That was 2011...in news

STUDYING journalism at University, it is essential to keep updated on the latest news around the world, no matter if it has any influence on you.  2011 has been one of the most dramatic news years in recent times, but sadly – there were a lot of dark forces and the stories don’t lie.  Natural disasters, media revelations, economic crisis, uprisings in a new world and man-made riots made it a fairly depressing year for many.

         The heart of Japan was ripped out in March by a devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit the country.  An 8.9 earthquake on the Richter scale; the most powerful in Japan’s history was followed by a 30ft tsunami which swept away everything in its path.  Cars, people, buildings stood absolutely no chance against Mother Nature’s deadly power.  Many thousands were killed and it is unlikely that the total death toll will ever be recorded, due to the sheer destruction.  It was a year when natural disasters sadly came right to the forefront again.  Flash flooding recently has claimed the lives of 500 people in the Philippines; Brazil was hit by massive landslides which left 15,000 homeless in January.  Australia had to bring in the military following widespread flooding in Queensland and Brisbane, which left at least 25 people dead and nearby neighbours New Zealand were left reeling by the earthquake in Christchurch in February which left over 100 dead.   

         Back at home and the media had its own cross examinations, in the form of a gulfing scandal.  The phone hacking scandal not only stained the reputation of the British print industry, but it has left it with a lot of damage to attempt recovery from.  Andy Coulson, who was David Cameron’s former press aide, was arrested and the chief executive of News International, Rebekah Brooks, eventually resigned from her tainted position.  The Murdoch’s faced severe interrogation from MPs over the actions of rogue journalists, which spelt the end for the News of the World newspaper in July.  The voicemails of murdered teen Milly Dowler were hacked into and many celebrities, including Hugh Grant, Sienna Miller and Andy Gray reported cases of their conversations being taped.  The Leveson enquiry into this summer’s distasteful events is being held at the moment, but the implications are still far reaching for the press sector of media.

         In America, the former doctor of Michael Jackson, Conrad Murray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.  He has since been sentenced to four years in prison.  Meanwhile, student Amanda Knox was cleared on appeal on the murder of fellow British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia.  Knox had spent four years in jail, having been initially convicted in 2007.  

      America also said goodbye to the Space Shuttle, as Atlantis made its final mission in July.  Having been in service for 30 years, the reusable spacecraft has been retired after some success and devastating disasters in American space exploration history.  In Europe, an economic meltdown has seen the Euro on the brink of collapse.  Greece, Ireland and Portugal have asked for emergency bailouts and a recent EU treaty proposal was rejected by David Cameron, which has left Britain playing a dangerous game, but a correct game against Europe.  It has seen tensions rise in the coalition though.  The Liberal Democrats might be at war with the Conservatives with this, but they also lost the AV vote referendum and suffered severe losses in May’s local elections.  In 2010, Nick Clegg was on a crest on a wave, but now, he is among one of the most unpopular politicians ever to have walked in Downing Street!

        The springtime brought about a changing of the guard in the Arab world.  It started with the rebellion in Tunisia, which led to their president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fleeing to Saudi Arabia.  Bahrain’s government also faced upheaval, but survived.  Hosni Mubarak wasn’t so lucky and after weeks of tense fighting and standoff in Cairo, he fled from his position as Egyptian president.  However, there is still great uncertainly about Egypt’s future direction.  Syria, Algeria and Saudi Arabia have also seen scenes of demonstrations in 2011, but it was Libya where the biggest change happened.  Colonel Gadaffi’s cruel regime finally came under stiff attack as world leaders called for him to depart graciously.  Gadaffi held on and declared war; Cameron, Barack Obama and Nicholas Sarkozy reacted and air strikes began on the country, with NATO been called in to help out.  After months of struggle, Gadaffi was captured and killed in September and a new dawn of promise and hope for Libyans might well be on, after years of torture and doom.     

          At the beginning of May, international terrorism came back into the headlines and the world became just a little bit safer.  Barack Obama confirmed the news that Osama Bin Laden was dead.  The Al-Qaeda figurehead was captured and shot dead by US troops in Pakistan; a decade after the search for him began following the September 11^th terrorist attacks.  Ten years on, it will never bring back those who died in the appalling mass murder in America; nor those who suffered in Bali, Istanbul and London in years gone by, but a sense of justice could now be felt.  Despite Bin Laden’s death, terrorism still remains at the forefront of our lives.  In July, Anders Behring Breivik blew up government offices in Oslo, Norway and then, dressed as a policeman, committed a shooting rampage on Utoya Island, where many youngsters were spending a summer holiday at camp.  Around 70 people were thought to have been killed in the two attacks.  More recently, a man threw explosives in Liege, Belgium.  Four died and the gunman took his own life after the four explosions rocked the city centre.    

         In April, Britain had a wonderful day, as millions watched in London and on TV the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.  It was a perfect day and put a lot of affection back into our hearts for the Royal Family.  The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, as they are now officially known brought a tear to many people’s eyes to show that our country can really do something that we should be proud of.

     Four months later, the dark side really came to the force as the UK riots stunned us all.  The shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham began a chain of events within London and spread across many other areas of the UK on a miserable Monday evening in August.  Businesses were destroyed, damage estimated to be in the billions and the leadership seemed to be lacking from the coalition; all on holiday at the time the riots escalated.  Several people died and record arrests were made, as police struggled to control the loonies who were causing such destruction on our country.  The riots disgusted many and brought shame on a worldwide scale.  The cost is still being felt now. 

       One of the greatest geniuses died in October, as founder and visionary of Apple, Steve Jobs lost his battle against pancreatic cancer.  The world also said goodbye to singer Amy Winehouse, found dead in her London apartment in July.  Elizabeth Taylor, the renowned actress passed away from ill health in March, as did Coronation Street icon Betty Driver in October.  Sport also lost three heroes in Wales’s football manager Gary Speed, who took his own life, former heavyweight world champion Joe Frazier to cancer and double Indy 500 champion Dan Wheldon, killed in a horrific 15 car pile-up at the IndyCar season finale in Las Vegas. 

           2011 has been a year full of revelations, rebellion and change.  It has brought some cheer, some justice but also, a lot of devastation and uncertainly.  That was 2011….in news.

Atlantis blasts off for last time

THE American space shuttle programme which has been running for 30 years has had its last flight takeoff.  Atlantis blasted into the sky from its base at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Friday afternoon.  This will be the 135^th mission, which has seen the reusable spacecraft go through periods of triumph and tragedy.  Sadly, the programme won’t be remembered very fondly with space experts, nor American astronauts. 

Below are ten random facts about the space shuttle and ten moments from its 30-year timeline.

FACTS

• 1.       Five space shuttles were built.  Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis.  Endeavour was the most recent spacecraft to be built, in 1992.
• 2.       The oldest astronaut to fly in the space shuttle programme is John Glenn.  He was part of a Discovery flight in 1998 at 77 years old. 
• 3.       The space shuttle has spent 1,320 days in space.
• 4.       Despite initial plans that there would be 50 shuttle flights a year, it turned into only five/six regular flights per year, yet the programme still cost £120billion.
• 5.       In just under nine minutes, the shuttle goes from 0mph to 17,500mph.
• 6.       Before the final Atlantis flight, the space shuttle has travelled almost 537million miles.
• 7.       In 1983, Sally Ride became the first US woman in space on a Challenger space shuttle mission.
• 8.       The most number of flights that a single astronaut has carried out on the space shuttle flight is seven.
• 9.       All of the space shuttle launches have taken place at the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
• 10.   In its 30 year history, the space shuttle has been grounded for nearly five years altogether, due to the Challenger and Columbia disasters.

SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE

1981: Columbia becomes the first spacecraft to make a mission successful.  It is a two day launch on April 11, 1981 and starts a new era for space exploration.

1983: Challenger’s first flight carries the first black astronaut in space, Gulon Bluford and the first American woman in space, Sally Ride.

1986: Space shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds into a mandatory flight on January 28, 1986.  All seven astronauts were killed, included teacher Christa McAuliffe, who was chosen as the first US citizen into space.  The shuttle was grounded until September 1988.

1988: The space shuttle is relaunched with Discovery.

1990: Quite possibly the best year in the history of the space shuttle, with the launch of Jupiter probe Galileo and the launch also of the Hubble Space Telescope.

1992: The replacement for Challenger, Endeavour makes its first flight.

1995: The ‘Space Race’ as it was affectionally known is officially over, as space shuttle Atlantis makes a famous docking with the Russian space station, Mir.

1999: Eileen Collins, who became the first female pilot in 1995, becomes the first ever female shuttle commander.

2003: Space shuttles are grounded for two years after Columbia was blown apart into the skyline on re-entry.  All seven crew members were killed.

2011: Discovery, Endeavour and now, Atlantis make their final flights as the space shuttle is put into retirement.

  

Challenger remembered 25 years on

THE space race used to be one of the biggest events through the decades as the United States and the Soviet Union battled for supremacy.  In 1981, the US launched the space shuttle, the first reusable aircraft for space exploration.  By the time of 1986, space flights weren’t of any news to Americans, as they weren’t historic and were considered very safe.  This all changed with Challenger’s ill-fated tenth space shuttle flight.  All seven astronauts were killed when the shuttle exploded on Tuesday 28 January 1986, just 73 seconds after take-off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral. 

On Friday, the 25^th anniversary of the disaster was marked by NASA, with a ceremony at the Kennedy Space Centre.  Widows of the dead, schoolchildren and former president George Bush Snr were present at the ceremony, where a new memorial statue was erected for the dead.  Even today, it is still remembered as one of the most dramatic and catastrophic incidents to have happened live on American television.

Challenger was the 25^th space shuttle mission since operational flights began in 1982.  It was already seen to many as a very reliable spacecraft.  This flight was a special landmark, as among the seven astronauts was the first citizen to go into space; American schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe from New Hampshire.  McAuliffe had won a competition in 1984 to become the first civilian not connected with the space programme to go into space.  Over 11,000 people applied, which showed the country’s addiction to these missions, despite the lack of news coverage.  Due to some unusual faults with the spacecraft and Superbowl Sunday, there were two aborted launch attempts, but eventually – all systems were go for Tuesday 28 January 1986.  It was a clear morning at Cape Canaveral, with bright blue skies and conditions absolute perfect for takeoff.  This disregards the fact of the launch pad dropping to its coldest ever temperatures overnight.    

EXPLOSION: Challenger rips apart into a fireball

Liftoff was greeted at the Kennedy Space Centre to a sense of relief for NASA and delight for the spectators watching.  In schools across America, children packed into auditoriums and classrooms to watch the launch live on CNN; hooters going off and balloons popping at the sight of one of their own, McAuliffe entering space.  Sadly, a mission that was meant to last seven days, ended in tragedy after just nine miles.  NASA’s final command was; “Challenger, going throttle up.”  Commander Dick Scobee’s response was clear too; “Roger, go at throttle up.”  Some recordings then suggest that pilot Michael Smith noticed a problem, as he mentioned “uh-oh” milliseconds before the catastrophe.  73 seconds in, Challenger ripped apart like a fireball into the cloudless sky.  Debris fell into the Atlantic Ocean with the cabin still intact.  However, with an impact speed approaching 300mph, the seven crew members had no chance.  All are thought to have been killed by the impact with the water, rather than the initial explosion.

DOOMED: The seven Challenger crew members who had no chance of survival

The American space programme was badly hit.  The space shuttle was grounded for nearly two and a half years, whilst investigations into the disaster were made.  President Ronald Reagan was deeply affected by the tragedy, paying tribute to the lost seven in a televised address to the nation on the night of the disaster; “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of Earth’ to ‘touch the face of God’.”  McAuliffe’s presence on the flight was well-known, but there was plenty of experience on the doomed shuttle.  Dick Scobee was a former Air Force pilot, Michael Smith had flown aircraft during the Vietnam War and Judith Resnik was a mission specialist, who had led a training programme for American women in space exploration.  The other three to perish were Ronald McNair, Greg Jarvis and Ellison Ozinuka.    

A report into the disaster in June 1986 by the Rogers Commission, which included the first American woman in space, Sally Ride and first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong concluded that a failure of the joint in the two lower segments of the shuttle’s right solid rocket booster had caused the destruction of Challenger.  The unusually cold temperatures prior to the launch, which had caused the rubber ‘o-ring’ to become less elastic, also, played its part in Challenger’s downfall.  During the investigation, it merged that engineers at NASA and Morton Thiokol, the booster rocket contractor had been fully aware of the ‘o-ring’ flaws. 

Recommendations made from the report included design changes to the rocket boosters and joints and in the management structure of NASA.  These were both successfully met with when Discovery relaunched the space shuttle programme in September 1988.  Fifteen years later, the explosion of Columbia in February 2003 set back the programme even further.  Another seven astronauts died when the ageing shuttle broke up on re-entering into the earth’s atmosphere.  Later on this year, the US plans to retire the shuttle, which has had its moments of magic, such as playing a role in the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.  However, we shall never forget those who lost their lives on both Columbia and Challenger.  They gave their lives to the ultimate quest to know more about space technology.