Miscellaneous News

Miragedriver

Miragedriver

Brigadier
Putin assured Netanyahu that the nuclear agreement with Iran will help the stability to the Middle East

MOSCOW, (EUROPA PRESS) - Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation with Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that the agreement with Iran will ensure that Tehran does not make nuclear weapons and will contribute stability in the Middle East.

Given the concerns raised by Israeli Prime Minister on the nuclear deal between Western powers and Iran, Putin has expressed confidence that the agreement is a success and explained that "strengthen the regime of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and have a positive impact on the security and stability of the Middle East ".


The Russian president, who spoke with Netanyahu to discuss the current situation in the area, has also emphasized the need for all countries to join forces more effectively combat Islamic State. Furthermore, the two leaders have declared their intention to continue their relations and continue to cooperate with each other on different issues.


The Israeli government intends to pressure the US Congress not to approve the agreement reached between Iran and world powers in Vienna this month after a decade of negotiations. According to the pact, the United States, European Union and UN removed sanctions on Iran in exchange for its Executive decrease in the short term its nuclear program, which the West and Israel fear that was meant to create a nuclear bomb.

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Back to bottling my Grenache
 
D

delft

Brigadier
delft said:
Something entirely different:
The movable part of a bridge was to be replaced in a Dutch town. Before reaching the right place the cranes with the bridge part fell from the pontoon and on houses.
See the BBC item:
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If I see it correctly the cranes were not connected to the pontoon, just set on the same supports you would use on land so when they took the bridge part from another pontoon the first ceased to be horizontal and first one then the other crane slid from the pontoon.
One person is injured and in hospital. Search for others continues.
Click to expand...
Update: no deaths, no injured, sixty people lost their house.
 
D

delft

Brigadier

Alphen aan de Rijn
More information:
The cranes were placed on different pontoons. I think that we see on the left side cables that were meant to hold one crane. The cranes were clearly not adequately secured to the pontoons.
Fourteen houses were demolished or heavily damaged so that people couldn't remain in them.

Alphen+aan+de+Rijn.jpg

Foto: ANP

alphen.JPG

Een ravage in Alphen aan den Rijn. Twee kranen zouden gistermiddag een brugdeel verplaatsen, maar vielen om, boven op huizen en winkels.
Foto: Michel van Bergen
I just heard on my favourite radio station an expert explain that the cranes used were totally unsuitable for this work. These cranes can only work when they are standing nearly perfectly horizontal, within half a degree, and they stop functioning when outside the norms. Cranes on tracks are designed to different norms and wouldn't have failed but might have cost ten times as much. The pontoons had half filled ballast tanks whose free surface contributed to the list. It is a case of spectacular incompetence.
 
D

delft

Brigadier
BTW the river is the "Oude Rijn", the Old Rhine. This river empties in the North Sea North of The Hague. The river Rhine changed its course a thousand years ago and is much wider and deeper and goes, under the name "Nieuwe Maas" ( New Meuse river ) through Rotterdam. An even wider and deeper branch of the Rhine, by the name of "Waal" is the main water connection of Rotterdam with Germany. All that to keep it simple. :)
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
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000000000000000000000 tennessee-theater-shooting.jpg​

This time the assailant was armed with a gun, a hatchet, and pepper spray.

Luckily, two policemen at a traffic stop outside the theater were alerted and entered the theater and confronted the shooter which allowed the movie goers to escape and a SWAT team came in and exchanged fire with the assailant, killinhg him.

As of 4 PM US time (WMT) the assailant was the only fatality.
 
Blackstone

Blackstone

Brigadier
Congrats to US Math Team!

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Beijing (CNN)For the first time in 20 years, China has lost a world math championship to the United States -- and many in the world's most populous nation seem happy about it.

The unexpected defeat came at the prestigious annual International Mathematical Olympiad, a championship Chinese high school students have won 18 times since 1990.

But to some, losing the Olympiad offers hope that painful, nightmarish years spent studying for the contest could finally be over.

"This is just wonderful that China finally lost the contest," one Chinese Internet user exclaimed on social network Weibo. "Hopefully the Math Olympiad won't scourge our children anymore! It has shattered so many kids' dreams!"

Parents chimed in as well.

"I can't care less whoever got the golden cup, as long as math Olympiad is not popularized in China and my child won't be forced to study it," said one mother.

Some users offered a more sarcastic lament.

"Uh oh, the U.S. now defeats China in exams. Isn't our exam-oriented education supposed to be superior?"

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Why Chinese students study math
Unlike many American students, ordinary Chinese pupils are no strangers to the difficult math completion. Students often start getting math Olympiad training in elementary school. The demand for the training is so high that classes and schools have popped up in every corner of the country.

And it's not necessarily because they love math. The motivation is rather pragmatic -- winners of math Olympiads have long received bonus points in school entrance exams, high-stakes tests where a small score difference can dramatically alter a student's future.

So the math competitions become another bitter pill to swallow along the cutthroat road to success.
One Chinese commentator, Wei Wei, compared math Olympiads to "gutter oil," a reference to an
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used by some restaurants to cut costs.

"It makes people uneasy while eating it, and feel disgusted thinking of it, yet they still fight for it because it's profitable," he wrote recently on Hong Kong-based news site ifeng.com.

In the last year, some provinces have taken steps to eliminate the bonus point policy, as educators wonder whether the math Olympiads are actually serving the right purpose.

In an opinion piece in the China Youth Daily Wednesday, the director of a well-known education think tank, Yang Dongping, wrote the competitions were a "waste" of talent.

"The question we should ask is why we don't have great mathematicians in China," he said.

Then, appearing to answer his own question:

"Not many of our math champions continued to study math -- many left academia for Wall Street."
Click to expand...
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
t2contra said:
Two members of the US team are ethnic Chinese.
Click to expand...
Come on...seriously?

They were on the US Team. The US team won.

In the US, there is a good chance that team members could be any of a number of various ethnicities...and still be on the American team.

In the past the Chinese team has won...like for the last 20 years.

So, please, give such rhetoric a rest. Okay?
 
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