Janesoceania.com Domain 100GB Traffic A Week 9/3/11

To All My Friends And Visitors,

Greetings to all!

Just a short note of thanks and appreciation to friends and visitors to all my four Domains and Web pages within those Domains:

www.janeresture.com
www.janesoceania.com
www.ourpacificocean.com
www.pacificislandsradio.com

I would like to share with you all that, as of yesterday, 9/3/11, Janesoceania.com is, in itself, happily and thankfully experiencing, joining the other 3 Domains above, a visitation traffic in excess of 100GB a week. Thank you everybody for your kind support - let me assure you that your support and encouragement are most welcome.

CHRISTCHURCH EARTHQUAKE 2011

Christchurch Earthquake And The Aftermath 2011

Greetings to all!

At this time, our thoughts and prayers are still with the people of Christchurch, New Zealand, who suffered such terrible losses during the recent earthquake that came largely without warning. The world watched as this very sad catastrophe unfolded before our very eyes and we could not help but shed tears for our Pacific Island/Oceania neighbours. To our dear Oceania neighbours, may the good Lord help and guide you along as you rebuild shattered lives and your beautiful city.

I have taken the opportunity to share some of my thoughts on Christchurch and the longer term implications of this terrible tragedy below:


Central Christchurch on the River Avon was such a gentle place, built in the late 19th century around a cathedral and a college from the dreams of British pilgrims to emulate Christ Church, Oxford.

Now, as emergency workers struggle to retrieve bodies from the wreckage of a fine dream turned to dust, the Christchurch Cathedral itself reduced from national treasure to ruined tomb, the 375,000 inhabitants of this city are consumed by a near unthinkable dread.

Is it possible that New Zealand's second largest city, having found itself on the lip of one of the world's most active earthquake zones, has no future?

This deadly earthquake has all but destroyed Christchurch's central business district, a square kilometre with Cathedral Square at its centre and bounded by four avenues: Bealey, Fitzgerald, Moorhouse and Deans. Previously, 50,000 people, the core of the city's middle class, worked within those four avenues. Less than an hour later not one of them had a job to go to and hundreds were dead.

Where tourists flocked and the city came to work and dine, police and military now guard every corner, refusing entry to all but emergency workers, residents with identification and media with accreditation. Three large conventions worth more than $NZ10 million ($A7.4 million) were to have set the area humming that week. Instead, by night the district is empty during curfew; a vision from a nightmare.

No one knows when, or if, the big banks, law firms, retailers, hotels, insurance companies, convention centres, arts establishments and scores of smaller businesses and restaurants might rebuild or reopen.

Christchurch is the venue for some of the biggest games in the Rugby World Cup to be held in New Zealand in September 2011. Senior rugby figures have so far refused to consider moving the games, but with the city's eight biggest hotels out of business and the biggest of all, the 26-storey Grand Chancellor on the point of collapse, Christchurch authorities are privately conceding that it will not be possible to accommodate the huge crowds expected.

New Zealand sits on the so-called "Ring of Fire", the boundary of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, and experiences up to 15,000 tremors a year. It averages at least one a day that is magnitude 4.0 or stronger. This "Ring of Fire" extends through the Melanesian archipelago, Japan and The United States West coast, and in particular California.

Rebuilding after a disaster, as soon as possible, in the same place and in the same way is the usual and expected community response. These emotional responses are intended to reduce community fears that homes will not arise again and property values will sink, destroying many people’s savings. While these statements are well intended, they need to be tempered with some reality.

The question for Christchurch, after the recent devastating earthquake, should not be whether the city will be rebuilt but how it will be rebuilt safely. This means patience and courage will be needed so a better city emerges. Assurances have to be given soon that the city can emerge from this trauma stronger that it was before the deadly earthquake.
The best way to do this is to assure everyone that they will have a place to live of equal value in the new Christchurch, but maybe not the same place or built in the same way.

The Japanese port city of Kobe faced this problem after its 1995 earthquake. In typical Japanese fashion, its authorities determined to build a better city by re-designing the spatial pattern, altering building codes and transforming the notion of property rights from absolute location to a place in the community that best fit the person’s needs.

In this instance, Kobe citizens worked with planners in every district of the city to rebuild their neighbourhoods in a new, modern way that, in many cases, moved away from single-family detached structures to higher density, more strongly constructed, multifamily living units.

Everyone moved back into or near a neighbourhood of choice — not necessarily to the same one as before the earthquake, but to an equivalent-value space in the city. Some families moved into stronger single-family dwellings, but in most cases, higher-rise or attached dwellings were safer and better alternatives. In Kobe, every family exercised the choice that met their needs based on age and income.

New Zealanders — and Australians — will want to continue the familiar form of single-family housing on their own block of land. But this may have to be done more along the model of New Orleans. There, more tightly built, safer homes are being constructed in clusters, with better building materials and safety systems, along with community services, shops and other activities located centrally.

Soon it will be time for residents of the beautiful city of Christchurch to rebuild by putting the safety of the total community at the core of the project, and not just to consider building better individual dwellings. Christchurch can view this as the opportunity to create sustainable and survivable neighbourhoods that can stand on their own, with local supplies, water and power, as well as community shelters. These communities should have a variety of housing forms that can withstand severe shocks.

In this respect, there are plenty of precedents. After Cyclone Tracy hit in 1974, the Darwin Reconstruction Commission rebuilt the city. The Bring New Orleans Back Commission helped resurrect the city after hurricane Katrina. Of course, New Zealand has been here before. After an earthquake razed Napier in 1931 - http://www.janeresture.com/newzealand_napier/index.htm - two commissioners rebuilt the city centre, assisted by the voluntary Napier Reconstruction Committee. Streets were widened, old mistakes rectified and beautiful buildings erected in the midst of the Depression. It is now a thriving art deco haven.

Indeed, at this time, Christchurch has to engage its citizens in looking at the best international alternatives in earthquake safety in California and Japan. Community members should share with everyone the best information about the kind of city they want to live in, while retaining its distinctive charm, given the dangers they will continue to face.

Belated Merry Christmas And A Happy, Blessed, Prosperous & Safe New Year!

To all my very dear friends and family, my belated Merry Christmas and a very Happy, Prosperous, Blessed and Safe New Year to you all!

At last, I am slowly settling in my new place and I'm back to doing one of the things that I truly and genuinely love -- i.e. enjoy working and sharing those things about our beloved places: Oceania/Pacific Islands. I am now able to utilise my computer again to catch up with what's happening in beautiful Oceania/Pacific Islands and their wonderful and beautiful people :-) Also, I would like to take this wonderful opportunity to thank all my dear and beloved friends and relatives who took the time to write and to remind me that I am getting older hehehe!! Just kidding! To all of you my dear and wonderful friends, I thank you so very much for your kind words, with much love and appreciation. Louisa, Rosa, Johanna, my dear niece Jane Taafaki, Aileen in beautiful Canberra, etc. -- thank you so much for your most kind words and for your most appreciated best wishes on my 21st birthday!!! Did I say, 21st ??? hehehe!! From the bottom of my heart, I thank you - no words can adequately express my very sincere appreciation and gratitude. On my birthday, I remembered you all with much love and I truly felt as though we were still out there together on our beautiful islands - Kiribati, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, etc. - and Taborio, Tarawa, with my dear IHC friends, laughing and enjoying ourselves, swimming out there in that beautiful lagoon trying to catch some fish to go with ara ben, te moimoto ma te mori ke? - hehehe :-) A rang ni kamaeu taai akanne ke? So much to share and I also thank those wonderful friends who have all been so very supportive during 2010. Thank you so much to you all.

My very sincere thanks go to you, my dear friend, Nigel Quai from Vanuatu, for your very beautiful words, your sharing your daughter, Vanessa's fantastic CDs (including other CDs by Vanuatu artists) - they are all now playing on our Pacific Islands Radio Stations - along with your most kind, supportive and encouraging e-mails - much appreciated.

By the way, the two Newsletters, both Jane's Oceania Home Page and Jane's Pacific Islands Radio - that I promised to send out before Christmas 2010 - my apologies for the delay - I just did not have much time as I was in between two home addresses :-) They will now be sent out to all members and friends in a few days -be assured that, I shall get there very soon, eventually, I promise, now that I am able to work on my computer, at my new address :-) Thanks and the Best to all!

That's all for now my dear friends and take care -- enjoy your day - and 2011!!! Happy New Year!

Climate Change And Global Warming

Greetings everybody!

Some thoughts on Climate Change and Global Warming in Oceania/Pacific Islands and elsewhere.
Kam bati n rabwa, Tekeraoi, Ti a boo moa.

Oceania And Global Warming (www.janeresture.com)
http://www.janeresture.com/oceania_warming/index.htm

Aspects of Global Warming (www.janeresture.com)
http://www.janeresture.com/oceania_warming1/index.htm

Oceania And Global Warming (www.janesoceania.com)
Causes and Effects:
http://www.janesoceania.com/oceania_global_warming/index.htm

Oceania And Global Warming (1) (www.janesoceania.com)
Unnatural Disasters:
http://www.janesoceania.com/oceania_global_warming1/index.htm

Jane's Oceania Home Page:
http://www.janeresture.com/index.htm

DID THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES DISCOVER AMERICA?

A growing number of archaeological finds suggest the Americas were settled earlier than thought, and by at least two different groups of people. What's startling is that the oldest human remains look like Australian Aborigines.

Who were the first people to set foot in the Americas? For a long time, the answer to this question seemed as sharply defined as the end of the fluted hunting tools known as 'Clovis points' found in scattered sites across North America: humans colonised the Americas rather late in the history of human expansion.

After scampering about in trees for a few million years, anatomically modern humans emerged in Africa and promptly began migrating to the four corners of the world. The earliest ancestors expanded throughout Asia, arriving in Australia at least 50,000 years ago, Europe at least 45,000 years ago and western Melanesia at least 40,000 years ago. There, the eastward expansion came to a halt. The last two habitable continents remained out of reach across the wide open body of water we now call the Pacific Ocean.

Eventually, one group of humans, with distinctive Mongoloid features, around Northern Asia mastered the art of hunting mega fauna. During the last Ice Age, when the world's water was locked up in massive ice sheets and glaciers, the Bering Strait was drained to reveal the continental shelf between Siberia and Alaska. The ancestors of today's Native Americans followed the herds of mammoths, long-horn bison and horses on the final eastward expansion, arriving in the New World by about 11,200 years ago.

According to this traditional view, the big-game hunters of Mongoloid appearance continued their expansion southward, through an interior ice-free path formed by the retreating glaciers. When they reached what is today the western United States, they flourished. Their success is marked by the prolific stone hunting tools first found near the town of Clovis, New Mexico, in the 1930s. In less than 1,000 years, the Clovis people (as they're known) trekked from Alaska to the tip of South America, eventually founding all the indigenous populations of North and South America.

Modern research has suggested as a consequence of other archaeological evidence becoming available from ancient sites that predate the Clovis culture that other races initially settled along the west coast of the Americas. Indeed, later research has indicated that the people who left Africa in the initial mass colonisation event were not altered by the Pacific Ocean.

One example of this earlier settlement has been found from an ancient "Luzia woman" whose skeleton is held in the University of Sao Paolo, Brazil. This skeleton has a very projected space, with her chin sitting out further than her forehead. She has a long, narrow brain case, measured from the eyes to the back of the skull, a low nose and low orbits - the space where the eyes sit. Indeed, Luzia looks very much like an Australian aboriginal.

Luzia, however, was discovered a world away, thirteen metres underground in Central Brazil, in one of the many mine stone rock shelters that make up an extensive system called Lapa Vermelha. In the mid 1990s the bones were analysed and it was concluded that they all belonged to a single female who was named "Luzia" as a homage to a specimen of Australopithicus afarensis dubbed Lucy, one of the early hominids in Africa who walked on two legs instead of four. Exact carbon dating could not be performed on Luzia who died when she was in her early 20s because researchers did not have the protein collagen necessary to date human remains. However, the layers of the rock shelter in which she was found indicate that she lived between 11,000 and 11,500 years ago. Scientists have indicated that Luzia may well be the oldest human skeleton in the Americas.

Certainly Luzia is not alone. Several skeletal remains have since been analysed in seven archaeological sites from the far north as Florida in the USA and as far south as Chile. They all look most similar to sub-Saharan Africans, Australian Aborigines and some of the original populations of the Pacific Islands. What they don't look like is native Americans or East Asians. While Luzia may be the oldest human remains discovered in the Americas, she was not the first to be found.

As early as 1989, some scientists proposed the existence of a non-mongoloid migration into the Americas that pre-dated the Clovis culture. An examination of 38 skeletons from three sites in Brazil and Colombia dated from 6000 to 12,000 years ago. The research suggested a clear biological affinity between the early South Americans and the South Pacific population. This association suggested the conclusion that the Americas were occupied before the spreading of the classical mongoloid morphology in Asia. This conclusion was further strengthened by the analysis of a further 81 skeletons from Lagoa Santa.

Certainly, the conclusion raises the question of how on earth did a group of people who look like Australian Aborigines get all the way to Brazil at least 12,000 years ago. Research has shown that these people were in China about 20,000 years ago and that the mongoloid population that you see in Asia today is more recent. One possibility is that Luzia's "American Aborigines" shared a last common ancestor with the Australian aborigines in Southeast Asia with one group setting to the great southern land (Australia), arriving around 50,000 years ago. The other group wound their way through Asia and eventually made their way to Siberia, across the Bering Strait to Alaska. They did this thousands of years before the Clovis people.

Research is still being undertaken as to the manner in which these early people crossed the Bering Strait with some archaeologists suggesting that North and South America were colonized by boats. At this time, archaeologists continued to piece together theories based on circumstantial evidence such as remains while geneticists examine population today and look for clues to their paths in mutations in the human DNA build-up in order to pinpoint when these mutations first appeared. Then, using particular mutations as markers, they can then trace the journey of different peoples back in time. In the case of Luzia, and her relative bones, DNA analysis is no easy task because the bones are so old that the DNA is highly degraded and contaminated with other human DNA, bacteria and viruses. While Brazil may have been too hot and wet to provide a good DNA sample, this problem does not exist at the southern tip of the continent.

As a result of the above, researchers are working from samples from the southern region using new sequencing technology that can directly read the ancient pieces of DNA. It is this research that will conclusively prove who reached the New World first. Could it really have been the common ancestor of the Australian Aborigines or even the Australian Aborigines themselves? Did they take the voyage across the vast Pacific in flimsy craft or did they brave the southern ocean to reach the tip of South America? Alternatively, did they perverse the distances up to Siberia and across the Bering Strait and all the way to southernmost Chile?

This Web site:

Australia - Aboriginal - America

http://www.janesoceania.com/australia_aboriginal_america/index1.htm

will be updated further when the results of ongoing research become available.

Domains:
http://www.janeresture.com/index.htm
http://www.janesoceania.com/index.html
http://www.ourpacificocean.com/index.htm
http://www.pacificislandsradio.com/index.htm

200 New Species Discovered In Remote Papua New Guinea

200 New Species Discovered
In Remote Papua New Guinea

A spectacular array of more than 200 new species has been discovered in the Pacific Islands of Papua New Guinea, including a white-tailed mouse and a tiny, long-snouted frog.

The survey of remote New Britain Island and the Southern Highlands ranges, accessible only by a combination of small plane, dinghy, helicopter and foot, found an exciting range of new mammals, amphibians, insects and plants.

People have heard of birds of paradise and tree-climbing kangaroos, but when you look even closer at the small things you just realise that there's a staggering diversity out there that we really know nothing about.

Papua New Guinea's jungles are one of just three wild rainforest areas, along with the Amazon and the Congo basin, left in the world, and as such comprise a vast "storehouse" of biodiversity, with scores of new species.

Scientists have indicated that only half of the things documented actually have names.

The rugged, mountainous and largely inaccessible terrain meant biologists had not even been able to enter some regions and there were large areas of New Guinea that are pretty much unexplored biologically.

Genetic testing used to prove new species such as the mouse which confirmed that it was not related to any known creature.

There is little doubt that these kinds of discoveries are certainly good news story amongst all the gloom, particularly when one considers the creeping extinction of other creatures.