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Sunday, March 11, 2007

Premiership title hopefuls Chelsea were forced to battle back for a draw earlier today at Stamford Bridge. Tottenham seemed to have a spot in the semifinals of the FA Cup all wrapped up before two late strikes from Lampard and Kalou ruined the day for Spurs. Chelsea were again without the heart of their defence, John Terry, and it showed for much of the game as Tottenham broke through the Blues lines far too easily on several occasions. Chelsea came out to win though, and nearly all their main stars were on the pitch to start the match, including Shevchenko, Ballack, Drogba, and Lampard. Martin Jol’s Tottenham also fielded a strong attacking side, even without the use of the injured Robbie Keane. Defoe, Berbatov, and Lennon lead the way for Spurs instead, with Canadian Paul Stalteri and Englishman Michael Dawson on defence. Tottenham also had to use their backup keeper Radek Cerny, as their number one Paul Robinson is with Keane on the injured list.

Tottenham came out fast and hard, scoring after only 5 minutes. Jermain Defoe cut in from the left and attempted a pass to Hossam Ghaly, but Aaron Lennon pick up the ball instead and sent it in to the Bulgarian striker Dimitar Berbatov. Chelsea keeper Petr Cech sprinted out in an attempt to block, but Berbatov spun and volleyed the ball high into the back of the net, giving the visitors the early lead. Tottenham pressed for a second, and two chances presented themselves to Defoe and Lennon, but the crossesfrom Berbatov and Defoe were out of the players reaches. Chelsea would strike back though, and the goal would be against the run of play. Ballack received a chested down ball from Shevchenko after a Drogba cross, and the German blasted the ball low and hard. The shot was off target, but Frank Lampard was able to react quickly enough to fling out his leg and deflect the ball into the back of the net. Tottenham continued to run at the shaky Chelsea defence, and were rewarded with a goal when Aaron Lennons seemingly harmless cross was knock into Chelsea’s net by Michael Essien, who was attempting to cover back on defence. Tottenham then nearly gave Chelsea an own goal of their own as Michael Dawson knocked Arjen Robbens cross toward his own net, but Paul Stalteri raced back to clear off the line. After the near tying goal, Jose Mourinho made an early change by replacing Paulo Ferreira with Shaun Wright-Phillips. Another defensive error would see Chelsea two behind soon after though, as Ghaly beat three defenders to a high ball, and slotted the ball past Cech from 12 yards out. Chelsea had a few more chances as they tried to grab a lifeline before the break, but nothing truly troubled keeper Cerny.

Chelsea came out of the dressing room much more positively after the break, and had 3 chances to score from 2 Ballack free kicks, and a well taken shot by Lampard. Cerny did well to keep the game at 3-1 however. Spurs nearly put the game away on the counter attack, but Cech came out quick to stop Aaron Lennons run, and Defoe could not find the net after the ensuing cross by Ghaly. Chelsea then made 2 changes in just over 5 minutes, as Boulahrouz and Kalou took to the pitch. On the 70th minute, Chelsea earned a corner, and Arjen Robben stepped up to take the set piece. A goulmouth scramble occurred from the curving corner and the ball landed nicely at Lampard’s feet. The Enlgishman blasted it home, cutting the deficit to one. Chelsea equliazed 4 minutes from time through substitute Salomon Kalou. Didier Drogba headed the ball to his fellow countryman Kalou, and the Ivorian volleyed the ball into the back of the net. Jermain Defoe had a chance to be the hero for Tottenham only minutes later as he beat out three defenders and struck the ball hard past Cech, but not past the crossbar. The game ended drawn, and the replay will be held at White Hart Lane on March 19th.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

New currency notes are being introduced in Ghana today. The new currency, to be called the Ghanaian cedi, replaces the previous cedi which has been in circulation since 17 February, 1967.

The Ghanaian cedi will be exchanged at 10,000 old cedis to one new Ghanaian cedi. The exchange rate against the U.S. dollar starts at GH¢0.92 to one U.S. dollar. The new ISO code for the currency is GHS, and the new symbol, GH¢.

The change, which was originally scheduled by the Bank of Ghana to start on July 1, 2007, will instead start on Tuesday July 3, as the original date is Ghana’s Republic Day.

Monday, July 2, was declared a public holiday as the actual Republic Day fell on a Sunday. July 3, is thus the first day that the currency will be available to the public as banks open to the general public. This is because ATMs were shut down over the weekend so that the currencies could be checked and replaced in all of them nationwide. The old and new currencies will be used concurrently until the end of December 2007, when the old currency will cease to be legal tender.

This is the third Ghanaian cedi to be introduced in the country since 1965.

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Friday, March 9, 2007

Imagine coming back from a camping trip in the desert. Then a few months later you notice in your photos from the trip that you camped inside a giant impact crater so big that no one documented it before. Could it happen?

During several trips to the Black Rock Desert, mostly while supporting the Stratofox Aerospace Tracking Team for suborbital space rocket launch efforts, Ian Kluft KO6YQ noticed some oddities in rock formations. He had a little experience with volcanoes, and some rocks in the area looked unusual. There seemed to be some lava here and there – but where was the volcano? He observed that even a large caldera should have mostly volcanic rocks. He then noticed some curved geographic structures in satellite imagery which made him curious if it might be an impact crater.

A TV documentary about meteor impacts mentioned some characteristics of impact craters. He went to the Internet to learn more. He noticed some of his own pictures of the area had cone shaped structures which might be “shatter cones” due to an impact shock wave that passed through the rocks. Discussion with others produced suggestions and volunteers who joined the effort. More circular features in satellite photographs were found. Igneous dikes through white layers of rock had been described and were visible in many photos.

The possible impact crater is 30 miles (48 km) wide east-to-west and 40 miles (64 km) north-to-south centered around 40.984045 N, 118.916016 W. That is in northwestern Nevada halfway between Reno and the Oregon border. The apparent ancient geological structure is so old that much of it is eroded away. The forces that eroded the Black Rock Desert itself, whether glacier or stream, have apparently cut through the crater rims and floor to do it.

Following an expedition to the area in late January, more possible shatter cones were observed in one of the rock samples collected. These are only formed by the shock wave of an impact event or nuclear explosion. The nearest nuclear test was underground at Sand Springs Range in central Nevada. Atmospheric tests at the Nevada Test Site were at the southern, and opposite, end of the state. So that points toward an impact if confirmed. But professional geologists will want to have the final word on confirming them.

In addition to shatter cones, rock samples were thought to contain shocked quartz because the criss-cross fractures looked like examples in online documents. But this group of volunteers doesn’t have equipment for proper photography of shocked quartz. If found, that would be another way to prove the impact origin of the rocks.

Columnar jointed columns hundreds of feet tall appear on some bluffs in locations that appeared consistent with part of a slowly cooling crater floor. But that alone only helps as part of a bigger picture, because volcanoes can have lava cool in columnar joints as well.

They also found local geological studies which described oddities which could be explained by an impact event. Layers of rocks in the mining district called Sulphur left geologists with a mystery about the cause of chemical alterations since 1980. The group compared it with information in online geological texts like “Traces of Catastrophe” by Dr Bevan M French of the Smithsonian Institution. Layers of impact ejecta seemed to explain the rock layers better than the previous theory about acid uniformly cooking the rocks across the region, and only in one layer of rocks. A separate 1980 study 40 miles away identified an immense air-fall tuff layer in the Soldier Meadows area as having been deposited in a single unit, yet couldn’t locate the volcano which produced this enormous volume. Fault diagrams published online by a mining operation at Sulphur on the edge of the circular structure from the satellite photo also look like curved terraced faults in the wall of a crater.

The mining geologists who wrote papers from 1980 to 2002 had not mentioned the possibility of a crater. But they were each gathering single puzzling pieces of information. A larger image seemed to be forming when putting the pieces together. The group hopes the information will be helpful to geologists who do further work in the region.

The theory hasn’t been put to any test by professionals yet. Some responses point out that the elliptical region reported as the possible impact crater could also be the volcanic caldera that the 1980 study was looking for. If so, such a large volcanic caldera would still be a significant discovery for the region.

This will remain officially a mystery for a while until the professional geologists get to study it. There is a lot of information available online for those who are interested.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

China has loaned Ethiopia US$349 million worth of funds for the construction of the the country’s first modern expressway, making Ethiopia among the first beneficiaries of the recently implemented China-Africa development funding plan.

The road is to be close to 80 kilometres long, and will connect Nazaret (also called Adama), the country’s second-largest city, with the capital, Addis Ababa.

Funds from the Export-Import Bank of China are to be used to give the loans, according to the agreement. The deal was signed by Li Ruogu, the president of China’s Export-Import Bank, and Ahmed Shide, the Ethiopian state minister of finance and economic development.

According to the Ethiopian News Agency, the motorway is to be completed by 2014. The country has also agreed to other financial deals with China, mainly in the telecommunications and energy sectors.