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Monday, June 21, 2010

Sweden’s first royal wedding since 1976 took place Saturday when Crown Princess Victoria, 32, married her long-time boyfriend and former personal trainer, Daniel Westling, 36. The ceremony took place at Stockholm Cathedral.

Over 1,200 guests, including many rulers, politicians, royals and other dignitaries from across the world, attended the wedding, which cost an estimated 20 million Swedish kronor. Victoria wore a wedding dress with five-metre long train designed by Pär Engsheden. She wore the same crown that her mother, Queen Silvia, wore on her wedding day 34 years previously, also on June 19. Victoria’s father, King Carl XVI Gustaf, walked Victoria down the aisle, which was deemed untraditional by many. In Sweden, the bride and groom usually walk down the aisle together, emphasising the country’s views on equality. Victoria met with Daniel half-way to the altar, where they exchanged brief kisses, and, to the sounds of the wedding march, made their way to the the silver altar. She was followed by ten bridesmaids. The couple both had tears in their eyes as they said their vows, and apart from fumbling when they exchanged rings, the ceremony went smoothly.

Following the ceremony, the couple headed a fast-paced procession through central Stockholm on a horse-drawn carriage, flanked by police and security. Up to 500,000 people are thought to have lined the streets. They then boarded the Vasaorden, the same royal barge Victoria’s parents used in their wedding, and traveled through Stockholm’s waters, accompanied by flyover of 18 fighter jets near the end of the procession. A wedding banquet followed in the in the Hall of State of the Royal Palace.

Controversy has surrounded the engagement and wedding between the Crown Princess and Westling, a “commoner”. Victoria met Westling as she was recovering from bulemia in 2002. He owned a chain of gymnasiums and was brought in to help bring Victoria back to full health. Westling was raised in a middle-class family in Ockelbo, in central Sweden. His father managed a social services centre, and his mother worked in a post office. When the relationship was made public, Westling was mocked as an outsider and the king was reportedly horrified at the thought of his daughter marrying a “commoner”, even though he did so when he married Silvia. Last year, Westling underwent transplant surgery for a congenital kidney disorder. The Swedish public have been assured that he will be able to have children and that his illness will not be passed on to his offspring.

Westling underwent years of training to prepare for his new role in the royal family, including lessons in etiquette, elocution, and multi-lingual small talk; and a makeover that saw his hair being cropped short, and his plain-looking glasses and clothes being replaced by designer-wear.

Upon marrying the Crown Princess, Westling took his wife’s ducal title and is granted the style “His Royal Highness”. He is now known as HRH Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland. He also has his own coat-of-arms and monogram. When Victoria assumes the throne and becomes Queen, Daniel will not become King, but assume a supportive role, similar to that of Prince Phillip, the husband of the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

On Monday local time, a chartered flight carrying 72 passengers and nine crew members crashed on the outskirts of the city of Medellín, Colombia. The Colombian police has indicated only five people on board survived the crash.

The British Aerospace 146 was flying from Brazil to Colombia via Bolivia. The plane reported facing electrical problems near La Ceja and La Unión before crashing at roughly 10:15pm local time (0315 Tuesday UTC). The crash site had bad weather, and heavy fog prevented rescue helicopters from landing.

According to initial reports, six passengers were rescued but later one of them died in hospital.

The flight was carrying Brazilian Série A football team Chapecoense’s delegations. Chapecoense was scheduled to play Colombian club Atlético Nacional today in the Copa Sudamericana final; Copa Sudamericana is South America’s second-tier club competition, the winner of which is promoted to the first-tier competition of Copa Libertadores in the next season.

The Chapecó based club were promoted to the first division Série A in 2014. They are currently ninth in the league table and the final league match of the season was scheduled to be played on Sunday against Atlético Mineiro. Reaching the final of Copa Sudamericana was the best outcome in the club’s history.

By varying reports either 21 or 22 Brazilian football journalists where also on the flight. The five survivors include at least two football players, who have been identified as Alan Ruschel and Jakson Follmann.

South America’s governing body of football CONMEBOL has suspended the upcoming fixture. Atlético Nacional were scheduled to play the second leg of the final on December 7.

Brazilian president Michel Temer tweeted, “I express my solidarity at this sad time when dozens of Brazilian families have been affected by tragedy.”^{((pt))Portuguese language: Nesta hora triste que a tragédia se abate sobre dezenas de famílias brasileiras, expresso minha solidariedade.} Temer has also called three-day mourning in Brazil.

Atlético Nacional requested CONMEBOL award the Copa Sudamericana to Chapecoense. Several Brazilian clubs said they would loan players to Chapecoense for the upcoming season for free. They also requested Chapecoense be granted three seasons’ immunity from relegation to a lower division.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Retired CBS News television correspondent Mike Wallace, known for his tough interviewing style, died April 7, at Waveny Care Center in New Canaan, Connecticut, surrounded by his family. He was 93 years old.

“It is with tremendous sadness that we mark the passing of Mike Wallace. His extraordinary contribution as a broadcaster is immeasurable and he has been a force within the television industry throughout its existence. His loss will be felt by all of us at CBS. All of us at CBS News and particularly at ’60 Minutes’ owe so much to Mike. Without him and his iconic style, there probably wouldn’t be a ’60 Minutes,” said CEO and president of CBS Leslie Moonves. CBS plans a tribute broadcast in remembrance of Wallace, scheduled to air on April 15.

Wallace interviewed many famous people including former United States president John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, former first lady Nancy and former president Ronald Reagan. He worked for the CBS News magazine show 60 Minutes for almost 40 years and announced he would step down in 2006, and subsequently interviewed for the program sparingly. His last sit down interview which occurred on January 6, 2007 was with baseball star Roger Clemens.

Wallace won his 21st Emmy Award for his 2006 interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; Wallace was 89 years old at the time. Wallace said that interview stuck out to him the most, as well as his interview with Russian-American classical piano virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz, which he later said was his favorite interview.

Wallace said the interview that most affected him was his documentary on the Vietnam War in 1982. In the report, Wallace said General William Westmoreland exaggerated enemy casualty figures so Americans would keep supporting the war. Westmoreland sued CBS (Westmoreland v. CBS) and Wallace for $120 million, and later dropped the lawsuit. The trial pushed Wallace into clinical depression and he admitted in a 2006 60 Minutes tribute to himself, that he attempted suicide by overdosing. Wallace eventually became a spokesperson for the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, formerly known as the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression. He appeared in a 1998 documentary about depression called “Dead Blue.”

Wallace attended the University of Michigan, where he delved into the broadcasting world. He graduated in 1939 and became a communication officer in the U.S. Navy for three years during World War II. In the 1940’s and 1950’s Wallace appeared on many television and radio shows doing both news and entertainment broadcasts.

He married a woman he meet at college, Norma Kaphan and they had two boys, Peter and Christopher. The couple divorced in 1948. Wallace then married actress Buff Cobb which ended in divorce. He married twice more to Lorraine Perigord for 28 years and then Mary Yates, his current wife, turned widow.

He is survived by his two sons, wife, stepdaughter Pauline Dora and stepson Eames Yates including several grandchildren.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a vault containing millions of seeds from all over the world, saw its first deposits on Tuesday. Located 800 kilometers from the North Pole on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, the vault has been referred to by European Commission president José Manuel Barroso as a “frozen Garden of Eden“. It is intended to preserve crop supplies and secure biological diversity in the event of a worldwide disaster.

“The opening of the seed vault marks a historic turning point in safeguarding the world’s crop diversity,” said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust which is in charge of collecting the seed samples. The Norwegian government, who owns the bank, built it at a cost of $9.1 million.

At the opening ceremony, 100 million seeds from 268,000 samples were placed inside the vault, where there is room for over 2 billion seeds. Each of the samples originated from a different farm or field, in order to best ensure biological diversity. These crop seeds included such staples as rice, potatoes, barley, lettuce, maize, sorghum, and wheat. No genetically modified crops were included. (Beyond politics they are generally sterile so of no use.)

Constructed deep inside a mountain and protected by concrete walls, the “doomsday vault” is designed to withstand earthquakes, nuclear warfare, and floods resulting from global warming. Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg called it an “insurance policy” against such threats.

With air-conditioned temperatures of -18 degrees Celsius, experts say the seeds could last for an entire millennium. Some crops will be able to last longer, like sorghum, which the Global Crop Diversity Trust says can last almost 20 millenniums. Even if the refrigeration system fails, the vaults are expected to stay frozen for 200 years.

The Prime Minister said, “With climate change and other forces threatening the diversity of life that sustains our planet, Norway is proud to be playing a central role in creating a facility capable of protecting what are not just seeds, but the fundamental building blocks of human civilization.” Stoltenberg, along with Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, made the first deposit of rice to the vault.

“It is very important for Africa to store seeds here because anything can happen to our national seed banks,” Maathai said. The vault will operate as a bank, allowing countries to use their deposited seeds free of charge. It will also serve as a backup to the thousands of other seed banks around the world.

“Crop diversity will soon prove to be our most potent and indispensable resource for addressing climate change, water and energy supply constraints and for meeting the food needs of a growing population,” Cary Fowler said.