oy….
Category: Pacific Basin,
Melania Trump ‘mistook former female Australia foreign minister for partner’ | Daily Mail Online
Julie Bishop, who was Australia’s first female foreign minister and deputy leader of the Liberal Party, said the first lady made the mistake after President Donald Trump struck up a conversation with her partner David Panton.
…Melania, standing by, assumed David was the foreign minister and she said to me: “Julie, will you be coming to my ladies’ lunch tomorrow?”,’ Bishop said of the encounter at the UN General Assembly Leaders’ week in 2017.
Melania Trump ‘mistook former female Australia foreign minister for partner’ | Daily Mail Online
Damn the Trumps’ staff sucks. Sure, she should have known. She also should have had someone with her to help avoid gaffes like that. If she did have anyone there, they clearly weren’t of much use.
Ocean Cleanup Of Plastic Pollution In The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Breaks
But as Slat, now 24, recently discovered with the beta tester for his design, plastic occasionally drifts out of its U-shaped funnel. The other issue with the beta tester, called System 001, is that last week, a 60-feet-long end section broke off.
…”In principle, I think we are relatively close to getting it working,” Slat said in an interview Saturday with NPR’s Michel Martin. “It’s just that sometimes the plastic is also escaping again. Likely what we have to do is we have to speed up the system so that it constantly moves faster than the plastic.”
For the material failure, Slat said his team will probably try to locally reinforce the system to combat the problem of material fatigue.
“If you have a paper clip and you move that back and forward many times, essentially the material gets weaker,” he said. “That’s likely what has happened with material of the cleanup system.”
…He estimates that about 8 million metric tons of plastic go into the ocean each year — roughly the equivalent of one dump truck full of plastic every minute.
Ocean Cleanup Of Plastic Pollution In The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Breaks : NPR
hmmmm
Bones Of Famed British Explorer Found During Construction Of U.K. Train Line
Bones Of Famed British Explorer Found During Construction Of U.K. Train Line : NPR
How about calling him the first British person to circumnavigate Australia instead????
How might an Indigenous voice to Parliament work? Here’s some ideas from Nordic nations –
In 1987 came the Sami Act, which created a special elected body that would review “any matter that in the view of the parliament particularly affects the Sami people”.
The first Sami Parliament in Norway was opened two years later by his Majesty King Olav V.
…In the ’70s the Finnish Sami Parliament became one of the first of its kind in the world.
The 21-member board served as an elected body for Sami decision making.
However, unlike their Norwegian counterparts, the Finnish Sami were not granted political independence.
The Sami Parliament has instead functioned as an agency of the national parliament.
“It could only make papers, it has no real control of Sami policy areas,” Professor Lehtola says.
…While the established Sami parliamentary ‘voices’ of Scandinavia offer a representative passage denied to Indigenous people in Australia, in practice, the Sami still have much to fight for.
Consultation with Sami leaders is often legally required for development and environmental projects that impact Sami livelihood, but these obligations are not always honoured.
hmmm
Super Typhoon Yutu, ‘Strongest Storm Of 2018,’ Slams U.S. Pacific Territory
A massive typhoon slammed into a U.S. territory in the west Pacific, lashing the Northern Mariana Islands with gusts of Category 5 intensity Wednesday night local time. Super typhoon Yutu brought to bear maximum sustained winds of about 180 mph — much more powerful, in other words, than the historically powerful storm that hit Florida two weeks ago.
… The more than 50,000 people who live in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands faced a storm surge of up to 20 feet and rainfall of up to 10 inches in certain areas.
…”Devastating damage is expected. Collapse of some residential structures will put lives at risk. Airborne debris will cause extensive damage,” the service warned. “Persons … pets … and livestock struck by the wind-blown debris will be injured or killed.”
Super Typhoon Yutu, ‘Strongest Storm Of 2018,’ Slams U.S. Pacific Territory : NPR
Jeezus….
Ocean Cleanup steams out to sea in plastic pollution quest
The hope is that the vessel, the first of a planned fleet or 60 or more, can strain out the millions of pounds of plastic trash that collects in slow-moving ocean whirlpools called gyres, which can be hundreds of miles across.
…Currents and waves push trash into the machine’s center to collect it. Floating particles are captured by the net while the push of water against the net propels fish and other marine life under and beyond.
…The system is fitted with solar-powered lights and anti-collision systems to keep any stray ships from running into it, along with cameras, sensors and satellites that allow it to communicate with its creators.
…If all goes well, it will be towed out to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch nearly 1,400 miles off the West Coast, about halfway between California and Hawaii. A support vessel will fish out the collected plastic every few weeks, according to the Associated Press. The waste will then be transported to dry land for recycling.
Ocean Cleanup steams out to sea in plastic pollution quest
Yes, we need to reduce the plastic we use but unless that mythical day, this seems like a logical step in the right direction.
Australian governments concede Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘collapse’
The world’s climate change path means the Great Barrier Reef is headed for “collapse” according to a plan endorsed by state and federal governments that critics say turns a blind eye to Australia’s inadequate effort to cut carbon emissions.
…The comments depart starkly from previous official efforts to downplay damage wrought on the reef for fear of denting the tourism industry.
…It concedes that consecutive coral bleaching events and other stressors “have fundamentally changed the character of the reef”, which is one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet.
“Coral bleaching is projected to increase in frequency … those coral reefs that survive are expected to be less biodiverse than in the past,” the plan says.
Australian governments concede Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘collapse’
aggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Cockatoo identified in 13th Century European book
“The fact that a cockatoo reached Sicily during the 13th Century shows that merchants plying their trade to the north of Australia were part of a flourishing network that reached west to the Middle East and beyond,” said co-author Dr Heather Dalton, from the University of Melbourne.
…Dr Dalton said she believed that the cockatoo was taken from its original habitat to Sicily via Cairo in a journey lasting several years.
Cockatoo identified in 13th Century European book – BBC News
hmmmm
How 700,000-Year-Old Rhino Bones Could Change the Story of Human Migration
A 700,000-year-old butchered rhino carcass in the Philippines is rewriting the history of early human migration around the globe, and telling us more about a tool-using human relative that lived long before Homo sapiens ever existed.
Researchers recently unearthed a rhino skeleton on Kalinga, a province within the Philippine island of Luzon. The skeleton showed signs of deliberate butchering by stone tools. But when these cuts were made more than 700,000 years ago, there shouldn’t have been any tool-users around to butcher the animal—at least according to our old understanding.
…The most likely candidate to have made these rhino cuts is Homo erectus, an ancient Asian species of human that went extinct around 140,000 years ago. The tools used on the carcass seem to corroborate this theory.
But the study authors concede there is a problem with this hypothesis. The Philippines are a fairly isolated chain of islands in the Pacific that, at the time, would have been accessible only by boat. According to the paper, “it still seems too farfetched to suggest” that any early human relative could have made the journey. And yet, the butchered rhino is there.
…It also seems to predate all known watercraft, and Pobiner says, “the evidence from Kalinga also adds to the growing indication that whether intentionally or not, at least one pre-modern human species of hominin was able to cross sea barriers in the Middle Pleistocene.”
…Mysteries surround these early tool-using primates, ancestors to the species of human that still exists today. We don’t know exactly who they were, and we don’t know exactly how they got there. However, the early human hunters of the Philippines apparently enjoyed the taste of rhino.
How 700,000-Year-Old Rhino Bones Could Change the Story of Human Migration
Wild!
100 years on: Australians and British recapture Villers-Bretonneux
This is an edited version of a story first published in The Sydney Morning Herald on April 27, 1918
100 years on: Australians and British recapture Villers-Bretonneux
wild….
Trump’s bizarre claim that Obama ‘never got to land’ in the Philippines
Trump obviously earns Four Pinocchios. But the bigger question is: Doesn’t the president have staff who can point out to him that he keeps making a very foolish mistake?
Trump’s bizarre claim that Obama ‘never got to land’ in the Philippines – The Washington Post
right???
Thousands flee as Vanuatu volcano verges on eruption
More than 7,000 people have been moved to emergency shelters in Vanuatu as a volcano in the south Pacific Ocean archipelago threatens to erupt, government officials say.
Vanuatu, a cluster of more than 80 islands and 260,000 people, declared a state of emergency on Tuesday following signs the volcano – known as Monaro – is becoming increasingly active.
It is the second volcano to have caused an alert in the Asia-Pacific region at present.
More than 57,000 people have fled a volcano on the Indonesian island of Bali amid fears of an imminent eruption.
Thousands flee as Vanuatu volcano verges on eruption | Vanuatu News | Al Jazeera
Jeezus…
What our politics has lost with Metiria Turei’s resignation
Just over three weeks after making an emotional admission at the Greens conference, Metiria Turei has resigned as her party’s co-leader. Young Greens co-convener Meg Williams pays tribute.
What our politics has lost with Metiria Turei’s resignation | The Spinoff
Sigh….
Second Australian senator quits over dual citizenship
Australia’s first politician to breastfeed in parliament resigns due to her Canadian citizenship.
Second Australian senator quits over dual citizenship – BBC News
hmmm
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