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The Land, 26/1/2006, p. 20

Source: Erisk – www.erisk.net

Other appliances also to blame … But before you blame power
providers, Cawsey says most of the dirt entering our systems from the
mains power is caused by other appliances and the equipment itself.
“Digital electronics can create quite a bit of noise. CD and WD players
are known to contaminate your mains power,” he says. “And TVs and
computers are a huge source of noise.”

… and neighbours: Other sources of electrical dirt are
fluorescent lights, fridges or a neighbour’s arc welder or electric
drill. Cawsey has spent years working on ways to reduce noise that
affects AV systems. He now makes a range of specially treated power,
speaker and interconnect cables as well as high-end pro- and power
amplifiers.

Power filtration boxes available: But he’s best known for two
inexpensive power filtration boxes, priced at $449 and $699, which have
won wide acclaim here and overseas for their noise-killing
capabilities.

Dedicated power line can help: Steve Eleftheriadis, another
audio veteran and CEO of upmarket AV company Reference Audio Visual in
Melbourne, has also found a way to combat annoying noise interference.
His tried-and-tested formula has two parts: wiring the listening room’s
power points to the mains switchboard through a dedicated power line,
and a Shunyata power conditioner.

Not too costly, either: “Running separate power from the
equipment straight to the switchboard means isolating the equipment
from all the other household appliances and lighting. A qualified
electrician can do this for $150 to $250,” says Eleftheriadis.

The Daily Telegraph, 1/2/2006, p. 9

Source: Erisk – www.erisk.net 

Massive
Grampians-Mt Lubra blaze
under control
Rain and milder weather eased Victoria’s bushfire emergency
after 10 days of huge blazes, three deaths and multi-million-dollar stock and
property losses. The blaze in the Grampians is now being recognised as the
biggest since records have been kept in the park.

Some politicians who toured the area at the weekend said the
Victorian State Government was remiss in not declaring the fire as a natural
disaster area. Member for Western Province, David Koch, said it was the worst
fire in Victoria since Ash Wednesday in 1983.

“Natural disaster status would secure much needed additional
resources and financial support,” Mr Koch said.

“The Premier has seen fit to offer this support to those
affected by the disastrous Stawell fires on New Year’s Eve where although
losses were similar, the area of total damage was significantly less.”

There’s
more than one way to catch a fish as the saying goes. The polar bear is
testament to that, throwing their approximate 300 kilos (about 600 pounds)
against the ice until it breaks. Then they smash their massive paws through the
ice to snatch their prey of fish or baby seals from the freezing waters.

But the life of a polar bear is rapidly deteriorating for
those living in Greenland. A recent Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report
shows that in the past decade the region has been heating up twice as fast as the rest of the world.
The ice-capped island of Greenland is about the size of Britain, France and
Italy combined and summer temperatures of 20 degrees Celsius (69 degrees
Fahrenheit) were previously unheard of. Now local residents say you can almost
sail the icy waters year round. This is having an impact on the migration of
the bears because with the disappearing ice they are more likely to stay put.

At the top of the Arctic food chain, polar bears are well
equipped for sub-zero temperatures with their two layers of fur and a layer of
blubber that can measure 11.5cm (4.5 inches) thick. With this sort of
protection from the cold, overheating is more of a problem, especially if they
decide to get up to a jog.

Criticism of western media came from both western and Arab journalists and academics.

Marc
Lynch, a professor of political science at America’s Williams College,
said: “After 9/11 a lot of Americans were not responding to the Arabic
media, but to what they were being told about the Arabic media.

“The
gap between how Arabs and Americans understand the world is enormous
… We need a real dialogue. Americans need to listen to Arabic media
and vice-versa. We need Americans on Arab media,” he said.

Countering
criticism of the western media, the former editor of the Rand Daily
Mail, Allister Sparks, said the Arabic world needed to get its own
house in order first.

“There is a great need in the Middle East
to have greater self-examination. The struggle for human rights begins
at home. From what I hear there is a serious shortage of
self-examination,” he said.

Abdul Bari Atwan, the chief editor of
al-Quds Al Arabi, said: “In the Arabic world there isn’t much freedom.
We do not talk much about domestic issues … if we had, maybe we
wouldn’t be in the situation we are in now.”

Mounir Shafik, the
author, intellectual and former PLO director of planning, argued that
freedom of expression and diversity of voices were greater in Arabic
media than in the west.

“The dominant media in the west is
playing a negative role in terms of building bridges because the margin
of freedom in the western media is very small.

“The majority of
western media do not allow people like me on their screens to build
bridges. We need to give freedom of expression to the western media …
There is a spirit inside the dominant western media that does not
reflect even the ideas of their citizens.”

Some delegates made a
distinction between US and UK media, with a greater diversity of voices
heard in UK publications, but Fahmy Howeidy added: “The distinction
between the US and British press is important but it is the US press
that influences decisions and the whole world.”

And another line
was drawn was between the “dominant” mainstream media and emerging
“alternative” media, which are helping provide a counterbalance but are
unable to break into the mainstream.

“[Western media] has always
bragged when comparing itself to the Russian media but … it should
stop comparing itself with the Soviet Union and start comparing itself
with us,” Mr Shafik said.

Harnessing the sea, particularly around Cornwall and the north of
Scotland, with machines that capture the movement of tides and waves,
has long been a dream of scientists. In recent years the quest for
clean, renewable power to replace polluting fossil fuels has taken on a
new urgency as the world battles to reduce carbon emissions from coal,
oil and gas which are the biggest cause of climate change.

Until
now, marine power generators have been limited to a couple of small
prototypes, considered too futuristic to take seriously as the answer
to the planet’s energy problems. The study by the Carbon Trust, which
advises the government on clean energy, challenges that. It predicts
tidal and wave power generators could be supplying a significant amount
of power to the electricity grid by the end of this decade.

Its
report follows a £3m, 18-month research project into how marine energy
generators could work, part of £50m of support programmes promised by
government. The report, which is being studied by ministers, says that
the opportunities for machines which use the power of waves to produce
electricity are ‘considerable’. Based on the number of sites with
reliable tides and waves and close enough to connect to the mainland,
such equipment could be supplying a fifth of the country’s current
electricity needs over following decades.

Given Britain’s long
coastline, close to the strong currents of the Atlantic, marine power
would also help to solve another of the government’s key priorities –
reducing reliance on imported energy sources, said John Callaghan, one
of the trust’s programme engineers.

‘The UK leads the world in
marine renewables technology,’ he said. ‘Given our superb natural
resources and long-standing experience in off-shore oil and gas,
ship-building and power generation, the UK is in a prime position to
accelerate commercial progress in the marine energy sector.’

The
report was welcomed by environmentalists: ‘Solutions to climate change
and the threat and expense of nuclear power exist; we just need the
political will to implement them,’ said a spokesman for Greenpeace.

However
the Carbon Trust also highlights problems. The new technology will need
investment by the government and private companies and there is no
reliable forecast for when it will be available on the large scale,
said Callaghan. There are concerns that power generators at sea would
be expensive to connect to the electricity grid, could not always
provide power when it was needed, and may pose problems for sea life.

Dr
Jon Gibbins of Imperial College, London, questioned how much marine
power could meet Britain’s aim of tackling climate change because that
would require global agreement to reduce carbon. Many countries did not
have suitable sites and could not afford the new technology, he said.
‘That doesn’t mean we can’t try it [marine power] and won’t do it,’ he
added. ‘But if you want to rely on marine technologies to displace
fossil fuel use you’re being very optimistic.’

The World Wildlife
Fund said it was against tidal barrages (which are not covered by the
trust’s report) that create huge physical barriers to marine life in
sensitive estuaries, but it supported the harnessing of tidal and wave
power as long as sites were chosen carefully.

Callaghan said the
trust had identified ‘tens, possibly hundreds’ of suitable sites for
wave power, principally off south-west England and north-west Scotland,
and a dozen sites for tidal power turbines, half of them in the
Pentland Firth between the Scottish mainland and the Orkneys.

Sourced – The Observer