A long wait for the trapped Chilean miners

Hopefully, new dredging technology will bring them out--33 Chilean miners who are trapped 700 meters below the earth in a work station of a gold-and-silver mine--but it will not be soon.  At most sixty days!

They've been given food and fresh air through a narrow borehole. NASA scientists are now providing advisories so that the miners would be able to cope psychologically with a long isolation down there.

A camera has gone down to provide the outside world a glimpse of how they're faring (see some of them the front page of El Mercurio, below). 

http://www.diario.elmercurio.com/

And a telephone line is now in place. Franklin Lobos was first to connect to the outside world. He was hooked up to his daughter, and he chided her for not going to school.  The front page cover of the magazine Las Ultimas Noticias below shows him beaming from the underground (inset).

http://www.lun.com

The world can only pray that they will be able to come out alive, healthy and sound in body and mind.

Brazil bade "vai com deus!" to their football stadium

Last Sunday, 29th August, Brazilians watched in silence as seven hundred kilograms of explosives imploded the Fonte Nova football stadium.  After the "momento do buuum!," the stadium was gone in 17 seconds.

The stadium was torn down as Brazil prepares to host the 2014 World Cup.  A new one costing $330-million and with a seating capacity of 50,000 will be built in the same site.

The Fonte has been closed since 2007 following the collapsed of a seating section and seven people died.

http://www.correio24horas.br/

The picture above is the front-and-back-pages photo spread of the implosion in the special edition of the magazine Correio.   Clicking the hypelink will give you a view of how the Brazilians bade good-bye to the football arena.

"Vai com deus" is the Portuguese equivalent of a Spanish phrase that many Filipinos use when they bid goodbye to friends and relatives who are going away: "Vaya con Dios!"

http://www.atarde.com.br/

http://www.tribunadabahia.com.br/

Remembering Katrina

If we did not see Brad Pitt on CNN this morning, and he was talking about the housing project in New Orleans, we would not remember that five years ago on this day, 29th August 2005, Katrina sank the city, and almost all of its population evacuated.  Not all returned to the city of their affections.

A few American papers remembered Katrina in their front pages.

A major, major Mexican victory!

Those who watched the pageant live on their TV sets would have noted that the Mexican lass Jimena Navarrete was the judges' top scorer in both the swimwear and evening gown competitions.  We felt already that she'd be the major, major star when she impressed with her nonsensical answer, in translation, to the judge's question. 

And she held on to her country's flag unobtrusively while on the ramp in her evening gown. 

http://www.frontera.info/Home.aspx

http://www.zocalo.com.mx/

http://www.cronica.com.mx/

http://www.vanguardia.com.mx/

Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Subphylum Vertebrata

Saint Francis comes to mind, Brother Sun, and his Sister Moon, Saint Claire; and of course the fourth grading period of our high school biology class, which we spent grappling through the taxonomical maze of families, genera, classes, phyla of individual species from the plant and animal kingdoms.

From Latvia

Lately, we've been lecturing high school science students and their teachers on international research protocols if they ever use vertebrate animals in their experiments; emphasis on animal care, and no to their discomfort and pain.

From Austria

It's so much welcome to see once in a while fellow vertebrates who walk on dry or soggy ground, fly in the air, and swim in fresh or salty water in any season--they who also 'people' this Planet Earth--grace the front pages of fellowman's newspapers the world over.

From Barbados

From New Zealand

From China

From Canada

From Austria

From Hawaii, USA

From Iceland

From India

From Canada

Will Bb Pilipinas be crowned Miss Universe in just a few more hours?

http://www.freep.com/

The United States bets on Rima Fakih, Lebanese-American, to win the Miss Universe crown, their first after all these past thirteen years that it had been worn by other beauties from around the world.

Of course, other nations think their candidates are as deserving to bring home that crown and wear it during the next 364 days or so. 

The candidate from the Philippines, Bb Pilipinas-Universe Venus Raj, who, like Miss USA is of mixed parentage, is the online popular choice.  "La Filipina, favorita de los internautas," the Internet favorite, as the El Universal of Venezuela reported, citing that Venus topped with 3.59 points over Misses Bolivia (2.99), Venezuela (2.93), Jamaica (2.90), Thailand (2.77), Indonesia (2.76) and Peru (2.75).

http://www.eluniversal.com/index.html

On this eve of the pageant in Las Vegas, a few newspapers gave space to the candidates in their front pages although not very prominently.

What you see here are clippings from those pages.  Highly unusual is the Al Watan Daily, a Kuwait paper, which featured Miss Mexico in her national costume.

http://www.alwatandaily.com/

http://inquirer.net/

http://jbonline.terra.com.br/

http://www.ultimasnoticias.com.ve/

http://www.eluniversal.com/index.html

http://www.eluniverso.com/

http://www.hoy.com.ec/

PS.  24 August, 2010.  We watched the pageant live on TV this morning, and noted how the voting went.  Miss Mexico was top both in the swimsuit and evening gown competition with Misses Australia and Jamaica close behind.  The scores alone indicated that any one of them would be Miss Universe.  

"La Filipina," the Internet crowd favorite, was in the narrowing magic circles but the scores indicated she would not make it to the top. Her "nothing major major" answer in the Q&A did not impress after hearing the other four finalists before her turn.  We wonder how she would have dealt with the question posed to Miss Mexico who was already in the lead both in the swimsuit and evening gown portions.

Shrinking Moon

It's been cooling and shrinking over the last billion of years or so, says Associated Press (AP) science writer Randolph E Schmid.  But we see no need to rewrite our favorite songs and expressions.  Fly me to the shrinking moon? Shrinking Moon River? Yuck!

'Shrinking moon and empty arms' may now be correct for the heart-broken though. Likewise 'lunatic' may now be properly appreciated to describe those who have to go see a shrink when their psyches are wrecked by the changing face/phase of the moon.

The Schmid story is available at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100820/ap_on_sc/us_sci_shrinking_moon_4

Elections 2010 in Oz

We like the front page spread of Border Mail (above), which describes Election 2010 today, 21st of August,  in Oz as a "cliff hanger". While it is "full of slogans and empty rhetoric," says the Financial Review, the election "still offers a genuine choice."

Heads or tails (cara y cruz) is how the Illawarra Mercury views Election 2010.  Must really be a close fight in this game of numbers in their Parliament.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who's up against Opposition leader, Tony Abbott, continues to take charge of government until the result is known.

Border Mail story at http://www.bordermail.com.au/news/local/news/general/its-a-cliffhanger-australia-set-for-hung-parliament/1919587.aspx

Press censorship in Venezuela

The El Nacional of Venezuela might have had it coming for spreading out in its Friday the 13th issue the  photo below of unclaimed cadavers ('muertos sin dignidad') in a Caracas morgue with a caption on the homicidal crime statistics for the first half of 2010.  The picture was reported to have been taken surreptitiously.

As a result, the 12th Tribunal of Caracas ordered the print  media on Tuesday, 17th August, to stop publishing information or pictures of violence.

The restriction on El Nacional is more severe:  no photos, information or advertising "content of blood, arms, messages of terror, physical aggressions, provocative images of war, messages about deaths (muertos y decesos) that may alter the psychological well-being of children and adolescents residing in Venezuela."

On the 18th, the newspaper in protest replaced two pictures with boxes marked CENSURADO (censored).  The top box caption reads: "If this had a picture, you would see a father crying for his son who no longer has [censored]."  According to reports, the event pages (paginas de sucesos) has been blanked out with a giant red CENSURADO printed on it, and the editor has gone on air denouncing the prohibition as unconstitutional and a violation of the freedom of expression.

Update: 19 August 2010.  Today's issue had the "O" of Nacional made up as a gagged Donald Duck look-alike, and spread out the results of the survey question "Do you think that the most important reason to feel insecure is the information supplied by the media?"

87.65% of those surveyed said "No."

Update: 27 August 2010:

Innocent children of the world ...

Children's portraits of innocence from the mastheads of two newspapers--St Joseph News-Press of Missouri and DeMorgen of Belgium--August 17, 2010 editions.

The top photo speaks of tender, loving care, joy and hopefulness; the bottom one of misery and helplessness.

The Canadian surot (bed bugs).

We've seen the ipis (cockroaches) of New York, and they're big and black, when we lived on 132nd St W some years ago.  We didn't have surot (bedbugs) in an apartment we shared with Pinoy old-timers there.

We've gone to Toronto twice. Am sure we'd kill our Pinoy hosts with sharp dagger looks if ever we saw one surot crawling on the bed or that shared a pillow with us.

It would be interesting if Toronto Pinoys can tell us how surot in their adopted country look and 'behave' compared to the kind that thrives in mattresses/pillows and under arm supports and seats of sinehan chairs in our dear 'Pinas.

China topples Japan as the world's second biggest economy!

We love the front page graphics of Germany's Financial Times:  the red Nippongo sun fallen and broken.

What if we deregulate education too?

The picture reminds us that there are Filipino classrooms under acacia, mango or whatever shady tree(s) that grow in school grounds to accommodate increasing school populations in our public school sytem, both in the elementary and high school levels.  Lack of classrooms and inadequate learning facilities like the requisite computer and science labs, and libraries continue to plague the public schools.  Of course, there's the dearth of competent teachers esp. of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses in both levels.

We see how students and parents howl in protest each time there is a move for, or there is actually, a tuition fee increase in the university level.

Our front page story tells us that in Nigeria, "the newly appointed minister of state for education, Kenneth Gbagi, has called for the deregulation of the university sector so that schools can single-handedly raise funds for their projects."

We wonder how the students of our state universities and colleges esp. the Iskolars ng Bayan of the University of the Philippines would take a proposal of that kind.  

Nigeria's predicament is that  "government's resources are inadequate to cover the high cost needed to run Nigerian universities every year."   That's sounds very Pinoy too!

Go for more details of the front page story by Ngozi Sam in http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/National/5607562-146/minister_advocates_deregulation_of_universities_.csp

Mourning front pages for mudslide-hit Zhoqu, China

Mournful front pages.

"Life is returning to normal and survivors are trying to walk out from the shadow of losing their beloved ones eight days after a devastating landslide hit the county," Wang Huazhong and He Dan of China Daily reported from mudslide-hit Zhouqu. 

"About 500 people have been temporarily housed in 103 tents in the campus of the No 1 Middle School, which is situated on a hill on the north side of Zhouqu. Two television sets in the teaching building and many radios placed inside tents are connecting people with the outside world."

More details from them at http://chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-08/17/content_11161507.htm.

Front Pages of Chongqing Times, and The Global Times: