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Saturday, February 10, 2007

A training program in which officers observe volunteers who may be high on drugs, and is used in 30 U.S. states, has the Edmonton Police Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in a public relations nightmare.

Acting police chief Mike Bradshaw says “the training is meant to help police officers identify how people behave when they are on drugs.”

Bradshaw is also quoted saying police did not provide the men and women – some of them prostitutes – with any drugs during a training session in December.

Cpl. Wayne Oakes of the RCMP clarified the issue of who gave the volunteers the drugs, claiming the police officers were not even present when the drugs were administered, the volunteers used their own drugs.

Bradshaw says the police asked the Metis Child and Family Services Society to provide the nine volunteers, however not all of them were aboriginal. They may or may not have been high during the session.

The volunteers were anonymous and were not promised anything in return for their participation.

An internal investigation has been launched into the program because of one complaint — not from any of the volunteers — although police said that’s a standard procedure.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Lauren Nelson, 19, sophomore at University of Central Oklahoma, was crowned Miss Oklahoma last night at the Oral Roberts University Mabee Center. Nelson is the youngest contestant to become Miss Oklahoma. She will receive a $16,000 scholarship and represent Oklahoma in the Miss America pageant.

Nelson is the daughter of Mark and Sherrell Nelson of Lawton. Competing for the first time in the Miss Oklahoma pageant; she became qualified for the pageant at the Oklahoma State Fair. In 2004, Nelson was Miss Teen Oklahoma.

Lindsay Miller from Tulsa, Miss Grand Lake, won an $8,000 scholarship for being the first runner-up.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

24-year-old Aman Kassaye, of no fixed abode, is to face a charge of attempted murder for his alleged role in an armed robbery that netted £40 million ($65 million) worth of jewelry from a London store.

Kassaye is the seventh man to be charged, and is also facing prosecution for conspiracy to rob the Graff store in New Bond Street, false imprisonment, and using a handgun to resist arrest. He will appear at Wimbledon magistrates court on Monday.

The other six men have already been remanded in custody until October 23, when they will appear at Kingston Crown Court. All are facing charges of conspiracy to rob, and two of them are also charged with a firearms offense.

43 diamond rings, watches, and bracelets were taken from the store. The theft occurred when two armed and suited men walked in and took an employee hostage. It has been reported they used prosthetic masks made from liquid latex but police have not confirmed this. Amateur footage also shows a shot was fired. No-one was injured.

The robbery is one of the biggest the United Kingdom has seen. After the crime a string of getaway vehicles was used, with police believing several more offenders assisted with this stage of the plan. Although The Telegraph claims no stolen property has yet been recovered, this is also unconfirmed by police.

Friday, April 25, 2008

The arsonist responsible for setting fire to the historic Sungnyemun gate (more commonly referred to as Namdaemun gate) in Seoul, South Korea in February has been sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. The 600-year-old landmark was considred one of the nation’s greatest and most iconic, with some sources describing it as the single most important one in the country.

The 69-year-old male defendant has a previous conviction from two years ago for attempting to torch the Changgyeong palace, for which he received a suspended prison sentence and was fined. It is understood he destroyed the Namdaemun gate and attacked the palace over an unconnected land ownership dispute which had angered him. He felt that the compulsory purchase of his home a decade ago had been inadequatly compensated for by the state.

After the fire, residents left flowers at the scene and wrote grieving notes.

Chae Jong-Gi, who admitted the crime, was told of the seriousness of the offence in a statement by the Seoul district court. “A heavy sentence is inevitable as the accused inflicted unbearable agony on the people and damaged national pride… (The monument was) the treasure among all treasures which had survived all kinds of historic disasters. Even if restored, the gate’s originality will never return. Therefore, the nature and consequences of this crime are very serious,” said the statement.

The man is thought to have selected the gate as a target due to lax security measures. In the fire’s aftermath, officials have been criticised over this and concerns that firefighting efforts were ineffective, and the Cultural Heritage Administration‘s chief resigned to show he accepted responsibility for the blaze.

The two storey gate in pagoda style was constructed in 1398 and despite a 1447 rebuild and multiple renovations still contained original timbers prior to the destruction in the fire. Only the stone base survived.

According to the Cultural Heritage Administration, a reconstruction effort will take two to three years and cost 20 billion won (US$21 million).

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Washington, D.C. – The Environmental Protection Agency may have a new tool in its arsenal to fight global warming. The agency has submitted a proposal to the Obama administration which aims to list carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

The policy had previously been proposed to and rejected by the Bush administration, which said it was the wrong tool to be using. The proposal lists the negative effects of global warming, including longer and hotter heat waves, increased flooding, and the increased spread of diseases due to warmer weather.

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson has previously suggested declaring global warming a health threat, and that the agency could use the 1970 Clean Air Act to use to combat it.

Environmental groups applauded the finding, with the director of Clean Air Watch, Frank O’Donnell, calling it “a green-letter day for the environment.”

One of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice presidents, William L. Kovacs, said if the the proposal is put into effect that it “will be devastating to the economy.”

It is unclear whether the Obama administration will go along with the proposal. White House spokesman Ben LaBolt commented that “The president has made clear that to combat climate change, his strong preference is for Congress to pass energy security legislation that includes a cap on greenhouse gas emissions.” No specific timeline has been given for when a decision would be made.

An upcoming conference in Copenhagen, Denmark will focus on drawing up a new international global warming treaty, which the United States plans to attend, a clear reversal from the Bush administration’s non-participation in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

A compilation of brief news reports for Monday, April 9, 2007.

The New Zealand Police has reported that a three-year-old boy choked to death on Saturday afternoon, due to what they believe was a piece of candy at his birthday party.

The parents did call New Zealand’s emergency number, 1-1-1, after their son alerted his parents to the fact that he was choking. The paramedics were unable to revive the Napier boy when they arrived at the scene.

The case has been referred to a coroner.

Sources

• Nzpa. “Three year old dies after choking on candy” — Fairfax New Zealand, April 9, 2007
• “Three-year-old birthday boy chokes to death” — New Zealand Herald, April 9, 2007

Relatively unknown golfer Zach Johnson won the 71st Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. Johnson shot 3-under-par 69 in Sunday’s fourth round, to win by 2 strokes over Tiger Woods, Retief Goosen, and Rory Sabbattini.

Johnson won a purse worth US$1,305,000 and a lifetime qualification to the Masters Tournament, held annually at the Augusta National Golf Club.

Sources

• Press Release: Vartan Kupelian. “Johnson Proves His Mettle In Masters Victory” — The Masters Tournament, April 9, 2007
• Gene Wojciechowski. “Johnson beats Tiger at his own game” — ESPN.com, April 9, 2007
• “A strange week ends with a green jacket for Johnson” — CBS Sportsline, April 8, 2007

A couple living in New York City have decided to take a taxi all the way to Arizona. Betty and Bob Matas are retiring and leaving the city for good. What started as joke, has become reality, in part to spare their cats from traveling in a jetliner cargo-hold. They have negotiated a US$3,000 flat fee instead of the metered rate, which was estimated at US$5,000.

Sources

• “New York couple taking cab to Arizona retirement” — CNN, April 8, 2007
• “New York City Couple Hails Cab to Arizona” — Fox News, April 8, 2007

A vocational nurse working for Dr. John Capriotti, a plastic surgeon, was accused of setting the fire that wounded several and killed three people in Houston, Texas on March 28. She was allegedly trying to cover up the fact that she hadn’t completed the paperwork for an upcoming audit.

The fire began in Dr. Capriotti’s office on the fifth floor and quickly spread to the sixth. Arson investigators from the Houston Fire Department, the FBI and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had been working to determine the source of the fire.

Sources

• Anne Marie Kilday. “Bond set at $330,000 for nurse in fatal fire” — Houston Chronicle, April 8, 2007
• Associated Press. “Woman afraid of losing job confesses to fatal fire” — The Dallas Morning News, April 8, 2007
• Kimberly Pina. “Area fire departments evaluate high-rise strategy” — Houston Chronicle, April 6, 2007
• Joe Stinebaker. “3 dead in Houston office building fire” — Lexington Herald-Leader, March 29, 2007

Iran announced that it has started industrial scale production of nuclear fuel involving hundreds of centrifuges. The announcement comes as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reasserts his nation’s nuclear rights in the face of two rounds of sanctions by the UN Security Council, which is seeking a halt to such work.

The United States denounced the declaration, saying it showed Iran was defying the international community.

Sources

• Parisa Hafezi. “Iran announces “industrial” nuclear fuel work” — Reuters, April 9, 2007
• Marc Wolfensberger and Patrick Donahue. “Iran Says Nuclear Enrichment Reaches Industrial Scale” — Bloomberg L.P., April 9, 2007
• “President: Iran to generate nuclear power on schedule” — Islamic Republic News Agency, April 9, 2007

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Anti-virus software publisher Symantec has reported that outbreaks of two varieties of worm are imminent following system failures on two unnamed major corporate networks in the United Kingdom. After receiving several eyewitness accounts from on-site personnel this reporter noted similarities to the MSBlast worm which made headline news two years ago (on the 16th of July 2003) after causing massive outages.

The worms are limited to Microsoft Windows products based on the NT architecture such as Windows 2000 or Windows XP, exploiting administrator services applets which shut a computer down when a certain service fails. The worms cause these “administrator services” to fail, provoking the computer into shutting down immediately.

Microsoft has announced that a critical update is available for all users, evenfor those who use pirated versions of Windows.

Chrysler, Kraft Foods and many other US corporations are feeling the brunt of the attack as the US was in the middle of the work day when new more virulent variants emerged.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Oxford, England – Today saw the first demonstration in support of Oxford University‘s new animal testing facility on South Parks Road. Around 600 students marched under the banner of PRO-test, an organisation set up several weeks ago in opposition to SPEAK, which campaigns and demonstrates frequently in the city for animal rights.

The demonstration began at 11:30am outside Balliol College on Broad Street, in the historic centre of the city, and (just before midday) marched along Holywell Street and Mansfield Road up towards South Parks Road. Police prevented the PRO-test demonstration from reaching the actual building site because of a SPEAK protest (around 150 people, according to Thames Valley Police[1]) which was occurring there at that time. The crowd was addressed[2] by neurosurgeon Tipu Aziz, Dr Simon Festing (executive director of the Research Defense Society), and Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris, amongst others.

Students demonstrated for different reasons, however. Some were obviously marching in favour of animal testing in order to further medical research, while others wanted to show solidarity with researchers and the university, who have been coming under increasing pressure from organisations such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).

Last year, the ALF claimed responsibility for its arson attack on the Long Bridges boathouse, and recently it put out a communiqué[3] stating that they “must target professors, teachers, heads, students, investors, partners, supporters and ANYONE that dares to deal in any part of the University in any way.” SPEAK and the ALF are separate organisations; the former campaigns peacefully, while the latter often uses tactics such as threatening letters, intimidation and criminal damage to further its cause. It should be noted, however, that in an interview for Sky News[4] on the 25th February, a spokeswoman for SPEAK refused to condemn their activities.

The PRO-test march returned back down Mansfield Road and Holywell Street (in order to avoid passing the SPEAK demonstration), and finished outside the Radcliffe Camera. After a few speeches, everyone dispersed, the demonstration having passed off peacefully, though there was an attempt by five SPEAK demonstrators to break through the police line. SPEAK activists continued to leaflet on Cornmarket Street, and marched down from outside the research lab into the centre around 2pm.

• PRO-test
• SPEAK

• “Police praise protestors after peaceful demonstrations” — Thames Valley Police, February 25, 2006
• “Communiqué from ALF activists” — Animal Liberation Front, February 2, 2006