Health & Safety

Und ich dachte, in unserem Büro, dessen Sicherheitsbeauftragten ich die Ehre zu sein habe, sei es gefährlich. In der britischen "Nationalen Sicherheits- und Gesundheitsbehörde" wimmele es so tagesschau.de am heutigen Samstag nur so von Gefahren für Mitarbeiter. Markant, weil eben genau diese Behörde, die Aufgabe hat, solche Gefahren zu bannen. Landesweit.

Leider habe ich bisher weder herausgefunden, auf welche Quellen man sich bei tageschau.de beruft, noch, um welche Behörde es sich handelt. Die einschlägige Behörde wäre NIOSH (The National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health’s), aktuelle Berichte über Versäumnisse sind aber weder bei bei der BBC noch Guardian online zu finden. Beides sind in der Regel sehr verlässliche Quellen und beim Health & Safetywahn der Briten ist es zudem sehr unwahrscheinlich, dass ein solcher Skandal unentdeckt bliebe. Keep on searching.

What could happen outside your front door

This building or what's left of it collapsed this afternoon. It's literally a hundred meters from my flat. Just phoned my mum, telling her that I'm ok and our house is still standing. I wouldn't know however for how long.

BBC NEWS
Building collapses in east London
A search has begun for trapped people after a four-storey building collapsed in east London. Emergency services were called to Commercial Road, Whitechapel, at 1640 GMT on Tuesday following reports of a building partially collapsing. Sound tests are being carried out on the building to determine whether people are trapped inside. Paramedics at the scene treated 10 adults and one boy for shock, but no-one was taken to hospital. Loud bang Steve Ware, from the London Fire Brigade, said: "We're trying to work out if there are people inside. We have no confirmation of anybody involved at the moment. "We have specialist teams actually in the process of using listening devices and we're considering what plan to adapt." About six to eight metres of debris has fallen onto the pavement in front of the building, said emergency services. The building was being refurbished when the first and second floors collapsed. Part of the building has fallen against scaffolding on the front of the site, which is leaning against a lamp-post. Ali Morris, landlady of The Castle Pub, said: "My flatmate came and told me he'd heard a loud bang so we looked out of the window and the fire brigade were already coming out. "We came down, they sealed the road off and you could see all the debris that had come out of the building and the scaffolding is leaning right over."

Commercial Road is blocked in both directions. There are delays in the area, with all traffic being diverted along Whitechapel Road towards Mile End. It is also affecting the buses with routes 15 and 155 being diverted. Police advised motorists to avoid the area around the western end of Commercial Road. Scotland Yard said cordons around the collapsed building were expected to remain in place until further notice.

Story from BBC NEWS - Published: 2007/02/13 22:45:58 GMT

Weltmeister II

This time it's in exports. China is close though and expected to get the cup next year.

Deutscher Außenhandel verzeichnet 2006 Rekordüberschuss

Deutschland hat im vergangenen Jahr so viel Waren ins Ausland exportiert wie nie zuvor. Wie das Statistische Bundesamt in Wiesbaden mitteilte, betrug der Wert der ausgeführten Produkte insgesamt 893,6 Milliarden Euro. Das waren 13,7 Prozent mehr als im Jahr zuvor. Für 2007 gehen Volkswirte davon aus, dass die Branche weiter wächst, wenn auch nicht mehr so stark.

Ausgabe des dradio-newsletters: Deutschlandradio 20 Uhr Nachrichten vom 8. Februar 2007.

About things I do not understand

Haven't moaned in a while. So here we go. Tell me if I'm too naive, but sometimes I feel that things could be so easy.

To start with, there is this waterless urinal. You might have seen it in a restaurant. I mean, whoever invented this thing, give the guy the Nobel Prize and make these urinals compulsory for every pub, restaurant, government building, university etc. How many water could be saved?

Number 2, why can't you abolish cars in the city centre like Montpellier (which is twinned with Glasgow btw) did? You can then even safe the money for proper cycle lanes and pedestrian zones because cyclists and pedestrian can simple use the streets. Beside exceptions for emergency services, give special permission to couriers, but increase the number of bike couriers and have low emission delivery vans. Effectively abolish SUVs and sports cars in cities in general by increasing tax by some hundred percent and/or set a petrol consumption (e.g. five litres). Subsidies cycle to work programs massively and encourage employers and employees o join.

To be continued.

WELTMEISTER - at last

Germany wins the Handball Worldcup! The team of coach Heiner Brandt who won the titel as a player in 1978 beated Poland 29:24.

tagesschau.de Telegramm, 04.02.2007, 17:54 Uhr

Handball-WM: Deutschland ist Weltmeister

Die deutsche Handballmannschaft hat im eigenen Land das Endspiel der
Weltmeisterschaft gewonnen. Das Team von Trainer Heiner Brand besiegte in
Köln die polnische Auswahl souverän mit 29:24 Toren. [...]

Weitere Informationen: http://newsletter.tagesschau.de/re?l=6m5n10I3gyho1I0