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Monday July 17, 2017

A woman has been killed after she fell and hit her head when the force of a jet fl ying overhead blew her from her feet at a world famous beach (pictured) in Saint Maarten, the Caribbean. SD-Agencies

Turkish oil wrestlingWrestlers compete in the annual Kirkpinar oil wrestling tournament at the Sarayici arena in Edirne, Turkey, on Friday. Oil wrestling, also known as grease wrestling, is the Turkish national sport. It is so called because the wrestlers douse themselves with olive oil. SD-Agencies

Woman killed watching jet take offA NEW ZEALAND woman has been killed by a jet engine blast while watching a plane take off on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten.

Plane spotting is a popular activity at the Princess Juliana international airport. Tourists regularly pose for videos and selfi es as jumbo jets fl y close overhead, with the strength of the jet blast from the planes sometimes propelling watchers on nearby Maho beach into the sea, and causing clothing and bikinis to be ripped from their bodies.

In a statement, the St. Maarten police force said the 57-year-old woman, who has not been named, was “seriously injured” just after 6 p.m. Wednesday, after clinging to a fence close to the airport, along with several other people, as a plane took off. Police said they patrol the site on a daily basis to warn people to stay away from the “dangerous” area.

It is understood the New Zealand tourist was standing behind a fence near runway 10 when a Boeing 737 took off. The powerful jet blast propelled her backwards, where she hit her head on the concrete, the New Zealand Herald reported. She died a short time later in hospital.

Signs at the airport warn tour-ists to stay clear of the runway as jet blasts can cause “severe physical harm and/or death.” The airport has been described by plane spotters as both the world’s “best” and “scariest,” with a short runway of just 2,180 meters forcing planes to approach at low altitude.

“The landing and taking-off of all types and sizes of aircraft at the international airport of St. Maarten are well known world-wide as major tourist attraction,” said the police.

“Many tourists come to the island to experience the thrills

of the landing of approaching aircraft fl ying low above their heads and the holding on to the airport fence and standing in the jet blast of large aircraft taking off.

“Doing this is, however, extremely dangerous.”

Despite forceful warnings from local authorities, the air-port has become a world-famous tourist attraction, with local bars displaying departure and arrival times and hundreds of people often gathering by the airport’s fences to watch. (SD-Agencies)

Senator’s election wins didn’t happenTHE deputy leader of an Austra-lian political party announced Friday that he was ending his nine-year career in Parliament because he had discovered he had technically never been a senator.

Scott Ludlam, the 47-year-old deputy leader of the minor Greens party, said he was “per-sonally devastated” to learn that he was a citizen of New Zealand as well as Australia, which made him ineligible for the Senate job he has held since July 2008.

The constitution states that a “citizen of a foreign power” is not eligible to be elected to the Australian Parliament.

While lawmakers have dis-covered they were technically ineligible after elections in the past, Ludlam said nine years later seemed to be a record.

“I apologize unreservedly for this,” Ludlam told reporters. “This is an oversight that was avoidable and it’s something I should have fi xed up in 2006 when I fi rst nominated.”

Born in Palmerston North in New Zealand, Ludlam moved to Perth, Australia, when he was 3 years old. He became an Austra-lian as a teenager and said he hadn’t realized that New Zealand citizenship “might be something that sticks to you in that way.”

He was elected to the Senate three times after stating in nom-ination forms on each occasion that he was not a dual citizen.

He joked: “I can at least vote in the New Zealand elections in September.”

The government could demand Ludlam repay millions of dollars in salary and expenses that he has claimed since 2008. (SD-Agencies)

Massive iceberg breaks away from AntarcticaA MASSIVE iceberg weighing more than 1 trillion tons has broken away from western Ant-arctica, according to a U.K.-based research team.

Scientists from Project MIDAS had been monitoring a break in the Larsen C ice shelf — the fourth-largest in Antarc-tica — following the collapse of the Larsen A ice shelf in 1995 and had observed signifi cant advances in the rift over the past 12 months.

Experts said a 5,800-square-kilometer section of Larsen C was confi rmed to have broken away between last Monday and Wednesday by NASA’s Aqua MODIS satellite.

“We have been anticipating

this event for months, and have been surprised how long it took for the rift to break through the fi nal few kilometers of ice,” professor Adrian Luckman of Swansea University, leading investigator of the MIDAS proj-ect, said in a statement.

He told CNN the team believes the iceberg has remained intact.

“This is part of the normal behavior of ice shelves. What makes this unusual is the size,” he added.

Scientists believe the iceberg — likely to be named A68 — has a volume twice that of Lake Erie in North America and is more than three times the size of the greater London area.

It’s half the size of the larg-

est iceberg ever recorded: B15. With an area of 11,007 square kilometers — about the size of the island of Jamaica — it calved off Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000.

With the iceberg now fl oating independently, the area of Larsen C has been reduced by more than 12 percent, forever changing the landscape of the peninsula, according to experts.

Luckman said that as the sheet of ice was fl oating before it carved off the shelf “there will be no immediate impact.”

“This event does not directly affect anyone, and repercussions, if there are any, will not be felt for years. However, it is a spectacu-lar and enormous geographical

event, which has changed the landscape.”

Calving is a natural occurrence, but scientists have been explor-ing whether climate change may have played a role in expediting the rift. (SD-Agencies)

The rift, then spanning 112 kilometers, on Larsen C pictured in November last year. SD-Agencies

LONDON Tube staff ditch “ladies and gentlemen” for gender-neu-tral greetings

Transport for London (TfL) workers have been told to ditch the phrase “ladies and gentle-men” in a bid to go gender-neu-tral.

Instead, staff should use inclusive greetings like “good morning everyone” to make passengers feel more wel-come.

The decision comes after various activists, including LGBT charity Stonewall, campaigned for the change for months, claiming that although “ladies and gentlemen” was “polite,” it was “outdated” and “belonged to yesterday.”

Pre-recorded announcements and written guidelines for staff will also be reviewed and amended across the city.

Talking to the Metro, Mark Evers, director of customer strategy at TfL, said: “We want everyone to feel welcome on our transport network.

“We have reviewed the lan-guage that we use in announce-ments and elsewhere, and will make sure that it is fully inclusive, refl ecting the great diversity of London.”

During a Mayor’s Question Time at the end of June, Sadiq Khan expressed concern that some customers did not feel comfortable about how certain station announcements were made.

“TfL has made a commitment to transition from gender-specifi c phrases like ‘ladies and gentle-men,’ which are currently used in announcements, to a gender-neutral alternative such as ‘good morning/good afternoon every-one,” he said.

A spokesman for Stonewall said: “Language is extremely important to the lesbian, gay, bi and trans community, and the way we use it can help ensure all people feel included.”

(SD-Agencies)

Metro Londonstops with ladies and gentlemen