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Watching the esports finals in huge football stadiums would not be a surprise, he adds. |
Beşiktaş’s Vodafone Park Arena already houses a gaming area. There are tens of gaming houses in shopping malls and modern building estates of Istanbul. |
Riot Games Esports Stage, located inside the Watergarden shopping mall, can be a milestone in the transformation of esports in Turkey. |
Erdinç İyikul, head of publishing at Riot Games Turkey, said that they plan to attract esports fans seven days a week giving them an opportunity to socialize face-to-face. |
“We have been building a museum as well. Visitors will be able to explore the journey of LoL in esports,” he recently told daily Hürriyet. |
A study using data from monitoring stations designed to enforce a nuclear test ban treaty shows that the Earth is enduring far more dangerous asteroid impacts than previously thought. |
Between 2000 and 2013, the Earth was hit by 26 asteroids that exploded with a force of between one and 600 kilotons – an average of one every six months. Even more concerning is that in all cases the asteroids themselves weren't detected in space and only came to light when they detonated in Earth's atmosphere. |
The study was carried out by the B612 Foundation, a group set up by three former astronauts who are worried about the threat of asteroids to life on Earth. The foundation's CEO (and former shuttle pilot) Dr. Ed Lu presented the report's findings at a press conference in Seattle's Museum of Flight on Tuesday. |
"While most large asteroids with the potential to destroy an entire country or continent have been detected, less than 10,000 of the more than a million dangerous asteroids with the potential to destroy an entire major metropolitan area have been found by all existing space or terrestrially operated observatories," sai... |
"Because we don't know where or when the next major impact will occur, the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer' sized asteroid has been blind luck," he concluded. |
The study notes that four of this century's collisions have been larger than the atomic bombs that took out Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 2013, over a thousand people were injured when an asteroid exploded over Chelyabinsk, and 20 kiloton impacts were recorded over Indonesia, the Southern Ocean, and the Mediterranean. |
NASA's Spaceguard project, named after the fictional asteroid-watching body described by Arthur C. Clarke, has done a good job at finding larger clumps of space junk that could seriously threaten human life on Earth, but it is missing a lot of the smaller debris that could just wipe out a city or cause a tsunami. |
To spot this material, the B612 Foundation wants to build and launch a privately funded orbital asteroid detector, dubbed the Sentinel Space Telescope Mission. The designs have already been completed and the team estimates it could find 200,000 smaller asteroids a year after its planned 2018 launch. |
The curious name of the B612 Foundation stems from the popular French book The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. |
In the fable, the author meets a small man after crash-landing his plane in the desert, who explained he lived on an asteroid named B612. The foundation used this name because, it says, the moral of the prince's tale was that what is essential in life is often invisible to the human eye. |
There will be a new feature in the Christmas program at one Norwegian elementary school this year: the Quran. But it’s only the latest example of the Muslim holy book showing up in a Christian environment. |
The Stigerasen School in Skien, Norway, announced last week that this year’s Christmas festivities would feature students reading not only the typical Bible verses but also two verses from the Quran. |
The Quranic verses are about Jesus, but Muslims consider Jesus only a prophet, not the Son of God. And Christmas is not an Islamic holy day; Muslims typically do not celebrate it at all. |
The Quran has pushed its way into other Christian settings around the world. In January, passages from the Quran were read from the lectern of St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, Scotland. |
The cathedral had invited local Muslims to join its service on the feast of Epiphany to promote understanding between Christianity and Islam. |
A Muslim student read from the Quranic chapter that tells the story of Jesus’ birth to the virgin Mary. The chapter contains the Islamic teaching that Jesus is not the Son of God and should not be worshipped, which led some Anglicans to criticize the cathedral for allowing the verses to be read. |
In July 2016, a verse of the Quran was sung from the altar in the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome, Italy. |
While the Catholics in attendance recited the Creed, a delegate of al-Azhar mosque in Cairo chanted an Islamic prayer for peace. It happened during a Mass in memory of Father Jacques Hamel, who was murdered by ISIS terrorists in his church in France. |
Meanwhile, in the parish church of San Martino in Rebbio, Italy, a veiled Muslim woman read the Quranic verses that announce the birth of Christ during Mass on Christmas morning 2015. The priest, Fr. Giusto della Valle, intended it as a gesture of interreligious dialogue. |
In fact, Pope Francis allowed the reading of Islamic prayers and Quran passages from the Vatican, the very seat of Roman Catholicism. It happened in June 2014 when Francis met with the late Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Vatican City at a gathering to pray for Middle... |
Indeed, 50 U.S. churches in 26 states invited Muslim clergy to come and read from the Quran in their sanctuaries on June 26, 2011. It was part of the “Faith Shared: Uniting in Prayer and Understanding” initiative, a project of Interfaith Alliance and Human Rights First. The project was an effort to counter “anti-Muslim... |
Leo Hohmann, a WND news editor and author of “Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration and the Resettlement Jihad,” had harsh words for the Christians who have allowed the Muslim holy book to be read in their sacred spaces. |
Hohmann noted American public schools are not helping students learn the true nature of Islam. Rather, they are teaching children a sanitized, politically correct version of Islam that obscures its fundamental differences with Christianity, he said. |
As Hohmann mentions in “Stealth Invasion,” the Tri-Faith Initiative in Omaha, Nebraska, is perhaps the most striking interfaith effort in America today. It’s composed of a group of Jews, a group of Christians and a group of Muslims who have located their houses of worship on the same campus “to promote dialogue, transc... |
Hohmann said members of the initiative lately have been spreading their message about the “same god” and “common ground” between the three faiths to churches and schools in the Omaha area. |
On Oct. 24, the imam associated with the Tri-Faith Initiative, Mohammad Jamal Daoudi, spoke for 30 minutes in front of the altar at St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church in Omaha, Hohmann said. |
Just as oil and gas companies have been expressing concern over the ability to move oil and gas from new production fields to market due to insufficiency midstream pipeline capacity, a federal judge in Montana may have just added to those concerns. |
The TransCanada pipelines head office in Calgary on November 29, 2017. TransCanada recently gained approval by the state of Nebraska for its Keystone XL pipeline. |
Owned by TransCanada, the Keystone pipeline system consists of the original Keystone, a crude oil pipeline commissioned into service in 2010 carries 860,000 barrels of oil per day along a 2,147 mile route from Hardisty, Alberta to Steel City, Nebraska and to refineries in southern Illinois. The line was extended southw... |
While the original Keystone pipeline went into service with little notice, a second line, inartfully named “Keystone XL” became the poster child for anti-fossil fuel advocates. Originally proposed in 2008, this line has already received more scrutiny than any other pipeline project in U.S. history. In 2010 the Environm... |
In response to Republican congressional moves requiring President Obama to approve deny the project, President Obama denied the project in January of 2012, indicating that more time was needed. Just three months later however, Mr. Obama approved the southern half of the project running from Oklahoma to Texas. Known kno... |
The following January the U.S. House voted 266–153 in favor of the pipeline, and on the same day, the Nebraska Supreme Court cleared the way for construction following two years of legal challenges. In late 2015 however, Secretary of State John Kerry issued a determination that the project was not in the public interes... |
Judge Morris’ ruling in the lawsuit that commenced following President Trump’s permit will result in further delay for the project, one that is already running years behind schedule, and billions over budget for a pipeline initially designed to add merely 500,000 barrels per day capacity to domestic markets. By contras... |
Judge Morris also ruled that the analysis failed to review the effects of current oil prices and did not fully consider potential oil spills. Despite being studied more than any other project, TransCanada must feel like Bill Murry from Groundhog Day, a 1993 movie in which Murry’s character relived the same day, over an... |
While likely to be overturned as judicial overreach, the path for TransCanada and the Trump administration has certainly become more problematic as any appeal of the judge’s decision would go next to the 9thCircuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, a court considered more liberal than most. |
While Keystone XL remains on ice, oil will still make it to market, as rail capacity remains more than adequate to move the oil after the opening of rail terminals and the addition of rail fleets to handle crude oil were made necessary while the Dakota Access Pipeline was delayed by similar protests. Now open, those as... |
MidAmerican Energy has announced the site for a planned new wind-generating facility — and it’s two locations. Project manager Tom Budler says the 323-million-dollar project will be located at two sites, near Blairsburg and at Schaller just southwest of Storm Lake. He says having two different sites gives a diversity o... |
FILE - Women take part in a demonstration against the country's parliament and in support of the coalition of fighters called the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council, at Freedom Square, Benghazi, Aug. 29, 2014. |
As Libya slides deeper into political and military chaos, uncertainty reigns and analysts say it’s difficult to anticipate how things will unfold. |
Some say Libya needs regional or broader foreign involvement; others say that would only aggravate the situation. |
Last week, the country’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, asked the U.N. Security Council to disarm the warring factions. But the council decided against sending a U.N. peacekeeping force to Libya. |
Two military coalitions are competing for governmental control. Their power struggles have almost paralyzed the country, leaving it with two de facto parliaments and two prime ministers. |
One coalition, Libya Dawn, represents Islamist groups including the hardline Ansar al-Shariah and militias from the coastal city of Misurata. The other coalition includes supporters of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi, ousted in 2011. It’s led by retired General Khalifa Haftar, an anti-Islamist. |
Seif Alyazal welcomed the Security Council’s resolution to impose sanctions on militias and their political supporters who are fueling Libya’s escalating war. |
Egypt’s former ambassador to Libya, Hany Khallaf, said stabilizing Libya will demand more international cooperation. |
“Political and security arrangements are urgently required in Libya and it would take serious efforts from neighboring Arab countries, European and international efforts to be achieved,” Khallaf said. |
Egypt is committed to helping “the legitimate Libyan government in Tobruk” restore stability and extend its authority, according to Seif Alyazal. He said the two countries’ chiefs of staff met to discuss military cooperation, and Egypt offered to train Libyan police and army units, while monitoring the borders to preve... |
But Khallaf downplayed any significant role in Libyan politics for Egypt and its Gulf allies. |
“Libyan Islamists reject any role by Egypt, Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates for a settlement in Libya, due to their anti-Islamist positions,” he said. |
A recent report in the military journal Jane’s Intelligence Review said the escalated fighting could yield one of several different scenarios. They include Islamist forces that “gradually expand their control over the country, leading to a high probability of Algerian or Egyptian intervention.” Another possibility, Jan... |
Michael O’ Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brooking Institution, a Washington think tank, predicted Libya eventually might be divided. |
The most likely outcome is a stalemate – at least until the Tobruk government can “secure enough support and maybe direct Egyptian help to extend its authority across the country,” said Claudia Gazzini, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, an organization committed to resolving deadly conflict. |
The head of the United Nations’ support mission, Spanish diplomat Bernardino Leon, agrees foreign intervention isn’t the answer to Libya’s turmoil. |
“More conflict, more use of force will not help Libya get out of the current chaos, which would also impact countries in the region, in Europe and beyond,” he said. |
Besides, Gazzini said, few countries have shown interest in forming an international coalition to restore stability. |
MILWAUKEE — Marquette used free throws to help erase the bad taste of a two-point loss at Wisconsin-Green Bay earlier this week. |
The Golden Eagles shot a season-best 96 percent from the line, making 24 of their 25 free throws, in an 84-80 victory over LSU on Saturday. |
"Free-throw makes are always a good indicator of our mindset, and of our mentality," Marquette coach Buzz Williams said. |
Davante Gardner came off the bench to score a season-high 19 points and made all nine of his free-throw attempts, including six in the final 36 seconds. |
Junior Cadougan and Vander Blue each scored 17 points and Jamil Wilson added 11 for Marquette (8-3), which shook off Wednesday's 49-47 loss and won its 15th straight home game. |
"I think it just speaks to the character of our kids," said Williams, whose team jumped out to a 17-3 lead. "Green Bay beat us. We were bad. I was bad. Our players were bad. They beat us. And I thought the way our team responded on Thursday was superb. We did the right things in practice on Friday. And then today, we s... |
Andre Stringer finished with a season-high 20 points for LSU (7-2). He had a career-high six 3-pointers and became the first Tiger with six in one game since Marcus Thornton did it on Feb. 24, 2009. |
The Tigers, in a stretch of 17 days between home games, also got 18 points and seven rebounds from Anthony Hickey. |
"We fell into a hole early and we didn't execute on defense as well," Stringer said. "Their guys got open for a couple jumpers, got out on the break and discouraged us a little bit. But we regrouped at the half and came back, played with a lot of fire as we always do and got back in the game." |
After two Gardner free throws gave Marquette an 80-76 lead with 35.2 seconds remaining, Charles Carmouche lost his dribble off his foot with Trent Lockett guarding him. Gardner picked the ball up, was fouled and sank two free throws for an 82-76 lead. He added two more for an 84-78 lead with 9.6 seconds left. |
"I was trying to figure out what we were running," said Carmouche, who finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds. "It kind of got loud; I couldn't hear coach." |
Marquette equaled its biggest lead of the second half, 74-62, on two free throws by Cadougan with 3:33 remaining. LSU managed to get the deficit to 78-76 on Carmouche's free throws with 40.7 seconds left, but that would be the closest the Tigers would get. |
"I think a lot of times, games are about several runs," LSU coach Johnny Jones said. "We've just got to make sure we get stops and put ourselves in position to make ours." |
LSU, which trailed by 21 late in the first half, used a 27-6 run to get back in the game. Consecutive 3-pointers by Hickey and Stringer capped a 10-0 run and tied the score at 49 with 14:55 to play. |
The teams then traded runs, beginning with Marquette. A one-handed floater off the glass by Cadougan capped an 8-0 run for a 57-49 lead with 12:51 to play. |
LSU answered with nine points in a row. A free throw by Carmouche gave the Tigers a 58-57 lead with 9:35 left, their first since holding a 3-2 edge in the first minute. Then it was Marquette's turn for a 9-0 run, capped by another Cadougan basket for a 66-58 lead with 7:49 left. |
"You just have to be mentally tough and just maintain," Cadougan said. "We can't just hang our heads down." |
In the first half, Marquette shot 51.5 percent from the field and held a 17-3 lead after scoring 15 unanswered points. The Golden Eagles made seven of their first 10 shots, including a 3-pointer by Lockett, while LSU missed seven of its first eight. |
Two free throws by Chris Otule gave Marquette its biggest lead, 43-22, with 5:12 remaining. That's when LSU started its comeback, as the Tigers scored 11 of the final 13 points of the half to get within 12 at the break. |
Yesterday, a reader from South River, Eileen, stopped by with four crocheted teddy bears. Aren’t they cute? |
This gives me a chance to encourage you to get another bear or two done before the end of the month. You still have 10 days before I draw this project to a close. In the meantime, I’ve been hearing from several of you. A woman on Ravelry who lives in Dunellen has at least six bears done, and she’ll be taking them to Gr... |
Now that I’m putting the pink side-to-side sweater on hiatus (see my previous post), I am thinking I should start another bear tomorrow. |
Keep up the good work, everybody, and keep those bears coming in! |
PREVENTION is better than cure. Truvada, a pill that prevents HIV infection, could protect half a million people in the US. This is the upshot of updated clinical guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other bodies released last week. |
Truvada (tenofovir/emtricitabine)has had a rocky start since it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2012. Fewer than 1800 prescriptions were written in the first year, in part because general practice doctors have not been educated about its use, and because it is also a treatment for HIV, so it is asso... |
But health officials are concerned that about 50,000 US citizens become infected with HIV each year. |
Pre-exposure prophylaxis uses drugs already approved as HIV treatments to prevent infection. The CDC now says that doctors should consider prophylaxis for those with a sexual partner who is HIV-positive, people who don’t always use a condom with partners of unknown HIV status, and for those with a sexual partner who ha... |
Truvada is the only pill approved for HIV prophylaxis, and solely in the US. European regulators are likely to approve its use later this summer. If taken daily, it is at least 90 per cent effective in preventing infection. |
BBC - Nick Robinson's Newslog: 'A bonfire of the quangos'...? |
'A bonfire of the quangos'...? |
Are you in favour of "a bonfire of the quangos"...? |
Well so too is the Tory leader - it's the title of a speech he's delivering today. |
And so is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liam Byrne. On Friday he promised one. |
As did the shadow chancellor way back in 1995 - a man you may know called Gordon Brown. |
Politicians of all colours promise to light a match underneath quangos ("quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations" now you ask) for the same reasons. They spend a lot and they're not very democratic. |
Today in a speech Mr Cameron will argue that: "The growth of the quango state is...,one of the main reasons people feel that nothing ever changes, nothing will ever get done" and promises "a massive shift in power from bureaucracy to democracy...(from) elites to people from quangos to you". |
He will, no doubt, point to the creation by this government of dozens of new quangos - some estimates put it at 70. |
Aware that this was coming Labour got their retaliation in first alleging that the Tories have talked about creating 17 new ones of their own - ranging from the Office of Tax Simplification and Office of Budget Responsibility to a Military inquest family advisory service and International Aid Watchdog. |
So the question worth asking today is, perhaps, not why don't politicians abolish quangos but why, despite the obvious objections, they choose to create them and allow them to grow? |
Partly it's because politicians are under pressure to "take the politics out of ..." many areas they have responsibility for (whether setting interest rates or managing examinations). |
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