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Wednesday, July 20, 2005

United States Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said it is unlikely that a new bill to reform immigration legislation will receive action by the legislative body this year. The bill, introduced yesterday by Jon Kyl (R,AZ) and John Cornyn (R,TX), would require immigrant workers to apply from their native countries for a visa to remain in the states.

The number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. is estimated to be in the range of 10 to 12 million.

The bill is in contrast to a different measure by Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and John McCain (R-AZ) submitted two months ago. That bill would create a visa category where temporary workers are not tied to any job in particular and would allow them to apply for permanent residence regardless of employment. The bill has republican co-sponsorship from Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake, both from Arizona where the porous US-Mexican border is an issue.

The Kennedy-McCain bill allows illegal aliens already in the U.S. to petition the government to remain. A position that Kyl in effect calls the equivalent of granting “amnesty”. Kennedy answered that criticism by saying, “The mass deportation of illegal immigrant persons as contemplated by the Cornyn-Kyl bill is not a realistic solution, and won’t solve the security and economic problems we face.”

The Kyl-Cornyn bill proposal is an attempt to tie immigrant status to U.S. employment. The legislation would create a guest worker program that would match immigrant workers with jobs mostly not wanted by American citizens. An immigrant worker would be given five years to come into compliance with an employment order. It calls for 10,000 federal agents, at a cost in the range of 2 to 5 billion, to audit employers who hire undocumented workers. Companies that break a proposed new law to monitor undocumented immigrants would be subject to penalties.

The bill drew criticism from immigration groups which include two leading Hispanic organizations because of the “mandatory departure” requirement. Immigrants who wait five years before leaving the U.S. would pay annual fines totaling $5,000 each year. Or, after making a return trip to their native country, they can again apply from there for a temporary job in the U.S. They would work for two years in the U.S., return home for a year, and then reapply for two more two-year work cycle. The maximum would be six years in the United States. In their home country, they could also apply for U.S. immigrant programs, including the “green card” that grants permanent residency.

Kyl said he believes businesses will not object because his plan would make verifying legal workers easier by reducing the documentation required. The basics of the plan include:

• Requires immigrants to be registered, fingerprinted and checked against criminal and terrorist watch lists.

• Allow immigrants two years under the a temporary-worker visa, after which they would have to return home for a year. Temporary-worker visas could be used three times for a maximum stay of six years total.

• Illegal immigrants now in the U.S. register for a “mandatory departure” program that would give them time to leave voluntarily. They could re-enter through the temporary-worker program, but could not apply for permanent residence while in the U.S.

The bill also calls for replacing the practice currently in place in the U.S. of issuing paper Social Security cards with the issuance of a tamper-proof cards. The Social Security Administration identification card is treated by most states as no form of personal identification at all. A birth certificate is considered a primary form of identification, along with driver’s licenses, passports and other official state or other territory photo-identification cards. The bill proposes that social security cards should be “machine readable” and a primary form of identification.

A terrorism-driven drive to turn driver’s licenses into a national ID card faces hurdles. Peter Costello, treasurer of Australia, said he will not support national ID cards unless there is convincing evidence it fights terrorism.

Sunday, December 19, 2004

CRAIG, Alaska —Rachelle Waterman, (aka Rachelle Ann Monica Waterman and “smchyrocky”), a 16-year-old girl from Craig, Alaska, USA, has been charged with the first degree murder of her mother.

The case has rapidly received a wide following on the Internet, partly because Waterman kept a public record of her thoughts and activities on LiveJournal, a popular blogging service. The last entry, which has since been removed from public view, was posted on November 18, 2004 and read:

Just to let everyone know, my mother was murdered.

I won’t have computer acess [sic] until the weekend or so because the police took my computer to go through the hard drive. I thank everyone for their thoughts and e-mails, I hope to talk to you when I get my computer back.

A diverse group of users, both friends and strangers, have posted over 5,000 comments on the journal, positive and negative, transforming the case into an Internet phenomenon. Every entry since March 2004 has apparently now been deleted or hidden, but a ZIP archive of the entire weblog, from before the entries were deleted, is available on Deadly Blogging.

Waterman was a tenth-grade honor (A-average) student in her second year at Craig High School. She was also a member of the Academic Decathlon team (ACDC) and sang in the choir, a profile that has left many people questioning her involvement in the killing and asking what motive there might be. At the time police say the killing occurred, Rachelle Waterman was apparently playing in a volleyball tournament in Anchorage, Alaska.

Apart from the online diary Rachelle kept, the case is also unusual because matricide committed by female minors is extremely rare.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

A series of large explosions have occurred close to Hemel Hempstead Hertfordshire, UK. The source of the explosions has been confirmed as the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal (HOSL), Hemel Hempstead, known locally as the Buncefield complex. Up to 150 fire fighters are reported to be at the scene with 10 fire appliances and 1 specialist foamer.

The first ‘blast’ was heard near Hemel Hempstead on Sunday 11 Dec at 6 am. Further smaller explosions followed at 6:24am , 6:26am, 6:30am. BBC News 24 reported an additional, fourth large explosion. Hertfordshire Police Constabulary are currently treating the explosion as an accident.

Reports say the explosion, which registered 2.4 on the Richter scale, was heard as far away as Oxford, and Whitehall, Central London which is 60km (38 miles) away. Eyewitness statements report that the explosion was heard from at least 160km (100 miles) away and as far away as France and The Netherlands. Pilots reported noticing the blast from the North Sea and the West Country area of the UK. The M1 motorway which runs close by has been closed in both directions near the blast which is causing travel chaos as other roads become congested.

Malcom Stewart, a BBC News24 eyewitness who is a tanker driver for the site has reported that the site supplies several oil companies and is a joint operation between Total UK and Texaco, it is also used by BP, Shell and the British Pipeline association. The complex is not a refinery but a storage facility for refined petroleum awaiting distribution to airports and filling stations. The eyewitness reports that the depot has approximately 20 tanks which can hold about 3 million gallons (11 million litres or 70,000 barrels) each. Another News24 eyewitness has just reported that he has seen at least 5 of these tanks on fire.

The depot operates on a 24 hour basis and is split into 2 parts – aviation fuel and domestic fuel. A number of eyewitnesses have reported on UK news that the aviation fuel side appears to be the part of the site that has been affected.

Local authorities were not immediately available for comment but there have been reports of casualties.

Some reports on live television state that, “Several other neighbours said they did see a plane go into the depot.” BBC News 24 were also discussing the idea a possible plane crash as the cause of the explosions. Hertfordshire police have now gone on the record to say that there is no plane involved (BBC News24).

The police have issued a contact number 0800 096 0095 and asked that people do not call the emergency services in Hertfordshire directly unless it is an emergency.

In addition to being an oil storage depot, it is a major hub on the UK oil pipeline network with pipelines to Killingholme Lindsey Oil Refinery (LOR), Humberside (10 inch), Merseyside (10 and 12 inch), Coryton on the Thames Estuary (14 inch) and Heathrow (6 and 8 inch) and Gatwick airports radiating from it.

The disaster is believed to be the worst explosion at a petrochemical plant in the UK since the Flixborough disaster of 1974.Hertfordshire’s Chief Fire Officer Roy Wilsher said: “This is possibly the largest incident of its kind in peacetime Europe.”

A firefighting press officer said that they are stock piling foam from neighboring regions for a prolonged attach which they hope will stop the spread of the fire, however, the inferno itself will have to burn out which could take between 24 hours and a few days.

Despite the authorities saying that there is no need to panic buy petrol, filling stations have had above average queues since this morning and some small garages have ran out.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has visited the scene.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

ORLANDO, Florida — Alien Encounter and The Living Seas at the Walt Disney World Resort are to open today with a makeover.

The Alien Encounter attraction at Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom has been revised to include Experiment 626 from the movie Lilo & Stitch. Now called Stitch’s Great Escape!, the dog-like blue creature will lash out of its tube and terrorise the audience. The Galactic Federation’s Grand Councilwoman, Captain Gantu and Agent Pleakley appear in this show, essentially a prequel to the movie.

At the Living Seas, Crush the sea turtle from the Disney/Pixar movie Finding Nemo will host a new exhibit called Turtle Talk, joining smaller Nemo exhibits, a mainstay at the attraction for several months. Vegetarian shark Bruce will soon become part of a shark education exhibit.

According to publicity, the Turtle Talk show will run every 15 minutes, from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm. A sign language interpreted performance will run on Fridays at 10:30 am.

Disney is holding the Stitch’s Great Escape! Sweepstakes, with prizes including a five-day, four night trip for four to Walt Disney World Resort.

Friday, July 15, 2005

About 200 cars were burned by young people on the night of July 13 in Île-de-France, the metropolitan area of Paris. As the police cars arrived, youths began to pelt the vehicles with rocks, firecrackers and bottles. Rioters broke store windows at Argenteuil. Police used flash-balls and smoke grenades. The riots ended with 70 men being arrested. A police officer was wounded by a rocket and was taken to hospital. Shop windows were broken at Argenteuil. It is not the first time vehicles have been attacked on 13-14 July in France.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Two buildings have been damaged in a bombing in Athens, Greece on Thursday. The target was a building owned by an agency that manages state real estate.

Nobody was injured in the blast, but the building’s entrance was damaged. A nearby store and a parked car also sustained damage. The homemade device, which consisted of explosives placed inside a plastic bag and tied to a pole close to the target, damaged the Hellenic Public Real Estate Corporation building.

The area was cordoned off by police after the explosion, which occurred at 9:30 p.m. local time yesterday. Bomb disposal experts checked the area following the explosion, while anti-terrorism officers began their investigation. The building is about 250 yards from the Athens police headquarters, and is also close to the Supreme Court.

No claim of responsibility has yet been made, but the Greek conservative government has been attempting to control left-wing terrorism in recent months. One group, the Revolutionary Struggle, was responsible for a failed car bombing against an Athens Citibank office on February 28, and also bombed a Citibank branch in the city on March 9. Greece has been receiving advice from police in London after the increase in terrorist activity and rioting last year throughout the nation.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

The parliament of Indonesia has approved government plans to make an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of shares in three major state-owned firms, privatising them. They are steelmaker Krakatau Steel, Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN) and national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia.

The parliament has left the process fully in the hands of the government, and has set the maximum stake to be sold at 30% for BTN and Krakatau, and 40% for Garuda. Although Indonesia has been known to fund budget deficits with privatisation, the intention is for the funds from this scheme to go to the businesses themselves to allow expansion.

Krakatau expects 3.2 trillion Rupiah (IDR) from the sale, while the estimated price for their stock is between IDR3 and IDR4 trillion (321 – 428 million USD). Both ArcelorMittal SA, the biggest steelmaker in the world, and BlueScope Steel Ltd, the largest in Australia, have expressed an interest in the IPO. Krakatau will use the funds to help finance an expansion scheme which aims to have production doubled to five million tonnes in 2011.

BTN, which focuses on home owner loans, has set itself a target income of IDR36.12 trillion (3.86 billion USD) in 2010 compared to a projected IDR22.9 trillion ( 2.45 billion USD) this year. Net profit for this year is projected at IDR472 billion (50.5 million USD)and is hoped to rise to IDR1.39 trillion (148.7 million USD) in 2010. The bank’s loan to deposit ratio is predicted to rise from 105.05% this year to 144.93% in 2012. BTN hopes to conduct its IPO before the end of 2008.

Garuda is not quite 100% state-owned to start with, unlike the other two, but is very close with 95.44% of the company belonging to the government. Like all of Indonesia’s 51 airlines, Garuda is on the list of air carriers banned in the EU due to safety concerns raised after a string of air accidents in the nation. Garuda expects to raise IDR4.2 trillion (449.4 million USD) in funds from the IPO, and will use IDR2.5 trillion (267.5 million USD) to pay off its debts and invest IDR1.7 trillion (181.9 million USD) in new aircraft.

The government is still working to get a deal to make IPOs for architectural firm Yodya Karya and three plantation firms called Perkebunan Nusantara III, IV and VII.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday party.

The boy was today awake and smiling, still in some pain but in good spirits and expected to make a full recovery, according to plastic surgeon, Mr Robert Love.

“What we have is parts that are very much alive so the reattached limbs are certainly pink, well perfused and are indeed moving,” Mr Love told reporters today.

“The fact that he is moving his fingers, and of course when he wakes up he will move both fingers and toes, is not a surprise,” Mr Love had said yesterday.

“The question is more the sensory return that he will get in the hand itself and the fine movements he will have in the fingers and the toes, and that will come with time, hopefully. We will assess that over the next 18 months to two years.

“I’m sure that he’ll enjoy a game of basketball in the future.”

The weight and force of the collapse, and the sharp brick edges, resulted in the three limbs being cut through about 7cm above the wrists and ankle.

Terry’s father Tan said of his only child, the injuries were terrible, “I was scared to look at him, a horrible thing.”

The hands and foot were placed in an ice-filled Esky and rushed to hospital with the boy, where three teams of medical experts were assembled, and he was given a blood transfusion after experiencing massive blood loss. Eight hours of complex micro-surgery on Saturday night were followed by a further two hours of skin grafts yesterday.

“What he will lose because it was such a large zone of traumatised skin and muscle and so on, he will lose some of the skin so he’ll certainly require lots of further surgery regardless of whether the skin survives,” said Mr Love said today.

The boy was kept unconscious under anaesthetic between the two procedures. In an interview yesterday, Mr Love explained why:

“He could have actually been woken up the next day. Because we were intending to take him back to theatre for a second look, to look at the traumatised skin flaps, to close more of his wounds and to do split skin grafting, it was felt the best thing to do would be to keep him stable and to keep him anaesthetised.”

Professor Wayne Morrison, director of the respected Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and head of plastic and hand surgery at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said he believed the operation to be a world first.

Monday, November 6, 2006

The German version of the encyclopedia Wikipedia, has been used in an attempt to spread a “malicious code” which would unleash a virus on to personal computers worldwide.

The page titled: “W32.Blaster” (link in German) was edited in a way where a link was placed in the article directing users to a site where an alleged fix for the Lovesan/MS Blaster worm, but the fix turned out to be false and the file was considered “malicious.” Computers that were target would receive e-mails from what appeared to be the Wikipedia.org website telling them to download the fix and including a link to it.

“The good news is that the authorities at Wikipedia quickly identified and edited the article on their site,” said senior technology consultant at Sophos anti-virus, Graham Cluley.

Although the edit has since been reverted or removed, until recently the edit remained in an archived version of the page; eventually, the archived version was also removed.

“A version of the page remained in the archive, allowing the hackers to send out spam and continue to direct visitors to the malicious code,” added Cluley.

It is not known how many computers have been affected by the worm, if any at all. It is also not known when the edit was made and how long it was active on the site before it was deleted. However it appears that it was deleted on October 31, as the page was partially deleted on that day twice, according to log files (english translation courtesy of google translate).

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

A 13-year-old boy was killed and ten people were injured in an accidental shooting incident in the Brazilian town of Rondonopolis.

The police were staging a mock hijack as a training exercise with real people in a bus as an audience on Saturday. They fired their guns at cardboard cutouts of criminals in the exercise. However, they used live ammunition in their guns, and the shots went straight through the cutouts and the glass windows of the bus.

Luis Henrique Dias Bulhoes, 13, was killed by a single shot to the head received from one of three 12-gauge shotguns that were amongst the weaponry the 16 police were using. Among the 600 people attending the exercise, six children and three adults were also injured.

Police admitted to the blunder on Monday. They believe bullets from more than one gun reached the audience. Seven of the 16 policeman are temporarily dismissed from their positions pending investigations.