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Archive for December 2011

England, France paired in Euro 2012

The Euro 2012 draw has been made and England and France have been placed in the same group.

Euro 2012 will kick off on June 8 next year with the first match being played in Warsaw, Poland.

Co-hosts Ukraine, Sweden, France and England have been placed in the same group which I think is going to be a very interesting group.

The groups in next years competition have been made much header because the co-hosts were seeded as hosts and they would normally would have been in either pot C or D.

This has resulted in a group like Group B which pits Netherlands, Germany, Portugal and Denmark.

This could see an increase in online betting as people followed the tournament to be held for the first time in the former East European bloc.

Group A will see co-hosts Poland play Greece, Russia and the Czech Republic and I think this is arguably the easiest group of the four.

Group C will have defending champions Spain fight it out against Italy, Ireland and Croatia. Whilst Spain and Italy are favourites in that group its not hard to see both Croatia and Ireland causing an upset or two.

I will certainly follow the tournment through Tipschallenge.

Category: Football | Comments : 1

No more waiting at Keon Park

The first week has just finished with Epping line trains no longer having to wait at Keon Park for the other train to come from the other direction.

The two rail tracks from Keon Park to Epping have been added as part of the South Morang rail project.

However, I haven't seen the talked about new timetable for the Epping line unless the changes have been made for the middle of the day.

The trains that I use each morning from Regent station are still coming at the previous time all way from the 7:18 am train to the 8:324 one. Nothing has changed there.

Also I haven't seen the changes on the way back. This first week using the new track has trains running late almost every night and on Friday the 5:30 train from Parliament was cancelled.

Maybe there will be timetable changes when the South Morang line is finally opened but at least for now there is no waiting for a train to come from the other direction before proceeding.

I think that's a welcome development for the people who use the Thomastown, Lalor and Epping stations.

Category: Melbourne | Comments : 0

Zanu PF grabs the airwaves

The recent awarding of licences to operate radio statios to AB Communications and Zimpapers has seen Zanu PF literally grabbing the airwaves for themselves.

Kiss FM and Radio VOP were the ones to lose out to stations that are very much aligned to Zanu PF which is more or less an extension of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation(ZBC).

What's the point for example, of granting a newspaper licence to the ZBC? This is what has been done by granting a licence to the Zimpapers.

The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) needs to be seen to be promoting media plurality instead of having more of the same.

Now I understand they are now asking for applications for city licences. Its very hard to see any of those being a success apart from maybe Harare and Bulawayo.

This is because the Zimbabwean cities don't have the big stations required to sustain a commercial station. Instead BAZ should have awarded community radio stations for towns like Marondera.

In a country with such high unemployment I cannot see why this radio and television communications sector cannot be used to create new jobs.

By opening that sector to more players, a lot of people will get jobs. I can imagine how many jobs will be created by just awarding television licences to two other players.

Category: Zimbabwe | Comments : 0