Thursday, December 2, 2021

In a talk made to officials at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Workers’ Party of Korea held on Wednesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned officials of a coming “very giant struggle” in the economic field, reported Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun. Present at the meeting, which was held in the headquarters building of the Central Committee, were high-ranking party members and military officials, including Party Secretariat Secretary Jo Yong-won and Premier Kim Tok-hun.

The meeting, which had been convened to discuss details on the upcoming fourth Plenary Meeting of the eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), later released its resolution on said issue, with the last third of December being the chosen time frame for the Plenary Meeting and a review of Party work having been placed on the agenda, among other subjects.

At the Politburo meeting, Kim Jong Un said that “the successes registered by us show that the overall affairs that had been planned to lay a foundation for the economic development of the country and the improvement of people’s living standard have been vigorously pushed forward”, praising successes made in the agricultural and construction fields.

Kim followed by saying that “next year will be an important one as we should wage a very giant struggle as much as we did this year”, and that plans made for next year should “be dynamic, onward, scientific and detailed, and consolidate the foundation for implementing the five-year plan.”

North Korea’s economy has suffered as a result of various factors over the last two years, with a combination of COVID-19 border closures and heavier sanctions topping off a typhoon and heavy flooding. According to Al Jazeera, UN agencies are reporting food and electricity shortages which have been worsened by economic sanctions.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

On Saturday, the Trump Tower, in Midtown, New York City, caught fire shortly before 18:00 EST (2200 UTC) on the 50th floor, claiming the life of a 67-year-old resident, Todd Brassner, who lived in apartment 50C. All other residents were evacuated without incident. During the fire, six firefighters received non-life-threatening burns and other minor injuries. Neither US President Donald Trump nor the First Family were in the building at the time of the fire.

The high-end Fifth Avenue address is the personal residence of President Donald Trump, whose family occupies the top three stories of the 58-story building. The US Secret Service maintains a constant security presence inside the building with the New York City Police Department guarding a hard perimeter, intended to stop vehicular attacks, and a soft perimeter, intended for on-foot attacks.

The four-alarm fire required 200 firemen, extra police, and paramedics. At 20:00 EST (0000 UTC Sunday), the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) declared the fire was under control. Trump tweeted, “Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!” This is the second fire at Trump Tower since the election; previously on January 8, a fire was caused by an electrical malfunction in a cooling tower on the roof. Three FDNY firefighters received minor injuries, and all residents and office workers evacuated without incident on that occasion.

Trump Tower provides a number of unique problems never before encountered by the Secret Service. Never has a US President’s personal residence been inside a skyscraper or in a densely populated area like Midtown. The security measures have disrupted vehicular and pedestrian traffic requiring time consuming detours and delaying emergency response.

The New York Fire Code did not mandate sprinkler systems at the time Trump Tower was built in 1983, which might have reduced the size and severity of the fire had they been present. The 50th-floor apartment was, according to FDNY Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro, “[T]he apartment was virtually, entirely on fire.” The Secret Service monitors all the fire alarms in the building but it took time to find the source of the thick black smoke emanating from the fire. Secret Service Agents escorted the firefighters throughout the building, including the Trump residence.

Brassner, the sole casualty, was unconscious when firefighters pulled him out of apartment 50C. He was transported to Mount Sinai Roosevelt Hospital. Originally listed as critical, he was pronounced dead sometime during the night. Brassner, guitar collector, was acquainted with artist Andy Warhol and was acknowledged in Warhol’s 1989 autobiography, The Andy Warhol Diaries. The cause of the fire is unknown, with investigations into Brassner’s death and the emergency response ongoing. Currently, the Secret Service leads the investigation.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Bruce, Canberra — This past week, an overstocked Australian Opals, the women’s national basketball team, prepared for the 2012 Olympic Games in London with a weeklong training camp at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) to be used to help narrow the nineteen member Opals squad down to the twelve that go to the Games, and provide players who rarely play together an extended period of time to play together in order to improve on court dynamics.

Camp started on Sunday, with players arriving from hometowns around Australia including Cairns, MacKay, Gladstone, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Melbourne.

The defending champions, the United States women’s national basketball team, are perceived as the Australian Opals’ main competitors. In the last three Olympic Games the Opals got silver medals. In each of these cases the United States got first place. Coach Carrie Graf said “thinking about the US too soon in inappropriate”, “Our focus is first and foremost, game by game winning our pool”. Amongst the Australian Opals’ competitors in the pool are Brazil, Russia, and Great Britain. Carrie Graf said Great Britain “will put up a fight on home turf” but there is a “world class [AIS] facility” and “world class medical support staff” supporting the team.

Australian Opal player Penny Taylor recently suffered injury from a torn anterior cruciate ligament, meaning she cannot play Olympics this year. In regards to the situation player Lauren Jackson, who is going into her fourth Olympics, said “you would never wish that upon anybody.” She says as a team they have to “move on, move through that” and “come together” to pick up their offence and defense. Despite the loss of one of their key players she says “we definitely have the talent there” and the team is all “on the same page.” She feels “pretty confident” and speaks of “very exciting” times ahead. Jenna O’Hea is going into her first Olympics with the team. She is still “pinching” herself and says she is taking it “day by day”.

A typical day at the camp might start with a 7.00am – 8.30am breakfast at the AIS Dining hall, before one and a half or two hours of court, gym, or swimming training. The middle of each day might consist of media meetings, medical checks, team meetings, and time to practise shooting. Around 12.00pm, the players meet to eat lunch and recover from the morning. The afternoon typically consists of more training, and some scrimmage games. Players usually finish around 7.00pm for dinner, and perhaps a massage.

The nineteen players in attendance this week at training camp were Suzy Batkovic, Abby Bishop, Elizabeth Cambage, Rohanee Cox, Cayla Francis, Kristi Harrower, Laura Hodges, Natalie Hurst, Lauren Jackson, Rachel Jarry, Kathleen MacLeod, Jenna O’Hea, Samantha Richards, Jennifer Screen, Belinda Snell, Marianna Tolo, Kristen Veal, Carly Wilson, and Hanna Zavecz. Basketball Australia has named fifteen players that are to attend the second phase of the camp: Suzy Batkovic, Abby Bishop, Elizabeth Cambage, Kristi Harrower, Laura Hodges, Lauren Jackson, Rachel Jarry, Kathleen MacLeod, Jenna O’Hea, Erin Phillips, Samantha Richards, Jennifer Screen, Belinda Snell, Marianna Tolo, and Hanna Zavecz.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Mirek Topolanek, the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic and the head of the European Union, called United States President Barack Obama’s plan to spend almost US$2 trillion to revive the country’s faltering economy a “road to hell”.

“The US treasury secretary talks about permanent action and we at our [EU summit] were quite alarmed by that. He talks about an extensive US stimulus campaign. All of these steps are the road to hell,” ^{((translated from Czech))Czech language: ?} he said, warning that the US’s massive bailouts could risk destabilising financial markets worldwide. He urged other EU governments to avoid making similar plans.

The remarks were made during Topolanek’s report to Members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France on Wednesday.

The comments are in sharp contrast to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown‘s speech to the European Parliament on Tuesday, in which he spoke of a “new era” of cooperation in the ongoing global recession between the United States and Europe.

“Never in recent years have we had an American leadership so keen at all levels to cooperate with Europe on financial stability, climate change, security and development,” Brown said Tuesday.

Mirek Topolanek has become a lame duck prime minister after he was ousted in a vote of no confidence in his government in Prague late Tuesday.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The 6th annual RoboGames, a robot competition that takes place in the United States, was held this month with 403 robots from 18 different parts of the globe competing in the categories of combat, sumo, robo-one/androids, open, hockey, art bots and junior league.

This year’s medals went to the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Brazil, India, Canada, Indonesia, South Korea and Russia (see table below). Other participants were Australia, Austria, Colombia, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iran, Japan, Peru and Taiwan.

Although the host country carried off most of the medals, visiting countries stood out at some events, like Mexico at 1 lb autonomous combat, 500 g autonomous sumo, 100 g autonomous sumo and autonomous line follower, Brazil at 3kg sumo (both autonomous and radio-controlled), and the United Kingdom in the “best of show” and “walker challenge” modalities.

“Taking part gave us the opportunity to test our knowledge against students from other nations, and proved that we are at the same level or better than other students from famous schools”, said Mexico’s National Polytechnic Institute student Erick Rodríguez who, along with his fellow team member Rogelio Baeza, took gold in the autonomous line follower event.

RoboGames, previously ROBOlympics, holds the Guinness Record for “world’s largest robot competition”. It was founded in 2004 by David Calkins to help robot builders exchange ideas and learn from each other.

Friday, January 8, 2010

With violence against foreigners escalating daily, and after being deluged with various threats and demands from al-Shabaab, a radical Islamic militant group with ties to al-Qaeda, the United Nations World Food Programme announced on Tuesday that, as of the end of this week, they are going to suspend all of their operations within southern Somalia—including the distribution of desperately needed food aid to Somali civilians. This is now the third humanitarian agency, after CARE International and Doctors Without Borders, to evacuate from the war-torn nation.

The pull out, which will include the closing down of all UN offices and the withdrawal of all local staff, is going to effect over one million Somalis—many of whom relay on this food program for their daily meals.

When asked by the New York Times to further explain the UN’s decision, Peter Smerdon, a spokesperson for the program, said via telephone from Nairobi, Kenya, “In the past few weeks there has been a harder line of unacceptable demands and conditions set by armed groups (such as al-Shabaab) in these areas. We sadly had to make the decision to pull our staff out.”

Smerdon also cited the fact that over forty aid workers have been killed between January 2008 and September 2009, and that four volunteers still remain in the hands of their captors.

Furthermore, when asked how this move by the UN will effect the Somali people, Smerdon said simply, “People will go hungry…you could see malnutrition rates rising [as a result].” When asked by a British newspaper, The Morning Star, the same question, another program representative, Emilia Casella, conveyed like sentiments, “[Those] dependent on food assistance in southern Somalia face a situation that is particularly dire.”

In a nation that—due to civil war—has not had a functioning government in over two decades, Islamic extremists groups—such as al-Shabaab—as well as various warlords and pirate gangs control most of the Horn of Africa nation, except for its besieged capital, Mogadishu, which is protected by African Union and NATO troops in addition to UN peacekeepers.

According to the UN, al-Shabaab—which has direct influence over the area that is going to be effected—presented their offices with numerous lists of demands. Among their demands was that the UN pay Shabaab a $20,000 protection fee every six months, seek Shabaab approval for all their projects, fire their entire female staff, and run their operations according to the militant group’s schedule.

When asked by The Associated Press about the UN’s decision to leave southern Somalia—including his own town of Jilib—Somali civilian and father of eight children, Abdullahi Awnur, said that al-Shabaab is responsible for driving the UN food program away, and that what they are doing is “indirect[ly] killing” innocent people.

Awnur went on to say, “We have been forced to flee from our houses and depend on [UN] food aid, and now that it is finished, that means [al-Shabaab] here does not want us to live.”

Despite all that has been said, al-Shabaab spokesperson, Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage, told New York Times reporters that he found these claims to be “baseless” in their origins. He continued by stating that, “All we (al-Shabaab) ordered them (the UN) was to buy food from Somali farmers and distribute it. They (the UN) do not want to do that, and because of that, they have made this very ridiculous justification.” Nevertheless, the UN has noted that even when harvests were good, Somali farmers are only able to supply 30-40% of the food needed to sustain the bulk of the country’s population.

“[Somalia] has been described as the most complex emergency in the world, and perhaps the most dangerous to operate in. However, the world is not hearing this,” say David Gilmour director of CARE International’s Somali branch.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

According to reports from officials, at least sixteen militants were killed in Pakistan earlier today when suspected US drone attacks struck a village in the North Waziristan region, along the border with Afghanistan.

The drones hit suspected fighters’ hideouts, as well as a training centre, authorities said. According to the Al Jazeera news agency, local residents were recovering dead bodies and wounded people out of the rubble.

“Up to eight US drones fired some 18 missiles at multiple militant targets in Dattakhel village,” commented a police official to the Agence France-Presse news agency; “at least 16 militants were killed in the missile strikes.”

Pakistan’s government condemns the drone strikes, which have been increasingly frequent recently; however, US authorities claim the attacks have killed several high-ranking members of rebel groups, and are essential to protect soldiers in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The US government does not officially confirm the strikes; however, their troops in Afghanistan are the only known group in the area that uses unmanned drones that can fire missiles.