A second critically endangered Chinese pangolin is born in the Prague zoo in less than 2 years

I had the pleasure of attending the recent celebrations welcoming grain shipments back to the Port of Churchill, alongside business leaders, port workers, community members and government partners. We find ourselves at an important and pivotal moment and there is a lot of optimism about Northern Manitoba.

Whether it’s the Port of Churchill Plus, all-weather roads and trade corridors, new mines and exploration, a transmission line to Nunavut or billions going into modernizing our hydro-electric systems, one thing is clear: Northern Manitoba needs to be prepared for a potential boom in development.

Now more than ever, Canada and Manitoba have to get this right.

Prime Minister Carney and Canada’s premiers have met with some of the world’s largest investors to discuss nation-building projects that will shape our country’s future.

When Troy Meink, the chief of the U.S. Space Force, announces for no obvious reason that the United States “now has on-orbit space-control weapons,” people naturally assume that something is up. Why is Meink admitting the truth now? He’s even boasting about it!

It can’t be to frighten the Chinese or the Russians, because they have long been watching U.S. military activities in space. They regularly monitor the flights of the semi-secret X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, the re-usable uncrewed spaceplane that the U.S. Space Force launches from Florida but sometimes lands at Vandenberg in California (eight missions so far).

The Chinese can’t complain, because they have their own ‘secret’ spaceplane, and sometimes they even play ‘silly buggers’ in orbit with their American and British counterparts. (‘Silly buggers’ is the old naval game of high-speed manoeuvres of warships in formation, a frequent cause of collisions.)

Reuters reported a year ago on a joint U.S.-British operation in which the U.S. Space Force, working from a base in Colorado, directed an American military satellite to swoop in close to a British satellite just as China’s Shiyan 12-01 satellite passed beneath it. What for? Who knows? They may have done it just because they could.

Efficiency matters

Re: A development infused with personal memory, Think Tank, Sept. 15

Columnist Brent Bellamy mentions “a focus on high energy efficiency and near-zero carbon emissions over the life of the building.”

I hope this means geothermal heating, which is not specifically mentioned. This environmentally friendly feature is highly touted and is supposedly being employed in the new Southwood Circle development. This project at The Forks would also seem to be a prime candidate for the same.