2014 Galactic Winter Olympics, officially the XXII Galactic Olympic Winter Games (22nd Galactic Winter Olympic Games)
Held at Valhalla Basin, Callisto (Jovian System).
2014 Valhalla Basin (Galactic Winter Olympics)
The main venue of the Galactic Winter Olympics, Valhalla Basin, (Hall of Odin or Hall of the Slain in Norse Mythology), is also a crater produced by an impacting meteor. It sports the largest multi-ring impact crater on both Callisto (Galilean moon of Jupiter, sister world of Europa) and within the Solar System.
Part of an extensive system in the Valhalla region Valhalla’s bright-floored central basin stretches across a diameter spanning 360 km. It is surrounded by at least eight concentric mountainous ridges, which resemble frozen rings of ghostlike ripples extending as far as 1,500 km from the basin’s central point.
Valhalla Basin Highlights:
Ice skating on the frosty, bright-floored central basin.
Snowboarding and Hi-speed skating around the 8+ concentric frozen mountainous ridges.
West of Valhalla is Asgard, the second largest multi-ring impact crater on Jupiter’s moon Callisto. (Realm of the gods in Norse mythology)
Asgard Crater Highlights:
X-country skiing around the multi ring structure.
Snowboarding jumps and ski jumping from the centrally-situated domed Doh impact crater dominating Asgard.
The Galactic Olympic Village And Opening Ceremony
The Galactic Winter Olympic Torch is lit at Gale Crater on Mars, the host world of the Summer Galactic Olympics. The torch will be embedded with one of the infamous Martian gemstones, these glittering galactic opals marking the beginning of the renowned Solar System-wide Torch Relay.
On completion of its tour throughout our stunning and remarkable galaxy – The Milky Way, it will arrive on Callisto in time for the Opening Ceremony taking place at Valhalla Basin.
Please take note of the Crater you are heading for – the nearby Asgard Crater houses the 3-D Printed Galactic Olympic Village. It does NOT host the Galactic Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony where all those lovely super-hot and fit athletes will be hanging out! So you will not be able to sneak in any secret romantic liaisons during this time and you might just as well Bob sleigh yourself and your naughty and wicked ways right back to where you should have been in the first place – Valhalla Basin!! Now off you go…shoo!!
Meteoritic Medals and Martian Gemstones
Medal events taking place on Mars on Valentine’s Day (14th for the benefit of you forgetful male viewers – do not forget to buy something awesomely,
romantically special for the love of your life or they might never speak to you again!) will bring, for the lucky medal winners of that day, lovingly prepared Galactic Olympic medals embedded, in the spirit of this romantic day, with beautiful, heart-shaped Martian gemstones – cosmic Opals full of love and romance!
The anniversary of the Russian Chelyabinsk meteor event will be in Sochi, Russia on 15 February 2014. A total of seven gold medals are available to be won during the anniversary day’s medal events and each will contain fragments of the Chelyabinsk meteorite.
On this day fragments of Valhalla Basin the main venue of the Galactic Winter Olympics, (and also a crater produced by an impacting meteor, too many moons ago to remember, just in case you’ve forgotten already, or worse still, have only started reading from here… how rude!!!), will be embedded in medals for medal events taking place on Callisto, the most cratered moon in the galaxy, in recognition of and in respect to the Russian Chelyabinsk meteor event. ‘Team GB’s bronze medal win was a pretty awesome meteoritic achievement too!! >>>>>
On the first anniversary of the March 11 Japan earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster Japan’s nuclear exclusion zone dogs are dying on the streets of Fukushima’s ghost towns from starvation and hypothermia. Fighting to stay alive in freezing sub-zero temperatures 20-30 pets are now dying on a daily basis. They huddle in ravaged remains of abandoned homes, burying themselves in anything they can find, battling to keep the cold at bay.
Gaunt and starving some are now too weak to move, and can only wait helplessly in desperate hope that rescuers will find them in time.
The fallout from the stricken reactors has turned the 20-kilometre (12-mile) exclusion zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant into a dangerously radio-active no-man’s wasteland, the new “Land Of Wolves”.
The eerie silence is absolute when you stand in the centre of the exclusion zone, chillingly reminiscent of Chernobyl’s exclusion zone, of ghost towns such as Pripyat…Come -Walk with Me in the Land of Wolves… There should be people but there are no-one, there should be life and activity but instead there is only a strange silence and the occasional sighting of gaunt livestock roaming the empty streets. Thriving towns that only one year ago were home to 80,000 people are now ghost towns, frozen in time.
One year on, animal carcasses lie spoiling in the exclusion zone. Cows and pigs have starved to death, and there is no-one left to attend to their bones still lying in the pens. Cats and dogs have died from disease their bones bleaching on the empty streets where cows and ostriches roam, and frogs and snakes supply the occasional meal to the lucky few cats who venture between the eerily flashing traffic lights, on the deserted streets of Japan’s nuclear ghost towns.
Bicycles lie where they have fallen seeming simply forgotten by careless owners. Nearby bus stops stand silent and empty waiting for the next busload of people that will never come. In a deserted shopping centre, rows of cars waiting soundlessly for the return of heavily laden food shoppers…but there is no-one there. Everyone is gone. There is only the mournful whispering of the wind eddying through a small local store its shelf stock scattered across the floor, the consequence of the March 11 earthquake.
Local Japanese groups have been very keen to be involved in helping to rescue the animals but with so much confusion surrounding the issue re the safety aspect of handling animals in the radiation hot spots, and the unanswered question of how they should be tested for radio-activity, this has not been an easy task.
With the appropriate cleaning and quarantine period, they should be safe to handle and adopt, according to Timothy Mousseau, a professor of biological sciences at the University of South Carolina, who has conducted extensive studies on animals exposed to radiation in the Chernobyl region.
Tragically, in the meantime the lost animals of the new Japan exclusion zone are “Dying in the Land of Wolves… “
In Futaba town centre; a sign marking the entrance to the main shopping district. It read, "Nuclear power – the bright future of energy."
The world marks a quarter of a century since the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.
Ceremonies were held around the world on Tuesday 26 April to mark the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. But haunted by a strange, eerie resonance and fears over the safety of atomic energy sparked by the Japanese earthquake -created troubles at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear.
The Japanese in placing the disaster on the maximum Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the same level as Chernobyl prompted further public fear with almost cosmic timing. reactor with the resulting radiation leak it is an event the world is unlikely to forget.
A service was held by Russian Orthodox, Patriarch Kirill, in the Keiv region in the early hours of Tuesday, striking a bell at 1:23 am – the time the explosion happened. This formally marked the start of the Remembrance Ceremonies.
The explosion sent a plume of radiation across Ukraine, Belarus, western Russia and other parts of Europe in 1986. Two workers died in the explosion and twenty eight other rescuers and staff died of radiation exposure in following months. Between 1986-1987 five thousand rescue workers (liquidators) were sent in to clear up the Chernobyl plant, and to decontaminate surrounding areas. Many were not fully aware of the scale of the disaster or the true risks of their exposure to such high levels of radiation.Hundreds received radiation injuries, while thousands of cases of child thyroid cancer in the region may be linked to Chernobyl. Tens of thousands were evacuated and fears still remain and the verdict is still inconclusive on the damage to human health.
For some mothers the memories of “bubbling and foaming” bright yellow puddles are still vivid, whilst children born years later are reminded by their cancer-ravaged bodies. In Belarus which received about 70% of the radioactive fallout thousands of children have been treated for cancers. The stricken Fukushima Daiichi has re-lit their fears and they are horrified. They have been through it and wish for no-one else to suffer in the same way.
He (Patriarch Krill) then went out to the affected zone to hold an Easter Service at a chapel in the Chernobyl settlement ,to which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made an unprecedented visit alongside Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, to mark the 25th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident.The two men attended a commemoration ceremony at the recently (December 2000) shut-down nuclear power station itself where a reactor exploded in 1986.
Tribute to Chernobyl disaster–Sleeping Sun–April 26 1986
Mr Medvedev made his first visit to Chernobyl for Tuesday’s commemoration. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko did not take part in events at Chernobyl.
“The crisis at the Fukushima DaiIchi Plant reminded humankind that we shouldn’t relax” ~ Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
“The events of this day showed that nobody, no matter who they are, can be assured of their safety….and the recent events at Japan’s Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant only confirmed this bitter truth.” ~ Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukowich
Mr Yanukovych also stressed the need for global co-operation in nuclear safety, saying: "Chernobyl was a challenge of planetary dimensions. The answer to this challenge can be provided only by the world community." Soviet engineers encased the damaged reactor in a temporary concrete casing (sarcophagus) to limit the radiation but the existing sarcophagus is dilapidated and could leak. Or even worse collapse altogether triggering a large scale radiation release, consequently a new shield is now needed. A donor conference in Kiev, Ukraine, last week raised 550m euros (£486m; $798m) of the 740m euros needed to build a new shelter and a storage facility for spent fuel. The new containment shelter large enough to encase an area the size of “Madison Square Garden” and should be able to completely enclose the old casing and the Chernobyl Reactor 4 by 2015.
They also placed the first stone of a monument to clean-up workers and laid flowers at another monument. Officials unveiled a monument dedicated to victims from Belarus.
Mr Medvedev has called for new international rules covering safety at nuclear plants. Such rules would permit the "necessary" development of nuclear energy, he said.
"Today, I sent proposals to [world] leaders… aimed at guaranteeing the necessary development of nuclear energy in the world while preventing at the same time catastrophic global consequences [of accidents]," Mr Medvedev said in remarks as he stood in spring sunshine in front of the hulk of the disused plant, according to Reuters. He did not specify what the proposals were.
Soviet officials held off reporting the accident for several days, and Mr Medvedev said the disaster had taught nations of the importance of telling the truth to their people. "The duty of a state is to tell the truth to its people. It must be acknowledged that the [Soviet] state did not always behave correctly," he said." In order for such tragedies never to be repeated we must all be honest, we must provide absolutely exact information about what is going on."
The call for honesty was welcomed by some 3,000 Chernobyl victims who joined a memorial service at a monument in Kiev. They complain that benefits packages for workers made ill by participating in the clean-up have been cut in recent years.
The crisis at Japan’s Fukushima plant has triggered renewed protests over the safety of nuclear power.
The legacy of Chernobyl will be remembered for much, much longer than anyone would wish. According to estimates this area of Northern Ukraine will be uninhabitable for at the very least, decades, if not centuries.
Nuclear Ghost Town: The Reality of Nuclear Accidents and Relocation aka Chernobyl
Ice wolves of Europa. Intergalactic star wolves running with the moon and the stars in the light of another world. Callers of the moon wolves-song and interstellar hunters across the icy surface of the Europan seas. Echoing the call of an alien world and the whispering of the moonshadows, the call of the star songs, and the dream of worlds beyond the stars and cities in the sky.
Ice skating on the frosty, bright-floored central basin. 
Snowboarding and Hi-speed skating around the 8+ concentric frozen mountainous ridges. 
The Galactic Winter Olympic Torch is lit at Gale Crater on Mars, the host world of the Summer Galactic Olympics. The torch will be embedded with one of the infamous Martian gemstones, these glittering galactic opals marking the beginning of the renowned Solar System-wide Torch Relay. 
Please take note of the Crater you are heading for – the nearby Asgard Crater houses the 3-D Printed Galactic Olympic Village. It does NOT host the Galactic Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony where all those lovely super-hot and fit athletes will be hanging out! So you will not be able to sneak in any secret romantic liaisons during this time and you might just as well Bob sleigh yourself and your naughty and wicked ways right back to where you should have been in the first place – Valhalla Basin!! Now off you go…shoo!!
Meteoritic Medals and Martian Gemstones
confusion surrounding the issue re the safety aspect of handling animals in the radiation hot spots, and the unanswered question of how they should be tested for radio-activity, this has not been an easy task. 
