first time into the chamber, where the bare-chested miners, most stripped down to shorts because of the underground heat, mobbed the rescuer who emerged to serve as their guide to freedom.
"This rescue operation has been so marvelous, so clean, so emotional that there was no reason not to allow the eyes of the world — which have been watching this operation so closely — to see it," a beaming Pinera told a news conference after Avalos was brought to the surface.
The miners' vital signs were closely monitored throughout the ride. They were given a high-calorie liquid diet donated by NASA, designed to prevent nausea from any rotation of the capsule as it travels through curves in the 28-inch-diameter escape hole.
Engineers inserted steel piping at the top of the shaft, which is angled 11 degrees off vertical before plunging like a waterfall. Drillers had to curve the shaft to pass through "virgin" rock, narrowly avoiding collapsed areas and underground open spaces in the overexploited mine, which had operated since 1885.
U.S. President Barack Obama said the rescue had "inspired the world." The crews included many Americans, including a driller operator from Denver and a team from Center Rock Inc. of Berlin, Pa., that built and managed the piston-driven hammers that pounded the hole through quartz and silica, some of the hardest and most abrasive rock there is.
Chile has promised that its care of the miners won't end for six months at least — not until they can be sure that each man has readjusted.
Psychiatrists and other experts in surviving extreme situations predict their lives will be anything but normal. Since Aug. 22, when a narrow bore hole broke through to their refuge and the miners stunned the world with a note, scrawled in red ink, disclosing their survival, their families have been exposed in ways they never imagined.
Miners had to describe their physical and mental health in detail with teams of doctors and psychologists. In some cases, when both wives and lovers claimed the same man, everyone involved had to face the consequences.
As trying as their time underground was, the miners now face challenges so bewildering that no amount of coaching can fully prepare them. Rejoining a world intensely curious about their ordeal, they have been invited to presidential palaces, to take all-expenses-paid vacations and to appear on countless TV shows. Book and movie deals are pending, along with job offers.
Sepulveda's performance exiting from the shaft appeared to confirm what many Chileans thought when they saw his engaging performances in videos sent up from below — that he could have a future as a TV personality.
But he tried to quash the idea as he spoke to viewers of Chile's state television channel while sitting with his wife and children shortly after his rescue.
"The only thing I'll ask of you is that you don't treat me as an artist or a journalist, but as a miner," he said. "I was born a miner and I'll die a miner."
Associated Press Writers Frank Bajak, Franklin Briceno, Peter Prengaman, Vivian Sequera and Eva Vergara contributed to this report.
Associated Press
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Chile Frees First of 33 Miners in World's Longest Mine Rescue
By Matt Craze - Oct 12, 2010 8:46 PM PT
Chilean rescue workers pulled the first of 33 trapped miners to the surface in the world’s longest underground mine rescue.
Florencio Avalos emerged from the San Jose copper mine at 11:12 p.m. New York time after spending two months trapped in a tunnel more than 600 meters (1,970 feet) underground, according to images broadcast by state television channel TVN.
“I am so overwhelmed with emotion because it’s been so long since we have seen him,” Avalos’ father Alfonso said in comments broadcast by TVN. “I am so content, so happy. Thank God that he emerged so strong.”
Avalos, wearing protective glasses, embraced his wife and son and Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera before being taken to a mobile hospital unit as rescuers shouted “Long Live Chile.” Pinera will oversee the rescue of the 32 remaining men over the next 24 hours to 48 hours at the mine in the Atacama Desert.
The four-meter long “Phoenix” capsule painted in the red, white and blue colors of the Chilean flag will act as an elevator, hoisting the miners to the surface through a 26-inch wide rescue hole.
The miners were discovered alive on Aug. 22 after being trapped since Aug. 5, when the mine’s access collapsed. The miners’ only contact with the outside world was through six centimeter wide drill holes that were used to discover them and through which they receive food, water and medicine.
The survival of the San Jose miners surpasses a 25-day rescue of three coal miners in a flooded mine in Guizhou, China in 2009.
‘Chile Unites’
“Chileans and the entire world are not going to forget this night,” Pinera told the more than 1,000 reporters gathered at the mine site. “When Chile unites, and it always happens in adversity, we are capable of big things.”
Pinera, who wore the same red jacket he used in the aftermath of an 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile in February, will stay near the rescue site alongside Bolivian counterpart, Evo Morales. One of the 33 miners is Bolivian.
Pinera’s approval rating has increased since his government started the rescue operation more than two months ago, while Mining Minister Laurence Golborne has become the most popular member of the president’s cabinet.
Pinera’s popularity grew to 57 percent in September from 54 percent in a May poll, Santiago-based research group Center for the Study of Contemporary Reality, or CERC, said in a report published Oct. 7. The Sept. 3-13 poll of 1,200 people has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Three Groups
The miners are being split into three groups for the rescue. The first will provide information to rescuers and possibly help with the operation, Health Minister Jaime Manalich said. The weakest will then come out, followed by the rest. The last to be rescued will be shift foreman Luis Urzua.
“I’m nervous, my stomach is in knots,” Maria Segovia, the sister of trapped miner Dario Segovia, said in an interview at the site dubbed “Camp Hope.”
The 33 men were given meals rich in minerals and protein to prevent nausea and stabilize blood pressure during the ascent and examined remotely by medical officials on the surface. Ten have been identified by authorities as being the most in need of special care, Manalich said.
They’ll wear elastic bands on their lower extremities and a waistband during the 15- to 20-minute ascent that will help ensure proper blood circulation and prevent a reduction in arterial pressure and possible fainting, the health minister said. Rescue workers will supply the miners with emergency oxygen in case dust on the ascent causes breathing problems.
The miners want to wait until all 33 are brought to the surface so they can travel to the hospital as a group, the health minister said today. Authorities are instead seeking to fly miners to hospital as soon as possible so they can undergo examinations and any necessary treatment, Manalich said.
“Miners are fighters,” said Mario Castillo, 39, who has worked to bring lighting and equipment to the rescue site during the past two months. “The big lesson from all of this is that we have to be united. This is for the world.”
Bloomberg
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Extreme hot weather grills Myanmar
May 10, 2010
Myanmar people have been suffering from the impact of extreme hot weather this summer in terms of diseases, business and water shortage in various part of the country.
Summer season in Myanmar lasts from March to May, and April represents the hottest month.
As a rare phenomena in several decades, this year is experiencing excessive heat strike, with the day temperatures in central Myanmar reaching a record high of between 43 and 45 degree Celsius, 5 to 6 degree Celsius above April average maximum temperature.
The Myanmar authorities have stopped traders in the country from exporting rice in order to reserve for domestic demand due to less production.
Meanwhile, thousands of fish, bred in ponds in the country's southwestern Ayeyawaddy division, died of heat during the current summer season.
There was even worse case that all 100,000 fishes died in a single day in Twantay township, Yangon division.
Fish breeders feared that such cases would continue as long as there is no rainfall.
The excessively high temperature also led to water shortage in many villages in the country.
As an alternative, the villagers are digging up wells near the dry ponds to get water.
The heat wave has also spred flu and skin allergy and the lack of electricity and water intensified the suffering.
There was news report about a sudden death of a taxi driver in Yangon when heat struck him inside the car.
The authorities have advised people to remain indoor in the day time to prevent from exposure to excessive heat.
Amid the extreme hot weather, Myanmar's cyclone-ravaged Ayeyawaddy division has enjoyed a rare heavy rainfall last Thursday.
In the Ayeyawaddy delta, which was destroyed by deadly cyclone Nargis in May 2008, over 180,000 people are now suffering from fresh water shortage due to the summer heat.
Source: Xinhua
Heat wave kills 2 people in Myanmar
22:05, May 11, 2010
Two people have died of heat strike in Myanmar's former capital of Yangon over the past few days, the local weekly Yangon Times reported Tuesday.
The two drivers of three-wheelers were dead under scorching noon sun after they dropped their passengers at the destination.
Frightened by the tragedy, all other drivers stopped their business immediately in the afternoon but resumed in the evening to avoid the life-threatening temperature, the report said.
Summer season in Myanmar lasts from March to May, and April represents the hottest month.
As a rare phenomena in several decades, this summer is undergoing excessive heat wave.
The day temperatures in central Myanmar posted a record high at between 43 and 45 degree Celsius, 5 to 6 degree Celsius above April average maximum temperature.
People are forced to choose to remain indoor in the day time and knowledge about prevention from heat is being publicly disseminated.
Source:Xinhua
Many village water ponds in Myanmar dry up due to summer heat
May 5, 2010 8:16 pm
YANGON, May 5 — Drinking water ponds in many villages in Myanmar have dried up due to excessively high weather temperature during the current summer season, according to local sources on Wednesday.
Because of lying near the sea, the villages normally get salt- water.
As an alternative, the villagers are digging up some tube-wells near the dry ponds, the sources said.
Meanwhile, thousands of fishes, bred in ponds in the country's southwestern Ayeyawaddy division, died of heat stress daily, according to local fish breeders.
The phenomena is the worst in the last two decades, they said.
There were even some cases that all 100,000 fishes died in a single day in Twantay township, Yangon division, fish breeders in the township said, fearing that such cases would continue as long as there is no rainfall.
The month of April falls within the summer which lasts from March to the end of May in Myanmar.
The day temperatures in central Myanmar this summer have reached a record high in over four decades, peaking at between 43 and 45 degree Celsius in such regions as Minbu, Magway, Mandalay, Monywa, Chauk and Mingyan as well as in Yangon over the past week, which are 5 to 6 degree Celsius above April average temperature.
April represents the hottest month of Myanmar and this year it is experiencing excessive heat.
(PNA/Xinhua)
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Myanmar discovers over 100-ton jade stone in northern state
English.news.cn 2010-01-29 14:22:07
YANGON, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar has discovered a raw jade stone weighing 115 tons at Phakant mining area in the country's northernmost Kachin state, the local Newsweek journal reported Friday.
The jade stone, the second largest one to be mined in the past decade, was excavated by Max Myanmar company, the report said.
The world's largest jade stone weighing about 3,000 tons was discovered in Phakant in 2000.
The giant jade stone, measuring 21 meters long, 4.8 meters wide and 10.5 meters high was found at a depth of 12 meters underground, an earlier report said.
The country also claimed that it possesses the world's largest ruby weighing 21,450 carats, the largest star sapphire weighing 63, 000 carats, the biggest peridot weighing 329 carats and the biggest pearl weighing 845 carats.
There are six mining areas in Myanmar under gem and jade exploration, namely, Mongshu and Namhyar in Shan state, Mogok in Mandalay division, Khamhti in Sagaing division, Moenyin and Phakant in Kachin state.
Myanmar, a well-known producer of gems in the world, boasts ruby, diamond, cat's eye, emerald, topaz, pearl, sapphire, coral and a variety of garnet tinged with yellow.
The government's Central Statistical Organization revealed that in the fiscal year 2008-09, Myanmar produced 32,921 tons of jade and 18,728 million carats of gems which include ruby, sapphire, spinel and peridot, as well as 201,081 mommis (754 kilograms) of pearl.
Editor: Anne Tang
Xin Hua
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Salt reduction could save 92,000 U.S. lives a year
By Gene Emery Gene Emery – Thu Jan 21, 1:49 am ET
BOSTON (Reuters Life!) – Shaving 3 grams off the daily salt intake of Americans could prevent up to 66,000 strokes, 99,000 heart attacks and 92,000 deaths in the United States, while saving $24 billion in health costs per year, researchers reported on Wednesday.
The benefit to the U.S. population would be comparable to cutting smoking by 50 percent, significantly lowering obesity rates and giving cholesterol drugs to virtually everyone to prevent heart attacks, said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo of the University of California, San Francisco and colleagues.
Such a goal, they said, is readily attainable.
Salt, which contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease, is widely overused in the United States, with 75 to 80 percent coming from processed food. Men typically consume 10.4 grams per day. For women, the average is 7.3 grams. Its use is rising.
A reduction of 1 gram would prevent 11,000 to 23,000 strokes, 18,000 to 35,000 heart attacks and 15,000 to 32,000 deaths from any cause, the researchers reported in New England Journal of Medicine.
Women would benefit the most.
"Even if the federal government were to bear the entire cost of a regulatory program designed to reduce salt consumption, the government would still be expected to realize cost savings for Medicare, saving $6 to $12 in health expenditures for each dollar spent on the regulatory program," the researchers wrote.
In a commentary, Dr. Lawrence Appel and Cheryl Anderson of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said the new study may be underestimating the benefits.
They said it did not take into account how it would help children or the fact that lower salt intake may reduce the risk of stomach cancer, kidney disease, congestive heart failure and osteoporosis.
(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
Reuters
Monday, January 18, 2010
Chemicals coat apples decades after Alar scare
By SHANNON DININNY, Associated Press Writer, – Mon Jan 18, 5:06 am ET
YAKIMA, Wash. – More than two decades after parents dumped apples from children's lunch boxes because of concerns about a chemical applied to the fruit, most researchers agree the crop is safer although most of it still carries pesticide residue.
Growers saw prices plunge after a 1989 television report led to widespread fears apples were coated in a cancer-causing chemical called Alar, used to enhance crunch and color. The public outcry led the government to ban some chemicals and increase oversight, while growers adopted new approaches to spraying apples and reduced the use of harsh chemicals.
But in 2005, the last year results were available, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found pesticide residues on 98 percent of the apples it tested. All the residue was at levels within federal guidelines.
Such statistics leave consumer groups and health experts conflicted.
"The mix of pesticides today is less toxic than it was 20 years ago," said Richard Wiles, senior vice president for policy at the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group. "But we still have a lot of pesticides left over. I think we're due for another look at whether we're doing the best we can to protect the public from pesticides in food."
Few apple growers will forget the February 1989 "60 Minutes" episode that opened with a story about Alar, featuring an apple marked with a skull and crossbones. The report stemmed from a Natural Resources Defense Council study that concluded Alar posed a cancer danger, particularly to children.
Public outcry was immediate and some parents panicked — reports circulated about apple juice being poured down the drain and a mother sending police to stop her child's school bus to retrieve her lunch. Actress Meryl Streep took up the cause, demanding Alar be banned.
Some still question the science behind the report, arguing that consumers would have to eat many more apples than normal to get sick.
Dr. Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician who was one of the scientific reviewers for the 1989 study, declined to sign off on it, fearing in part that consumers could confuse long-term effects with immediate danger.
"I actually agreed with them that the Alar was probably breaking down into a carcinogen," said Goldman, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency's toxics program under the Clinton administration and is now a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
"I didn't agree with the way they were communicating the risk," she said, "and I was worried that what they were doing was more alarmist than it needed to be."
Another reviewer, Frederica Perera, professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, signed off on the findings.
"I think the report was a reasonable report," she said.
The EPA had already labeled Alar a probable carcinogen and its maker, Uniroyal Chemical Co., voluntarily withdrew it for use on U.S. food crops. EPA studies later showed Alar, while still a carcinogen, was only one-twentieth as potent as estimates in the report.
Today, Alar is applied only to nonedible, ornamental plants such as flowers in the U.S., but it is still approved for food crops in some countries.
Wendy Gordon, who co-chaired NRDC's Mothers and Others group with Streep, said the report's breakthrough was in improving pesticide standards for young children.
"The original standard was based on a healthy young adult male. Many years later, the regulation was changed, and the standard was changed to account for these more vulnerable populations," she said.
At the time of the report, red delicious and McIntosh apples were the most common varieties in the U.S., and growers applied Alar to both. The going price for a 42-pound box of red delicious applies fell from $15.46 in February 1989 to $8.29 by June that year.
Apple growers were shocked by the 1989 report, and for many, the Alar dispute still burns, said George Allan of Allan Bros. apple growers in Naches, Wash. Some growers still won't watch a Meryl Streep movie, he said, although he acknowledged enjoying her recent hit "Julie and Julia."
But growers learned from the experience, he said: "In the past 20 years, we've basically reinvented ourselves."
They worked with scientists to better understand pests and develop alternatives for controlling them. Federal regulations now require farm workers to wait longer before re-entering orchards where chemicals have been applied. The federal government also banned many harsh chemicals and limited the application of others before harvest.
"I don't know whether there are more or fewer pesticides in use today than there were 20 years ago," said Bill Jordan, the EPA's senior policy adviser for the Office of Pesticide Programs. "But the pesticide residues that are on apples today are safer."
Many growers also have planted new apple varieties that require less harsh chemicals to control pests or improve the fruit's quality. Red delicious apples, which required heavy treatment, now make up 30 percent of the crop, down from 70 percent in 1989.
Elisa Odabashian, West Coast director of Consumers Union, eats an apple a day. She grew up in Cashmere, a small river town surrounded by apple orchards near Wenatchee, a central Washington city billed as the Apple Capital of the World. She hesitates to criticize an industry that has supported family and friends, remarking on the strides made to improve safety.
"Is an apple with pesticide residue an unsafe product? I wouldn't call it that," she said. "We have advised that on products like apples, where you tend to eat the skin, that's a good candidate for buying organic."
Associated Press
Friday, January 15, 2010
WiFi Suit: Arthur Firstenberg Sues Neighbor For Using Electronics
Thu Jan 14, 5:58 pm ET
A Santa Fe man who alleges he suffers from "electromagnetic allergies" is suing his neighbor because she refuses to turn off her gadgets, he claims.
According to the Santa Fe Reporter, Arthur Firstenberg, the plaintiff, has been sleeping at friends' homes or in his car to avoid the electromagnetic waves created by his neighbor Raphaela Monribot's cell phone, wireless network, computer, compact fluorescent lightbulbs and dimmer switches.
Firstenberg claims he suffers from Electromagnetic Sensitivity, or EMS, which induces "nausea, vertigo, diarrhea, ringing in the ears, severe headaches and body aches, crippling joint pains, insomnia, impaired vision, impaired muscular control," as well as other potentially life-threatening ailments.
According to Firstenberg, he first started experiencing symptoms when he was in college in the 1980s and has been a vocal opponent of wireless systems being established in public buildings, though he has met with little success.
When Firstenberg first hired Monribot to cook meals for him in his home, Monribot had initially made concessions by turning off her phone and computer. However, when she moved in next door, she refused to keep her phone, computer and wireless network turned off when not in use. When asked if she could use a landline instead of her iPhone, Firstenberg says Monribot "flatly refused without explanation."
The battle against Wi-Fi isn't one Firstenberg is fighting alone.
He's part of a group of Santa Fe residents who are pursuing legal means to remove all Wi-Fi hotspots from public locations because they claim the wireless internet waves aggravate their "electromagnetic allergies." To add merit to their case, they are classifying their "allergy" or "sensitivity" as a disability and are claiming the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability.
The Huffington Post
Thursday, December 3, 2009
လူနာသေဆုံးမှု ဆရာဝန် ဆမ ၅ နှစ်သိမ်း
ရန်ကုန်မြို့ ရွှေဂုံတိုင် အထူးကုဆေးခန်း (SSC) မှာ သေဆုံးခဲ့တဲ့ မခိုင်ရွှန်းလဲ့ရည်ကို ခွဲစိတ်ကုသပေးခဲ့တဲ့ ခွဲစိတ်အထူးကု ဆရာဝန်ကြီးကို ဒီနေ့ ဒီဇင်ဘာလ ၃ ရက်နေ့ကစပြီး မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ဆေးကောင်စီက ဆေးကုသခွင့် ၅ နှစ် ပိတ်ပင်လိုက်ပြီ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ဒီဖြစ်ရပ်အပေါ် သတင်းမီဒီယာတွေက လိုအပ်တာထက် ပိုပြီး ဖော်ပြကြတယ်လို့ ဝေဖန်သုံးသပ်ကြတာတွေ ရှိသလို တာဝန်ခံမှု မရှိခဲ့တဲ့ ဆရာဝန်ကြီးနဲ့ ဆေးခန်းတို့ကို ဝေဖန်ပြောဆိုတဲ့ မှတ်ချက်တွေကလည်း ရှိနေပါတယ်။ အကြောင်းစုံကို မသင်းသီရိက တင်ပြပေးထားပါတယ်။
ဒီနေ့ နေ့စွဲနဲ့ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ဆေးကောင်စီက ထုတ်ပြန်လိုက်တဲ့ စာထဲမှာ မခိုင်ရွှန်းလဲ့ရည် သေဆုံးခဲ့ရတဲ့ ကိစ္စနဲ့ ပတ်သက်လို့ ခွဲစိတ်ဆရာဝန်ကြီးမှာ လုပ်ကိုင်မှု မှားခြင်း၊ ဆုံးဖြတ်ချက် မှားခဲ့ခြင်းတွေနဲ့ အတူ မခွဲစိတ်မီနဲ့ ခွဲစိတ်အပြီးမှာ လုံလောက်တဲ့ စောင့်ရှောက် စစ်ဆေးမှုတွေ၊ တာဝန်ခံမှု အားနည်းတာတွေကို တွေ့ရတယ်လို့ ဖော်ပြထားပါတယ်။ ဒါကြောင့် အစာအိမ်နဲ့ အူလမ်းကြောင်းဆိုင်ရာ ခွဲစိတ်ဆရာဝန်ကြီး ဒေါက်တာကြည်စိုးကို ဆေးကုသခွင့် ၅ နှစ် ပိတ်ပင်လိုက်တယ်လို့လည်း ပြောပါတယ်။
ဒါ့အပြင် မေ့ဆေးဆရာဝန်၊ ပထမ ခွဲစိတ် လက်ထောက်ဆရာဝန်နဲ့ အတူ အထွေထွေ အထူးကု သမားတော်ကြီးကိုလည်း ပြင်းထန်စွာ သတိပေးသလို ထိရောက်မှုနဲ့ လုံခြုံမှုမရှိတဲ့ စနစ်တွေနဲ့ လုပ်ကိုင်နေတဲ့ ဆေးခန်းကိုလည်း နောက်နောင် ဒီလိုကိစ်စမျိုး မဖြစ်အောင် ပြင်းထန်စွာ သတိပေးတယ်လို့လည်း ဖော်ပြထားပါတယ်။
ဒီကိစ္စဟာ မခိုင်ရွှန်းလဲ့ရည် မကွယ်လွန်ခင် အချိန်ကတည်းက မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအတွင်းမှာ အတော်လေး ဟိုးလေးတကျော် ဖြစ်နေတဲ့ သတင်းတခုလည်း ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ပြည်တွင်း သတင်းမီဒီယာတွေမှာ လူနာရှင်ဘက်က ရင်ဆိုင်ခဲ့ရတဲ့ အခြေအနေတွေကို ဖော်ပြ ရေးသားခဲ့ပေမဲ့ ဆရာဝန်ကြီးဘက်ကပဲ ဖြစ်ဖြစ်၊ ဆေးခန်းဘက်ကပဲ ဖြစ်ဖြစ် ပြန်လည် ဖြေရှင်းချက် တစုံတရာ အခုထိ ထွက်မလာပါဘူး။ ဒါဟာ ပိုပြီးတော့ အမှားကို အပြစ်ကြီးသွားစေတာမျိုး ဖြစ်သွားစေတယ်လို့ ရန်ကုန် ဝါရင့်ဆရာဝန်တဦးက အခုလို မှတ်ချက်ပေးပါတယ်။
“အမှားကြီးနဲ့ အမှားလေးပဲ ကွာတာပေါ့။ အခုဟာက ဂျာနယ်တွေမှာ ပါသလောက်ဆိုရင် အမှားကြီး ဖြစ်သွားတာပေါ့။ မှားတာထက် ပိုဆိုးတယ်လို့ ထင်တာပဲ။ မှားကြတာ မဆန်းဘူး ဆိုပါတော့။ ဒါပေမဲ့ အခုဟာကတော့ အမှားကြီး ဖြစ်သွားတယ်၊ အမှားလေး မဟုတ်ဘူး။ မှားသင့်မှားထိုက်တဲ့ အမှား မဟုတ်ဘူး။ မမှားသင့် မမှားထိုက်တဲ့ အမှား ဖြစ်သွားတယ်။ နောက်တခုက လူနာကို နှစ်သိမ့်မှု မပေးခြင်း၊ လူနာရှင်ကို မနှစ်သိမ့်ခြင်း၊ မီဒီယာကို ရှောင်ခြင်း၊ အဲဒါက ပိုဆိုးသွားတာပေါ့။ ပိုမှားတာပေါ့။
“အမှန်က မီဒီယာကို အသုံးမချလိုက်တာပေါ့။ တကယ်ဆို မီဒီယာနဲ့ တွေ့လိုက်ရင်၊ လူနာရှင်ကို တစုံတရာသော နှစ်သိမ့်မှု ပေးရင်၊ ဒီလောက်အထိ ဆိုးဆိုးရွားရွား မဖြစ်နိုင်ဘူး။ အမကတော့ အဲဒီလိုပဲ ထင်တာပဲ။ အခုဟာတော့ ဒီမိန်းကလေး ပုံကလည်း ဂျာနယ်တွေမှာ ပါတော့ ဝိုင်းပြီး ကရုဏာ သက်နေကြတာပေါ့။ လူတိုင်း စိတ်ဝင်စားတဲ့ သတင်းတခုတော့ ဖြစ်နေတာပေါ့။”
အခုလို ပြဿနာမျိုး မတိုင်ခင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ ဒီလို ဆေးပညာပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ လုပ်ငန်းတွေမှာ အမှားအယွင်း ဖြစ်ခဲ့ဖူးတာမျိုး၊ ဆေးကုသခွင့် ပိတ်ပင်ခဲ့တာမျိုး အပြင် အလုပ် ထုတ်ပစ်ခဲ့တာမျိုးတွေအထိ ရှိခဲ့ပေမဲ့ အခုသတင်းလောက် ကျယ်ကျယ်ပြန့်ပြန့် ဖြစ်ခဲ့တာ မရှိဘူးလို့ ဆိုပါတယ်။ ဒါကလည်း အခုအချိန်က သတင်းမီဒီယာခေတ် တွင်တွင်ကျယ်ကျယ် ဖြစ်နေတာကို ပြသတာဖြစ်တယ်လို့လည်း သူက ဆိုပါတယ်။
“ကြားဖူးတယ်၊ ကြားဖူးပေမဲ့ ဟိုတုန်းက ဂျာနယ်ခေတ် မဟုတ်ဘူးလေ။ ဂျာနယ်ခေတ် မဟုတ်တော့ ကောလာဟလလောက်နဲ့ ပြီးသွားတာတွေ ရှိတယ်။ ရှိတော့ ရှိဖူးပါတယ်။ အခုက မီဒီယာခေတ် ဖြစ်နေတော့ မီဒီယာကို သူတို့ မနိုင်တာ။ ကာယကံရှင်တွေကလည်း တော်ပါတယ်။ တချို့ဆို သည်းခံပေမဲ့ မပြောဘူး၊ ဘယ်သူမေးလို့မှ။ ဆုံးသွားတဲ့ မိန်းကလေး မိဘတွေကလည်း မီဒီယာတွေကို ရင်ဖွင့်တယ်ဆိုတာ တော်ပါတယ်။ ဒါ သူတို့ လုပ်သင့်တာကို လုပ်လိုက်တာပဲ။ နင့်မို့ဆို ဘယ်သိရမှာလဲ၊ ကောလာဟလလို ဘာလိုလိုနဲ့ လေထဲမှာပဲ ပျောက်သွားမှာပဲလေ။
“ဟိုတုန်းကတော့ အဲဒီလို ပျောက်ခဲ့တာပေါ့၊ ဂျာနယ်တွေ မရှိခင်တုန်းက။ ဂျာနယ်မှာတော့ အခု သူတို့ စစ်ဆေးပြီးရင် ဖြေရှင်းချက် ထုတ်မယ်လို့တော့ တချို့ဂျာနယ်တွေမှာ ရေးထားတာ တွေ့တယ်။ အဖြေကတော့ မှားသွားတာနဲ့ ဆေးရုံဘက်ကလည်း လုံးဝ တာဝန်မကျေဘူး။ အလွန် ဖုံးအုပ်တယ်။ ဒါပါပဲ အဓိကကတော့။ မှားတာထက် ကျန်ရစ်သူ မိသားစုအပေါ်မှာ တုံ့ပြန်ပုံကြီးက မကောင်းတာပေါ့။ နောက် မီဒီယာပေါ်မှာ တုံ့ပြန်မှု၊ အဲဒီ နှစ်ခုက မကောင်းတာပေါ့။”
ဝါရင့် ဆရာဝန်ကြီးတဦး ပြောပြခဲ့တာ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။
တချို့ ဆရာဝန်တွေကတော့ သတင်းမီဒီယာတွေက လိုအပ်တာထက် ပိုပြီး ရေးသားကြသလို ရေးသားပုံ ရေးသားဟန် မမှန်ခဲ့ဘူးလို့လည်း ပြစ်တင်ဝေဖန်ကြတာ ရှိပါတယ်။ ဒီအကြောင်း ရေးသားဖော်ပြကြတဲ့ ဂျာနယ်တွေကတော့ ကွယ်လွန်သွားတဲ့ လူနာရှင်တွေအပြင် ဆရာဝန်ကြီးနဲ့ ဆေးခန်းကိုပါ ဆက်သွယ်ပြီး ရေးသားဖော်ပြဖို့ ကြိုးစားပေမဲ့ ကာယကံရှင်ကရော ဆေးခန်းကပါ တွေ့ဆုံခွင့်ရဖို့ ငြင်းဆန်ခဲ့တယ်လို့ ဗွီအိုအေကို ပြောပါတယ်။
ဒီကိစ္စအတွက် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ဆေးကောင်စီကို ဆက်သွယ်ခဲ့ပေမဲ့ တယ်လီဖုန်း ပြန်လည်ဖြေကြားမယ့်သူ မရှိသလို မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ဆရာဝန်များ အသင်းချုပ်ကလည်း ဒီအကြောင်းကို ဖြေကြားဖို့ တာဝန်ခံ ဆရာဝန် မရှိဘူးလို့ပဲ ပြန်ပြောခဲ့ပါတယ်။
VOA News
Surgeon Suspended after Rangoon Girl's Death
By THE IRRAWADDY Thursday, December 3, 2009
The Myanmar [Burma] Medical Council (MMC), a Burmese government body, has ordered a five-year suspension of the license of a surgeon who performed an operation on a 15-year-old girl who subsequently died, according to Rangoon sources.
A Rangoon journalist told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that an MMC statement accused the surgeon, Dr Kyi Soe, of making clinical mistakes, lacking preoperative and postoperative assessment, responsibility and accountability.
Dr Kyi Soe carried out an operation on Khine Shun Leh Yee, a ninth grade Rangoon student, at the Shwegondaing Specialist Center in Rangoon on Oct. 25. She died two days later.
The journalist said the MMC also ordered Dr Kyi Soe to apologize to the girl's family for her death. There was no mention of any compensation award.
The girl's mother claimed she had paid more than US $1,000 for the operation at the private clinic. She accused Dr Kyi Soe of failing to carry out proper medical tests.
Shortly after the girl's death, an investigation was opened by the MMC, a Ministry of Health body responsible for monitoring the ethics and standards of Burma's medical profession.
Contacted by The Irrawaddy on Thursday, the clinic said it could not comment on the case.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
China economy grew to world's 3rd largest in 2007
By JOE McDONALD, AP Business Writer – Wed Jan 14, 4:19 pm ET
BEIJING – China's economy grew to the world's third-largest in 2007, new data showed Wednesday, another milestone in the country's stunning ascent in the global pecking order that puts it behind only Japan and the United States.
China has grown tenfold in the past 30 years, and the revised data leapfrogged it ahead of Germany. But overtaking the United States is another matter.
"I think it will take only three to four years for China to overtake Japan as the second-largest economy in the world," said Merrill Lynch economist Ting Lu. Catching up with the United States could take decades, he added.
The status is symbolic — China's 1.3 billion people are, on average, among the world's poorest. But it reflects the country's explosive growth as it transformed from a long-isolated nation to the world's factory.
The government revised its estimate of 2007 growth from an already high 11.9 percent to 13 percent, the fastest rate since 1994. The national statistics bureau did not explain the factors behind the revision.
The new estimate raised gross domestic product to 25.7 trillion yuan, or $3.5 trillion at 2007 exchange rates, the statistics bureau said. That would be ahead of Germany's 2007 GDP of 2.4 trillion euros, or $3.3 trillion at an exchange rate produced by averaging rates on the 15th of each month during that year.
The revision comes as China's export-driven economy struggles to reverse a slump caused by global turmoil and prevent already simmering social unrest over lost export-related jobs.
The government is launching a $586 billion stimulus package and is promising to help struggling exporters. China's exports fell at their fastest rate in a decade last month. On Wednesday, the Cabinet cut fuel prices and a tax on auto sales.
The change in economic ranking won't help China out of its slump, said Moody's Economy.com analyst Sherman Chan.
"The only effect is perhaps negative, as a stronger 2007 would make the 2008 slowdown more upsetting," Chan said in a report.
The United States is the world's biggest economy at $13.8 trillion in 2007, followed by Japan at $4.4 trillion.
Germany's 85 million people were still far ahead of China in GDP per person in 2007 at $38,800.
China's per capita GDP was $2,800 in 2007, but the country has wide disparities of wealth and poverty, and many live on far less than that. Chinese officials say more than 100 other countries have a higher income per person.
Then-supreme leader Deng Xiaoping set China on the road from communist central planning to a market-style economy in 1979. That year's GDP was just $300 billion — one-tenth of the 2007 level — according to the International Monetary Fund.
Over three decades, hundreds of millions of people have lifted themselves out of poverty and major cities have been transformed into forests of skyscrapers and modern apartment blocks, with streets jammed with private cars.
Independent economists estimate China's economy grew by another 9 percent in 2008 despite the global downturn. Figures for 2008 are expected to be released this month.
But economists have slashed 2009 forecasts to as low as 6 percent. That would be the highest for any major economy but is worrisome for communist leaders who need to satisfy a public that expects steadily rising incomes and is already restive over thousands of recent manufacturing layoffs.
Lu said it will be decades before China can match U.S. output, if it ever can.
"Even if growth in the U.S. is zero, China still would have to double and double again to overtake the U.S.," he said. "It would be more than 20 years, and that is so far out, it is very hard to forecast what will happen."
National Bureau of Statistics (in Chinese): http://www.stats.gov.cn
Associated Press
Saturday, January 10, 2009
NYC eatery grants freedom to lobster centenarian
By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press Writer, – Sat Jan 10, 2:05 am ET
In this photo released by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 'George,' a live 20 pound lobster rests on a plate at City Crab and Seafood in New York, Friday, Jan. 9, 2009. City Crab and Seafood has spared the lobster, which is expected to be released Saturday, Jan. 10, near Kennebunkport, Maine, in an area where lobster trapping is forbidden. PETA and the restaurant gauged George's age at about 140, using a rule of thumb based on the creature's weight.
(AP Photo/P.E.T.A.)
NEW YORK – A 140-year-old lobster once destined for a dinner plate received the gift of life Friday from a Park Avenue seafood restaurant.
George, the 20-pound supercentenarian crustacean, was freed by City Crab and Seafood in New York City.
"We applaud the folks at City Crab and Seafood for their compassionate decision to allow this noble old-timer to live out his days in freedom and peace," said Ingrid E. Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
PETA spokesman Michael McGraw said the group asked City Crab to return George to the Atlantic Ocean after a diner saw him at the restaurant, where steamed Maine lobster sells for $27 per pound. George had been caught off Newfoundland, Canada and lived in the tank for about 10 days before his release.
Some scientists estimate lobsters can live to be more than 100 years old. PETA and the restaurant guessed George's age at about 140, using a rule of thumb based on the creature's weight.
He was to be released Saturday near Kennebunkport, Maine, in an area where lobster trapping is forbidden.
Associated Press
Saturday, December 13, 2008
မြန်မာပြည်မှာ ဆင်မှောင်ခိုတွေ ခေတ်စားနေ
ဆလိုင်းပီပီ
စနေနေ့၊ ဒီဇင်ဘာလ 13 2008 15:16 - မြန်မာစံတော်ချိန်
နယူးဒေလီ (မဇ္စျိမ)။ ။ ဆယ်စုနှစ်တခုအတွင်းမှာပင် ဆင်အကောင်ရေ ၂၅၀ အထက်နှင့် ဆင်စွယ်များ မြန်မာပြည်တွင်းမှ ခိုးထုတ်ခံသွားရကာ ဆင်ဦးရေ သိသိသာသာ လျော့နည်းကျဆင်းသွားပြီဖြစ်ကြောင်း အစီရင်ခံသစ်တခုက ဖော်ပြထားသည်။
သဘာဝ တောရိုင်း တိရစ္ဆာန်များကို ကူးသန်းရောင်းဝယ်မှု စောင့်ကြည့်လေ့လာရေး ကွန်ယက်အဖွဲ့ တခုဖြစ်သော TRAFFIC ၏ အစီရင်ခံစာအရ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသည် ဆင်နှင့် ဆင်စွယ်များ တရားမဝင် ရောင်းဝယ်ဖောက်ကားရာ ဗဟိုချက်မတခုဖြစ်နေသောကြောင့် အမဲလိုက်မုဆိုးများနှင့် မသမာရောင်းဝယ်သူတို့၏လက်ချက်ဖြင့် အဖိုးတန် တိရစ္ဆာန် ကြီးများ ဆုံးရှုံးနေရသည်ဟုဆိုသည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှ ဆင်များကို အိမ်နီးပတ်ဝန်းကျင်နိုင်ငံများသို့ အဓိက ခိုးထုတ်ရောင်းချနေသည်ဟု ဆိုသည်။
TRAFFIC အဖွဲ့မှ အရှေ့တောင်အာရှဆိုင်ရာ အကြီးတန်းအရာရှိဖြစ်သူ ခရစ် အာ ရှက်ဖ်ဖတ်က ပြောကြားရာတွင် " အမဲလိုက်တာရယ်၊ နယ်စပ်ဖြတ်ပြီး ခိုးရောင်းတာတွေရယ်ကြောင့် မြန်မာပြည်က ဆင်ဦးရေ ကျသွားပြီ"
မှောင်ခိုခိုးထုတ်သော ဆင်အများစုမှာ ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံသို့ ရောက်ရှိကုန်ပြီး ခရီးသွားလုပ်ငန်းများက ဖျော်ဖြေရေးလုပ်ငန်းများနှင့် တောလမ်းသွားခရီးစဉ်များတွင် အသုံးပြုလျှက်ရှိသည်ဟု ရှက်ဖ်ဖတ် က ပြောသည်။
"ထိုင်းခရီးသွားလုပ်ငန်းယန္တရားကြီး၏ လိုအပ်ချက်ကို ပြည့်မှီစေရန် ဆင်မများနှင့် သန်မာကြံ့ခိုင်သော ဆင်များကို အဓိက ပစ်မှတ်ထားနေခဲ့ကြသည်။ ထိုဆင်များကို တောလမ်းကြမ်းခရီးသွား စင်တာများ တွင် အသုံးပြုကြသည်" ဟု အစီရင်ခံစာက ရေးသားထားသည်။
အစီရင်ခံစာအဆိုအရ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ စျေး ၁၄ ခုကို စစ်တမ်းကောက်ယူရာတွင် ထိုင်း၊ တရုတ်နိုင်ငံများနှင့် နီးကပ်သော နယ်စပ်ရှိ စျေးသုံးခုတွင် ဆင်စွယ်အပိုင်းအစပေါင်း အနည်းဆုံး ၉၀၀၀ နှင့် အစွယ်ချောင်းလိုက် ၁၆ ခု ရောင်းဖို့ ပြသထားသည်ဟု ဆိုသည်။
နယ်စပ်လမ်းကြောင်းကွဲများအနက် ထိုင်း-မြန်မာနယ်စပ် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတောင်ပိုင်းရှိ ဘုရားသုံးဆူတောင်ကြားလမ်းသည် ဆင်နှင့် ဆင်စွယ်များ ခိုးထုတ်ရာ အဓိက လမ်းကြောင်းတခု ဖြစ်သည်ဟု ခရစ်က ပြောသည်။
နည်းလမ်းပေါင်းစုံဖြင့် ဆင်များကို သယ်ဆောင်နေကြပြီး အချို့ကတော့ ဗြောင်ဗြောင်တင်းတင်းပင် အမိုးဖွင့် ကုန်တင်ကားကြီးများဖြင့် နယ်စပ်ဖြတ်ကျော်သယ်ယူကြသည်ဟု ခရစ်က ထပ်ပြောသည်။ ကုန်သည်များအပြင် အစိုးရဝန်ထမ်းများလည်း ကုန်သည်များထံမှ လာဘ်ငွေရယူကာ အားပေးအားမြှောက်ပြုနေကြသည်ဟု ခရစ်စ်က ဖြည့်စွက်ပြောကြားသွားသည်။
"ကျနော်တို့ သုတေသနလုပ်တော့ ဘာအထောက်အထားကို သွားတွေ့လဲဆိုတော့ အကျင့်ပျက်ခြစားမှုက ဆင်နဲ့ ဆင်စွယ်တွေ ခိုးထုတ်တာကို ခွင့်ပြုနေတယ်ဆိုတာပဲ"
နယ်စပ်ဖြတ်ကျော် တရားမဝင်ရောင်းဝယ်မှု ရပ်ဆိုင်းသွားအောင် နယ်စပ်စောင့်လုံခြုံရေးများ ပိုမိုလိုအပ်သည်ဟု ခရစ်က ပြောသည်။
မြန်မာအာဏာပိုင်များအနေဖြင့် ထိုင်းနှင့် တရုတ်နိုင်ငံများမှ အရာထမ်းများနှင့် ပိုမိုပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်ကာ တားမြစ်ရေး လုပ်သင့်သည်ဟု အစီရင်ခံစာက တိုက်တွန်းထားသည်။
"အာရှဆင်တွေ အများဆုံးရှိတဲ့နေရာဖြစ်ဖို့ မြန်မာပြည်မှာ အလားအလာ ရှိနေတယ်။ ဒါပေမယ့်လည်း တရားမဝင် ဖမ်းဆီး သတ်ဖြတ်လို့ ဆင်တွေ မျိုးတုံးအောင် လုပ်နေတာတွေကို တွေ့ရတာ စိတ်မကောင်းစရာပါပဲ" ဟု သဘာဝပတ်ဝန်းကျင် ထိန်းသိမ်းစောင့်ရှောက်ရေး နိုင်ငံတကာ သမဂ္ဂ တွဲဖက်ဥက္ကဌ အာဂျေး ဒီဆိုင်းက ကြာသာပတေးနေ့က ဖြန့်ဝေသော သတင်းလွှာတွင် ဖော်ပြထားသည်။
"အိမ်နီးချင်းနိုင်ငံတွေအနေနဲ့ ဖမ်းလို့ရလာတဲ့ ဆင်တွေကို အသုံးပြုတဲ့ သူတို့ရဲ့ ပေါ်လစီကို လေးလေးနက်နက် ပြန်သုံးသပ်ဖို့ လိုနေပါတယ်။ ပြီးတော့ သဘာဝတောရိုင်းထွက် ပစ္စည်းတွေ ရောင်းဝယ်ဖောက်ကားတာ ရပ်ဖို့ ဥပဒေနဲ့ ကြပ်မတ်ဆောင်ရွက်သွားဖို့ လိုတယ်" ဟု ဒီဆိုင်းက ပြောသည်။
မဇ်ဈိမနှင့် ပြုလုပ်သော အင်တာဗျူးတခုတွင် ခရစ်က ဒေသဆိုင်ရာ အစိုးရများကို သတိပေးပြောကြားရာတွင် တောရိုင်း တိရစ္ဆာန်များကို ဥပဒေပြင်ပမှ ရောင်းဝယ်ဖောက်ကားမှု တားဆီးရေးအတွက် နည်းလမ်းတကျ ထိန်းချုပ်မှုမလုပ်လျှင် အကျိုးသက်ရောက်မှု ဆိုးဝါးနိုင်သည်ဟု ပါရှိသည်။
"အာရှက ဆင်တွေဆောင်ရှောက်ရေးမှာ အနှုတ်သဘော အကျိုးသက်ရောက်မှုတွေ ဖြစ်လာလိမ့်မယ်။ အာရှဆင်တွေမှာ အန္တရာယ် ကြုံတွေ့နေရပြီးသားဖြစ်တယ်" ဟု ခရစ်က ပြောသည်။
၂၀၀၆ ခုနှစ်တွင် ပြုလုပ်သော သုတေသနတခုအရ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် တောဆင်ကောင်ရေ ၄၀၀၀ မှ ၅၀၀၀ အထိ တွေ့ရှိနိုင်ပြီး အများစုမှာ ဗဟိုလွင်ပြင်ဒေသတွင် နေထိုင်ကျက်စားကြသည်ဟု အစီရင်ခံစာတွင် ပါရှိသည်။
မဇ္စျိမသတင်း
Thursday, December 11, 2008
မြန်မာဆင်များ မျိုးပြုန်းမည့်အန္တရာယ်ရင်ဆိုင်နေ
ကိုဝင်း၊ ၂၀၀၈ခုနှစ်၊ ဒီဇင်ဘာလ၊ ၁၁ရက်
ပြီးခဲ့သည့် ဆယ်စုနှစ်အတွင်း အာရှတိုက်ရှိဆင် အကောင်ရေ (၂၅၀) ခန့်ကို မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှ ပြည်ပသို့ တရားမဝင်ရောင်းချခဲ့ကြောင်း၊ အများစုကို နိုင်ငံခြားသား တောင်တက်ခရီးသွားလုပ်ငန်းအတွက် အိမ်နီးချင်း ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံသို့ဖြစ်ကြောင်း တောရိုင်း တိရစ္ဆာန်ရောင်းဝယ်မှုစောင့်ကြည့်ရေးအဖွဲ့ (TRAFFIC) ၏ ယမန်နေ့ထုတ် အစီရင်ခံစာတွင် ဖော်ပြသည်။
ထို့အပြင် TRAFFIC အဖွဲ့က မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအတွင်း၌ ရန်ကုန်၊ မန္တလေး၊ ကျိုက်ထို၊ တောင်ကြီး၊ ပဲခူး၊ မင်းတုန်း၊ မြစ်ကြီးနား၊ မုန်းလား၊ ဘုရားသုံးဆူ၊ တာချီလိတ်အပါအဝင် စျေးကွက် (၁၄) ခုနှင့် ထိုင်းနှင့် တရုတ်နိုင်ငံအတွင်း နယ်စပ်စျေးကွက် (၃) ခုတို့ကို လေ့လာခဲ့ရာ ဆင်စွယ် အစိတ်အပိုင်းနှင့်ပြုလုပ်ထားသော ပစ္စည်း (၉,၀၀၀) ကျော်နှင့် ဆင်စွယ်အရိုင်း (၁၆) ချောင်းကို တွေ့ရှိရသောကြောင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၌ ဆင်စွယ်တရားမဝင် ရောင်းဝယ် ရေးလုပ်ငန်းသည်လည်း ဆက်လက်ဖြစ်ပေါ်နေကြောင်း အစီရင်ခံစာက ထောက်ပြသည်။ ရောင်းချသူများက ပုံမှန်အားဖြင့် ဆင်စွယ်နှင့် ဆင်ခန္ဓာအစိတ်အပိုင်းကို ဝယ်လိုသူများ မြင်တွေ့နိုင်ရန် ပေါ်ပေါ်ထင်ထင်ပြသထားကြလေ့ရှိသည်။
သက်ရှိဆင်၊ ဆင်စွယ်နှင့် ဆင်ခန္ဓာအစိတ်အပိုင်းများကို မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှ အိမ်နီးချင်း ထိုင်းနှင့် တရုတ်နိုင်ငံများသို့ တရားမဝင် ရောင်းချနေခြင်းသည် သက်ဆိုင်ရာ ပြည်တွင်းဥပဒေနှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာတောရိုင်းတိရစ္ဆာန် ကာကွယ်ရေးသဘောတူညီမှု (CITES) ကို ချိုးဖောက်သည်မှာ ထင်ရှားကြောင်း TRAFFIC ၏ အစီရင်ခံစာတွင် ဖော်ပြထားသည်။
TRAFFIC အဖွဲ့ လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်ချမှတ်ရေး အကြီးတန်းအရာရှိ Chris Shepherd က ယခု အစီရင်ခံစာသည် မြန်မာနှင့် ၎င်း၏ အိမ်နီးချင်းနိုင်ငံများတွင် ဥပဒေစိုးမိုးရေး အရေးတကြီးလိုအပ်နေပြီး၊ နိုင်ငံတကာ သဘောတူညီချက်အပါအဝင် ၎င်းတို့၏ ကိုယ်ပိုင်ဥပဒေများကိုလည်း လေးစားမှုမရှိသည်ကို ပြသနေကြောင်း ပြောသည်။
“ဆင်အမနှင့် အရွယ်မရောက်သေးတဲ့ ဆင်ပေါက်ကလေးတွေကို အဓိကထားပြီး ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံမှာရှိတဲ့ နိုင်ငံခြားသားခရီးသွား လုပ်ငန်းတွေ တောင်တက်ခရီးစဉ်လုပ်ငန်းတွေမှာ အသုံးပြုဖို့ ဝယ်ချင်နေတာပါ၊ ပြီးတော့ ကျနော်တို့ သုတေသနလုပ်ငန်းတွေ လုပ်တဲ့အခါမှာ အဲဒီ ဆင်စွယ်နဲ့ ဆင်တွေကို တရား မဝင်ရောင်းဝယ်နေကြတဲ့နေရာမှာ အဂတိလိုက်စားမှုတွေ ပါဝင်ပတ်သက်နေတာကိုလည်း” ဟု Chris Shepherd ကပြောသည်။
မြန်မာနှင့် ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံမှ သက်ဆိုင်ရာအာဏာပိုင်များထံမှ နယ်စပ်ဖြတ်ကျော် ဆင်အရောင်းအဝယ်လုပ်ငန်းနှင့် ပတ်သက်၍ CITES (နိုင်ငံတကာတောရိုင်းတိရစ္ဆာန်ကာကွယ်ရေးသဘောတူညီမှု) ကို သေချာစေရေးဆောင်ရွက်နေသူများသို့ အစီရင်ခံ တင်ပြခြင်းများမရှိသော်လည်း မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ အချို့ဒေသများမှ ဆင်များပျောက်ဆုံးမှုများနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ ကုန်သည်များကို မေးမြန်းစစ်ဆေးမှုများရှိခဲ့သည်။
“ဆင်တွေပျောက်ဆုံးတယ်ဆိုတဲ့ သတင်းတွေထွက်ပေါ်နေတာရယ်၊ ဆင်စွယ်နဲ့ ဆင်ခန္ဓာအစိတ်အပိုင်းတွေကို စျေးကွက်ထဲမှာ နှစ်ပေါင်းများစွာ ရောင်းချလာတာကို ကြည့်ခြင်းအားဖြင့် ဒီတရားမဝင်ရောင်းဝယ်မှုဟာ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံက အာရှဆင်တွေအတွက် အန္တရာယ်ကျရောက်နေပြီဆိုတာ သိသာထင်ရှားနေပါတယ်” ဟု အစီရင်ခံစာကို ပူးတွဲရေးသားသူ Vincent Nijman ကပြောသည်။ အရှေ့တောင်အာရှနိုင်ငံများအတွင်း မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသည် ဆင်ကောင်ရေအများဆုံးပိုင်ဆိုင်ထားပြီး ပျမ်းမျှကောင်ရေ (၄) ထောင်နှင့် (၅) ထောင်အကြားရှိသည်ဟု အဆိုပါ အစီရင်ခံစာကဖော်ပြသည်။
ယခုအစီရင်ခံစာထွက်ပေါ်လာပြီးနောက် ဆင်နှင့် ဆင်စွယ်တရားမဝင်ရောင်းဝယ်မှုလုပ်ငန်းများကို နှိမ်နင်းနိုင်ရန် မြန်မာအာဏာပိုင်များအနေဖြင့် အိမ်နီးချင်း ထိုင်းနှင့် တရုတ်နိုင်ငံမှ ဥပဒေစိုးမိုးရေးလုပ်ငန်းတာဝန်ရှိသူများနှင့် နီးကပ်စွာ အတူတကွ လုပ်ဆောင်ရန် တိရစ္ဆာန်ရောင်းဝယ်မှုစောင့်ကြည့်ရေးအဖွဲ့ (TRAFFIC) နှင့် အခြားသဘာဝပတ်ဝန်းကျင် ထိန်းသိမ်းရေးအဖွဲ့ ကြီးဖြစ်သည့် (WWF) တို့က တောင်းဆိုလိုက်သည်။
အာရှဆင်ဆိုင်ရာကျွမ်းကျင်သူများအုပ်စု (IUCN) ၏ တွဲဖက်ဥက္ကဌ Ajay Desai ကလည်း “မြန်မာနိုင်ငံဟာ အာရှ ဆင်အများ ဆုံးရှိပြီး အရေးကြီးတဲ့အနေအထားမှာ ရှိနေပါပြီ။ အဲဒီဆင်တွေကို အခုလို တရားမဝင်ဖမ်းဆီး၊ သတ်ဖြတ်နေတဲ့အတွက် အဲဒီမှာ ရှိတဲ့ဆင်တွေ မျိုးပြုန်းတော့မယ့် အန္တရာယ်ကျရောက်လာနိုင်ပါတယ်။ မြန်မာ့ အိမ်နီးချင်းနိုင်ငံတွေအနေနဲ့ကလည်း ဆင်တွေရဲ့ လုပ်အားကို အသုံးချနေတဲ့ မှုဝါဒတွေကို အရေးတကြီး ပြန်သုံးသပ်ဖို့ လိုအပ်နေပါတယ်။ ပြီးတော့ တောရိုင်းတိရစ္ဆာန်ထွက် ပစ္စည်းတွေ ရောင်းဝယ်နေတာကိုလည်း ဥပဒေပြဌာန်းပြီး ရပ်သွားအောင် လုပ်ဖို့လိုနေပါတယ်” ဟုပြောသည်။
မြန်မာနှင့် ထိုင်းအပါအ၀င် အာဆီယံအဖွဲ့ဝင်နိုင်ငံများသည် ဒေသအတွင်း တောရိုင်းတိရစ္ဆာန်တရားမဝင်ရောင်းဝယ်မှုကို ကာကွယ် တားဆီးရန် ရည်ရွယ်၍ ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) ကို ၂၀၀၅ ခုတွင် တည်ထောင်ခဲ့ကြသည်။
ခေတ်ပြိုင် သတင်းဂျာနယ်
Friday, December 5, 2008
Firefox Users Targeted by Rare Piece of Malware (PC World)
Posted on Fri Dec 5, 2008 7:11AM EST
Researchers at BitDefender have discovered a new type of malicious software that collects passwords for banking sites but targets only Firefox users.
The malware, which BitDefender dubbed "Trojan.PWS.ChromeInject.A" sits in Firefox's add-ons folder, said Viorel Canja, the head of BitDefender's lab. The malware runs when Firefox is started.
The malware uses JavaScript to identify more than 100 financial and money transfer Web sites, including Barclays, Wachovia, Bank of America, and PayPal along with two dozen or so Italian and Spanish banks. When it recognizes a Web site, it will collect logins and passwords, forwarding that information to a server in Russia.
Firefox has been continually gaining market share against main competitor Internet Explorer since its debut four years ago, which may be one reason why malware authors are looking for new avenues to infect computers, Canja said.
Users could be infected with the Trojan either from a drive-by download, which can infect a PC by exploiting a vulnerability in a browser, or by being duped into downloading it, Canja said.
When it runs on a PC, it registers itself in Firefox's system files as "Greasemonkey," a well-known collection of scripts that add extra functionality to Web pages rendered by Firefox.
BitDefender has updated its products to detect it, and other vendors will likely follow suit quickly, Canja said. Users could avoid it by only downloading signed, verified software, but that's a measure that restricts the usability of a PC, he said.
The malware is not present in Mozilla's repository of add-ons, Canja said. Mozilla had taken steps to ensure that its official site hosting add-ons -- also called extensions -- are free from malware.
In May, Mozilla acknowledged that the Vietnamese language pack for Firefox contained a bit of unwanted code. Although widely reported as a virus, the language actually contained a line of HTML code that would cause users to view unwanted advertisements.
Mozilla now scans new add-ons for malware. However, those scans will only detect known threats, and there was no signature in the security software Mozilla was using at the time that could detect the code.
Mozilla said the code probably ended up in the language pack after the PC of its developer became infected. More than 16,000 people downloaded the language pack, but only about 1,000 people regularly use it.
After the incident, Mozilla said it would scan add-ons in its repository when antivirus signatures were updated.
PC World
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Deer gets revenge after hunter shoots him
Mon Dec 1, 8:13 pm ET
AP – A male whitetail deer in Knox, Pa., stands behind a doe in this Nov. 30, 1999 file photo. (AP Photo)
SEDALIA, Mo. – A hunter bagged a big buck on the second day of firearms season, but the kill caused him a lot of pain. Randy Goodman, 49, said he thought two well-placed shots with his .270-caliber rifle had killed the buck on Nov. 19. Goodman said the deer looked dead to him, but seconds later the nine-point, 240-pound animal came to life.
The buck rose up, knocked Goodman down and attacked him with his antlers in what the veteran hunter called "15 seconds of hell." The deer ran a short distance and went down, and died after Goodman fired two more shots.
Soon Goodman started feeling dizzy and noticed his vest was soaked in blood.
So he reached his truck and drove to a hospital, where he received seven staples in his scalp and was treated for a slight concussion and bruises.
AP Associated Press
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
11 girls die of poisoning at school in north China
Tue Dec 2, 5:23 am ET
BEIJING – Eleven girls died of carbon monoxide poisoning at a school in northern China's Shaanxi province, an education official said Tuesday evening. A news report said the girls had lit a fire to keep warm.
A dozen girls were found poisoned Tuesday morning at the Duiziliang Middle School in Yulin city, said an official with the Yulin Education Bureau, who gave her family name as Fan.
She said 11 girls were confirmed dead, with another being treated at a hospital.
Fan, reached by phone, said she had no further details. Telephone calls to Yulin's Public Security Bureau rang unanswered Tuesday evening.
The Xinhua News Agency said the girls died Monday after lighting the fire to keep warm. The report said the 12th girl was in serious condition.
Xinhua did not say if the room was a classroom or a dormitory.
Carbon monoxide detectors are not required in schools in China, though the Education Ministry last year asked schools that can afford them to install detectors if they burn coal for heating.
The Xinhua report also did not give the ages of the girls or other details. It said the provincial vice governor had arrived to help investigate the case.
AP Associated Press
Monday, December 1, 2008
Planets surround moon in unusual night sky
Star gazers look at the crescent moon below Jupiter (top) and Venus in Kathmandu December 1, 2008.
REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar (NEPAL)
A crescent moon (R) is seen with the planet Jupiter in the sky over Amman December 1, 2008. Astronomers and skygazers across the world are keeping watch on Monday night for a rare astronomical phenomenon as two of the brightest naked-eye planets, Venus and Jupiter, join a thin crescent moon to create a brief "unhappy face" in the sky. On Sunday night, Venus and Jupiter appeared closest together in an event known as "Planetary Conjunction".
REUTERS/Ali Jarekji (JORDAN)
Spectacular Sky Scene Monday Evening
Every once in a while, something will appear in the night sky that will attract the attention of even those who normally don't bother looking up. It's likely to be that way on Monday evening, Dec. 1.
A slender crescent moon, just 15-percent illuminated, will appear in very close proximity to the two brightest planets in our sky, Venus and Jupiter.
People who are unaware or have no advance notice will almost certainly wonder, as they cast a casual glance toward the moon on that night, what those two "large silvery stars" happen to be? Sometimes, such an occasion brings with it a sudden spike of phone calls to local planetariums, weather offices and even police precincts. Not a few of these calls excitedly inquire about "the UFOs" that are hovering in the vicinity of our natural satellite.
Very bright objects
Venus has adorned the southwestern twilight sky since late August. No other star or planet can come close to matching Venus in brilliance. During World War II, aircraft spotters sometimes mistook Venus for an enemy airplane. There were even cases in which Venus drew antiaircraft fire.
This winter, Venus is the unrivaled evening star that will soar from excellent to magnificent prominence in the southwest at nightfall. The interval by which it follows the Sun will increase from nearly three hours on Dec. 1 to almost four hours by Jan. 1. It's probably the first "star" you'll see coming out after sunset. In fact, if the air is very clear and the sky a good, deep blue, try looking for Venus shortly before sunset.
Jupiter starts December just above Venus and is moving in the opposite direction, dropping progressively lower each evening. By month's end Jupiter meets up with another planet – Mercury – but by then Jupiter is also descending deep into the glow of sunset. In January, Jupiter will be too close to the Sun to see; it's in conjunction with the Sun on Jan. 24.
Earthlit ball
A very close conjunction of the crescent moon and a bright star or planet can be an awe-inspiring naked-eye spectacle. The English poet, critic and philosopher, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) used just such a celestial sight as an ominous portent in his epic, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." In addition, there are juxtaposed crescent moon and star symbols that have appeared on the flags of many nations, including Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, Algeria, Mauritania, and Tunisia.
Also on Monday evening, you may be able to see the full globe of the moon, its darkened portion glowing with a bluish-gray hue interposed between the sunlit crescent and not much darker sky. This vision is sometimes called "the old moon in the young moon's arms." Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was the first to recognize it as what we now call "earthshine."
As seen from the moon, the Earth would loom in the sky some 3.7 times larger than the moon does for us. In addition, the land masses, the oceans and clouds make the Earth a far better reflector of sunlight as compared to the moon. In fact, the Earth's reflectivity varies as clouds, which appear far more brilliant than the land and seas, cover greater or lesser parts of the visible hemisphere. The result is that the Earth shines between 45 and 100 times more brightly than the moon.
The Earth also goes through phases, just as the moon does for us, although they are opposite from what we see from Earth. The term for this is called "complementary phases." On Nov. 27, for example, there was a new moon for us, but as seen from the surface of the moon that day, there appeared in the lunar sky a brilliant full Earth. A few nights later, as the sliver of a crescent moon begins to appear in our western twilight sky, its entire globe may be glimpsed.
Sunlight is responsible for the slender crescent, yet the remainder of the moon appears to shine with a dim blush-gray tone. That part is not receiving sunlight, but shines by virtue of reflected earthlight: the nearly full Earth illuminating the otherwise dark lunar landscape. So earthshine is really sunlight which is reflected off Earth to the moon and then reflected back to Earth.
Keeping it all in perspective
Keep in mind that this head-turning display of three celestial objects crowded together will be merely an illusion of perspective: the moon will be only about 251,400 miles (403,900 km) from Earth, while Venus is nearly 371 times farther away, at 93.2 million miles (149.67 million km). Meanwhile, Jupiter is almost 2,150 times farther away than our natural satellite at 540.3 million miles (869.0 million km).
Those using binoculars or a small telescope will certainly enjoy the almost three-dimensional aspect of the moon, but Venus will be rather disappointing appearing only as a brilliant blob of light, for right now, it's a small, featureless gibbous disk. That will change in the coming weeks, however, as Venus approaches Earth and the angle it makes between us and the Sun allows it to evolve into a "half-moon" phase in mid January, and a lovely crescent phase of its own during the latter part of February and March.
Jupiter on the other hand is a far more pleasing sight with its relatively large disk, cloud bands and its retinue of bright Galilean satellites. All four will be in view on Monday evening, with Callisto sitting alone on one side of Jupiter, Ganymede, Io and Europa will be on the other side. Io and Europa will in fact, appear very close to each other, separated by only about one-sixth the apparent width of Jupiter.
Venus 'eclipse' for Europe
As beautiful as the view of Venus, Jupiter and the moon will be from North America, an even more spectacular sight awaits those living in parts of Western Europe where the moon will pass in front of Venus.
Astronomers refer to this phenomenon as an "occultation," taken from the Latin word occultāre, which means "to conceal." This eye-catching sight will be visible in complete darkness across much of Eastern Europe. Farther west, Venus will disappear behind the dark part of the moon either during evening twilight or just before the Sun sets. When Venus emerges, it will look like a brightening jewel on the slender lunar crescent. For virtually all of Europe, the Sun will have set by then, the exception being southern Portugal (including Lisbon).
Such favorable circumstances are quite rare for any given location. For example, the last time London was treated to such a favorably placed Venus occultation such was back on October 7, 1961. And after 2008, there will not be another similarly favorable Venus occultation for the United Kingdom until January 10, 2032. So be sure to make the most of this upcoming opportunity. More detailed information, including maps of the occultation zone, as well as times for dozens of European cities, are here.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York.
- Original Story: Spectacular Sky Scene Monday Evening
Unlike is seen in Asia, the position of planets the crescent moon of the earth (top) and Venus (lower left) and Jupiter (lower right) provides a nearly upside down 'frown' in California Sunday night December 1, 2008. (Tharaphi)
A rare positioning of planets Venus (top left) and Jupiter (top right) and the crescent moon of the Earth provides a 'smiley' effect that captivated Asia Monday night Dec. 2, 2008.
(AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
