News Stories

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Seitsuki

Scottish Vikings sound like the most badass thing ever.

vikings in skirtsKilts

[Seitsuki]

Aam gonnae plunder th' jobby it ay ye!!

/highland charge

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

wait wait... we have Vikings popping up and the Serene Republic of Venice wants another shot? What is this, CK2? Next we shall have someone lobbying to reinstate the HRE.

[Ithekro]

Party like its 1014?

[TinyRedLeaf]

The festival looks more epic on video. Looks like I've found a holiday idea.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/MpG_2zSCK5I

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

I half expect AnimeSuki's resident Viking to make this pilgrimage some time soon.

[Renegade334]

Looks like they've just made it official, even though they have yet to retrieve debris out of the water and confirm them as being remains of the missing 777-200ER.

New satellite data revealed that missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 "ended" in the south Indian Ocean, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said today.

"This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites. It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean," Razak said at a news conference.

The jet vanished on March 8 with 289 people on board after it took off from Kuala Lampur bound for Beijing.

The announcement follows weeks of searches that spanned the South China Sea, Strait of Malacca and finally the south Indian Ocean off of Australia as authorities tried to figure out what happened to the plane.


Earlier today, an Australian plane spotted two objects described as gray or green and "circular" as well as orange and "rectangular" in the search area off Australia's coast.
Other search crews had spotted "suspicious objects" in the Indian Ocean over the weekend -- including items believed to be wooden pallets. The Malaysian government said that the missing Boeing 777-200 had been carrying wooden pallets, were not yet sure whether the pallets matched.

No wreckage has yet to be recovered.

Source.

[JokerD]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

Looks like they've just made it official, even though they have yet to retrieve debris out of the water and confirm them as being remains of the missing 777-200ER.


Source.

I don't know, I find the timing of this announcement very odd, since the search team is just a bit away from reaching the debris found from satellite images...

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by Seitsuki

Scottish Vikings sound like the most badass thing ever.

They were real and yeah, pretty damn badass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse–Gaels

The Vikings came from Scandinavia, but they eventually intermingled with natives of the lands they raided - the most famous example being the Normans.

The Shetland Islands were actually colonized originally by Scandinavians, so they are more "pure" blooded.

Interestingly, when people think of Vikings, they often think of Iceland as being a pure Viking country, but nearly 40% of their DNA is Irish/British due to the aforementioned intermingling.

[SeijiSensei]

Japan Lets U.S. Assume Control of a Nuclear Cache

Japan announced on Monday that it would turn over to Washington a large cache of weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium, a decades-old research stockpile that is large enough to build dozens of nuclear weapons, according to American and Japanese officials.

The move is the biggest single success in President Obama’s five-year push to secure the world’s most dangerous materials, and comes as world leaders gathered here on Monday for a summit meeting on nuclear security. Since Mr. Obama began the series of meetings with world leaders — this will be the third — 13 nations have eliminated their caches of nuclear materials and scores more have hardened security at their storage facilities to prevent theft by potential terrorists.

The statement did not specify the amount of the material to be eliminated. American and Japanese officials said it would include 700 pounds, or 320 kilograms, of weapons-grade plutonium. The amount of highly enriched uranium has not been announced but is estimated at 450 pounds.

The nuclear fuel being turned over to the United States, which is of American and British origin, is a small fraction of Japan’s overall stockpile. Japan has more than nine tons of plutonium stored in various locations and it is scheduled to open in the fall a new nuclear fuel plant that could produce many tons more every year. American officials have been quietly pressing Japan to abandon the program, arguing that the material is insufficiently protected even though much of it is in a form that would be significantly more difficult to use in a weapon than the supplies being sent to the United States.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Japan Lets U.S. Assume Control of a Nuclear Cache

....arguing that the material is insufficiently protected even though much of it is in a form that would be significantly more difficult to use in a weapon than the supplies being sent to the United States.

I don't know which is worse - a dirty bomb or a small nuke.

[Ithekro]

The Japanese already have an answer to that question: A dirty small nuke.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by JokerD

I don't know, I find the timing of this announcement very odd, since the search team is just a bit away from reaching the debris found from satellite images...

That's because you aren't familiar with how media cycles work. The announcement was timed to ensure that it would make it to the front-page headlines of the next morning's newspapers.

We're waiting for the news conference now.

EDIT:
Alert just came in: The news conference will take place at 12.30pm, local time (4.30am GMT).

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Japan Lets U.S. Assume Control of a Nuclear Cache

Can't we use those caches to power more scientific endeavours like the Voyager probes or the Mars rovers? Last I checked NASA was running low on Plutonium.

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by Dextro

Can't we use those caches to power more scientific endeavours like the Voyager probes or the Mars rovers? Last I checked NASA was running low on Plutonium.

That would be nice, seeing as how I don't know what else they would do with it. Would be a subversion of the usual war provisions sucking resources away from science.

[Lord of Fire]

Originally Posted by Dextro

Can't we use those caches to power more scientific endeavours like the Voyager probes or the Mars rovers? Last I checked NASA was running low on Plutonium.

I wonder if anyone pitched this idea to Obama, so that he can discuss that at the Nuclear Security Summit that's currently going on in my hometown. Would probably one of the better solutions than any of the countries participating can come up with.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

That's because you aren't familiar with how media cycles work. The announcement was timed to ensure that it would make it to the front-page headlines of the next morning's newspapers.

We're waiting for the news conference now.

EDIT:
Alert just came in: The news conference will take place at 12.30pm, local time (4.30am GMT).

Not really effective in placating the relatives.

That was not enough for some of the relatives. "There was no evidence," a protester at the Malaysian Embassy surnamed Wang told Reuters. "It was just based on analysis from the satellite data and nothing found. Why would we believe it?"

TL : MH370 don't let us wait for too long!

[Cosmic Eagle]

I'm not convinced either...Are you?

It's gone though. That's 99% certain

[Fireminer]

Are there anything beside hope?

Why are we still arguing about birth control?

I find it's weird for husband who doesn't want more respondsibility on his shoulders, and yet still wants more children. The argue is that more children=more laborers, but when the children grow up and marry, they will split the family's means of labor - which isn't worth much to begin with.

[SeijiSensei]

Obama Hosts a Three-Way with Japan and South Korea

When President Obama brings together the estranged leaders of Japan and South Korea for a peacemaking session in The Hague on Tuesday evening, it will be the culmination of three months of intense behind-the-scenes American diplomacy.

In this case, Mr. Abe and President Park Geun-hye of South Korea have barely been on speaking terms since coming to power just over a year ago. Their antagonism is complex and deeply personal, rooted in World War II history as well as their own conservative and nationalist political leanings, which make old animosities even harder to overcome.

The feud has been a growing source of anxiety for the White House, not the least because of worries that China could use the ill will to drive a wedge between America’s two key allies in Asia. That would give China a freer hand in the East China Sea. Divided, Japan and South Korea are also less effective in pressuring North Korea over its nuclear program.

It always makes me nervous when the US sticks itself into international disputes that have deep historical roots. American culture tends to be pretty ahistorical and ethnocentric which can lead to "bull-in-the-china-shop" actions on the world stage like Iraq. Still the problems here rest with Japan and South Korea; there is only so much the US can do.

Now if they could only settle things over a nice game of mah-jongg.

[Ithekro]

It sometimes works though. Russo-Japanese War was ended with help from the United States. Got Teddy Roosevelt a Noble Peace Prize.