Games Generations

For the first time ever, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will address a public rally in Kolkata today. Officially, Gandhi, Congress General Secretary, is launching a membership drive for the Youth Congress. But with Assembly elections in West Bengal due next year, Gandhi has other agendas – to take on the ruling Left government and to carve out space for the Congress as an independent entity. The Congress is currently in an alliance with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.

There is considerable security at Shahid Minar in the heart of Kolkata which is the venue of Gandhi’s rally. With elections coming up soon, the state will see focused attention from senior politicians. Sonia Gandhi is scheduled to visit Kolkata on September 25 to attend the Congress’ eastern zonal conference.

Tropical Storm Gaston has formed in the Atlantic and is expected to become a hurricane.Farther to the east the disturbance in the Eastern Tropical Atlantic was upgraded from tropical depression status this morning to Tropical Storm Gaston late this afternoon. Gaston is expected to become a hurricane and will be situated very close to the northeastern Caribbean in 5 days. It is too early to tell if Gaston will stay an Atlantic system.The tropics promise to stay very busy with yet another robust wave about to exit the African Coast.

The head of the troubled agency that oversees offshore drilling resigned under pressure Thursday as President Barack Obama moved more aggressively to take charge of the Gulf oil spill.

The departure of Minerals Management Service Director Elizabeth Birnbaum was announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at a congressional hearing where Birnbaum had been scheduled to testify but didn’t show up.

Birnbaum resigned “on her own terms and her own volition,” Salazar told lawmakers.

The development came just hours before Obama was set to announce strong new measures in response to the spill, including extending a moratorium on new deepwater oil drilling and canceling some planned lease sales entirely. The midday White House event was to be Obama’s first press conference since the Gulf of Mexico well began spewing oil.Birnbaum, who had led MMS since July 2009, left after she and her agency came under withering criticism from lawmakers of both parties over allegedly lax oversight of drilling and cozy ties with industry. Salazar recently announced he was radically restructuring the agency into three separate parts.

BP has agreed at the request of the Obama administration to show video of the “top kill” designed to choke off the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The company plans to try to execute the tricky procedure as early as dawn Wednesday. It’s the latest attempt to plug the devastating oil leak.

The “top kill” involves force-feeding heavy drilling mud and cement onto the leak.

BP started showing live feed of the leak itself after pressure from the Obama administration. Lawmakers had said they had learned that the “top kill” procedure would not be shown.

The company said in a statement Tuesday that it will display the video. The decision came after discussions with the federal official overseeing the spill response, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, BP said.

The Libyan plane crash was a tragic accident this morning. The Libyan plane crash killed around one hundred and three people. Fortunately an eight year old boy survived the crash and was taken to the hospital without any major injuries. The airplane was going from South Africa to Libya and then London. The crash took place at the international airport at Tripoli at six in the morning. The Libyan Plane Crash is supposed to be a terrorist attack but no such confirmations have been made yet. The Cable News Network reported that the plane was low on fuel when it crashed at the Libyan international airport. The authorities are doing their investigation about the crash and will reveal the cause as soon as they finish their investigation. The search and rescue mission is still underway and the officials said that they are looking for any survivors.

The airplane was an Airbus A330 and was carrying around ninety three passengers and eleven crew member who died on the spot. The plane crash images were aired by the Libyan channels and after seeing the wreckages no one could have survived such a terrible crash. It was a miracle that a child was taken alive from the crash and was hospitalized.

Well, at least they got the disappointment out of the way before the finale… right? “Across the Sea” sets out to shed some light (no pun intended) on Jacob and Man in Black’s relationship while also delivering some key answers to longstanding mysteries. While it succeeds at both, to an extent, “Across the Sea” ends up raising far more questions than answers, and at this point in the story, that’s just plain frustrating.

The entire first half hour of “Across the Sea” drags along at a slow pace, never establishing any clear narrative direction; it’s just a series of scenes desperately trying to establish the relationship between MiB, Jacob and his mother. Unfortunately, the young actors who play the two brothers aren’t convincing and Allison Janney has had better performances.

It’s hard to fault Janney though; the script never makes clear her character’s motivation, making it frustrating to empathize with her situation. She kill’s Claudia at the beginning of the episode because she doesn’t want the boys to be taken back to the men she feels are bad. Why does she believe this? Why is she the one who has to protect the island? None of this is clear and is muddled in mystical mumbo jumbo about a mysterious light. One of the reasons I enjoy Lost is due to the fact that I can empathize with the characters on this show, both the good and the bad. I feel nothing for Janney’s character. She’s a murky concept wrapped in an unsure script.

Passengers of a JetLite Lucknow-Mumbai flight had a narrow escape when a tyre of the plane burst while landing at Mumbai airport Thursday evening, officials said.”All passengers and crew aboard the S2666 Lucknow-Mumbai flight are safe and we are still awaiting details of this incident,” an airline official told IANS.
“One of the four tyres of the aircraft deflated on landing on the runaway of Mumbai airport. All passengers have been deplaned and are safe,” the official added.