A plan for wealthy executives and tourists landing in Sydney to flit directly to the city’s famous harbor via a floating heliport has been put on hold after fierce public opposition.
The company that was set up to run the operation, providing quick transfers to and from Sydney Airport and scenic flights over the harbor, said it wanted to further consider the operation’s “feasibility.”
“It is Newcastle Helicopter’s intention to address the relevant concerns and queries with thoroughly considered and accurate information, and is taking the appropriate steps to do so,” the company said in a statement on late Saturday.
It followed rising public anger over the New South Wales state government giving the go-head last month to unlimited flights from a barge anchored in the harbor, which is popular for yachting and close to residential areas.
According to reports, the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) issued the license without consulting the community, doing an environmental impact assessment, testing for noise or putting the project out to tender.
The Sydney Morning Herald also claimed approval was given two weeks before authorities asked about air safety or air traffic control regulations.
New South Wales Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner last week insisted all usual procedures had been followed.
“As required by RMS, the proponent wrote to relevant councils in October outlining the proposal and inviting feedback but received no responses,” he said in a statement.
Federal MP Malcolm Turnbull led the campaign against the heliport and said the decision had descended into farce.
“If you put this into an episode of Yes, Minister, nobody would believe it,” he told reporters, referring to the satirical British comedy show.
Industry leaders have long called for a heliport based in the city, which last had one in the late 1980s operating from the Darling Harbour tourist precinct.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained