Pirates Say They Freed Saudi Tanker for $3 Million

Associated Press

A U.S. Navy photo shows a parachute, possibly containing a ransom payment, dropped by a small aircraft on Friday onto the Sirius Star, a Saudi-owned supertanker.

By MOHAMMED IBRAHIM and GRAHAM BOWLEY

Published: January 9, 2009

MOGADISHU, Somalia — A Saudi-owned supertanker held by piratesoff the coast of Somalia for two months has been released for a ransom of $3 million, according to one of the pirates and residents of Xarardheere, a pirate town on the Somali coast near where the tanker was being held.

The tanker, about the length of an American Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, is the largest ship known to have been seized by pirates, and it was fully loaded with two million barrels of oil.

The pirates were due to leave the ship after they received the money, paid by the ship’s owners, on Friday, according to the pirates and residents, who later said the ship had moved away from the coast where it had been anchored since November.

News agencies had reported that the pirates originally asked for $25 million for the oil tanker, the Sirius Star, but a pirate in Xarardheere who gave his name as Jama said, “They have agreed on $3 million.” He said he had spoken to pirates who had gone to the ship for the payment.

The International Maritime Bureau in London, a clearinghouse for piracy information and maritime safety issues, said it could not yet confirm that the pirates had freed the tanker.

“The information that we have from the owner is that the vessel is not yet released,” said Cyrus Mody, a spokesman for the organization. The owner, Vela International Ltd., could not be immediately reached for comment.

But a maritime group based in Kenya confirmed the release. Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers Assistance program was quoted by Reuters as saying: “The last batch of gunmen have disembarked from the Sirius Star. She is now steaming out to safe waters.”

The Sirius Star was seized in November off the coast of Somalia, in seas where pirates have struck with increasing audacity in recent months, hijacking vessels including a Ukrainian freighter laden with armaments that is still being held.

China said last month that it would send naval ships to the Gulf of Aden. And on Thursday, the United States Navy said a new international force under American command would begin patrols to confront pirates off the Horn of Africa.

As for the supertanker, Abdi Ahmed of Xarardheere said, “The big fishes left Xarardheere on Thursday afternoon to the Sirius Star ship to get the ransom money and to set free the ship.”

The pirate named Jama said he was waiting for his share of the ransom. “When the pirates receive the money, they will divide in shares on the spot, so that they will disembark tonight from the ship with everyone’s share in pocket,” he said.

Mohammed Ibrahim reported from Mogadishu, and Graham Bowley from New York.

Getting a view of atoms in a crystal

By Chris Lee

One of my pet topics here on Ars is microscopy. This may be a case of objective envy, but I like to think that it is just a case of admiring work in a related field. In any case, what I often forget is that when it comes to resolution, various forms of electron microscopy have us optics dudes beaten, hands down. That situation has become even worse, thanks to a new method that can reconstruct images from electron diffraction patterns.

An electron diffraction pattern is formed by electrons scattering off the atoms that make up a material. The electrons that happen to scatter in the same direction will interfere with each other, leading to bright spots, dim spots, and completely dark regions. Using this diffraction pattern, an image of the object that created the diffraction pattern can be reconstructed. In principle, the smallest feature that can be seen in the image is limited by how coherent the electrons are and the spatial resolution of the detector.

So, why don’t we have grainy pictures of a proton waving at us? The problem is that principles of the technique have been let down by our instrumentation. In reality, the sheer size of the contrast between really bright spots in the image compared to dim spots is about 7 orders of magnitude, while detectors have a dynamic range considerably smaller. The missing information corrupts a key step in the image reconstruction process, called phase reconstruction. The detectors only record the intensity of the light field (in this case electrons), which destroys all knowledge of the phase.

This is why a coherent source of electrons is important. A coherent source allows scientists to reconstruct the phase from the intensity pattern by requiring a self-consistency between recorded and simulated patterns. You might think that many different phase patterns could generate an observed intensity pattern, and you would be right if this were a one-dimensional system. Luckily for us, higher dimensional systems almost always—you can expect the universe to expire before the “almost” bites you in this case—converges on the right phase pattern. With the phase known, the full field is known and the image can be reconstructed. Well, poorly reconstructed.

The problem is that the limited dynamic range of the detector reduces the difference between the bright spots and the dim spots, which, in turn, increases the tolerances on phases that fit the image. This cascades through to reduce the resolution of the image. What we need is an additional constraint to shore up the phase retrieval.

The researchers achieved this by taking a “low” resolution picture of the image (resolution ~0.3nm). They then use this image to further constrain the phase retrieval process. The result is an image with about four times the resolution of the original picture (0.08nm). The researchers demonstrated that this allowed them to resolve the individual atoms in quantum dots, where the separation between pairs of atoms was just over 0.08nm.

Apart from the intrinsic coolness of seeing pictures of atoms in a crystal, this method has other nice properties. It works with any diffractive imaging system, as long as you can get an ordinary image to constrain the phase retrieval. I am now wondering how this would work in highly disordered systems like cells at optical frequencies… /me wanders into the boss’ office.

A broadband invisibility cloak: where is my spare dimension

By Chris Lee | Published: January 09, 2009 – 11:39AM CT

In late 2008, I wrote an article about using plasmonics to develop a broadband invisibility cloak. The authors of that paper concluded that you could either have perfect invisibility at one color, or imperfect invisibility at three colors. Now, a new paper, published in Scienceshows that broadband invisibility may well be possible.

These results were obtained using the idea of transformation media, which I also discussedin late 2008. The basic idea is that optical elements are really just ways of bending space as far as light is concerned. If we then concentrate on what bends are necessary to achieve particular optical effects, then designing a corresponding optical device becomes much much easier—although the theory says nothing about how to actually construct such devices.

Even using transformation media, broadband invisibility was thought to be impossible because, at certain locations, light is required to have an infinite speed, something that might be difficult to physically realize. Undeterred by such findings, researchers from the recently opened Physics Department at the National University of Singapore have pursued the problem and have come up with a broadband invisibility cloak.

Their solution is ingenious but not simple. In a two dimensional example, the researchers construct a plane that causes light to converge on a specific region of space. At this point, a mirror reflects the light from the planar space onto a spherical space. The light then travels around the circumference of the sphere and, no matter what direction the light enters the sphere surface, it always ends up at the same location. A second mirror can then divert the light back onto the planar space, where it exits as if nothing had ever happened.

Note that the two dimensional example required a three dimensional object. As the authors note, their three dimensional example involves a four dimensional hypersphere. Here’s the thing: I can’t picture how to make a three dimensional object that bends space in four space-like dimensions… I just can’t do it, and I can’t see how it is possible.

Nevertheless, it’s an interesting finding, which someone much cleverer than me might be able to implement. However, don’t expect to learn much from the two page paper—to actually see how the results were obtained, you need to read the 20 odd pages of supplementary information.

How to Flatten Your Tummy

 

Written by PureFairyPoison

Learn how to get a flatter tummy without having to join a gym, bare in mind that you will need to stay consistent and not give up easily.

 

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Step1

Eat at least 6 almonds every morning. I know it sounds stupid but as well as being one of the healthiest snacks you can eat, almonds are rich in protein which is essential when burning fat.

Step2

Boost your metabolism by walking/jogging or sprinting for 30 minutes at least 3 times a week, going shopping is a great way of doing this.

Step3

Stop eating refined carbohydrates like white bread, pastas, potatoes, and start eating complex carbohydrates like brown rice and whole wheat bread instead, refined carbohydrates take longer to burn.

Step4

Make obvious choices, If you drink whole milk, drink skimmed milk. When you go to a resturant order something high in protien so it repairs muscle.

Step5

Drink plenty of water. This will help digestion, drink at least 8 glasses a day.

Step6

Do not eat with in 3 hours of sleeping and rather than eating three big meals eat 4-6 small meals and snack on fruit.

Step7

Get yourself a pilaties/yoga DVD. These are great because you can do them at your own pace and both work on toning up your entire body.

Step8

Write down a list of 5 goals everyday. They don’t have to be very aggressive goals, just simple tasks you feel are within your reach. Here’s an example… Monday, January 22 1. Jog for 20 minutes 2. Eat 4 foods high in protein 3. No sweets after dinner 4. Drink 6 glasses of water 5. Eat 3 servings of vegetables When you create a “To Do” list you can visualize, it helps you stay on track and focus on your goals. It’s also important to check off each task as you complete it. This creates a sense of accomplishment that keeps you motivated. 

The challenges of building an earth-bound sun

By Chris Lee | Published: January 02, 2009 – 02:42PM CT

The international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER) is a highly ambitious project that is intended to remove the last obstacles between civilization and our very own pet suns. During the last year, I have become, and continue to be, peripherally (very peripherally) involved in ITER. It is a huge project and, as yet, my involvement has been limited to attending scientific discussions and writing proposals associated with a side project. Nevertheless, I have gained some feeling for the challenges facing ITER, and I thought it might be interesting to share those with Ars readers.

The consequences of confinement 

First let’s look at what appears to be solved: magnetic confinement of the plasma. None of the graduate students, post-docs, or senior scientists discuss the confinement system except in passing. The impression from these meetings is that this was largely a solved problem on paper, and ITER would really test how well these solutions worked. To put it more succinctly, experimentalists do not have the necessary tokomak to test the physics further than they already have, and theory says it should work. The theorists may be wrong and, if they are, ITER will provide the perfect testbed to get it right. 

The design of the physical geometry and the parameters of the plasma-wall interactions were dictated by the requirements of the confinement system. In as much as the walls were considered at all, it was to the extent of whether they would survive long enough to complete the experiment. This has led to a huge scientific challenge—how to make the walls resistant to immense plasma flows.

Magnetic confinement has leaks wherever the field terminates. It is impossible to design a field without these leaks, so the structure of any magnetic confinement system must take this into account. The solution used with ITER is to have specific walls where the field terminates, which confines the leaks to a well-known area. These walls will be subject to a huge flows of very hot plasma that will lead to both surface etching and ions implanting themselves deep into the wall material.

That leads to two further problems: how do we get rid of the dust? And how do we deal with the contaminated wall panels? ITER will eventually use tritium (a radioactive form of hydrogen) as the fuel for the reaction. Some of the tritium will end up embedded in the walls and in the dust. The radioactivity levels are expected to be such that the cleaning will have to be done remotely, and the walls will be quite radioactive when the material needs to be changed.

This is a huge technical challenge that can probably be dealt with. Unfortunately, even though tritium has a relatively short half-life, it rather destroys the idea that fusion is a clean technology. It will certainly be cleaner than coal-fired and fission-powered reactors, but it is certainly not going to be as green as fusion power is generally viewed. This, of course, can change because it is not essential to use tritium—tritium is the easiest to get ignited, so ITER will use that—so future reactors could be much greener than ITER. But, as I will discuss a bit later, it is still a big problem.

Clearly, even if ITER is a complete success in terms of fusion, the plasma-wall interaction problem may yet remain unsolved. It is still not clear what wall material will work best in ITER—indeed, there may not be a best choice for ITER (just a least-bad choice).

To help sort this out, a testbed for the plasma-wall interaction has been built. Even this presented a serious challenge, because the amount of plasma hitting the wall in ITER is expected to be huge. A pilot facility has been operating for some time, but at temperatures and plasma flows significantly lower than those expected from ITER. In 2007, scientists finally succeeded in generating ITER-like conditions in a plasma source, so the construction of the main test facility is now underway. Nevertheless, it is becoming pretty clear that future fusion reactors are going to have to place a higher priority on plasma-wall interaction than on the magnetic confinement configuration.

Paying the price 

One of the problems faced by all big science projects like ITER is planning. Scientific experiments by their very nature have a lot of unknowns, making it difficult to forecast costs; even making design decisions can be problematic. For instance, absolutely every observation port planned for ITER is already reserved for certain instruments. This is a necessity but, particularly with the plasma-wall interaction, there is a lot to be discovered—and a lot being discovered—meaning that it is very difficult to determine the best instrumentation choices.

To make matters worse, it costs money every time an instrument is changed. One of the past year’s big stories described how ITER project leaders were going back to contributing governments to present a final bill that would be much more than expected. This is, in large part, due to the fact that no one knows what wall material to use or how to monitor those walls. To cope with this problem, ITER has been redesigned so that it will be possible to change the materials used in the walls.

The thing is, none of these sorts of problems are different from those faced by any other big science project. So, why has ITER languished? When we look at big science projects—the LHC springs to mind—they are sold on their ability to succeed. The LHC and neutrino observatories will discover new physics; it is simply impossible for them not to because they are looking at things we have not looked at before. Large banks of sequencing machines and huge databases will lead to biological breakthroughs, because it is simply impossible to gather that much new information and not learn something new.

But ITER doesn’t fit in this mold. It is unlikely to discover any fundamentally new physics. It certainly won’t generate power. It will generate some radioactive waste. It might even lead us to the conclusion that fusion power is not economic. In a sense, it is designed to fail—a power station that uses power—but to fail in such a way that we learn enough to succeed. Unfortunately, governments see the price tag, the “if” statements that go with every science experiment, the lack of certainty… and go weak at the knees. Imagine dropping a few billion on a project, only to have a completely null result—something that is simply not possible for most large science projects because they are instruments.

Scale is really the difference between fusion power and all other alternative energy sources. We cannot build a cheap, small-scale fusion reactor and draw conclusions about its feasibility. Instead, a very large reactor needs to be constructed simply to see if it works. Risk-averse governments see that a price of failure that is very much less if one invests in solar energy, wind power, or tidal power, meaning that ITER gets the short shrift.

My personal opinion is mixed. I really don’t know if ITER would succeed. Nevertheless, energy demand has grown consistently at around three to five percent per year in almost every developed nation on Earth for as long as we have records. Even removing environmental considerations, it is unlikely that this demand simply can be met by current mature technologies. Given this, it is probably worth finding out if fusion research is worth it.

In fact, by my reckoning, we should fund ITER to the level requested by the scientists, in order to discover if it is ever going to be worth building fusion reactors. If it is, that is money well spent. If it isn’t, you have a good reason to scale back fusion research for the foreseeable future and invest money elsewhere. This is probably a good deal cheaper than what we’ve done so far: partially fund smaller scale experiments for an indefinite period of time.

Comenius Project

Sunday 26th March 2006

Dear Diary, this is my fist day in Germany let me tell you about my adventure. At 5:30 am, I was at the airport departure hall. Our flight was KM376 and take off at 7:15 am. Our team is Ms R. De Battista, Mr E. Schembri, me Norbert Bonnici, Noel Farrugia, Kristian Zammit, Desluke Cini, Omar Borg, Francesco Surname and Jean-Claude Attard. While we were waiting we found an internet cafe pc with approximately 15min credit. We sent some e-mails with it. When we entered the plane the usual safety precautions were shown to us. During our trip fortunately we didn’t find any air pockets or delays. Kristian, Noel and I challenged our selves for a game of chess. We were served breakfast and coffee. We arrived at Berlin about 10:15 am; it was raining cats and dogs. Unfortunately Desluke’s language didn’t arrive and we went to report it. We took a bus to the train station to take the train to Dessau. Something in this city is that there is a lot of graffiti. If Noel didn’t understand the announcer we were going to stay in Berlin. I took a nap in the train on our trip. It took about 2½ hours. When we arrived, the host families were waiting for us. After presenting themselves we drove to their house. They are four in the family Mehldau: Kraus the father, Greet the mother, Michael and Lilli the children. They showed me my room, gave me a map of Dessau and showed me where we live, the school, and the Rathaus Centre. We went down to have coffee and some sweets which Lilli hade made today. Michael took me to his room and played some computer games. Nick, Michael’s friend came to our house and we went out to play Frisbee. For dinner we had sausages, home made bread and jam and other specialities from Germany. Michael took me around our part of the town Kochstedt. After we went inside to play chess and Uno. At about 11:00pm. I went to sleep.

Me and Michael

 

Monday 27th March 2006

Welcome to this strange place, people drive on the left, strange roofs and bike lanes. Today we went to school and we visited the computer lab. They took us some photos with our partners and printed them for us. We went home to eat afterwards. The family took me to Bitterfeld a city in the south of Dessau. In the outskirts of Dessau there is a wind field and a chemical industry. The most of medicine for Europe is manufactured there. During the World War 2 gases for concentration camps were manufactured there. When we arrived, we went to see a floating tower in a lake. In the lake there was still some melting ice. After we went to see an artificial lake made from a coal mining hole and filled with water from the river Elbe. In the evening we went bowling with all the others. There we had a buffet dinner and after a small league of 9 pin bowling. When we returned home, Greet told me about the flood that they had a few years ago. At about 11:00 pm I went to sleep.

Having fun playing Bowling

Tuesday 28th March 2006

Today we went sightseeing. We took a bus reserved for us, which had a navigation system and several monitors. First, we visited the Bauhaus school. Although it was built in the 20s, it had a very modern design for those days; flat roofs, multiple opening windows, and rooms for the students. Afterwards we went to the Hugo Junkers museum. We went inside the JU52 designed by Prof Hugo Junkers that can still fly and every year as Greet told me they fly it over Dessau. The city hall was next. We went to eat in a bar near the city hall. From its tower we could see a big bell that was made from weapons of the World War 2, the inner city, river Mulde, Zerbster Street, Marien Church, and Jhannis Church. After we went to Rathaus Centre to do some shopping. At about 7:00 pm the mini world cup started. Malta lost all games but Jean-Claude was awarded as best goalkeeper in the league. In the end, I was tired, so I took a shower and went to sleep.

Group Photo

 

Wednesday 29th March 2006

This is the fourth day in Dessau and it is time to present our work to the others. Michael and I went to the youth club by bus. In our presentation, we had: a story about our school, a PowerPoint about gender disparity, a short message about stereotypes, my quiz about all four representing countries, a clip from Shrek 2 in Maltese, and a play that I had to wear a yellow wig to be like a Norwegian babe, a dance, and a Maltese song. Afterwards we went to school to have lunch. There we socialised with the representatives of the other countries. Now we were going to visit a castle. On our way, I took some photos to Stephan, Omar’s partner as Mr Smoky© and to Christian, Francesco’s partner as Mr Single©. There we exchanged our contacts and many friends. The castle had a Chinese style and space full but it was full with nude people. There lived a very bad prince! After we went to a forest, where a group was lost but Stephan and his friends found theme or the group found theme. While we were going for the bus to go back to school, it rained. Michael and I went back home by bus. On our way back, we encountered Stephan, Omar, Kristian, and his partner buying a Doner kebab. I went to wash and after played chess and went to sleep.

At the Presentation

 

Mr Single (C)

 

need Cigarettes ask this guy

 

Thursday 30th March 2006

Today we visited the Zoo in Leipzig. Ms Mehldau took Michael and me to the train-station by her car. When we arrived at the zoo, Jean-Claude and I joined the Polish students. We learnt some of there names: Jeff, Joanna, and Jagoda. Jeff was always taking photos to us with every new species we encounter. Penguins, seals, many kinds of small and large fish, seahorses, sharks, giraffes, lions, iguanas, elephants and many other animals from all over the globe where in this zoo but the best was that I managed to find the little Nemo™. Joanna and Jagoda detached from the group and took Jean-Claude and me with them. We shared some words from our mother language to each other. I manage to remember some words like Tack – yes, Nie – No, Jenkie – Thanks, and Narka – bye. Kristian and Noel joined us later that day. When we went to the train-station we had some free time to wonder around and about 3:45 pm meet again. We made group and decided to go and eat at Mc Donalds and after go shopping. Noel and Kristian made a fight with some ice from their drink. From an electronics shop, I bought an SD-Card. Joanna and I traded our MP3’s for a while. When the train came, I sat near my new friends. Jean-Claude was forced to sleep, poor fellow. I do not know why! Later that day we had a disco {it was our last day together}. However, before I went shopping for souvenirs with Greet and Lilly by bike and I did not had time to change clothes because I was late by 15 minuets! We had a good time there, while we danced but I was disappointed that Michael did not come. At 10:15 pm party was over, we had to return home. What a day! Good night.

Jagoda, me and Joanna

 

Friday 31st March 2006

Last day in Dessau but now we are going to Berlin. When we arrived, they gave us a chocolate Easter bunny as a present for Easter. On our way, we saw the flood that is still in the forests. When we arrived in Berlin, we took a taxi to our hotel. On our way, I explained the driver our Comenius project. Our first impression of the hotel was not goodly maintained but when we entered, we changed our opinion on this hotel. The lift was old like the one in the film ‘‘Titanic’’. At this time Noel is getting crazy on some stupid miscalls and sms from the polish! After we placed our stuff in the rooms, we went all to see the centre of Berlin. One point in this city is that it has loads of modern buildings. We went inside a sport shop where I bought an adidas bag and pocket. We went to eat at Mc Donalds and after to a Berlin souvenir shop. Now we were left to wonder in the nearby shops. Jean-Claude and I went to an other sport shop, which had many Fifa World Cup 2006 fan stuff. I bought a cap, a hand-wrist, and a magazine. When time expired, we went around Berlin with the group. We saw a big and modern fountain and a modern statue. After we went to eat at the Pizza Hut. As we were going back to the hotel we saw a good advert on a steam iron board, steam was coming out of its holes! We had a crazy night while we watched TV with all the group in our room but Jean-Claude did not come. We slept after midnight.

Going to berlin by train

 

What where they doing?

 

Saturday 1st April 2006

April fool! It is a full day in Berlin. I woke up at bout 7:15 am and after went down for breakfast in the restaurant. Today we were going to have a cultural tour around Berlin. First, we visited the Berlin Wall. There are loads of graffiti on its remaining. After we visited the Brandenburg gate and the parliament. Near the is a monument of a pill and behind it there are many modern medicine factories. We went to a coffee shop to have a drink. The teachers had beer, while most of us took Pepsi. Near were a market and many people with World War 2 stands selling souvenirs. From there we could see the TV tower. After we went to a church that on its dome it had the holy spirit painted. From there we visited Checkpoint Charlie it was two closely guarded crossing points. It is estimated that, between 1961 and 1989, at least 70 people were killed trying to cross the boundary. After we went back to the hotel and we left some of the group to relax. Ms De Battista, Mr Schembri, Jean-Claude, and I went shopping. We had about 1 hour and after we went to the others and stayed for a quarter of an hour to relax. At about 8:30 pm we went to eat but we divided to 2 groups Ms De Battista and me went to Mc Donalds and Mr Schembri and the others whet to KFC. In the middle of the night, we made a joke on Ms De Battista. We knocked on her door but at the last, we stayed there and gave her a fright. Now Ms De Battista planed a joke for April fool to Mr Schembri. We would hide in her room and she would tell Mr Schembri that we where doing this so he would come out to stop us. When he was out in the corridor, we got out and sought “April Fool!” He jumped and put his hand out for defence. After that laugh, we went back to our rooms to sleep.

Try to eat this pill!!

 

Sunday 2nd April 2006

Narka Berlin, today we are leaving. I woke up and went down for breakfast. When I was going out, I left my mobile on the table. Fortunately, Ms De Battista saw the phone and returned it back to me. We brought our bags down to the street to go to the airport. The Italian plan had a delay and it affected our flight. We had a good trip but when landing my ears were going to explode. We had a good time in Germany and we arrived safely.

3RD YEAR COMENIUS SCHOOL PROJECT AT GUZEPPI DESPOT BOYS’ JUNIOR LYCEUM COSPICUA

Scholastic Year 2005-2006 kicked off to a good start as a group of enthusiastic students opted to participate in our competition for the Best School Representatives. The Theme of our Project is ‘Fighting Stereotypes in European Nations’. The students had to prepare the following – Game involving information about the 4 participating countries, Interviewing individuals who are actually doing something to combat the negative idea of stereotypes in relation to – Prisoners; Migrants coming from African countries, Eastern Europe & China; Tourists coming from Germany, UK, Italy, Poland, Hungary; Foreign students in our midst. In the meantime networking continued with the co-ordinators of our Partner Schools from Poland, Hungary and Germany.

On the 26th March 2006, the team left for Dessau, Germany, where students were hosted by German families. This meant that they could experience the real lifestyles and put an end to any negative perceptions. The highlight of the trip was of course the school presentations. The German students focused on fashion as a means of uniting young people across the European borders. The Polish Team emphasized through a series of interviews by one of the students acting as a TV journalist that it is great to get to know individuals from different countries. Their programme also included a number of songs.

The Maltese presentation included a Maltese Board Display, The Verdala Story – PowerPoint Presentation, IT Game by Norbert Bonnici Form IV student with reference to the four countries involved in project, a discussion about an investigation regarding whether women in Malta are still considered as stereotype housewives as part of ‘Track Gender Disparity’ project which was launched by the Dutch Educational Institution, which could be viewed on www.aliceo.nl. Other presentations included a clip against racism, a presentation of a Tshirt – Fighting Stereotypes in European Nations – Closing the distance–‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world’ Gandhi, music and dance display, drama.

Living the Panda dream

The adventure to live the Panda dream began after a free and fresh beverage from the airport’s VIP lounge. After boarding in the large Emirates plane Nicole Cremona (the other camper) and I had to decide how to spend all that time in the plane. Frankly games and movies were available and they had to be used! 

Many people say that blond people are intellectually challenged, but during some checker games Nicole proved that she does not lack her IQ since she beat me several times; but at least not in martial arts (my sport).

'Chinese' Warriors

To learn more about Chinese traditions we were taken to Mei LanFang to see a Peking Opera which had a lot of combat including singing and dancing. The Kung Fu Panda dream was getting true.

The opportunity to learn a new instrument came when I got to know Shao Heng. The traditional Chinese instrument is called Guzheng, and according to her I learned faster than she did. Since many of my new friends are Chinese and they speak Chinese all the time, I decided to practise a language absorption technique to learn this “strange” language. It worked because I amazed the Chinese with excellent pronunciation. Arabic was on the list to learn too.

To welcome the Olympic torch in our camp, we were invited to wear our traditional cloths. This was an opportunity to take a lot of photos! After burning fire comes burning spirit in Beijing’s National Stadium also called the Bird’s Nest. From the steel bars which form the Nest to the last performance, it was very amazing. Considering the people in the nest and those who watched it on TV, the Olympic Logo One World, One Dream was fulfilled.

Watching the games was also on our programme. I had the opportunity to watch Artistic Gymnastics in the national indoor stadium, Basketball (USA vs China, where the Americans won) on TV; at least in China, athletics in the Nest (where a part of team No 3 got lost, including me) and Judo (when Marcon competed) in the USTB gymnasium; where I met Ge Yiwen and became good friends (her English name is Isabella).

Isabella and I

 

Getting to know important persons might come useful, so I went on a quest in the name of science, to meet new people. I managed to make friends with three presenters: Yin Xin, Leo Derrick (who is also a beat boxer) and Isabella (she also sings, dances, acts…). I also had the opportunity to meet the prince of Chad. The mission to meet people from different countries was also accomplished.

On my birthday, we visited the Olympic Village; where the inspiration to start training for shooting came by. The Olympic spirit told me that I have to beat the current record of 190 points in the double trap set by Walton Eller from the US. While eating pizza in the village’s cafeteria I met the Polish coaches and physiotherapists.

Showing my ticket 🙂

 

For those campers whose birthday was from 2 till 18 August we had a “surprise” birthday party. I will remember it forever! For food we had an international cuisine which was good. But our last meals were Beijing Roasted Duck and McDonald’s.

I was invited to join a Chinese traditional play and happily accepted. We practised the play in our limited time (mostly at night) and performed it the day after. Since I was acting the part of the mayor’s son, I had to wear traditional clothes (not mine) and used a staff to show off my kung fu skills.

Me and Ge Yiwen

 

I spent most of my free time fooling around with my roommates: Pedro from El Salvador (Taekwondo), Ramon from Jamaica (Swimming), and Eric from Tajikistan (Wrestler). We were almost all fighters! I also watched National Treasure 2 – half in Chinese and a bit in English.

Me, Ramon, Eric and Pedro

 

To protect nature for a better world, we planted a tree and made a promise with Pedro to meet again in five years time in front of our tree. We also climbed the Great Wall of China. While on the top of the Small wall, I learned an old Chinese saying: Bu Dao Chang Cheng Fei Hao Han, which means, you are not a hero if you do not climb the Great wall.

Pedro and I

Bu Dao Chang Cheng Fei Hao Hen

 

I am going to miss all of my new friends, but we are still making contact by email and on Facebook. When going back to the airport I made friends with the guys from Dubai (Mohamed and Talal) and got offered free drink because of Nicole. I also had to temporarily “marry” Nicole since she was 5kg overweight from her luggage and divided the weight between us; because she was going to pay 2500 RMB for the extra 5kg.

Beijing have trains to travel through their airport!!

Me, Grabiel and the Pilot in Cyprus

 

Finally I would like to thank Marco Polo for discovering China and the MOC for sending us to China. Without them it would have been impossible.

Norbert on Voice Of America

International Youth Camp Fosters Olympic Spirit

By Mike O’Sullivan 
Beijing
07 August 2008  

O’Sullivan report – Download (MP3)  
O’Sullivan report – Listen (MP3)  
Olympic Youth Camp report / Broadband – Download (WM)  
Olympic Youth Camp report / Broadband – Watch (WM)  

Nearly 500 youngsters from around the world are getting a close-up view of the Olympics at the Olympic Youth Camp, which got underway in Beijing Wednesday. Mike O’Sullivan reports, the camp uses sports to build bridges between cultures.

Detyange Vanesse and her friend are visiting China from Ivory Coast

The students, most aged 16 to 18, came from more than 200 countries and territories to experience the Olympic spirit firsthand.  

Former Olympic chief Juan Antonio Samaranch was here for the opening Wednesday, on the sprawling campus of a Beijing middle school.

This is the largest Olympic youth camp ever, and it has the greatest age range.  The youngest participant is a 12-year-old Iraqi boy and the oldest is 28.   This is also the first camp to include disabled youngsters.  Ten are taking part this year.

The camp program was started at the Stockholm Olympics in 1912, and has been a regular part of the Olympiad since the Tokyo games in 1964.

Participants arrived from all around China and from every continent to take part in recreational sports such as soccer and tennis, to watch Olympic competitions and meet new friends.  

Nobert Bonnici, 18, is from Malta

Most are seeing China for the first time.   Norbert Bonnici, an 18-year-old from Malta, is struck with China’s size and Beijing’s towering skyline.

“It’s a very large country.  It’s got a lot of skyscrapers.  In Malta, we only have three,” he said.

Beijing is showcasing its growth, and Bulgarian student Monica Minecheva was awed by the sights of the city.

Monica Minecheva is visiting from Bulgaria

“Yesterday, we went to walk and I love the streets and city lights, so beautiful,” she said.

Detyange Vanesse and her friend, both from Ivory Coast, are also impressed with what they’ve seen so far.

“I like Beijing,” she said. “The welcome was warm. We are having fun. They [the locals] are hospitable, always smiling. There are lots of activities, games and everything. And the food is good, friends as well. It’s nice.”

Carolina Castelli of Uruguay says she is thrilled to be here.

Carolina Castelli, from Uruguay, says the Chinese people are very friendly

“It’s really amazing because I never imagined being in the Olympics and here meeting 400 young people from all over the world, and also it’s in China, so it’s more amazing for me, too,” she said.

Olympic athletes are aiming for gold medals.  Norbert Bonnici has his own Olympic hopes.

“Get many friends from different countries, and maybe learn Chinese,” he said.

These students say that beyond the excitement of Olympic competition, the games are about building bridges between people, and they plan to build some themselves.