Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Comply or Die, the racehorse who won the 2008 Grand National has died at the age of 17. His death was announced by his former trainer, David Pipe. He died over at the weekend in Gloucestershire, where he had been staying with jockey Timmy Murphy. He was cremated on Monday and his ashes will return to Murphy.

Murphy was the jockey in the saddle when Comply or Die won the 2008 Grand National. Speaking to the Press Association, he spoke about the horse’s death. He said, “He was part of the furniture at home so it’s very sad. He gave me the greatest day of my career, obviously that can never be taken away. He paraded at Cheltenham and Aintree and was getting ready to do some dressage in the summer. I’m not actually sure how he died, to be honest, but it wasn’t nice to come home to. He was cremated on Monday. He was a happy horse and he was also very clever.”

During his racing career he made £798,809 in prize-money after winning a total of eight races.

The 2008 Grand National victory was his greatest achievement and he almost matched it when he came second place in 2009. He retired in 2011 but remained active, often being paraded at race grounds such as Aintree and Cheltenham. He also participated in some hunting activities. Pipe said, “Since his retirement he had been a lead-horse at Timmy Murphy’s establishment before trying his hand at dressage, a discipline in which he had proven very successful”.

Tributes have been paid to Comply or Die on social media by horse racing fans with several tweeting their appreciation and memories.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

A Chinese taikonaut (Chinese astronaut) today became the first taikonaut to walk in space when he left his space craft for a total of fifteen minutes. The entire event, which marks a new stage in China’s space program, was broadcast live on national TV.

The walk started at 1630 local time (0830 UTC) today when he exited the spacecraft, while attached to an umbilical cable. The other two astronauts on the spacecraft stayed entirely inside the vehicle while in space, except when passing the flag to Zhigang.

Zhai Zhigang, who has also worked as a fighter pilot, carried out the space walk. “I’m feeling quite well. I greet the Chinese people and the people of the world,” he said as he walked out of his spacecraft to start the walk.

While carrying out the walk, Zhigang wore a Chinese spacesuit, which is believed to have cost between US$10m and $40m to create.

Before the event, the Chinese president Hu Jintao wished the astronauts success. “I have come to send you off, to wish you success,” he said in a televised speech. “You will wear the homemade Fetian space suit for the first time and carry out China’s first extravehicular activity (space walk), which is a great stride for our country’s space technology and development.”

Saturday, April 23, 2005Queensland Australia’s Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen, a controversial figure who served as the State’s Premier for 19 years and reigned over the government that later became the subject of the Fitzgerald Inquiry, has died in hospital at Kingaroy, aged 94.

“By any measurement, Sir Joh was an exceptional state builder who will be remembered for consistently placing Queensland first,” said the Australian Governor General, Major General Jeffery, in a statement.

Australian Prime Minister, John Howard: “He was certainly a strong political figure and I extend my condolences to his wife and his family.”

But not all voices were sympathetic, prominent Queensland Aboriginal activist Sam Watson for example: “Aboriginal people will always remember him as a racist, a thug and a dictator.”

Having suffered severe ill-health for some weeks, and declining health for years, Sir Joh passed away at around 6pm AEST. He was surrounded by his family, who had been summoned yesterday by Lady Flo, his wife and one-time Senator, for final goodbyes.

Phrases such as “Don’t you worry about that” and “Goodness gracious me” were like trademarks to the maverick leader.

Known simply as ‘Joh’ to many, he would famously describe press conferences as ‘feeding the chooks’. Today Kingaroy locals taunted waiting press with cries from “You’re chooks, you’re chooks, ha ha” to “Go home, ya vultures”, and some obscenities, reported the Courier-Mail of Brisbane.

His fall from power at the end of the 80s was surrounded in controversy, with the state embroiled in corruption findings going to the level of his deputies, and Bjelke Petersen’s claims of ignorance coming under challenge with charges of perjury. The case was never heard due to a controversial hung jury: the foreman of the jury, Luke Shaw, had been an office-bearer of the Young Nationals — an arm of Bjelke Petersen’s National Party — as well as a member of a group calling themselves ‘Friends of Joh’.

Having had his start in life as a peanut farmer in remote Kingaroy, the former Premier was fit up until the very end, but palsy was paralyzing his muscles and organs, to which he eventually succumbed.

“Throughout his life Sir Joh combined enormous energy, vision and an immense capacity for hard work, most especially during his 19-year term as Premier of Queensland,” the Governor General said.

“What looked to us to be huge risks at the time turned out to be nation building,” said Bob Katter, a former minister of Joh’s Government, who credited Sir Joh with starting the Queensland coal, aluminum and tourism industries.

He is also remembered for dismantling many of the State’s unions, and for a somewhat totalitarian and heavy handed style of keeping control.

Under Joh, street protests were banned and Special Branch monitored extensively those the authoritarian leader saw as subversives, measures prompting Queenslander, Australian Civil Liberties Council, Terry O’Gorman, to comment Sir Joh was “the most appalling premier Queensland has ever had in terms of civil liberties and human rights”.

Joh was also influential in the famous case of the Dismissal by the Governor General of then-Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, in 1975.

In his last years as Premier, he had taken his cause to the nation’s capital, with the “Joh for PM” campaign. But this distraction has been credited with the downfall of his government, with corruption investigations at last being conducted by his stand-in, Bill Gunn.

The body of Sir Joh, who was of Lutheran faith, is to be buried at Bethany, the family property near Kingaroy.

Unsolicited quotes from ordinary Australians, many ex-Queenslanders seeking refuge in southern states, on hearing the news:

“Outrageous bastard! Oh God! That was polite!” — “Karen”

“Guilty as Hell. And that’s where he is now.” — “Michael”

“Yay! Good riddence to bad rubbish” — “Liza”

“The dictator is gone our time 2 sing” — “John. H.”

“Yeah he took a while — about 90 f*cking years overdue!” — “Hose Man”

“The pope an joh at least somethin going right” — “Helen”

“Corrupt f*cking sh*teating Bible-bashing f*ckw*t is dead. And thank f*ck. I haven’t been so happy since September 11!” — “Greg”

“I don’t drink but I’ll be having a red whilst dancing on his grave.” — “Cellest”

“Ding dong the d*ck is dead!” — anon.

“Yeahhh!!! Fucking finally” — “Leo”

“It’s a great day today the Rednecks are silent a great victory has been won” — “Zenner”

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Yesterday, the Iranian military announced the wreckage of an Aseman Airlines airplane, which went missing on Sunday morning shortly before it was due to land in Yasuj, had been located at an elevation of about 13,000 feet (4,000 m) in the Zagros Mountains. All 65 people on board were presumed dead. Crews were searching for the aircraft’s two black boxes to try to determine why it crashed.

Ramezan Sharif, a spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said wreckage of the ATR 72-500 twin-engine turboprop had been sighted by a military drone and helicopters had then been sent to the location. Helicopter pilot Captain Soheili said on state television the wreckage was only some 100 feet (30 m) from a peak on Mount Dena, and “large parts of the plane, which were labeled with the Aseman company logo” were visible. The Revolutionary Guards released photos in which they said bodies of victims could be seen. Regional medical center director Ghafoor Rastinrooz told the official IRNA news agency that helicopters were unable to land at the site because of “deep and dangerous crevices in the area of the crash”. General Kiumars Heidari, chief of ground forces in the Iranian Army, told the Fars News Agency the dead would have to be brought down the mountain by commandos using specialized ground vehicles.

The plane took off at about 0430 UTC on Sunday from the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Aseman Airlines route EP3704 to Yasuj, in the southwest of the country. It vanished from controllers’ radar screens at about 8:52 local time, 0522 UTC, and there were reports from people in the area of Samirom, about 14 miles (22 km) from its destination in Isfahan Province, of seeing it attempting an emergency landing in a pasture and of hearing the crash. Hundreds of searchers organized by the Red Crescent and using drones and dogs combed the mountainous terrain but were hampered by windy, foggy conditions and heavy snow. The search had to be suspended on Sunday. It resumed at dawn on Monday but weather then forced grounding the helicopters. At one point on Monday local officials announced searchers had found the wreckage, only to have the national civil aviation agency and the Red Crescent indicate the statement had been premature. A demonstration was reported by more than 100 people outside a Dena Kooh government office, demanding resignations.

The plane reportedly had a crew of six — a pilot and a co-pilot, two flight attendants, and two security guards — and 59 passengers, one of them a child. A man who recounted missing the flight told the Tabnak news site “God has been really kind to me”, expressing his sadness over those who had died.

The aircraft was 24 years old. Aseman Airlines, Iran’s third largest air carrier and owned by the national civil service pension foundation, said it had been in storage for seven years before recently being placed in operation again. Iran’s aircraft are aging and the country has been prevented from buying spare parts by international sanctions imposed in response to its nuclear program. Those sanctions were to be lifted under an agreement from 2015, and Iranian airlines, including Aseman, have ordered new planes from both Airbus and Boeing. However, since becoming US President, Donald Trump has declined to recertify the agreement.

There have been a number of serious Iranian air accidents in modern times. In 2011, at least 77 people died when an Iran Air Boeing 727 crashed during an emergency landing.

The pilot in the current crash, Captain Hojjatallah Foulad, successfully landed an ATR 72 at the airport in Yasuj in 2013 after one of the engines failed.