Thursday 14 March 2024

Cult leader 'Queen of Canada' sets up camp in small Saskatchewan community


CTV News on Youtube has the story.

An extremist cult leader and her followers have set up camp in a small Saskatchewan community. Merella Fernandez reports.

The village of Richmound in rural Saskatchewan is turning to the province and the RCMP for help after a group of QAnon-aligned followers of the self-styled 'Queen of Canada' occupied a private building and threatened some residents and officials with public execution.

The people of Richmound are tense and anxious about members of a cult who are living at a former school in the village, according to the Saskatchewan RCMP.

But police say that despite issuing threats of public execution, the group does not pose an "imminent threat."

The group is led by Romana Didulo, who is known as a far-right QAnon conspiracy theorist but has dubbed herself the "Queen of Canada," among other titles, including the national Indigenous leader.

Western Canada: Dangerous Avalanche Conditions


CBC Vancouver has the story.

CBC/Radio-Canada is a Canadian public broadcast service.

Watch CBC Vancouver News with host Tanya Fletcher for the latest on the most important news stories happening across B.C.

Wednesday 13 March 2024

WHO declared COVID-19 global pandemic 4 years ago


CBC News on Youtube has the story.

CBC/Radio-Canada is a Canadian public broadcast service.

The severe peak of the global pandemic may be over, but the infection persists. Trauma nurse Eram Chhogala reflects on working during the pandemic and watching her dad die from COVID-19.

Southern China: Relative humidity hits 100%


South China Morning Post on Youtube has the story.

Residents in southern China found themselves grappling with extreme dampness when relative humidity climbed to 100% on March 6, according to the Guangdong Meteorological Bureau. The moisture has swept through cities in the country’s south, causing water droplets to accumulate on ceilings.

Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation, dew, or fog to be present.

Humidity depends on the temperature and pressure of the system of interest. The same amount of water vapor results in higher relative humidity in cool air than warm air. A related parameter is the dew point. The amount of water vapor needed to achieve saturation increases as the temperature increases. As the temperature of a parcel of air decreases it will eventually reach the saturation point without adding or losing water mass. The amount of water vapor contained within a parcel of air can vary significantly. For example, a parcel of air near saturation may contain 28 g of water per cubic metre of air at 30 °C (86 °F), but only 8 g of water per cubic metre of air at 8 °C (46 °F).

USA: Congress to vote on banning TikTok


Congress to vote on banning TikTok in the USA.

CBC News: The National on Youtube has the story.

CBC/Radio-Canada is a Canadian public broadcast service.

The USA House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on a bill that would effectively ban TikTok in the country. The bill calls on the Chinese parent company of TikTok to sell the social media platform, or else it would be removed from USA app stores.

Canada: Vancouver homeowner frustrated by parking stall sizes in new development


CBC Vancouver on Youtube has the story.

CBC/Radio-Canada is a Canadian public broadcast service.

Hussain Luaibi says he is frustrated by the small parking stall at his newly purchased townhome in Vancouver. Both the developer, OpenForm Properties, and the City of Vancouver say the parking stalls comply with city standards.

Canada: New high-speed rail could connect Edmonton and Calgary


This high-speed rail could connect Edmonton and Calgary

CBC News on Youtube has the story.

CBC/Radio-Canada is a Canadian public broadcast service.

Edmonton to Calgary in 45 minutes? TransPod’s high-speed rail could reach speeds up to 1,000 km/h, and construction of a seven-kilometre test track is slated to begin next year. CBC’s Min Dhariwal spoke to TransPod CEO Sebastien Gendron about the project.

Passport Canada apologizes after woman told she couldn’t use ‘Palestine’ as place of birth


CBC News on Youtube has the story.

CBC/Radio-Canada is a Canadian public broadcast service.

Mar 8, 2024 - After decades of having “Palestine” listed as her place of birth on her Canadian passport, a 90-year-old woman was mistakenly told it wouldn’t be listed on her new one. Passport Canada has apologized for the clerical error after the woman’s granddaughter Blair expressed outrage on TikTok, accusing the Canadian government of “whitewashing history.”

Canadians stranded in Haiti as violence escalates


CBC News: The National - Canadians stranded in Haiti as violence escalates

CBC News: The National on Youtube has the story.

CBC/Radio-Canada is a Canadian public broadcast service.

March 10, 2024 - Nearly 3,000 Canadians are stranded in Haiti as gang violence escalates. Why some oncologists say it's time to rethink end-stage cancer treatments. Plus, slugger Joey Votto's fight to earn a spot on the Toronto Blue Jays.

00:00 The National for March 10, 2024
01:03 Canadians stranded in Haiti as violence escalates
03:50 U.S. operation to build aid port on Gaza coast
04:32 Heightened tensions in Israel ahead of Ramadan
06:59 Trump and Biden hold rallies in Georgia
09:53 Canada's mission in Afghanistan, 10 years later
12:56 B.C. agrees to meeting on safer-supply drugs
15:07 Winter storm knocks out power in Quebec
15:29 Newfoundland digs out after snowstorm
15:44 Drought forces prairie ranchers to sell livestock
18:42 Big wins and best moments at the 96th Oscars
22:42 Kate Middleton photo manipulation concern
23:06 Joey Votto at training camp with the Jays
25:31 The Breakdown starts now
26:07 Rethinking end-stage cancer treatments
34:59 Entrepreneur explains why local radio isn't dead
43:58 #TheMoment - Plane struck by lightning

Tuesday 12 March 2024

Beer tax: Canadian government slashes increase ahead of looming deadline


Global News on Youtube has the story.

The Canadian government is reducing its national beer tax that was set to increase on April 1, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced Saturday.

For an additional two years, Freeland told reporters that the federal government will extend its inflation adjustment cap at two per cent for beer, spirit and wine excise duties.

The alcohol excise tax, sometimes known as the “beer tax,” was planned to go up by 4.7 per cent on April 1 this year. 

Global's Sean O'Shea reports.

Monday 11 March 2024

Canada: ArriveCAN contractor banned


CTV National News: ArriveCAN contractor banned

CTV News on Youtube has the story.

Mike Le Couteur reports on what we know about Ottawa suspending the largest contractor who worked on the ArriveCAN app.

Race for the Moon's water: Why go so far for something Earth isn't short of?


Sky News on Youtube has the story.

As a pioneering mission prepares for lift-off this week, the eyes of the world once more turn upwards - to the moon.

A rocket carrying NASA technology will blast off for the unexplored lunar south pole - part of an Earth-wide drive to find a crucial substance: water.

Hopefully, a greater amount of water can be found somewhere.

In 2020, data from NASA's SOFIA mission confirmed water exists in the sunlit area of the lunar surface as molecules of H2O embedded within, or perhaps sticking to the surface of, grains of lunar dust.

Observations from instruments on orbiters and probes found that the Moon's north and south poles probably contain over 1.3 trillion pounds (600 billion kilograms) of water ice.

Scientists have discovered a new and renewable source of water on the moon for future explorers in lunar samples from a Chinese mission. Water was embedded in tiny glass beads in the lunar dirt where meteorite impacts occur.

The first evidence of water in moon atmosphere came by an Indian device Chandra's Altitudinal Composition (CHACE) that was mounted on Moon Impact probe released from Chandrayaan -1.

So-called "Lunar Water" is water that is present on the Moon. Diffuse water molecules in low concentrations can persist at the Moon's sunlit surface, as discovered by the SOFIA observatory (an 80/20 joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Centre, DLR) in 2020. Gradually, water vapor is decomposed by sunlight, leaving hydrogen and oxygen lost to outer space. Scientists have found water ice in the cold, permanently shadowed craters at the Moon's poles. Water molecules are also present in the extremely thin lunar atmosphere.

NASA's Ice-Mining Experiment-1 (set to launch on the PRIME-1 mission no earlier than late 2024) is intended to answer whether or not water ice is present in usable quantities in the southern polar region.

Water (H2O) and the related hydroxyl group (-OH) exist in forms chemically bonded as hydrates and hydroxides to lunar minerals (rather than free water), and evidence strongly suggests that this is the case in low concentrations as for much of the Moon's surface.

Inconclusive evidence of "free water ice" at the lunar poles had accumulated during the second half of the 20th century from a variety of observations suggesting the presence of bound hydrogen.

On 18 August 1976, the Soviet Luna 24 probe landed at Mare Crisium, took samples from the depths of 118, 143, and 184 cm of the lunar regolith, and returned them to Earth. In February 1978, laboratory analysis of these samples showed that they contained 0.1% (1,000 ppm) water by mass. Spectral measurements certainly showed minima near 3, 5, and 6 µm, distinctive valence-vibration bands for water molecules, with intensities two or three times larger than the noise level.

On 24 September 2009, the Indian Space Research Organisation's Chandra's Altitudinal Composition Explorer (CHACE) and NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) spectrometer on board the Chandrayaan-1 probe had detected absorption features near 2.8–3.0 μm on the surface of the Moon. On 14 November 2008, Chandrayaan-1 released the Moon Impact Probe to impact the Shackleton crater, which helped confirm the presence of water ice. For silicate bodies, such features are typically attributed to hydroxyl- and/or water-bearing materials. In August 2018, NASA confirmed that M3 showed water ice is present on the surface at the Moon poles. Water in concentrations of 100 to 412 parts per million (0.01%-.042%) was confirmed to be on the sunlit surface of the Moon by the SOFIA observatory on October 26, 2020.

Water may have been delivered to the Moon over geological timescales by the regular bombardment of water-bearing comets, asteroids, and meteoroids or continuously produced in situ by the hydrogen ions (protons) of the solar wind impacting oxygen-bearing minerals.

The search for a greater presence of lunar water continues. Water would be very useful for long-term lunar habitation.

Saturday 2 March 2024

China Plans Many Launches to the Moon In 2024


The Space Race Channel on Youtube has the video.

See Why China Is About To Take Over The Moon In 2024!

The so-called Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP; Chinese: 中国探月; pinyin: Zhōngguó Tànyuè), also known as the Chang'e Project (Chinese: 嫦娥工程; pinyin: Cháng'é Gōngchéng) after the Chinese Moon goddess Chang'e, is an ongoing series of robotic Moon missions by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The important program encompasses lunar orbiters (spacecrafts designed to go into orbit), landers, rovers and sample return spacecraft, launched using the Long March series of rockets. A human lunar landing component may have been added to the program, after China indeed publicly announced crewed lunar landing plans by the year 2030 during a conference in July 2023.

The program's launches and flights are monitored by a telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) system, which uses 50-meter (160-foot) radio antennas in Beijing and 40-meter (130-foot) antennas in Kunming, Shanghai, and Ürümqi to form a 3,000-kilometer (1,900-mile) VLBI antenna. A proprietary ground application system is responsible for downlink data reception.

Ouyang Ziyuan, a geologist, chemical cosmologist, and the program's chief scientist, was among the first to advocate the exploitation not only of known lunar reserves of metals such as titanium, but also of helium-3, an ideal fuel for future nuclear fusion power plants. Ye Peijian serves as the program's chief commander and chief designer. Scientist Sun Jiadong is the program's general designer and Sun Zezhou is deputy general designer. The leading program manager is Luan Enjie.

The first spacecraft of the program, the Chang'e 1 lunar orbiter, was launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center on 24 October 2007, having been delayed from the initial planned date of 17–19 April 2007. A second orbiter, Chang'e 2, was launched on 1 October 2010. Chang'e 3, which includes a lander and rover, was launched on 1 December 2013 and successfully soft-landed on the Moon on 14 December 2013. Chang'e 4, which includes a lander and rover, was launched on 7 December 2018 and landed on 3 January 2019 in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, on the far side of the Moon. A sample return mission, Chang'e 5, which launched on 23 November 2020 and returned on 16 December in the same year, brought 1,731 g (61.1 oz) of lunar samples back to Earth.

As indicated by the official insignia, the shape of a calligraphic nascent lunar crescent with two human footprints at its center reminiscent of the Chinese character 月, the Chinese character for "Moon", the ultimate objective of the program is to pave the way for a crewed mission to the Moon. China National Space Administration head Zhang Kejian had announced that China is planning to build a scientific research station on the Moon's south pole "within the next 10 years," (2019–2029).

On 12 July 2023, at the 9th China (International) Commercial Aerospace Forum in Wuhan, Hubei province, Zhang Hailian, a deputy chief designer with the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), publicly introduced a preliminary plan to land two astronauts on the Moon by the year 2030.

China Manned Space Agency (Chinese: 中国载人航天工程办公室) is an agency of the People's Republic of China responsible for the administration of China Manned Space Program, the Chinese human spaceflight program. The agency is under the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission.

Read more here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Program

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Manned_Space_Agency