Sunday, May 30, 2010

The top kill procedure implemented by BP on the leaking Deepwater Horizon oil well on Wednesday has failed. According to David Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, “We have been unable to overcome the flow.” Suttles stated that after studying three days of results, BP determined that the procedure was a failure.

On Wednesday, BP began pumping mud into the leaking well, a procedure known as top kill. BP chief executive Tony Howard said it would take at least 24 hours to determine if the procedure was successful. The procedure has worked before in surface situations, but was not previously attempted at 5,000 feet underwater.

The procedure involves pumping heavyweight drilling mud from the surface through a drill pipe, which directs the mud into a manifold lying on the sea bed. From the manifold, the mud is pumped into the blowout preventer, which is sitting on the well.

BP says it pumped 30,000 barrels of mud into the well at rates of up to 80 barrels a minute. After three attempts, the well was still leaking.

The next option, the sixth, is called the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) Cap containment system. This procedure involves a ROV using a saw to cut off the leaking pipe and place a cap on the pipe. The LMRP Cap is at the scene and the procedure is expected to take four days to complete.

In New Orleans hundreds gathered in protest, calling for a fast stop to the spill and greater efforts to mitigate its ecological and economic effects.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Global stock markets fell today, in a mass sell-off stemming from the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rebounded late in the day after falling more than 250 points, ending the day down about 31 points. The UK’s FTSE-100 index fell 232.90 points to 6038.30, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 406.51 points to 16764.09.

Central banks across the world are injecting funds into their banking systems to add liquidity, fearing that many financial firms with subprime ties will be insolvent. Yesterday, the U.S. Federal Reserve transferred US$24 billion to temporary reserves, following the European Central Bank, which authorized a record €83.6 billion addition to its banks, its biggest cash infusion ever. On Friday, the Fed entered into a $38 billion repurchase agreement of mortgage-backed securities, easing stockholder worries. Also on Friday, the Bank of Japan injected ¥1 trillion into Japan’s financial system.

The Federal Reserve met this week, but decided to maintain its target rate of 5.25%, although on Friday the federal funds rate was hovering around 6%, indicating a drop in liquidity.

The volatile week began last Friday with Bear Stearns tumbling as a result from its complete loss of two major hedge funds worth more than $1.5 billion. The hedge funds had been dangerously exposed to the massive sub-prime mortgage failure, and the company announced it was unable to return any money to investors.

Washington Mutual, and Countrywide Financial, both very large U.S. home loan lenders, saw shares fall. Countrywide Financial made a statement this week, saying they will be forced to retain a greater proportion of mortgage. American Home Mortgage Investment Corp, another large lender, recently filed for bankruptcy. The U.S. housing market has been declining for more than two years after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates 17 times. Now, lenders are in a quagmire from millions of people who are unable to repay loans after taking adjustable rate mortgages, teaser rates, interest-only mortgages, or piggyback rates.

Jim Cramer, of CNBC’s Mad Money, remarked that as many as seven million people will lose their homes from bad mortgages. Last Friday, Cramer went on a tirade on CNBC’s Street Signs, saying that the “Fed was asleep” and called for them to lower rates immediately.

Asian and European markets have become increasingly entangled in the subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. Deutsche Bank of Germany lost almost $3.5 billion in share value, forcing the government to organize a bail-out. France’s largest bank, BNP Paribas SA, halted withdrawals from three large investment funds which were crippled by sub-prime exposure.

Monday, September 20, 2010

One of London’s most well known murals could be restored after years of neglect if plans by a group of community activists gain public support. The Fitzrovia Mural at Whitfield Gardens on London’s Tottenham Court Road was created by two mural artists and commissioned by Camden Council in 1980, but the mural has since decayed and been vandalised.

Plans will be presented at a public meeting this Tuesday, to include details of the restoration and promote local public space in contrast to potential commercial developments and the focus of the London 2012 Olympics. If enough funds are raised from charitable trusts and public donations the mural could be restored during the summer of 2011.

Plans to be put forward by the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association, and the London Mural Preservation Society, will present ways to fund not only the restoration work but also projects to raise awareness of conservation, heritage, and the residential and working community. The heritage and mural project hopes to involve many local people who could learn new conservation skills. Also planned are workshops with local children to involve them in their heritage, an exhibition by local artists, guided tours and a celebratory event at the end of the restoration project. In addition to this, a booklet would be produced containing collected oral histories of the people involved and a preservation trust to protect the mural in future years.

The playful painting was created on a Camden Council-owned building in 1980 by artists Mick Jones, (son of the late Jack Jones, trade union leader) and Simon Barber and is a mash up of scenes depicting problems faced by the neighbourhood over the preceding decade.

There is also a caricature of poet Dylan Thomas, who lived in Fitzrovia, and a mocking portrayal of then leader of the Greater London Council, Conservative politician Horace Cutler, who is pictured as a bat-like creature. Other characters include an anonymous greedy developer and a property speculator counting piles of cash.

Peter Whyatt of the neighbourhood association is jointly leading the project to restore the mural. Yesterday he told Wikinews he had a number of concerns about the possible success of the project.

“There are a great number of problems with getting this project off the ground and we also need to act pretty quickly for a number of reasons,” said Mr Whyatt.

“Firstly the mural is in a terrible state and deteriorating quickly. There is more graffiti being daubed on the site every month because one bit of graffiti attracts another bit. We really need to start the work in the next 12 months because going through another winter with the condition of the wall will causes more problems and inevitably more expense. We want to keep as much original artwork on the site as possible to keep the costs down. This is a big mural and it will be expensive to restore,” he continued.

“And that brings me to my second concern: cost. If we don’t get other community organisations on board to bid for money for this with us and to involve their beneficiaries and volunteers, it will be very difficult to secure the money needed. Money is very tight at the moment because to the current financial climate. We need to get support at this meeting on Tuesday and some firm commitments from people and organisations to get involved.

“Lastly there is a danger of a commercial development on the site. A public-private partnership to create a new art feature. Because of the existing mural’s subject matter – it mocks property speculators, and land developers, etc – a commercial scheme probably backed by a property developer would not want to restore the mural’s original message. They’d want some “good news” scheme, some greenwash idea that paints them in a positive light.

“However, despite these problems, Camden Council have offered to do a condition survey on the mural. This will save us a lot of money. But having said that there are five council departments to deal with to get permission for this restoration work, and they don’t always talk to each other.

“But if the public and local voluntary organisations show their support, we can make it happen,” Mr Whyatt concluded.

The mural restoration will be just one part of a year long project of heritage and conservation awareness-raising. “The project is not just about the mural but also wider plans to promote awareness of heritage and conservation in an area of London under threat from commercial development. In fact the bulk of the project is about the heritage and conservation and the mural is just one part of it, and the most visible because of its situation,” Mr Whyatt later added.

There will be a public meeting about the heritage and mural project at 7.30 pm tomorrow (Tuesday), at the Neighbourhood Centre, 39 Tottenham Street. The public can also comment about the proposals on the Fitzrovia Heritage and Mural website.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Comply or Die, the racehorse who won the 2008 Grand National has died at the age of 17. His death was announced by his former trainer, David Pipe. He died over at the weekend in Gloucestershire, where he had been staying with jockey Timmy Murphy. He was cremated on Monday and his ashes will return to Murphy.

Murphy was the jockey in the saddle when Comply or Die won the 2008 Grand National. Speaking to the Press Association, he spoke about the horse’s death. He said, “He was part of the furniture at home so it’s very sad. He gave me the greatest day of my career, obviously that can never be taken away. He paraded at Cheltenham and Aintree and was getting ready to do some dressage in the summer. I’m not actually sure how he died, to be honest, but it wasn’t nice to come home to. He was cremated on Monday. He was a happy horse and he was also very clever.”

During his racing career he made £798,809 in prize-money after winning a total of eight races.

The 2008 Grand National victory was his greatest achievement and he almost matched it when he came second place in 2009. He retired in 2011 but remained active, often being paraded at race grounds such as Aintree and Cheltenham. He also participated in some hunting activities. Pipe said, “Since his retirement he had been a lead-horse at Timmy Murphy’s establishment before trying his hand at dressage, a discipline in which he had proven very successful”.

Tributes have been paid to Comply or Die on social media by horse racing fans with several tweeting their appreciation and memories.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005Black American women living in communities with high poverty rates are significantly less likely to be screened for cervical cancer, a study finds.

The Harvard School of Public Health’s Geetanjali Dabral Datta investigated the relationship between individual characteristics and larger socioeconomic factors and cervical cancer screening rates. The Febreuary 1 issue of Cancer carries the study. More than 40,000 black women from across the United States participated in the Black Women’s Health Study.

“African-American women have twice the mortality rate from cervical cancer as white women,” said Elizabeth Ward, the director of the American Cancer Society. “Researchers need to investigate how those differences are related to socioeconomic status. One of the big factors that may account for this finding is access to high-quality medical care. Often communities that have high poverty rates either lack access to good quality care, or people have to travel longer distances to obtain high-quality care.”

David L. Katz at Yale University’s School of Medicine said; “While this finding is not surprising, it is noteworthy just the same. No one should die of cervical cancer, because a simple screening test reliably finds the condition in its earliest stages when cure is almost universally achievable. Yet, several thousand deaths from this cancer occur each year in the U.S.”