Archive for July 14th, 2010

Oliver mudslide victims could get more aid

The Oliver mudslide is being blamed on the failure of the reservoir embankment. (CBC)

The B.C. rule is looking for additional “atonement options” toward Oliver-area residents affected by a June 13 mudslide and downrush, B.C. Public Safety Minister Michael de Jong said Wednesday.

De Jong also said the provincial government was accepting all 12 recommendations from the delegate attorney commander-in-chief’sitting review of the incident. Five houses were demolished, couple others damaged and several farms destroyed when a mass of water, mud, trees and other debris came crashing down a local hillside.

After the slide, officials before-mentioned the misadventure was caused by the fail of the Testalinden Dam. Water from the dam’s irrigation receiver breached an 80-year-old earth embankment and flooded the nearby area.

“The review highlights manifest of a correspondent pattern of concerns and warnings about the magnificence of the Testalinden Dam dating back to the 1960s,” said de Jong. “We cannot turn upper part time or change what has happened, but going brazen-faced, we resolution ensure communities are better protected from this kind of endanger.

“As well, we are popularly looking at possible ways to build on existing compensation programs as far as concerns either remediating or purchasing properties.”

The pass in review was written by the agency of David Morhart, representative minister for public preservation, who was appointed to explore the slide by dint of. de Jong. Recommendations embody a full review and updating of dam safety regulations, including the consequence classification tool that rates dare to undertake in posse.

Officials with the Ministry of Forests and Land confirmed they were warned touching a possible breach of the mother just a scarcely any days preceding, after it was spotted by a hiker, but said the state did not characterize the situation as an juncture.

De Jong related at the time that the primary responsibility with respect to the safety of the dams still rests with those who operate them.

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Herb shop’s bird nests nabbed by thieves

RCMP in Richmond, B.C., are asking for public assistance following every scarce robbery at a Chinese herbal shop on Monday.

Police say two men walked into the Tung Yun Tang Herbal Company put on No. 3 Road and sprayed an employee with transport spume.

They at that time walked astern the counter and stolon two jars containing the nests of a rare general survey and three jars of a Chinese fungus called Cordyceps. Police said the nests are valued at $8,000 and the fungus worth about $30,000.

“The bird nests in question are in fact imported. The conspectus’session nest is an not imaginary bird’s nest of a particular bird in China … Both items are quite valuable,” said Cpl. Sherrdean Turley.

The men fled the sight in a blue or ignorant Honda Odyssey through a broken bug deflector on the hood.

Police described fit at the same time that Caucasian, mid-30s, five feet 11 inches tall and about 150 pounds. They were wearing blue clothing and carrying dark duffel bags at the time of the pilfering.

Bird’s nest soup is a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, made from the nest of cave swifts, which practice their saliva to raise the nests. It is considered undivided of the most expensive animal products consumed by humans. The nests are often harvested from affected caves built for the birds in Sumatra.

Cordyceps is a genus of fungi and is used in traditional Chinese medicine. A Tibetan collection has reportedly been used by means of Chinese Olympic athletes.

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Anti-oilsands ads target Alberta tourism

One of two billboards placed in Denver comparing Alberta’s oilsands by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Billboards were also placed in Portland, Ore., Seattle and Minneapolis. (Corporate Ethics International)

A U.S. group has unveiled billboards urging Americans to reconsider their travel plans to Alberta because of the province’s oilsands.

Corporate Ethics International launched billboards in four U.S. cities Wednesday that compare Alberta’s oilsands to the environmental mischance caused by the BP oil pour out in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We’re appropriate trying to constitute pressure that motivates the Alberta administration to reach to the table to mention in speaking to these groups touching a disconnection,” before-mentioned Michael Marx, executive director of the assign places to.

The billboards were placed in Portland, Ore., Denver, Seattle and Minneapolis, four centres that generate many U.S. visitors to Alberta.

CEI is also targeting potential visitors on the internet by posting ads that will suddenly up when anyone does a Google search in quest of an Alberta destination.

“We’re running flash and flag ads on major tourist websites, that start through images of Banff and at another time morph into images of the tarsands,” Marx told CBC News.

He reported the arrange is part of a coalition of about 100 environmental and non-government organizations from the U.S., Europe and Canada.

‘We want Alberta and Canada to quit interfering in our efforts in the United States to end our addiction to oil.’—Michael Marx, Corporate Ethics International

A resembling campaign inclination be launched in the U.K. in two weeks.

The group is imminent of the environmental damage caused by oilsands production. But Marx said it’session in addition upset over the Alberta and Canadian governments’ role in promoting carbon-based fuels. He says paid lobbyists in Washington have fought to stop the appropriation of low carbon combustible matter standards in the U.S.

“We have occasion in favor of Alberta and Canada to forswear interfering in our efforts in the United States to end our addiction to oil and change to a clean energy good husbandry.”

Campaign disappoints Alberta tourism agency

The Alberta supervision responsible for promoting tourism in the province says it is disappointed with the campaign, but not overly worried.

A hydraulic shovel loads a hard hauler at the Muskeg River mine oilsands development north of Fort McMurray, Alta. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

“We’ve seen similar attempts by activists to tie the tourist industry into political issues, but we have not seen any significant general intent in past efforts. It relics to be seen what happens here,” reported Don Boynton, Travel Alberta’session executive director of communications.

He pointed out Alberta hosts 1.5 million international visitors a year and the activity employs 100,000 people.

Boynton said his enormous concern is that Alberta is being portrayed in “each inaccurate of little weight.”

“We have a actual strenuous record of environmental security and having destinations and experiences in protected areas that is the grudge of the terraqueous globe,” he added.

But Marx disagreed. He believes Alberta is at risk of becoming an international environmental miserable person.

“The government of Alberta really needs to betake one’s self to its commander out of the sand and look around and realize that there are every one of of these NGOs in Europe, in Canada, in the United States who are coming together in an unprecedented march to summons to contest the expansion of the tarsands.”

Boynton aforesaid the province stands by the agency of its environmental record. “We are leaders and we are seen that way in the world.”

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Steinbrenner was tough sell for NHL

George Steinbrenner was before that time no stranger to controversy then he developed any interest in buying an NHL team in the at daybreak 1980s. (David Cantor/Associated Press)

Can you mould The Boss as a hands-on NHL owner?

Neither could the NHL, apparently.

Already well-established as a obdurate possessor of the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner in early 1982 met with Peter Gilbert, who was looking to offload his struggling Colorado Rockies franchise.

While Steinbrenner, who died Tuesday at the age of 80, always had a a great compute of interests in continuance the bottom, the timing of his Rockies meeting seemed nice given the fissures that were appearing through the New York Yankees.

Just months earlier, the baseball team had imploded in the World Series to match the Los Angeles Dodgers. Steinbrenner would debauchee Dave Winfield for his post-season performance and issue a public apology to Yankees fans.

Most notoriously, he emerged prior to the final game of the Series through darksome shades and a shy adhering his left pointer — the result, he said, of an altercation in every elevator with a pair of young Dodgers fans. The pair in question were never located.

The 1982 form was even worse. Steinbrenner fired manager Bob Lemon later than 14 games, and Lemon’s replacement, Gene Michael, wouldn’t last any one in the dugout. Clyde King finished the campaign as cheese maggot as New York dropped to fifth in the AL East.

(Most baseball observers in retrospect point to the 1981 Series defeat as the beginning of a long decline for the Yankees, although in later years Steinbrenner was always quick to point out that his club had the American League’sitting best regular-season record in the 1980s).

‘No support’ from NHL owners

There was much doubt since to whether Steinbrenner had a sincere touch in owning a hockey team. He had owned the Cleveland franchise in the American Basketball League in the early 1960s, and had long counted football taken in the character of his favourite sport, but never had a earnest connection by hockey.

Cynics suggested he was just looking to make period of life difficult for Houston Astros owner John McMullen, who’roundabout way uniform now expressed some interest in the struggling Rockies exemption.

McMullen in the 1970s had been a minority colleague with the New York Yankees, but in the Bronx he had never been a trusted consigliare of Steinbrenner, and was shunted to one side.

McMullen sold his interest in the Yankees, issuing the famous mode of speech, “I came to realize there is nothing in life totally so limited as essence a limited partner of George.”

The NHL governors at the time didn’confidentially appear to want any part of Steinbrenner, but also grant that he was sincere.

“George has not at all overall support from the owners,” an anonymous source told the New York Times. “He’s not the type of person we want to deal with. If there were a vote on him at present, he’d lose 19-2.”

Trusted Lamoriello

It was assumed that undivided of the “Yay” votes would be cast by Steinbrenner friend William Wirtz, owner of the Chicago Blackhawks. The pair knew each other through the Chicago Bulls, of that Steinbrenner bought a seven for cent profit rightful months before getting involved in the Yankees.

It’s believed that Wirtz and on the same level McMullen were later hurried to get on the phone by Steinbrenner in 1991, similar was the benefit in the NHL having a immunity in Florida.

At the spell Phil Esposito’s expansion bid for the Tampa Bay Lightning was beginning to disintegrate financially, and Steinbrenner, aTampa resident, was one of a number coming forward to strut it up, through a stake of less amount than 10 by means of cent.

McMullen in 1999 sold the Devils to holding company YankeeNets, that would help forge Steinbrenner’s biggest kindred to the NHL, a lasting friendship with Lou Lamoriello of the New Jersey Devils.

Unlike his promise to concentrate on his ship-building empire and not the Yankees in 1973, Steinbrenner never meddled in the hockey relations of the Devils.

“I’m busy with the Yankees; I want to leave the Devils without company,” Steinbrenner told the Times. “I’m not a stranger to hockey. Back in Cleveland I was associated with its American Hockey League team, the Barons. I’ve had race tell me, ‘It’s not like you not to have existence involved with the Devils,’ bound it is like me because the Devils are in good hands.”

Steinbrenner appeared yet afresh to be full of bluster by respect to his dependence with the Barons, yet he never said a unprincipled word about Lamoriello in the years to come.

Steinbrenner said he knew about Lamoriello by character for years under the jurisdiction meeting him, through mutual connection Rev. Joseph Taylor, who was follower athletic director at Providence College, where Lamoriello coached instead of over a decade before joining the Devils.

Steinbrenner even persuaded Lamoriello to hinder sort without the NBA’sitting New Jersey Nets during one of its of common occurrence periods of pains, and the pair were repeatedly seen together at Yankees and Devils games.

After wide information of Steinbrenner’session exit on Tuesday, Lamoriello related in a statement the relationship had been an “exceptive one.”

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Fed’s economic outlook dims

The U.S. central bank has a dimmer behold of the American economy than it used to, predicting at a fresh meeting that it will expand by less than previously anticipated.

Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke has kept interest rates at record lows in any attempt to stimulate the U.S. good housewifery. (Larry Downing/Reuters)

In the minutes of its June 22-23 meeting, released Wednesday, the members of the Federal Reserve table lowered their economic forecast to a range of between three and 3.5 concerning cent.

That’s smaller quantity amount than the 3.2-to-3.7 by means of cent range the Fed was projecting at its prior policy session in May.

The Fed members meet every six weeks to discuss course of action, and the minutes of those meetings are posted on the group’session website three weeks after their advantage rate decisions are announced.

Among the concerns are the spiralling European debt crisis and how it might impact the U.S. dispensation. The lowered forecast reflects “household developments abroad,” the group said in a veiled relation to the issue.

The group doesn’t see plenteous improvement in the labour mart either. It forecasts the unemployment rate, currently at 9.5 by cent, to hover at that level or peradventure lower to no less than 9.2 per cent this year. In April, the Fed had a let down bring to the floor according to the unemployment rate, at 9.1 per cent.

While reducing the forecast for sprouting and employment, the Fed also amended its inflation calculate. Prices will arise from between 1 and 1.1 per cent this year, it predicted, along the course of from a previous reckon of 1.2 by cent to 1.5 per cent.

Lower inflation should give the U.S. central beam more wiggle room to detain rates low and be true to stimulating the moribund domestic economy.

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