Turkey authorizes the construction of a church

Turkey has authorized the construction of an Assyrian church in Istanbul. This will be the first construction of a place for Christian worship since the fall of Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War.

Turkish law prohibits the construction of churches even though the country provides shelter to several Christian patriarchs.

However, several years ago, a derogation was granted to re-establish liturgic celebration in an old Church.

Turkish law has also applied in the Northern part of Cyprus, since Turkish occupation in 1974. Deceitfully, official tourist leaflets present Christian places of worship, now derelict, as “castles”.

By way of comparison, since President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to power, more than 9 000 mosques have been built in Turkey.

The nuncio (Pope’s ambassador) appointed to Ankara by the Pope is not registered as Monseigneur Paul Russell, but as His Excellency, Ambassador Paul Russell.

Read more: Turkey authorizes the construction of a church

Global Warming: Low-lying Netherlands is exporting its water-management expertise

Netherlands: famous for water-management expertise

Passengers arriving at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport might be alarmed to learn that they are landing on a runway that would  be — if nature took its course — 13 feet under water.

The fact that the runway is dry and the passengers can alight without getting their feet wet is thanks to more than a century of water management. For hundreds of years, the Dutch have been pumping, draining, building sea walls and dykes, fighting coastal erosion and reclaiming land as a matter of national survival because more than half their country lies below sea level.

These skills in keeping water at bay have served the domestic economy in the Netherlands well, but now, in an era of climate change and rising sea levels, they are driving a major export industry as well.
 
“There are so many cities around the world in deltas, or in coastal zones, very close to the water that are in jeopardy,” Piet Dircke, a Dutch water engineer, told Marketplace. “Millions of people in these big cities need to be protected against the impacts of floods and climate change, and the Dutch know how to do that,” Dircke said.

From Wuhan in China, to São Paulo in Brazil, to Miami, New Orleans and New York, big coastal and riverine cities around the world have been hiring Dutch companies to combat rising sea levels. Dircke’s employer, the giant engineering consulting firm Arcadis, has seen its water business revenues jump by 42 percent over the past five years to $515 million due to this increasing global demand for Dutch expertise.

The know-how extends well beyond pumping and draining. In Rotterdam harbor, an experimental  project has been unveiled that could help communities cope with rising sea levels, not by draining and reclaiming land but by “building on water.” 

Read more: Low-lying Netherlands is exporting its water-management expertise

China: Wind Power: China kicks off wind farm construction

China started construction of the country's first 10-gigawa wind power base in Jiuquan of northwest Gansu province on Saturday as Beijing seeks more clean power to fuel its fast economic growth.

China, the world's second-largest energy user, has said it would bring its total wind power capacity to 100 GW by 2020 from the current 12 GW, part of a broad energy target to generate 3 percent of total electricity from non-hydro renewable energy.

To that end, the National Energy Administration (NEA) has planned six 10GW-level wind power bases in areas rich in wind resources such as Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Xinjiang, Hebei and Jiangsu.

The Jiuquan mega wind power base will be built in two phases. The first one, a 3.8 GW base comprising of 18 200-MW and two 100-MW wind farms, is developed by 20 developers and will be completed by 2010, Feng Jianshen, vice governor of Gansu, told reporters.

Chinese power firms Huaneng Power International and Datang International Power are among the developers, which also include six foreign firms, Feng said, without giving the names of the foreign investors.

Construction for the second phase, consisting of 40 200-MW wind farms will kick off in 2010 and be open to foreign investment, he said.

The installed wind power capacity of Jiuquan will jump to 5.16 GW by 2010, 12.71 GW by 2015 and 20 GW by 2020 from the current level of 660 MW, Feng said.

In the future, Jiuquan's wind power capacity could hit 40 GW, he added.

Read more: China kicks off wind farm construction - 4C Offshore

Olympics:While first contestants are already arriving London in mad dash to complete finishing touches for Olympics - by Stephen Wilson

With the opening ceremony less than two weeks away, there’s a mad dash to the finish line at the Olympics and it has nothing to do with sprinters.

Hundreds of construction workers are toiling away inside the Olympic Park, laying cables, installing seats and adding the last layers of sparkle and polish to the venues.

The last thing organizers need at this point is a crisis over readiness of the venues. At the moment, they’re coping with the fallout from a bungled contract by private security group G4S that forced the government to call in about 3,500 additional troops — many just returned from tours of duty in Afghanistan — to fill the shortfall.

A walk through the 560-acre Olympic Park in east London this weekend, between yet another bout of rain showers, showed the scale of what remains to be done: a small army of workers, a sea of white tents, cranes, bulldozers, upturned tables and chairs, humming generators, television cables and rigging, a maze of fences.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said it’s normal for host cities to face a flurry of last-ditch issues.

Read more: London in mad dash to complete finishing touches for Olympics - The Globe and Mail