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Saturday, December 15, 2007

2007 Taipei International Travel Fair (Taipei ITF), supported by governments with new premiums promoted by Executive Yuan in the future, started with a great new scale at December 14 to 17. In the opening morning yesterday, governmental people and ambassadors from several countries including Taiwan successively visited this show.

The show organizer, Taiwan Visitors Association (TVA), held 2 opening ceremonies for Cross-Strait Pavilion and the main show. In the side of Cross-Strait, several teams performed traditional entertainment shows like “Bian Lian” (Face-Changing) and Martial Arts of Shaolin Monastery (In Chinese: Shaolin Kungfu) successively at press conference and welcome reception yesterday and opening ceremony today. Participants from China and Taiwan hoped the relation from Cross-Strait can be improved with tourism industry.

In the main opening ceremony, Premier of the Republic of China Chun-hsiung Chang not only announced the premiums of “2008-2009 Visit Taiwan Year” but also said: “We (the Executive Yuan) will still encourage foreign visitors visit Taiwan and also provide premiums for groups with a charter airline. with our ‘2008-2009 Visit Taiwan Year’ in the future”.

Not only Chun-hsiung Chang, Minister of Transportation and Communications Duei Tsai, Commissioner of Tourism Bureau of MOTC Janice Lai, and the current President of Palau Thomas Esang Remengesau, Jr. visited this show. Governments in several divisions participated in this show to showcase traditional cultures from several divisions with unlimited potentials on tourism industry in Taiwan.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Annabel Goldie, Scottish Conservative Party leader from 2005 to 2011, has announced she will stand down as an MSP at the next elections in 2016. Goldie, who has been an MSP for the West Scotland (previously West of Scotland) electoral region since the Scottish Parliament’s formation in 1999, said she intends to focus on her role in the House of Lords, where she has been a peer since 2013.File:Annabel Goldie.jpg

In a statement today, Goldie said leading the party was an “enormous honour” for her. She also said: “It has afforded me both satisfaction and pleasure to serve my constituents and to serve the parliament and I will look back with great happiness at my time as an MSP. I am grateful to friends and colleagues from all parties for their support. Sometimes we found common ground, sometimes we disagreed but never I hope with rancour nor disrespect. Politics is a rough trade but we have built a strong parliament in Scotland of which we can all be rightly proud.” She said because of Ruth Davidson, her successor as Scottish Conservative leader, the party is now “in fine fettle and stands a great chance of making real progress in the years ahead,” concluding by saying: “I look forward to continuing to work as part of that effort in the House of Lords in the years to come.”

Davidson responded to the news by calling Goldie an “unstoppable force”, adding: “She has been an inspiration to a whole generation of Scottish Conservatives, and she has been a tremendous mentor, support and friend to me. In Holyrood, she has fostered both affection and respect from all members – regardless of their political affiliation – and her retirement from the Scottish Parliament will leave an Annabel-sized hole which won’t ever quite be filled. She is unique.” Meanwhile, David Cameron, UK Conservative leader and UK Prime Minister, said: “Annabel is one of those rare breeds in Scottish politics, somebody known by her first name alone. When she was Scottish Conservative leader, I valued her sage advice. She has been a towering strength to our party in Scotland, a doughty debater in the TV studios and Scottish Parliament and has one of the sharpest wits around. I wish her a long and happy retirement after 17 years unstinting service at Holyrood – but look forward to seeing her on the red benches of the Lords for years to come.”

Goldie, the Scottish Conservatives’ first ever female leader, was elected unopposed. She took up the role in the aftermath of David McLetchie’s resignation from the role in an expenses usage controversy and subsequent resignation of Brian Monteith from his Conservative whip role in the Scottish Parliament for briefing the media against him. Meanwhile, as Scottish Conservatives won 18 seats in the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and 2003, the party had been less successful in UK general elections in Scotland; Conservatives went up from zero out of a possible 72 UK MPs in Scotland in 1997 to one in 2001. This led to Goldie remarking in her inaugural speech in 2005 that: “The wheels are back on the wagon – and I’m the nag hitched up to tow it.” She also said: “The party is still way ahead of where it was in 1997. And my first task is to take it forward to 2007.” However, under Goldie’s leadership, the number of seats the Scottish Conservatives won in the Scottish Parliament slightly decreased from 18 in 2003 to 17 in 2007 and to 15 in 2011. At the same time, the number of Conservative MPs stood at one out of a possible 59 after the 2010 UK general election.

In the aforementioned 2005 speech, she also said the party could be trusted with devolution in Scotland, adding: “making devolution work better means real devolution: not the lumbering and cripplingly expensive array of government departments, government advisers, consultants, quangos, quasi-quangos and agencies with all their expensive appendages, but devolving down to people and their communities, their right to make their own decisions about their lives, how for example they procure healthcare and how they educate their children.” Goldie would go on to sit on the advisory board for the Smith Commission, which was set up to examine which further political powers should be devolved to Scotland following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. More recently, Goldie supported a reduction in the voting age for Scottish Parliament elections from 18 to 16 in a vote earlier this month, commenting: “I think it is an opportunity for them to continue their high level of engagement in topical affairs that we saw with the independence referendum.”

Goldie, a member of the Salvation Army’s West of Scotland Advisory Board and a Church of Scotland elder, is not the only Scottish Conservative MSP intending to stand down in 2016. Mary Scanlon, Gavin Brown, Alex Fergusson and Nanette Milne all reportedly intend to leave the Scottish Parliament next year.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

The new book Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports, by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams of The San Francisco Chronicle, is being released today. The authors not only implicate professional baseball celebrity Barry Bonds in the use of performance-enhancing drugs, but also say Gary Sheffield received human growth hormone and testosterone from Greg Anderson, Bonds’s personal trainer.

The book goes on to claim that Jason Giambi also took performance-enhancing drugs from Anderson. Bonds continues to insist that he did not realize his trainer was giving him steriods. He claimed in his grand jury testimony that he thought he was receiving flaxseed oil and an arthritis salve. Sheffield’s response to the claims was quite simple: when asked if the allegations made against him were true, his response was “Nope.”

Despite the book’s accusations of Sheffield and Giambi, it centers around Bonds and the founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative or BALCO, Victor Conte Jr. Conte is currently serving four months in prison for distribution of steriods and money laundering. It appears that the steroid controversy concerning Bonds will only intensify as he continues to march on towards the career home runs record, one of baseball’s most sacred records.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Miami of Ohio beat the Michigan Wolverines 3–2 at the finals of the NCAA Midwest regional ice hockey tournament Sunday night at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Miami sophomore forward Alden Hirschfeld scored at 1:54 into the second overtime when his shot from the top of the left face off circle deflected into the goal off the skate of the Michigan goaltender Shawn Hunwick.

Pat Cannone led the scoring with two power play goals for Miami during regulation. It looked as though Michigan had won the game in the first overtime when Michigan’s forward Kevin Lynch appeared to score. Unfortunately for Michigan the referee blew the whistle calling a penalty just before the puck went in the net. The Miami goaltender Connor Knapp who made 53 saves in the game was named the most outstanding player of the midwest regional tournament.

This was the first multiple overtime game for the Miami of Ohio RedHawks in their 23 years. Miami will be going to the Frozen Four for the second straight year.

The Boston College Eagles advanced to the Frozen Four in a shoot out with the Yale Bulldogs. BC defeated Yale 9–7 last night at the finals of the NorthEast regionals in front of 6,054 fans at the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts.

BC forward Cam Atkinson had a hat trick and an assist. Mark Arcobello of Yale also had a hat trick. In an attempt to find a way to stop the Eagles scoring Yale played three different goalies during the game. The sixteen total goals is a NCAA record for a regional tournament game. The previous record was thirteen.

This will be the 22nd time that Boston College has made it to the Frozen Four, it is the ninth for coach Jerry York and their third trip in the past four seasons. BC will face Miami of Ohio in the semifinals on April 8 at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

The Virology Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS) in Bratislava was severely damaged by fire. The flames reportedly reached as high as one hundred meters. The fire most likely started from the gas tank used for oxy-fuel welding during the building’s restoration process, SAS speaker Viera Rosová said.

Firefighters from all Bratislava fire-stations took part in the fire-fighting operation. The situation was complicated by dense smoke, necessitating the use of gas masks.

Thanks to a quick evacuation of SAS employees and construction workers, none were injured. However, some equipment of the top-level scientific facility was damaged and various research projects will be affected as well, Rosová admitted. The “software unit containing information of incalculable value” was rescued in time, reports say.

There is no danger of toxic spills or leak of viruses. The micro-biotic organisms studied in the institute are safely stored and infected animals were not held in this building. The institute owns about two thousand animals. The virology samples will be destroyed as the coolers went out of service after the power supply was cut for security reasons during fire-fighting. The SAS vice-chairman Albert Beier estimated the value of the cooler boxes to be close to two million Euros. “They often contain a life-long work of our researchers,” he added.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Billy Murrell, a persistent graffiti vandal from South East London, has become the first recipient of an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (Asbo) granted to Transport for London (TfL) by Greenwich Magistrates. The civil order also bans him from the top deck of buses throughout England and Wales for three years.

Murrell, a 17-year-old from Plumstead, has a history of convictions for criminal damage on public transport, including vandalising a Tube carriage in Brixton station and for damaging buses and other public property using marker pens.

This is Transport for London’s first Anti-Social Behaviour Order against a graffiti vandal — TfL was granted the power to apply for Asbos by the Home Secretary in September 2006.

The Anti-Social Behaviour Order was issued at Greenwich Magistrates Court on 12 September and also bans him from carrying any permanent marker pens or any glass cutting equipment on London Underground, railway property or any other transport provider’s property.

Metropolitan and Transport police have been made aware of Murrell’s Asbo, and have distributed his photo.

In detail, Murrell is prohibited from:

• Entering any depot, siding or other part of London Underground property or railway property or any transport providers property which is not expressly open to the public whether on payment or otherwise throughout England and Wales

• Carrying the following articles, in any area specified (above) or in any public place, namely any form of unset paint in any form of container, any form of permanent marker pen, any form of shoe dye or permanent ink in any form of container, any form of paint stripper in any form of container, any form of grinding stone, glass cutting equipment, glass etching solution or paste, throughout England and Wales

• Aiding, abetting, counselling or encourage any person who was attempting or committing any form of unlawful damage towards any property not belonging to or under the direct authorised control of the defendant throughout England and Wales

• Travelling on the top deck of the any public transport bus within England and Wales

If without reasonable excuse the defendant does anything which he is prohibited from doing by this order, he shall be liable to a detention and training order, which has a maximum term of 24 months – 12 months of which is custodial and 12 months in the community

Upon turning 18 he will be liable to imprisonment up to five years.