Sep142017

News story: Ministry of Defence Police Officer completes World Marathon Majors

MOD

Aaron, T/Sergeant in Operations, based in Berkshire, has successfully completed marathons in Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York.

He said:

It started in 2008 when my New Year’s resolution was to run a marathon having never run any long distance before. I ended up choosing a cross country marathon, which I completed in 3:49:00, vowing afterwards never to do a marathon again!

For the next couple of years I ran a couple of 10k races and half marathons, before gaining entry into the London Marathon in 2011. My aim was to go sub 3 hours for the first time and I achieved this with a time of 2:56:15.

I then found out about the World Marathon Majors, with my aim being to complete each marathon in under three hours. I completed Berlin in 2012 in 2:56:30, which got me a qualifying time for Boston in 2013.

After running Boston in 2:57:55 I had mixed emotions due to the bombings that took place there that year. Thankfully I was at my hotel with my wife, Micayla, when it all unfolded.

In 2014 I went to Chicago, where I managed to knock 10 minutes off my best time, completing it in 2:46:59. The following year was New York, in which I ran 2:47:44, deciding after that to run London again in 2016 to try to better my previous time. I crossed the line in 2:36:55, knocking ten minutes off my personal best, set in Chicago, and 20 minutes off my first London time.

The final race of the majors challenge was Tokyo in February 2017. I qualified as a semi-elite athlete, thanks to the time I set in London. I ran a personal best in 2:33:47 which I was very happy with, considering I didn’t adjust to the time difference and had very little sleep.

Going forward I am representing the MDP at the Police Sport UK 10 mile race this month (September) as part of my training for the Frankfurt marathon in October.

Aaron thanked Assistant Chief Constable Operations, Paul McLaughlin, for his support and the help of the MDP Sports Fund with entry fees, as well as the support he has received from his wife, family and work colleagues.

Congratulating Aaron, Mr McLaughlin commented:

I’m absolutely delighted with his fantastic and overwhelming achievement, which is clearly down to his dedication and the support he has had from family, friends and colleagues.

At a time when the force is driving through the necessary fitness level requirement to meet our role profiles in MDP, what Aaron has demonstrated is where officers could possibly take their personal health and fitness through sheer dedication.

T/CC Andy Adams commented:

Wow, what a fantastic achievement! We take officer fitness very seriously in MDP, striving continually to raise fitness standards to fulfil our vital role in guarding the nation’s defences: Aaron’s commitment and determination is an example to us all.

Sep142017

World’s oldest panda dies aged 37

East Asia

Basi, the world’s oldest captive panda, has died at the age of 37, equivalent to more than 100 human years.

Basi died Wednesday morning at the Strait Panda Research and Exchange Center in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian Province in eastern China.

Chen Yucun, director of the center, said Basi had died of multiple illnesses, including liver cirrhosis and renal failure.

“Basi’s body will be put in Basi Museum, which is being constructed for people to forever remember her and share the spirit of the harmonious development between humans and nature,” Chen said.

Basi became ill in June, and doctors had since tried every means to help prolong her life.

In 1990, Basi was chosen as the model for Pan Pan, the mascot of the Beijing Asian Games, and became a household name.

Many netizens called her Granny Basi, though others preferred to call her Pan Pan.

Basi celebrated her 37 birthday in January. In August, the Guinness World Records confirmed her as the world’s oldest living captive panda.

She was very talented and liked weight-lifting, riding a bicycle and playing basketball.

Basi was born in the wild in 1980. At the age of four, she fell into an icy river and was rescued by local villagers from the Basi Gorge in the county of Baoxing in southwest China’s Sichuan Province. People named her after the gorge and sent her to the Fuzhou center, where she has lived ever since.

She survived severe illness several times, thanks to the care of her devoted keeper Shi Feining, who died aged 44 in 2016.

Shi took good care of Basi for 27 years, especially during the panda’s recovery from high blood pressure and cataract surgery.

The average lifespan of wild pandas is 15 years, while those in captivity usually live longer due to better nutrition and living conditions.

Experts believe the fact that Basi had such longevity while living in Fuzhou, a very different place from a panda’s natural habitat, has important scientific research value.

Fuzhou is very hot in summer. The Strait Panda Research and Exchange Center provides air-conditioning and ice to cool the pandas’ living environment.

Chen said the center had invested 20 million yuan (3 million U.S. dollars) to build a summer resort for pandas in Guling Hill in Fuzhou, where the average summer temperature is less than 30 degrees Celsius.

“But Basi had been too old to move. She did not go to the resort this summer,” Chen said.

“Rest in peace. You will become another legend in another world,” said one post left on Weibo, a Twitter-like service.

“Wish you well in the Panda Planet,” another Weibo user said.

Basi died without ever breeding.

Very low birthrates have been one of the major factors threatening the survival of the giant pandas, as is habitat loss, though the species was downgraded from “endangered” to “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in September last year, thanks to protection efforts by Chinese scientists.

Giant pandas live mainly in the mountains of Sichuan and neighboring Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.

The number of pandas living in the wild was fewer than 2,000, and around 400 were living in captivity as of the end of 2013, according to data from China’s State Forestry Administration.

Sep142017

The state of the European Union

John Redwood MP

Mr Juncker’s speech yesterday about the state of his Union contains few surprises. He confirms that “the Euro is meant to be the single currency of the Union as a whole” and sets out a way to make it so. He reasserts the primacy of all EU law and of the European Court of Justice. He wants more majority voting to settle issues. He proposes a European Minister of Economy and Finance. The European Parliament should become the Parliament of the Euro. He wants a “fully fledged European defence union”. When I and others foretold this by quoting EU statements and websites before the referendum we were often told by Remain spokesmen that none of this was true. They thought it was still just primarily a single market.

What was more interesting in Mr Juncker’s speech was what he left out. He left out the UK altogether, save for one expression of regret towards the end. He referred throughout to the 27 members of the EU as if the UK had already left. I thought we had to stay in until March 2019, and thought we were still the second largest contributor to his salary and all the other costs of the organisation. I can forgive him misusing tenses and looking to the future without us. I cannot excuse him from issuing a new policy of the state of the Union without discussing the loss of a major member and setting out what future relationship he would like with that country. He might have given some indication of how they intend to shape their budgets without us, just as he clearly is impatient to consolidate Euro government into EU government once the main non Euro country leaves.

More bizarre still was his treatment of the topic of trade. He sets out a policy for the EU to negotiate and sign more Trade treaties in the future than they have managed in the past, yet manages to say nothing about whether that includes a Treaty with the UK! If we are to take his new Union enthusiasm for free trade seriously surely he will want to accept the UK offer of a comprehensive zero tariff low barriers trade Agreement with what is the EU’s single most lucrative and important export market. Instead he holds out the prospect of doing trade deals with New Zealand and Australia, knowing that they are keen to do deals with the UK as we exit the EU

Mr Juncker may also be personally ambitious. He proposes merging two of the 3 EU/Euro Presidents by offering to amalgamate his role as President of the Commission with the role of President of the Parliament. Step by step the EU is edging towards the idea of a single President with a world profile. As a reminder that Germany still retains disproportionate influence, he grants Mrs Merkel’s wish that they will not proceed with Turkish membership after all. It was not so long ago they signed a comprehensive Partnership Agreement, opened their borders to Turkey and looked as if they were speeding up preparations for membership.