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Friday, March 28, 2008

2008 Taipei International Cycle Show (Taipei Cycle) & Taipei International Sporting Goods Show (TaiSPO) not only did a best reunion with conjunctions of the launch of Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition and the concurrent cycling race of 2008 Tour de Taiwan but also provide opportunities and benefits for sporting goods, bicycle, and athlete sports industries to establish the basis of the sourcing center in Asia and notabilities on the international cycling race.

Although the Taipei cycle was split from the TaiSPO since 1988, but the trends of sporting good industry in Taiwan changed rapidly and multiply because of modern people’s lifestyles and habits. After the “TaiSPO Innovation Award” was established since 2005, the fitness and leisure industries became popular stars as several international buyers respected on lifestyle and health.

For example, some participants participated Taipei Cycle and TaiSPO with different product lines to do several marketing on bicycle and fitness equipments, this also echoed the “Three New Movements” proposed by Giant Co., Ltd. to make a simple bicycle with multiple applications and functions. As of those facts above, Wikinews Journalist Rico Shen interviewed Ideal Bike Corporation and Gary Silva, designer of “3G Steeper” to find out the possibilities on the optimizations between two elements, fitness and bicycle.

Friday, April 9, 2010

British Airways (BA) and the Spanish airline Iberia have signed a merger deal, which will create one of the largest air carrier groups in the world.

The two announced the merger yesterday, and said that the deal, which has been expected for a long time, is to be implemented by the end of 2010. The move will make a group with a market value of US$8 billion. The deal has been negotiated since July 2008.

Under the plan, both companies keep their own brands and operations, but will be owned by International Airlines Group, a new holding company. It will be listed in London, but taxed in Spain.

The airlines believe the merger will save $530 million annually. In February, BA reported a loss of $102.4 million for the final three quarters of 2009, whilst Iberia posted an operating loss of $629 million.

Meanwhile, investors in BA will receive an IAG share for every BA share they own, and stockholders in Iberia 1.0205 shares for each share in the Spanish airline; thus, BA shareholders will take 55% of IAG.

“The merged company will provide customers with a larger combined network,” commented BA chief executive Willie Walsh. “It will also have greater potential for further growth by optimising the dual hubs of London and Madrid and providing continued investment in new products and services.”

Meanwhile, Iberia chief executive Antonio Vázquez remarked: “This is an important step in creating one of the world’s leading global airlines that will be better equipped to compete with other major airlines and participate in future industry consolidation.”

Independent aviation specialist James Halstead said he believed the merger was necessary for BA to remain competitive amongst other European air carriers. “BA’s unique position at Heathrow could help it survive for a short while, but in the long run it needs more than just Heathrow. The main point of the Iberia deal is to be able to cut costs and put the combined company in the position that Air France-KLM and Lufthansa are already in,” he said, quoted by The Independent.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Pakistani officials have reported that vehicles supplying NATO forces in Afghanistan have been set on fire by suspected militants. The attack occurred in the northwestern city of Peshawar which lies on Pakistan’s North-Western frontier at 0230 local time.

Sources claim that more than 250 gunmen using rockets, grenades and AK-47s overpowered the guards setting the Humvees on fire. The Pakistani officials claim that 96 trucks, 70 Humvees and 6 containers were destroyed.

In November this year, 12 lorries carrying Humvees were captured by the militants in the famous Khyber Pass. The convoy was also carrying food and aid to the NATO forces in Afghanistan.

May 12, 2005

The Mozilla Foundation have released version 1.0.4 of their popular Firefox browser, which fixes the two major problems discovered earlier this week.

The new version fixes no less than six security flaws, including the two ‘extremely critical’ flaws. Other fixes include one which prevents another method of running code without permission on a user’s computer.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005Volunteers began a 60 day bed-rest marathon on March 19 to study simulated weightlessness effects on women astronauts. The study, Women International Space Simulation for Exploration(WISE), is conducted at the MEDES Space Clinic in Toulouse, France.

The 12 women, selected from 1600 applicants hailing from France,Great Britain, Germany, Finland, The Netherlands, Poland and the Czech Republic began the study after a 20 day screening for baseline comparison data as the study progressed.

The women will conduct all activities from eating, bathing, and reading while lying in hospital beds tilted headfirst at a six degree angle. This particular position, called head-down tilt bed rest was determined from previous studies to remove the vertical load of gravity on the body, inducing changes similar to what astronauts in a genuine weightless environment experience [1].

Long term exposure to weightlessness creates a number of physiological and psychological problems in astronauts such as:

• Reduced capacity for physical exertion
• Muscle atrophy
• Affects of confinement and isolation
• Impaired circulatory function

A total of 24 women will participate in the study. A second group of 12 will join in September.

Three groups of eight women each will be studied over the course of the two campaigns of bed rest. One group will serve as a control, receiving no specific treatments, the second will exercise, while the third will receive nutritional supplements.

The study is designed to fill in gaps of knowledge on the differences between men and women during extended weightlessness. It also aims to develop countermeasures for reducing the debilitating effects of long spaceflights.

Participating agencies in the study include the European Space Agency, NASA, the French Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

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Monday, May 23, 2011

A tornado touched down yesterday in Joplin, Missouri, causing widespread damage. At least 89 were killed.

The path of the tornado was reported to be from one half to three quarters of a mile wide. City spokeswoman Lynn Onstot estimated the path to be nearly four miles long; Jasper County emergency management director Keith Stammer put its length around six miles.

Witnesses described entire blocks of buildings destroyed. Steve Runnels of the National Weather Service said “We have reports of significant structural damage to strong buildings. Automobiles have been flipped, bark was stripped off trees.”

Among the properties damaged was a local hospital, St. John’s Regional Medical Center. Some patients were hurt, and all were evacuated to other regional hospitals. The local high school, Joplin High School, was also hit. Describing the damage, its principal, Kerry Sachetta, said “You see pictures of World War II, the devastation and all that with the bombing. That’s really what it looked like. I couldn’t even make out the side of the building.”

Joplin has a population of about 50,000.

President Barack Obama has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support state and local efforts in response and recovery. He issued a statement with condolences to the families of victims.

Saturday, June 11, 2005

A House subcommittee voted Thursday to sharply reduce the federal government’s financial spending for Fiscal Year ’06, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help produce such shows as Sesame Street and Arthur.

The spending cutbacks far exceeded even those requested by the White House. Among initiatives slated for reduction are $39 million for conversion to digital programming and $50 million for upgrading PBS’s aging satellite technology.

The subcommittee also acted to eliminate federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a body created by Congress to pass funds on to public broadcasters. The CPB would see a 25 percent reduction in next year’s budget, down from $400 million to $300 million, funds that currently account for 14.9% of all public broadcasting revenues[1].

Ideological concerns over publicly-financed content have recently become a point of contention for the Republican-controlled CPB. The day after the new budget was approved, CNN obtained an internal memo by NPR’s executive vice president Ken Stern that blamed the cuts on “recent public turbulence caused by CPB chairman Ken Tomlinson’s irresponsible attacks on public broadcasting.” Stern’s memo also told staffers the cut would not hurt NPR directly because it receives little direct support from the CPB. Instead, he emphasized, smaller local stations that rely upon federal dollars are most likely to be affected, which could in turn take a bite out of regular dues and fees, NPR’s largest revenue source.

Under the budget, the Ready to Learn program’s $23 million appropriation for children’s shows is rescinded in its entirety. John Lawson, president of the Association of Public Television Stations, said the cut was retribution for an episode of “Postcards From Buster” featuring a pair of lesbian parents from Vermont. A spokesman for the Appropriations Committee, John Scofield, denied the claim.

“Ready to Learn was one of more than 50 programs terminated in the spending bill,” he told the New York Times. “It might be a nice program to do, but not in a flat budget with large budget deficits. We felt the same way about 49 other programs.”

Overall, the cuts would signal the most dramatic cutback of public broadcasting since Congress created the CPB in 1967. The spending bill is expected to pass the Appropriations Committee and the House, but final legislation will be negotiated with the Senate.