World’s Longest Desert Highway Now Being Built

Share this
Share

900 kilometers of desert highway — the longest desert highway in the world — is now being built in Inner Mongolia, North China.

The highway is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is a plan to connect Asia with Europe: Beijing to Rotterdam, Holland.

More immediately, the desert highway will be part of the new route between Beijing and Urumqi in China’s far western Xinjiang Uyghur region, a distance of more than 2,000 kilometers. The new road is expected to cut 12 hours off the trip between these points.

The stretch of desert connects Linhe district in Bayan Nur City and Baigeda in Alxa League.

Longest Desert Highway

 

Fed and Province to Give Additional $51.5 M to UBC

Share this
Share

UBC is to receive another $51.5 million dollars from the federal and provincial governments, bringing the total investment in the university to almost $100 million.

The announcement of the joint-funding plan was announced by Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains and British Columbia Minister of Advanced Education Andrew Wilkinson today at the school.

It is part of the government’s “Innovation Agenda.” They intend for this money to create jobs, drive growth across industries and improve lives of Canadians. Specifically, the UBC funding is intended to help create a future well-paying middle class.

It will be used, along with UBC’s own money, to replace the Undergraduate Life Sciences Teaching Labs at the Biological Sciences Complex, build the new Chan Gunn Pavilion, and expand a part of the Vancouver General Hospital.

Of the $51.5, $39.7 is federal money and $11.8 provincial.

Trucks Coming to B.C. Will Be Able to Get Permits Online

onroutebc
Share this
Share

24/7 online permit for trucks entering British Columbia

“We know that the current system of obtaining a truck permit takes time. With the introduction of a new automated online permitting system, commercial operators will now have the ability to obtain permits 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no wait times,” said Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Todd Stone announced today.

“This system will help the commercial vehicle industry get goods to market faster, by automatically approving permits and showing drivers detailed information on the approved route to follow.”

The new system is called onRouteBC, and it’s the first of it’s kind in Canada. It will replace B.C.’s current Transport Permit System (TPS).

onRouteBC will debut this month with pilot partners only. All commercial vehicles will have access to onRouteBC on October 3. The old TPS system will be available for a while, too — it’s won’t just disappear — until the rollout of the new onRouteBC system is complete.

“The trucking industry will benefit greatly from onRouteBC’s streamlined permit process and enhanced functionality,” said Louise Yako of the BC Trucking Association. “Importantly, onRouteBC will also free resources currently dedicated to routine permit applications, allowing ministry staff to focus its expertise on applications that require more in-depth review and planning because of the size of the load or challenges on the route. These improvements should result in a more efficient and timely permitting process. I’m sure trucking companies look forward to using onRouteBC.”

How Much B.C. Land Is Protected? Now We Know

BC
Share this
Share

Environmental Reporting BC recently published a report on protected lands and water in the province which shows in detail areas are protected environments.

In B.C., 15.4% of land is protected. 3.2% of marine areas are also protected.

Of particular note when it comes to marine areas is Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands), as well ass a large area of the Pacific to the west of Haida Gwaii.

This data shows that the amount of land has doubled in 20 years.

The protected areas are spread across the provinces various ecoregions and biogeoclimactic zones.

BC

Premier Clark Welcomes Phase 1 Agreement for Vancouver Transit Expansion

Premier Clark
Share this
Share

“As more people move here to pursue their dreams, we need to continue expanding and improving transit services, because it plays a pivotal role in creating liveable, affordable, and connected communities,” stated B.C. Premier Christy Clark as the Mayor’s Council voted in favor of Phase 1 of expanding Metro Vancouver transit.

“The provincial government’s contribution of more than $246 million is ready immediately.”

“Expanding transit in Metro Vancouver has never been more important. These investments will help meet rising demand, ease congestion, lower our carbon footprint and further enhance quality of life in what is already one of the world’s most livable cities.

“It means more SkyTrain cars, improvements to bus and SkyTrain exchanges, moving forward on rapid transit in Vancouver and Surrey, and a new SeaBus in North Vancouver.

“British Columbia is in a position to make this kind of investment without going into deficit because we have controlled government spending, and our strong, diverse economy, which leads Canada in growth and job creation. Because we have our house in order, we can focus on investing in the services people depend on, such as transit.”

Al Jazeera: News Site Steals Code?

al-jazeera-stealing-code
Share this
Share

A scrolling storytelling platform, Scrollytelling, is now filing DMCA against news organization Al Jazeera for allegedly stealing their code.

The fellows at Scrollytelling state that they ” exhaustively tried to resolve the situation amicably, but our friendly requests over multiple channels were ignored. The DMCA request was our last resort.”

On their website, they presented their own code and the one Al Jazeera purportedly stole (in our image, the A-J one is the one that overlays the original Scrollytelling one in Dutch newspaper Volkskrant.

Click image to expand:

al-jazeera-stealing-code

StatsCan Chief Quits, Charges Government with Compromising the Agency

wayne-smithwayne-smith
Share this
Share

“All of you are aware of my view that this loss of independence and control is not only an apprehension, but an effective reality today,” wrote the Chief Statistician of Canada Wayne Smith in a resignation letter obtained by The Canadian Press.

Smith is the second chief of the organization to quit on principle in the last 6 years. Munir Sheikh, Smith’s predecessor, resigned in protest of the Conservative government’s changing of the census into a voluntary survey in 2010.

“… Statistics Canada is increasingly hobbled in the delivery of its programs through disruptive, ineffective, slow and unaffordable supply of physical informatics services by Shared Services Canada,” Smith stated.

“I have made the best effort I can to have this situation remediated, but to no effect. I cannot lend my support to government initiatives that will purport to protect the independence of Statistics Canada when, in fact, that independence has never been more compromised.”

The government’s Shared Services Canada has a veto over Stats Can, according to Smith, and this undermines the independence of the statistics organization.

“I do not wish to preside over the decline of … a world-leading statistical office,” stated Smith.

“So I am resigning, in order to call public attention to this situation.”

Almost Half of Japanese Single Adults Under 35 Are Virgins Now

Share this
Share

Japan is dealing with a shrinking population — Japan’s fertility rate is 1.4, one of the lowest in the world.

One of problems behind the shrinking numbers was recently highlighted by a study that has found that a large number of Japanese adults are not in relationships, are not looking for relationships, and many have never been in a sexual relationship.

70 percent of unmarried men and 60 percent of unmarried women between the ages of 18 and 34 aren’t currently in relationships, and 42 percent of men and 44 percent of women are virgins.

The virgin rate is up from the last study six years ago from 36 and 39 percent.

These people overwhelming intend to be married and have families “sometime,” according to they study. 90 percent came out as saying they wanted to get hitched eventually.

So why don’t they get married, or even get into serious relationships?

The researchers point to a gap between ideas about life and realities of life. This idea-reality gap is characterized late completion of expected (and required for almost all jobs) education, prohibitive costs of dwelling, food, transportation and other life costs, the high incidence of female labor, the less family-oriented lifestyle prevalent in today’s Japan and abroad.

Twitter Looking to Sell

Share this
Share

“There is a valuable idea inside Twitter. But Twitter won’t be the company that realizes it,” Paul Graham tweeted last month.

Twitter top brass has now stated that they are in a strong position to sell, and are considering “the right options” for moving forward.

Twitter’s sales are slowing down, it’s not attracting new users, and it’s not monetizing well.

However, it remains very popular with people interested in news and activism, as well as just general things happening in real time around the world.

Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Disney are potential buyers.

Kissinger and Shultz Won’t Endorse Trump

Share this
Share

Former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz have now said they won’t endorse Trump, the nominee for their party.

“We are not making any endorsement in the current presidential election,” stated the two Republican foreign policy experts in a written statement, as reported by Time. “We are dedicated to fostering a bipartisan foreign policy, and we will devote ourselves to this effort now and after the election.”

Kissinger met with Trump recently but came out of the meeting without confidence in the nominee.

“On foreign policy, you identify many key problems,” Kissinger said at the time. “I do not generally agree with the solutions. One-shot outcomes are probably not possible.”

Trump at the time, however, said that Kissinger agreed with his foreign policy ideas.

Eddie Vedder Debuts New Song “Out of Sand” to Be Used on Upcoming Twin Peaks 2017 Series

eddie vedder out of sand
Share this
Share

At the Ohana festival in Dana Point, California this week, singer Eddie Vedder debuted a new song, called “Out of Sand.”

“This is a new one I haven’t played yet,” said vedder sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar on his lap.

The lyrics for the song were published Wednesday by PearlJamOnLine’s twitter account.

out of sand lyrics

Vedder has not only contributed the song “Out of Sand” to David Lynch’s 2017 return to the small screen, but he will appear in the series as well, as will several other musicians, including Trent Reznor, Eddie Vedder, Sky Ferreira, Ruth Radelet, and Sharon Van Etten.

SOLAT

322 Reindeer Killed by Lightning

Reindeer
Share this
Share

“It is very unusual. I’ve heard of cattle having been killed by lightning, but not in such huge numbers,” said Knut Nylend, a warden at the Norwegian Nature Inspectorate (SNO) who came across hundreds of dead animals in a field between Møsvatn and Kalhovd Telemark, Hardangervidda.

The area covered with dead reindeer was around 50 – 80 meters in diameter, according to Nulend.

A hard thunderstorm had covered the area that afternoon, according to the warden the warden said, and the reindeer had been killed by lightening during the storm.

SNO and other authorities have gone to the site to take biological samples from the carcasses.

Hardangervidda has a population of reindeer of around 10,000, according to the Norwegian Wild Reindeer Centre.

VG (Norwegian language)