NBC Video Secrets of the Mountain

Los Angeles (GaeaTimes.com) Secrets of the Mountain is an adventure TV Series on NBC that makes a family come closer in search for a hidden treasure in the mountains. The family business leads to an adventure of a lifetime for a single mom and her three kids when the family confronts with a series of mysteries and dark secrets. The events drive them into deep dangers which is comparable to an original two hour movie.

Somewhere between the demands of her career, her ex’s wedding and her kids’ busy schedules, Dana James feels her tight-knit family starting to unravel. An unexpected offer to purchase her family’s mountain property sets up a weekend road trip. But when they arrive, they quickly learn that the mountain is much more than it seems. An ancient secret and a treacherous quest will test the family like never before. It’s an edge-of-the seat thriller that reminds us that when times are tough, families don’t run away from problems — they run back to each other.

The director of the series is Douglas Barr who has also directed many other TV Series like Taking a Chance on Love, Dead Badge and others. Douglas Barr has also written the teleplay version of the story written by Dante Amodeo. Paige Turco is acting as Dana James and Barry Bostwick is also given an important role to play.

Have a look at the video to get a feel of the ‘Secrets of the Mountains’. The tagline of the show is,

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http://blog.taragana.com/e/2010/04/16/secrets-of-the-mountain-on-nbc-video-110152/

China earthquake - At least 589 people have been killed and more than 10,000 injured

The earthquake struck the mountainous plateau that separates Qinghai province from Tibet, one of China's poorest regions.

A series of aftershocks collapsed houses, schools and offices in the ethnic Tibetan county of Yushu, leaving survivors without shelter in freezing conditions. The Qinghai plateau sits around 9,800 feet above sea level, on average.

The situation of several villages higher up in the mountains is still unknown, and roads and communications have been cut.

The foothills to the south and east of the affected area are home to mostly nomadic herdsmen, while the area to the north and west is desolate and sparsely populated.

In Jyeku, the county capital, around 300 people had been killed, according to Huang Limin, the deputy secretary-general of the local government. The People's Liberation Army has been dispatched to help the rescue efforts.

"I see injured people everywhere. The biggest problem now is that we lack tents, we lack medical equipment, medicine and medical workers,"

Zhuohuaxia, a local government spokesman, told the Xinhua state news agency.

He said more than 85 per cent of houses had collapsed. "There is a big crack in the Yushu Hotel, the four-storey meeting hall of the prefecture government has collapsed," the official said.

At least part of a vocational school had also collapsed and "a lot of students are buried underneath," he added

The quake was centred 150 miles north of Qamdo in Tibet and 235 miles south of the mining town of Golmud in Qinghai, and had a depth of 6.2 miles according to the United States Geological Service.

A 6.2 magnitude quake rattled Golmud in August last year, triggering landslides and the collapse of about 30 homes, but there were no reports of casualties.

A magnitude 8 quake in May 2008 in neighbouring Sichuan province devastated a huge area of South Western China, leaving at least 87,000 people dead or missing.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7588401/China-earthquake-kills-hundreds.html

a giant cloud of ash from the volcano eruption in Iceland

LONDON -- With a monstrous cloud of volcanic ash closing down airports from Britain to Finland to Austria on Friday, much of Europe was confronting a bizarre question: What do you do in a world without air travel?

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, returning from Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, was managing matters from his iPad in Madrid.

European royals, who had planned to attend the queen of Denmark's 70th birthday party in Copenhagen, sent their apologies.

And tens of thousands of ordinary would-be passengers turned to videoconferencing or made a mad dash for trains and ferries.

Plumes of ash from an Icelandic volcano have spread across 12 nations. As of Friday, 17,000 flights -- more than double the number Thursday -- had been grounded at some of the world's busiest international hubs, including those in Amsterdam, London and Frankfurt, Germany.

Many airports were expected to remain closed at least until Saturday, and officials warned of an unprecedented bottleneck in global air traffic. Scientists, unable to estimate when the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano might end, predicted that it could take hours, days or far longer for European skies to clear of the ash particles that experts say could choke jet engines enough to shut them down.

The paralysis has not caused everyone to cancel plans. Despite widespread airport closures in Poland, authorities there said they would honor the wishes of the late President Lech Kaczynski's family and hold his funeral Sunday. But with meteorologists saying Polish airspace still might contain ash particles then, attendance by a number of world leaders -- including President Obama -- was in doubt.

Many travelers in Europe with no options in the air chose land and sea. London taxi companies reported taking emergency bookings for fares for as far away as Paris, Milan and Amsterdam. Tickets to cross the English Channel by sea or tunnel were sold out.

"You're talking in excess of 1,000 pounds [$1,500]. This is not your average taxi fare," said Alistair Laycock, manager at Addison Lee, Europe's largest cab company. "We have never seen anything like this."

Businesses, meanwhile, fretted about perishables temporarily disappearing from store shelves, particularly because airport closures could be extended.

"Not to state the obvious, but the impact has been absolute," said John O'Connell, director of trade services at the British International Freight Association, a trade organization. "All air freight that would move in and around northern Europe has come to an abrupt halt."

Despite the volcanic cloud's B-movie trappings, its ash remained largely invisible above European capitals. That might not last. Although the ash has hovered at altitudes from 20,000 to 30,000 feet, health authorities in Scotland said Friday that they expected it to begin wafting to the ground by Friday evening, producing a dusty haze and a strong sulfuric smell akin to that of rotten eggs. The ash, officials said, did not pose serious health risks, although they warned people with respiratory conditions to "limit outside activities."


By Anthony Faiola and Karla Adam
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 17, 2010

http://www.washingtonpost.com

About Norfolk Island

Norfuk Ailen is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. For practical purposes, the island is considered to be part of the Commonwealth of Australia but it enjoys a limited degree of self-governance. Together with two neighbouring islands, it forms one of Australia's external territories.

The evergreen Norfolk Island pine is a symbol of the island and thus pictured on its flag (see illustration). Native to the island, the pine is a popular ornamental tree on mainland Australia, where two related species grow.

Norfolk Island is located in the South Pacific Ocean, east of the Australian mainland. Norfolk Island is the main island of the island group the territory encompasses and is located at 29°02′S 167°57′E / 29.033°S 167.95°E / -29.033; 167.95. It has an area of 34.6 km² (13.3 mi²), with no large-scale internal bodies of water but 32 km of coastline. The island's highest point is Mount Bates (319 m above sea level), located in the northwest quadrant of the island. The majority of the terrain is suitable for farming and other agricultural uses. Phillip Island, the second largest island of the territory, is located at 29°07′S 167°57′E / 29.117°S 167.95°E / -29.117; 167.95, seven kilometres south of the main island.

The coastline of Norfolk Island consists, to varying degrees, of cliff faces. A downward slope exists towards Sydney Bay and Emily Bay, the site of the original colonial settlement of Kingston. There are no safe harbour facilities on Norfolk Island, with loading jetties existing at Kingston and Cascade Bay. All goods not domestically produced are brought in by ship, usually to Cascade Bay. Emily Bay, protected from the Pacific Ocean by a small coral reef, is the only safe area for recreational swimming, although surfing waves can be found at Anson and Ball Bays.

The climate is subtropical and mild, with little seasonal differentiation. The island is the eroded remnant of a basaltic volcano active around 2.3 to 3 million years ago, with inland areas now consisting mainly of rolling plains. It forms the highest point on the Norfolk Ridge, part of the submerged continent Zealandia.

The area surrounding Mt Bates is preserved as the Norfolk Island National Park. The park, covering around 10% of the land of the island, contains remnants of the forests which originally covered the island, including stands of subtropical rainforest.

The park also includes the two smaller islands to the south of Norfolk Island, Nepean Island and Phillip Island. The vegetation of Phillip Island was devastated due to the introduction during the penal era of pest animals such as pigs and rabbits, giving it a red-brown colour as viewed from Norfolk; however, pest control and remediation work by park staff has recently brought some improvement to the Phillip Island environment.

The major settlement on the Island is Burnt Pine, located predominantly along Taylor's Road, where the shopping centre, post office, liquor store, telephone exchange and community hall are located. Settlement also exists over much of the island, consisting largely of widely separated homesteads.

Government House, the official residence of the Administrator, is located on Quality Row in what was the penal settlement of Kingston. Other government buildings, including the court, Legislative Assembly and Administration, are also located there. Kingston's role is largely a ceremonial one, however, with most of the economic impetus coming from Burnt Pine.