Sunday, January 21, 2007

In the United Kingdom, an anti-pollution operation is under way after the stricken ship MSC Napoli started to leak dangerous heavy fuel oil.

The heavy fuel oil that is leaking from the beached Italian ship is extremely dangerous for the environment. Fear of pollution increased after the ship was further damaged during storms last Thursday. MSC Napoli was beached by Devon coastguards after it suffered heavy structual damage in the gale force storms of Thursday, 18 January 2007, that wreaked havoc across Northern Europe. The ship, which contains 160 containers of hazardous chemical substances, is listing at 35 degrees.

The entire 26-man crew was rescued by navy helicopters Thursday after severe gales. Cracks were found on both sides of the ship, but the current oil leak was not expected.

Around 2,400 containers were carried by the 62,000 tonne ship, some of which contain potentially dangerous hazardous chemicals.

The Coastguards have reported that up to 200 of the containers carrying materials such as perfume and battery acid are loose from the ship and they are looking for missing containers. South African stainless steel producer Columbus Stainless confirmed on Friday that there was at least 1,000 tonnes of nickel on board MSC Napoli.

A hole in the ship flooded the engine room and there’s now fears that the ship will break up. Saturday MSC Napoli was towed to Portland when a ”structural failure” forced the salvage team to beach it. As the storms have continued MSC Napoli has been further damaged.

The authorities have warned people about the pollution, which already has reached the beaches at Devon, but many want to see it on their own. Police have closed Branscombe Beach as more than 20 containers have broken up scattering their contents along the beach.

Sky News reported Sunday that the costs of the accident might be very high as thousands of pounds worth of BMW motorbikes, car parts, empty oak barrels and perfume might get lost in flooding containers.

See the discussion page for instructions on adding schools to this list and for an alphabetically arranged listing of schools.

Due to the damage by Hurricane Katrina and subsequent flooding, a number of colleges and universities in the New Orleans metropolitan area will not be able to hold classes for the fall 2005 semester. It is estimated that 75,000 to 100,000 students have been displaced. [1]. In response, institutions across the United States and Canada are offering late registration for displaced students so that their academic progress is not unduly delayed. Some are offering free or reduced admission to displaced students. At some universities, especially state universities, this offer is limited to residents of the area.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Nine films have advanced to “Phase II” of the 80th Academy Awards Foreign Language Film race, out of 63 international films entered.

They are:

• Austria, The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky, director
• Brazil, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, Cao Hamburger, director
• Canada, Days of Darkness, Denys Arcand, director
• Israel, Beaufort, Joseph Cedar, director
• Italy, The Unknown, Giuseppe Tornatore, director
• Kazakhstan, Mongol, Sergei Bodrov, director
• Poland, Katy?, Andrzej Wajda, director
• Russia, 12, Nikita Mikhalkov, director
• Serbia, The Trap, Srdan Golubovic, director

Several hundred Los Angeles-based members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, which hosts the “Oscars”, screened the eligible films to determine the shortlist. The nominees will be decided by 10 random members from the “Phase I” group, and ten Los Angeles and New York members specially invited to participate. They will view the screenings in marathon viewings, from Friday, January 18 to Sunday, January 20, in both cities.

Nominations will be announced Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre at the AMPAS headquarters. The award ceremony, if not interrupted by the WGA writers’ strike, will air Sunday, February 24, 2008, at the Kodak Theatre.

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Last week’s police helicopter accident in eastern Slovakia was caused by technical failure and not human error, said the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic on Friday. The statement is based on preliminary flight recorder data analysis. Ministry spokesperson Petar Lazarov confirmed the flight recorder and remains of the helicopter will be sent to the United States for further analysis. Helicopter crash occurred during a training exercise on May 10 shortly before 2:30 PM CEST at Prešov Air Base near Prešov, resulting in deaths of two crewmembers and serious injuries of both pilots.

According to initial reports by the Slovak Police Force, the helicopter spiraled down from a height of about 100 metres and 200 metres away from the point of take-off. Slovak tabloid newspaper Plus Jeden De? wrote that, according to a source from the forensic team that analysed flight recorders data, both rotors failed at the same time.

The accident caused fatal injuries to two Fire and Rescue Corps firefighters, First Lieutenant ^{((sk))Slovak language: ?nadporu?ík} Peter To?or, born 1974, and Lieutenant Colonel ^{((sk))Slovak language: ?podplukovník} Radoslav Lacko, born 1968. According to reports, one died on the site, and one in the Louis Pasteur University Hospital in Košice. “The patient suffered serious head and chest injuries. Our doctors resuscitated him for about 50 minutes. Ultimately, he died of his injuries,” said hospital spokesperson Ivana Stašková. Both firefighters were buried on May 16. The helicopter pilots were hospitalized with serious injuries in the Ján Adam Reiman Teaching Hospital with Polyclinic in Prešov. While one of them was stabilized and conscious already on May 10, suffering from right femoral fracture, right rib and facial bone fracture, the second one is still in serious condition at the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Medicine, said hospital spokesperson Renáta Cenková.

The Bell 429 GlobalRanger helicopter, registration OM-BYM, was made in 2014 and commissioned by the Aviation Department of the Ministry of Interior on August 17, 2015. The Aviation Department later commissioned another Bell 429 helicopter, registration OM-BYD. According to Bell Helicopter, the primary purpose of both these helicopters was to be “border protection, search and rescue, natural disaster relief missions and road traffic law enforcement”.

Bell Helicopter reacted on the incident, expressing condolences and willingness to assist with the investigation. Members of the National Council started their late-afternoon session on May 10 with a minute of silence for the victims of the crash. Other government officials expressed their condolences as well, including the President Andrej Kiska, the Prime Minister Robert Fico, and the Mayor of Prešov Andrea Tur?anová.

This accident was not the first Bell 429 helicopter crash in Slovakia. On September 7 of last year, an Air-Transport Europe rescue helicopter crashed near Banská Bystrica, killing all three crewmen and a patient aboard. Investigation is still in progress and no preliminary results are known.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

With this year’s November midterm elections fast approaching, three prominent United States Democrats announced their plans for retirement from public service on Wednesday.

Powerful and influential—yet controversial for his alleged close ties to the financial sector and his handling of last year’s bailout—Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut announced that he would not be seeking a sixth term this year.

In a speech to his supporters in East Haddam, Connecticut, the sixty-five-year-old senior senator—with his family at his side—said, “I have been a Connecticut senator for thirty years. I’m very proud of the job I’ve done and the results delivered. But none of us is irreplaceable. None of us is indispensable.”

He then went on to say, “Over the past twelve months, I’ve managed four major pieces of legislation through the United States Congress, served as chair and acting chair of two major Senate committees, placing me at the center of the two most important issues of our time—health care and reform of financial services.”

In addition to highlighting some personal travails, Dodd alluded to his precarious political situation, “I lost a beloved sister in July, and in August, Ted Kennedy. I battled cancer over the summer, and in the midst of all of this, found myself in the toughest political shape of my career.”

Despite this, Dodd adamantly maintained that none of the above reasons were the causes for his retirement. He said that his reasons were more “personal,” and that his retirement would hopefully give him a much-wanted opportunity to spend more time with his family.

Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota announced that he would not run for re-election this year either.

“Although I still have a passion for public service and enjoy my work in the Senate, I have other interests and I have other things I would like to pursue outside of public life,” said the sixty-seven-year-old, three-term senator who said he came to this decision after discussing his future with his immediate family over Christmas.

Governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter announced that he too would not seek a second term. The fifty-three-year-old freshman governor said that although he felt his race was “absolutely winnable,” after some deep “soul searching,” he realized that he truly wanted to retire from politics nonetheless. This due to the fact that he felt his main priority should be to be a better husband to his wife as well as a better father to their four children.

When asked to comment on Senator Dodd’s retirement on behalf of the Administration, Vice President Joseph Biden said Dodd would “be long recognized as one of the most significant senators of my generation.”

He furthermore stated, “I believe the nation will miss his wisdom, wit and compassion. I count myself lucky because I know he’s not going too far and will always be a source of advice and counsel.”

Biden gave similar comments and expressed like sentiments about the retirement of his other two Democratic colleagues as well.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

MasterCard International announced Friday that multiple instances of fraud have been tracked back to CardSystems Solutions, Inc., a company that processes credit card transactions and other payments. Customer names, banks, and account numbers of up to 40 million cardholders have been exposed, of which about 13.9 million are MasterCard-branded cards, the company said. Visa and American Express cards were also affected.

“The breach appears to be the largest yet involving financial data,” said David Sobel, of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

CardSystems issued a statement late on Friday that said it learned of the potential breach 26 days ago, but that the FBI told the company not to advise the cardholders nor the public at large. CardSystems also said their statement had been vetted by the FBI.

A spokesperson for the FBI said that the agency had asked CardSystems not to disclose information that could compromise the investigation, but that it had not asked CardSystems to fail to disclose the breach at all.

Michael A. Brady, C.F.O. of CardSystems, told the Associated Press that “we’re absolutely blindsided by a press release by the association,” when speaking of MasterCard’s release. A MasterCard spokesperson said that the company was obligated to inform its customers of the breach.

MasterCard spokesperson Sharon Gamsin said that CardSystems was hit by a virus-like computer script that stole customer data for the purpose of fraud. She said MasterCard does not know how the script got into the CardSystem network.

Sobel said this theft “indicates that this is a shadowy industry where the consumer never really knows who is going to be handling and using their personal information. Presumably, the affected consumers thought they were dealing with MasterCard.” Having a third-party process credit card transactions is common practice in the industry.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

A man was shot and killed by police officers in East New York, Brooklyn, New York who were responding to a 9-1-1 call reporting a home invasion late Thursday night. The deceased, 26-year-old Duane Browne, was carrying a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. Police believe he was responding to armed men who had entered his home.

According to police reconstruction of events, as Browne’s brother, 31-year-old Dale Ogarro, approached the home on 943 Schenck Ave., he was accosted by two armed men who demanded “where’s the money!” He was forced into the building’s basement. His girlfriend in a nearby car called 9-1-1 five times to report the invasion. The robbers escaped as police approached. When police arrived, Ogarro reported he was unharmed but did not say the robbers had left or his brother was carrying a gun. Browne exited the house through a back door holding the revolver and police ordered him to drop it. When he failed to do so, police shot him.

Police found 11 bags of cannabis and a scale in a basement closet. According to police, Ogarro has been arrested in the past on several drug charges, and the firearm he carried was unregistered.

On December 12, 2011, police officer Peter J. Figoski was killed while responding to a burglary at a nearby home.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Internet-based group “Anonymous” released a new video on YouTube Monday, announcing international protests outside Church of Scientology centers set for February 10. The video “Call to Action” uses the same computer synthesized voice as a previous video titled “Message to Scientology”, which was posted to YouTube last Monday. The “Message to Scientology” video has been viewed over 1,400,000 times, and the “Call to Action” video has already been viewed over 237,000 times.

Anonymous is taking action against the Church of Scientology in response to what it sees as suppression of freedom of speech on the Internet. The group was first motivated after the Church of Scientology issued a copyright infringement claim to YouTube regarding a promotional video of Scientologist Tom Cruise speaking about his beliefs and using Scientology jargon. The Church of Scientology also issued a legal complaint to the website Gawker.com which is also hosting the video, but Gawker has stated it will not take the video down because it is newsworthy.

Anonymous set up a movement called “Project Chanology” to coordinate their efforts, and took down several Church of Scientology websites through denial-of-service attacks. Members of Anonymous have also participated in prank calls to Church of Scientology centers, as well as protests or “raids” outside Scientology buildings, and have posted some of their exploits to YouTube.

In the “Call to Action” video, Anonymous denies that they are composed solely of “super hackers”, stating “Anonymous is a collective of individuals united by an awareness that someone must do the right thing, that someone must bring light to the darkness, that someone must open the eyes of a public that has slumbered for far too long.” The video goes on to state “We want you to be aware of the very real dangers of Scientology,” citing what they term “gross human rights violations”.

Specific controversial events in Scientology history are cited in the video, including Operation Freakout and Paulette Cooper, and Operation Snow White. Operation Freakout was the name of a Church of Scientology operation whose goal was to “get P.C. [Paulette Cooper] incarcerated in a mental institution or jail or at least to hit her so hard that she drops her attacks.” Paulette Cooper had written a book critical of Scientology called The Scandal of Scientology. Operation Snow White was the name of a Church of Scientology operation where members of the Church’s secretive Guardian’s Office infiltrated United States government agencies in Washington, D.C. including the I.R.S. The F.B.I.’s investigation into Operation Snow White led them to discover the planning of actions taken against Paulette Cooper.

The video concludes by inviting the viewer to “take up the banner of free speech” and protest with Anonymous world wide. In an email to CNET News, Anonymous stated that cities where unknown activities are planned on February 10 include New York City, Montreal, Houston, London, Melbourne, and Los Angeles.

On Friday, two spokespersons for the Church of Scientology commented on the recent actions of Anonymous. A spokesman told News.com.au “These types of people have got some wrong information about us,” and Church spokeswoman Yvette Shank told Sun Media that she regarded members of Anonymous as a “pathetic” group of “computer geeks”. On Monday, Radar reported that the Church of Scientology has asked the U.S. Attorney General‘s office in Los Angeles, the F.B.I., and the LAPD to start a criminal investigation of possible criminal activity related to the Internet attacks. A source told Radar that the Church of Scientology is arguing that the Internet attacks are a form of “illegal interference with business.” Radar also reports that the Church of Scientology is emphasizing its status as a religious organization in the United States, in order to assert that the Internet attacks can be classed as hate crimes.

On Saturday, Mark Bunker of the website XenuTV.com posted a video to YouTube criticizing the illegal actions of Anonymous and suggested legal methods for them to retaliate against the Church of Scientology, including peaceful protesting, writing letters to their government representatives, and persuading the United States government to take away the Church of Scientology’s tax exempt status. In the video, Bunker states “I’m mainly concerned because you shouldn’t be doing things that are illegal, you just shouldn’t. It’s not morally right, and it’s not right when Scientology does it, it’s not right when we do it.” Bunker’s video post has been viewed over 156,000 times. On Sunday, Bunker posted a follow-up video to YouTube where he gives advice to Anonymous on how to peacefully picket. He also provides viewers with resources and weblinks to more information on how to hold a peaceful protest. He concludes this video by imitating Obi-Wan Kenobi‘s Jedi mind trick technique and voice from Star Wars, stating “And if I may, as Obi-Wan, tell you: You will do nothing illegal “.