Author Topic: The Noobia Tribune (TNT)  (Read 12466 times)

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Offline Orioni

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The Noobia Tribune (TNT)
« on: July 17, 2018, 11:23:07 PM »


The Noobia Tribune (TNT) is the premier electronic news portal on Noobia and neighbouring countries. It aims to promote free and democratic reporting. This includes news coverage, analyses and commentary, official reports and press releases from various organizations, and maps. TNT is based in the Noobian capital city of Pharse. Run by a team of Noobian and international editors and journalists, the digital channel was launched in 2004 and reaches approximately 12 million pageviews per month. The responsible publisher is Dan Juma, and the editor is Chikelu Kaodilina.
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Fifty dead after ferry capsizes in river
« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2018, 11:02:37 AM »
Fifty dead after ferry capsizes in river
Written by Adimu Kobo

URASHU, Noobia -- At least 50 people have died in a boat accident in the northeastern province of Urashu, according to an official statement by the provincial government.

The ferry which was transporting passengers and goods tipped over due to a strong current in the Lombobo River on Tuesday night.

"We found 46 bodies on Tuesday and another four this morning," governor Ricard Mboluka was quoted as saying on Wednesday to TNT.

With search and rescue missions still underway, it was still unclear how many people were on board and how many had survived.

"The cause of the sinking is clearly linked to the strong current this summer season. The provincial government has already sent a specialist team to the river to investigate other potential dangers," Mboluka said.

He pointed out that the boat had been travelling the river by night and without light, which is illegal under official safety measures.

Many people in the URN are reliant on ferry crossing, since rivers are frequent in the tropical regions and the number of bridges is lacking. This means travellers often have no other option but to rely on ferry boats as a low-cost form of transportation.

Accidents on the country's rivers and lakes are a frequent danger, due to old and neglected boats, lack of standard safety equipment and frequent overloading.

Earlier in May, at least 26 people were reported missing after two riverboats collided with each other.
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Barbecue season fuels Noobia deforestation
« Reply #2 on: July 22, 2018, 03:22:25 PM »
Barbecue season fuels Noobia deforestation
Written by Latasha Dooty

URASHU, Noobia -- Noobia has one of the highest deforestation rates in Mundus and conservationists say the charcoal industry is fuelling the problem, as demand for charcoal grows internationally.

Last year the country exported more than 10.000 tonnes of charcoal from Noobia, according to international study group figures.

"Deforestation in the country is alarming and disheartening for some of us who work in the conservation sector," says Stephano Ania, the director of conservation with the Noobian Ecological Foundation.

He says forests in Urashu province and in areas sharing a boundary with Herrenbucht have been largely destroyed, because of their location close to Matudi port. Tudu province, he says, is also one of the major hotspots of charcoal production in the country.

It's a problem in other provinces too. “Tree cover loss in the Dodomasar province reached a record high in 2017, increasing 6% from 2016,” a recent report by the NGO Global Treetop Watch said, saying agriculture, artisanal logging and charcoal production were to blame.

It isn't illegal to source charcoal from tropical forests, but most big box retailers do claim their supply chains originate in sustainable woodlands.

The majority of the charcoal bags, though, have no information about the country of origin, let alone specific forests.
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Noobia's 'blue economy'
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2018, 12:11:45 PM »
Noobia's 'blue economy'
Written by Ali Jira

Noobia's "blue economy" is made up of the vast Lake Escarion, and the smaller Lakes Kobo and Wara. The government of president Achebe calls this "blue economy" the future of a "Noobian Renaissance". Mr Achebe has proposed the creation of an intergovernmental forum to focus on this development for the next 12 months

The so-called "blue economy" is not confined to fishing and tourism; it also includes things like transportation, underwater coastal mining and hydroelectric energy.

Four of Noobia's six states have access to one of the three major lakes. The Dodomasar province, for example, even borders all three of the lakes. Lying underneath the lake beds are potential sources of metals, minerals, and oil and gas.



Supported by foreign investors, a new underwater mining industry is set to take shape in Noobia, vacuuming diamonds from the lakebeds. Proponents see a sparkling future in the lakes, as an addition to onshore mineral deposits.

While the blue economy has the capacity to provide desperately needed jobs, the challenge is all about how to exploit water resources in a sustainable way. As efforts get underway to exploit the nation's aquatic ecosystem, environmentalists are warning more research is required to shape policies.

So what's behind the "blue economy" concept? Is it more than just the rebranding of aquatic exploitation?

"The blue economy is about using and utilizing natural resources in a sustainable fashion, without damaging it… This can be problematic, but it's still a long time into the future," says Dr. Dagin Arubo, the director of soon-to-be-established Blue Economy Forum (BEF).

According to Dr. Arubo, it's all about transformation. "We really need to transform the way sectors and countries plan among each other, and also a greater appreciation by the economic and corporate powers that the value is generated from ecosystems or assets that can be damaged. And you need to manage them sustainably, just like you manage a hedge fund… so you don't destroy it while you are exploiting it."

Educating Noobians about their marine resources is also an important aspect of transformation, according to Dr. Arubo.

"The sea is still behind other priorities in most Noobiars minds and mentalities, from the national level down to the individuals -- and we need to transform that. Awareness about climate change in relation to water, plastics, and pollution is leaping to the front in the last few years. We're trying to ride the wave and get that awareness and get the education systems also building that into the curriculum."
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Officials accused of corruption in flagship rail project
« Reply #4 on: August 12, 2018, 02:07:58 PM »
Officials accused of corruption in flagship rail project
Written by Jules X'ina

Noobian authorities have arrested several senior officials on suspicion of corruption over their management of a flagship ₦2 billion railway project.

The National Judiciary said in a statement on Saturday that it had agreed to charge 23 civil servants and business people, as well as three companies, over compensation for land purchased for the construction of the line linking the capital Pharse, to the coastal city of Kunami.

Among those indicted were Mammud Mabdala, chairman of the Noobian Land Commission (NLC), and Santana Sisoko, managing director of the Noobian Public Railways (NPR).

The charges followed an investigation by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) into allegations the NLC made phoney compensation payments for land used for the project. The commission did not reveal the source of the allegations.

Opened in May 2018, the Pharse-Kunami line is part of a "master plan" agreed on by the joint national leadership under Noobian president Achebe to link the interior provinces to the coast by rail.

President Achebe has repeatedly pledged to stamp out corruption in the country, which was ranked among the bottom 10 nations in an international transparency index.

Earlier this year in May, 43 people including dozens of civil servants and 10 business entities were accused of stealing almost ₦60 million from Noobia's educational programs.

And two months earlier, a report by Auditor General Odward Okuo revealed almost $400m of public funds could not be accounted for by the government.

« Last Edit: August 25, 2019, 08:57:58 PM by Orioni »
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Six killed in Kunami munition depot explosion
« Reply #5 on: September 03, 2018, 10:24:51 PM »
Six killed in Kunami munition depot explosion
Written by Debubia Firika

At least six people have been killed in an explosion at a Noobian munitions depot north of Kunami, the local authorities said.

The blast on Monday occurred at the Reynerin-Intse Munition (RIM) depot, a joint venture between the private company Reynirin Defence and Noobia's state-owned arms maker Intse Benziswano Arms.

"I can confirm that eight people are dead," said Ngokutsho kukaLayne, a spokesperson of Kunami's fire and rescue department.

Investigators are trying to determine the cause of the blast, which shook homes and rattled windows in the area.

The company said in a statement that an explosion occurred at one of its buildings but gave no details on fatalities or injuries.

"We are currently investigating the matter," it said.

RIM manufactures and supplies selected munitions and explosive-related products for armed forces and police in Noobia.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2018, 11:12:27 AM by Orioni »
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Diamonds in meteorite may be a from another planet
« Reply #6 on: September 10, 2018, 11:11:21 AM »
Diamonds in meteorite may be a from another planet
Written by Bibi Tayimso

In 2012, several chunks of space rock crashed in the southwestern desert of Noobia. Inside one of the recovered meteorites, diamonds were discovered that may have come from a destroyed planet that orbited our sun billions of years ago, scientists reported on Monday. If this discovery is confirmed, it would be the first time anyone has recovered fragments from one of our solar system's so-called "lost planets".

"We have in our hands a single piece of what remains of a former planet that was spinning around the sun before the end of the formation of today’s solar system," said Simba Solarin, a planetary scientist at the University of Pharse and an author of the paper that was published in Science.

Dr Solarin's colleague Farah Nabérrie made the discovery while taking high-resolution images of a meteorite that had landed in the southwestern Desert in Noobia about a decade ago. The space rock is classified as Erugilite, a type of rare meteorite that has embedded within it several different types of minerals.

And inside this one, they found 4 diamonds.

The nano-sized gems were much larger than any meteorite diamond that had been previously found, according to Dr Solarin. Upon further inspection, the team noticed that the diamonds were not as crystal clear as they had expected. Instead, the diamonds were riddled with tiny imperfections, called "inclusions", made of bromite, phosphate and iron-nickel sulfites. It is those flaws that made the diamond extra-ordinary. "What for a jeweller is an imperfection, becomes for me something that is very useful. It tells me about the history of the diamond," said Dr Solarin. "Because it has a chemistry which has no equivalent in the solar system today, in terms of planets," Dr Solarin continued.

Our solar system was born of chaos. Some 4,5 billion years ago, the prevailing theories hold that dozens of chunks of rock and dust, called proto-planets, circled our sun and collided with each other like some cosmic game of billiard balls. Eventually, these collisions forged the rocky planets that we know today — Nabu, Ishtar, Nergal and, of course, Mundus. Our moon is thought by some scientists to have formed from debris spewed by such an impact between Mundus and a proto-planet called Pion.

The inclusions in the meteorite's diamonds told of a similarly turbulent past. Because of the diamonds' actual size and chemical components, Dr Solarin and his team concluded that the diamonds formed under an immense pressure, of about 20 giga-pascals, which is close to the pressure seen 650 kilometres below Mundus' surface where the upper mantle transitions into the lower mantle, between the crust and the core. Such a high pressure could have been reached only inside a planetary body that was between the sizes of Nabu and Nergal, he said.

And because the chemistry of the inclusions did not match what is known on planets in today's solar system, they think the diamonds came from a proto-planet that existed between 4,54 and 4,57 billion years ago. That proto-planet most likely collided with another planet and expelled debris that ended up in the asteroid belt, where it wandered for billions of years before plunging to Mundus.

Albert Bertrand, a Mundus geology scientist at the National University of Heyra who was not involved in the study, said the findings were compelling. "The authors have tied their electron microscope observations together with existing experimental studies to provide a very clear argument for the former existence of large planetary body for the erugilites," he said.
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Escarion ferry capsize: Dozens killed as rescue effort suspended
« Reply #7 on: September 20, 2018, 11:04:54 PM »
Escarion ferry capsize: Dozens killed as rescue effort suspended
Written by Adimu Kobo

Dozens of people have died in Noobia when a passenger ferry capsized in the west of Lake Escarion, an official said on Thursday. While it wasn't confirmed, it is believed more than 200 passengers were on board the vessel with a capacity of about 100 people.

"According to reports that President Akubundu Achebe has just received from the authorities in Mwanza, the toll now stands at more than 40 dead," Merson Misagwa, the president's spokesman, said on state television.

The boat known as MV Ereyne sank Thursday afternoon near Bakabo. "There were more than a hundred passengers on board when the ferry sank. It is feared that a significant number have lost their lives," said George Gymaha, head of Daresasar provincial council. He added that 37 people were rescued but those efforts were suspended until daybreak Friday. Mr Gymaha couldn't say how many people were on the ferry until the search-and-rescue operation was over.

TNT's very own Catherine Coi, reporting from Bakabo, said the boat was also carrying cargo when it went down. "What we also know from witnesses that the ferry appeared to be overloaded. It has a capacity of 100 people," she said. "The ferry was affected by bad weather as well."

In 1996, a ferry disaster on Lake Escarion in the same area killed more than 500 people. And only in July of this year, 50 people died in a ferry disaster in Noobia's northeastern province of Urashu, on a vessel that was ill-equipped.

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Owners of Wara ferry arrested after deadly disaster
« Reply #8 on: March 31, 2019, 12:49:25 PM »
Owners of Wara ferry arrested after deadly disaster
Written by Adimu Kobo

URASHU, Noobia -- The owners of a ferry that capsized in Wara killing 100 people have been arrested along with engineers who had allegedly certified the vessel, Noobia's judiciary said Sunday, March 31. "The committee set up to investigate the sinking of the ferry announced the arrest of the boat's owners," along with three engineers who "had certified that it complied with regulations", the Supreme Judicial Council said in a statement.

The boat was packed with families from Wara city crossing Lake Wara to celebrate the Spring holiday weekend. Most of the victims of the accident on March 21 were women and children. The strong current washed some bodies miles downstream, and dozens of people are still missing.

The tragedy came after authorities had warned that water levels were dangerously high, and sparked anger among Noobians who blamed official corruption and neglect. The judiciary did not name the owners who were arrested, but said they were caught in Noobia's westernmost Daresasar province. Their cases have been transferred to a panel of 3 judges and a prosecutor, it said.

The Noobian parliament has fired the governor of Urashu province, of which Wara is the capital city, who has gone on the run.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2019, 10:50:16 PM by Orioni »
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Tropical cyclone brings heavy rains to northeast Noobia
« Reply #9 on: April 30, 2019, 11:02:18 PM »
Tropical cyclone brings heavy rains to northeast Noobia
Written by Latasha Dooty

A tropical disturbance that formed over the Krimeon Sea earlier during the weekend has moved inland over Noobia and brought days of heavy rain to the provinces of Urashu, Tudu and Zadhasar. While the low-pressure area did not intensify, it continues to spread heavy rains across much of the already saturated regions of northeastern Noobia.

News reports from Urashu province confirmed at least 6 deaths due to floods, mostly near swollen rivers. Police have urged the public not to cross rivers until they have receded. The forecast for the next several days says the storm will track westward over the Krimeon Sea. Some weather models predict the storm will still increase in strength.

The development of the storm will mostly be encouraged by the warm waters now running between 25-27° Celsius. Once it develops over the warmer water of the Krimeon Sea, the storm is expected to begin making a turn to the south, but staying over open water. Eastern Noobia could then see up to 300mm of rain by Sunday. Meanwhile, Dodomasar province also saw some relief from the rain as the disturbance helped break the ongoing dry spell.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2019, 12:56:49 PM by Orioni »
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Is Mundus ignoring Noobia's cyclone disasters?
« Reply #10 on: August 15, 2019, 12:56:22 PM »
Is Mundus ignoring Noobia's cyclone disasters?
Written by Latasha Dooty

International donors have been slow to respond after tropical storms kill thousands in Noobia. The nation is reeling from two of the strongest storms ever to hit the country. Aid efforts were already stretched after Cyclone Céline in May which killed more than 6000 people.

Then, on Thursday, Cyclone Lambik made landfall, killing another 3800. Floodwaters triggered by Cyclone Lambik's heavy rains rage in parts of Noobia, causing homes to collapse. Entire communities have been wiped out. More than 160.000 people have been directly affected in the largely rural region, many left exposed and hungry. According to one international NGO's around one million people urgently need drinking water, food and medicine.

"Help us, we are losing everything!" residents of the northern city of Matudi shouted at passing cars as the rushing waters flooded their homes. Women and girls with buckets and pots tried to scoop away the torrent. But efforts proved to be in vain as the water continuously poured in through doorways.

Meanwhile, international donors have been slow to respond -- if at all. One senior official says if this happened anywhere else in the world, the reaction would be very different. So is the world ignoring another disaster in Ardia? And have donors lost interest?
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Re: The Noobia Tribune (TNT)
« Reply #11 on: August 25, 2019, 08:15:53 PM »
Journalist murdered for speaking truth to power
Written by Chikelu Kaodilina, editor of The Noobia Tribune

It is with great sadness that I report on the death of our respected and beloved staff member Latasha Dooty (1990–25 August 2019). Ms Dooty was killed by a bomb while making her way to work in our field office Matudi.

Mr Adimu Kobo, a journalist and colleague of Dooty, reports that: "Latasha was a soft-spoken, very modest person but with great potential as a journalist. We don’t have many females on the ground, especially women who are very interested in covering issues related to politics. This is a tragedy." Another colleague, Mrs Debubia Firika, also weighs in: "This bomb was a deliberate attack on journalists. As she lost her life, the entire office is in shock. It is very emotional because you lost a colleague that was in contact with you yesterday." Her father, who did not wish to be interviewed, said she refused to get married because she wanted to keep supporting her family financially. He said she was very courageous and brave.

As for potential suspects, Mr Kobo blames the government: "Latasha was murdered for speaking truth to power. She wrote about the humanitarian crisis in Matudi. We were being professional, we were giving the facts, we were being balanced. But this didn't go down well with the central government in Pharse."

Meanwhile, local police have said they would look into the matter.
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