Current Events (NEWS)

yudansha

TheGreatOne
This is where you post the news you find interesting (or think others might find interesting as well) ... anything, anywhere, any time. :)
 

Serena

Administrator
This is a great idea for yours, yudansha. But I don't want mine grouped in someone else's thread. I don't post them that often, and when I do, like today with Martha Stewart, I want them to stand out for at least a day or so. If these types of threads get too long, not many people will bother to check them regularly, if at all, as you know how a lot of people feel about long threads.

So, unless we get a subsection for current events, I'll keep posting mine separately. Hope you understand what I mean. :)
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
Serena, I know what you mean...

... and I do not have a problem with it. I think the bickering would stop if I started something like this thread. I just don't want extra hassle for those of you who monitor this site. (I hope you understand, too. :))

Bobby Fischer found; former world chess champion detained in Japan

TOKYO (AP) - Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has been detained in Japan by immigration authorities, an official said Friday.

Fischer, who is wanted by U.S. authorities for attending a 1992 chess match in Yugoslavia in violation of international sanctions, was stopped at Tokyo's Narita International Airport on Tuesday, an airport spokesman said on condition of anonymity. Fischer, 61, was attempting to leave Japan for the Philippines, the spokesman said.

He was detained on suspicion of violating immigration laws, and officials were preparing to deport him to the United States, said the Asahi Shimbun Friday, a major daily, citing unnamed sources.

The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said they were aware of Fischer's case.

"We are aware that Bobby Fischer has been detained," an embassy official said on condition of anonymity, declining to give further details citing privacy concerns.

Fischer, a chess prodigy, became grandmaster at age 15. He was world chess champion from 1972 until 1975, when he forfeited the title and withdrew because conditions he demanded proved unacceptable to the International Chess Federation.

After that he virtually disappeared, living in secret outside the United States.

He emerged in 1992 to play another former world champion, Boris Spassky, in a highly publicized match in Yugoslavia. Fischer beat Spassky 10-5 to win $3.35 million US ($4.43 million Cdn).

The U.S. government accused Fischer of violating UN sanctions against Yugoslavia by playing the match. The sanctions were imposed on Yugoslavia for provoking warfare in neighbouring Bosnia-Herzegovina.

© The Canadian Press, 2004
 

Reservoir Dog

MRKD4DTH
There was a movie about that!!

"Searching for Bobby Fischer"! Wow, I guess the movie finally could have a good conclusion. I wonder if they will release it on DVD with an updated ending.
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
Boston Scientific recalls more heart stents made with Angiotech technology

TORONTO (CP) - A recall of about 85,000 Taxus heart stents by Boston Scientific, announced Friday, will likely impact the shares of Canadian partner Angiotech Pharmaceuticals Inc. when they resume trading next week.

Trading of the two companies' stock was halted Friday ahead of the recall announcement, which was made after Boston Scientific received reports of one death and 18 serious injuries related to the use of the Taxus device used in heart surgeries.

Boston Scientific said it expects Friday's move will cut its sales by $45 million US in the second quarter and produce a charge of $50 million to write down inventory.

The Boston-area medical supply company said the problem wasn't related to the stents or the special coating developed by Angiotech to improve the effectiveness of the devices used in angioplasty heart procedures.

During such surgery, small balloons are inserted in blood vessels and inflated. The stents are then inserted to keep the vessels open to improve blood flow after the balloons are deflated and removed.

Boston Scientific, a major supplier of surgical equipment, said that, in a small number of cases the catheters used to deliver the stents had the potential to impede the deflation of the balloon.

Boston Scientific said it is also recalling about 11,000 Express 2 stent systems, which do not use the pacilitaxel coating developed by Vancouver-based Angiotech. The company said it has reports of two deaths and 25 serious injuries associated with balloon deflation in the Express 2 stent system.

The Friday announcement follows a smaller recall of 200 Boston Scientific stents announced July 2.

Boston Scientific executives told analysts in a conference call that the problem affected less than one per cent of the devices being recalled and wasn't related to the stents themselves or to the coating used in the Taxol stents.

However, given that Angiotech's biggest source of revenues is from royalties on the sale of Boston Scientific Taxus stents, the company's stock will likely be hit hard when trading resumes.

Shares of another Canadian biotechnology company, Montreal-based ConjuChem Inc., fell 53 per cent on Thursday - a day after it announced "mild to moderate" nausea and vomiting in patients during clinical trials of a diabetes drug,

Angiotech shares (TSX:ANP) closed at $23.89 Cdn on Thursday at the Toronto Stock Exchange. They were halted all day Friday on the TSX. Boston Scientific stock (NYSE:BSX) fell nearly eight per cent in late trading in New York after the announcement, falling $3.09 to $37.40 US.

Overall, Boston Scientific has shipped more than 500,000 Taxus stent systems and more than 600,000 Express 2 stent systems. The recall does not affect the Express SD and LD stent systems.

The U.S. company said it is implementing a review of its manufacturing process, additional inspections, and an FDA-approved modification to the manufacturing process for these products. The current and future production are not expected to experience similar balloon deflation problems.

Boston Scientific said the action does not affect patients who have already received these stents, because the difficulty is with the delivery system and occurs at the time of insertion, not afterward.

The company said it will postpone the announcement of its second-quarter financial results, originally scheduled for Monday, until July 26 so it may finalize adjustments required by the recall.

DAVID PADDON; © The Canadian Press, 2004
 

Littledragon

Above The Law
Awesome Idea!

yudansha said:
This is where you post the news you find interesting (or think others might find interesting as well) ... anything, anywhere, any time. :)

Fantastic and fabulous idea Yudansha!

I will contribute as well. ;)
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
Prince Charles' plane nearly missed a collision with a passenger jet

LONDON (AP) - A Royal Air Force plane carrying Prince Charles was involved in a "near miss" incident with a passenger jet earlier this year, air traffic controllers said Friday.

The National Air Traffic Service said neither plane had been in danger when the prince's jet neared the flight path of a Heathrow-bound Airbus A321 over southern England on March 24.

The service said both pilots filed an "air proximity report" after the incident, which occurred at about 3,500 metres.

It said an air traffic controller acted quickly to correct the problem, and that the planes had remained 5.7 kilometres apart horizontally and 274 metres apart vertically.

It said the Independent U.K. Airprox (air proximity) Board was investigating whether there had been a risk of collision.

"At no point was the safety of either aircraft compromised in NATS' view," the service said in a statement.

A spokesman for the prince said Charles and his travelling companions "were informed of the incident afterwards but they weren't actually aware of it while the flight was taking place."

The near miss occurred as Charles was flying to Spain to attend a memorial service for more than 190 people killed in the March 11 Madrid train bombings.

© The Canadian Press, 2004
 

Littledragon

Above The Law
yudansha said:
LONDON (AP) - A Royal Air Force plane carrying Prince Charles was involved in a "near miss" incident with a passenger jet earlier this year, air traffic controllers said Friday.

The National Air Traffic Service said neither plane had been in danger when the prince's jet neared the flight path of a Heathrow-bound Airbus A321 over southern England on March 24.

The service said both pilots filed an "air proximity report" after the incident, which occurred at about 3,500 metres.

It said an air traffic controller acted quickly to correct the problem, and that the planes had remained 5.7 kilometres apart horizontally and 274 metres apart vertically.

It said the Independent U.K. Airprox (air proximity) Board was investigating whether there had been a risk of collision.

"At no point was the safety of either aircraft compromised in NATS' view," the service said in a statement.

A spokesman for the prince said Charles and his travelling companions "were informed of the incident afterwards but they weren't actually aware of it while the flight was taking place."

The near miss occurred as Charles was flying to Spain to attend a memorial service for more than 190 people killed in the March 11 Madrid train bombings.

© The Canadian Press, 2004


All I can say is that God was watching over him..
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
Canada to introduce biometric passport despite privacy concerns

OTTAWA (CP) - Canada plans to begin issuing high-tech passports with digitized photographs next year, saying reliable travel documents are crucial to the country's status as a "First World nation."

The e-Passport, as the revamped book is dubbed - given its electronic features - will be distributed on a trial basis to Canadian diplomats sometime in the first half of 2005, said Dan Kingsbury, a spokesman for the federal Passport Office.

"If the initial implementation goes well, we'll begin issuing the e-Passport to the general public afterwards," Kingsbury said in an interview.

"It's all about maintaining the integrity and the security of the passport."

The project is the latest federal initiative to track and control the flow of people across borders more closely following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

The government is pushing ahead with the plan despite objections from privacy and information specialists who argue it is unduly intrusive and unlikely to enhance national security.

With the inclusion of a digitized photo, the passport moves into the controversial realm of biometrics, the use of measurable personal features such as an image, iris scan or fingerprints as identification markers.

The e-Passport will feature a computer chip containing the holder's photograph and personal information on the current passport, including name and date of birth, say briefing notes obtained by The Canadian Press under the federal Access to Information law.

Authorities at border points would be able to call up the data on the digital chip by swiping the passport against an electronic reader.

"The aim of the e-Passport is to reduce the chance of passport tampering and identity fraud," Kingsbury said.

"What the person checking the passport will be able to do is ensure that everything is the same on the chip as it is in the passport itself."

In May 2003, the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization settled on facial recognition as the minimum biometric security standard for passports.

Initially some worried the United States would require Canadian visitors to carry passports conforming to ICAO standards.

Though Canada is exempt from the U.S. regime, the federal government decided on a "proactive response" to the American move to step up border controls, say the newly released background notes on the e-Passport project.

"It is reasonable to assume that other countries, besides the U.S., will soon require the ICAO standards for all travel documents," say the notes,

They say the Canadian initiative, with funding of $10.3 million over three years, is in line with the government's intention to produce "internationally respected" travel identification.

"To maintain its reputation as a First World nation, Canada must issue a biometrically enabled passport."

Kingsbury said there is no plan to compile a searchable electronic database of the images and other data encoded on e-Passport chips.

The project still raises concerns because storage of personal information on computer chips potentially opens the door to "much wider circulation" of the data, said Andrew Clement, a professor of information studies at the University of Toronto.

"It hasn't been analysed and discussed openly in terms of what the implications are."

There is a misguided faith among many that technology will solve security problems in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, said Valerie Steeves, a law professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.

"There's been a real move in governments to create a whole infrastructure of technological surveillance," she said.

"We've created a network that has real implications for our democratic way of life and nobody's sat back and said, 'Hey, has this helped us catch any terrorists?' "

Officials have not decided whether the current fee of $85 to obtain or renew a passport will change, Kingsbury said.

As part of the security overhaul, the government will also eliminate the practice of printing some passports overseas, and it will redesign the emergency passport issued to travellers whose documents are lost or stolen, Kingsbury added.

Beginning as early as January, stranded travellers will be given a temporary passport with a white cover - to distinguish it from the regular dark blue - valid for one year.

Officials are looking at requiring recipients of temporary passports to apply for a regular passport, valid for five years, at the same time, Kingsbury said.

JIM BRONSKILL; © The Canadian Press, 2004
 

Serena

Administrator
It's inevitable, I suppose, but it still creeps me out a little bit (that Big Brother tracking again). I understand that they're doing this to try to reduce passport fraud, but it seems to me there are a lot of evil genius computer hackers and experts who can create the same kind of fraud--if not better--by hacking into the computers for the e-passports. Same fraud--just more high tech, just like the new passport.

You just can't keep an evil genius down long. :rolleyes: :D

Thanks, yudansha. :) As someone who has used a passport quite extensively, I'll be interested to see how this works out.
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
That's been brewing for a long time and they're enforcing it only now...

You're welcome, Serena.

Oh, and here's that balloon thing I was telling you about in the chat (I guess there's no better way to deal with an emergency problem than giving a call to 911):


Several sightseers injured as Baltimore helium balloon bumps police HQ

BALTIMORE (AP) - A balloon filled with sightseers bumped into the Baltimore police headquarters Saturday after a mechanical problem caused it to become stuck, causing minor injuries to several of the 15 passengers, a city fire department spokesman said. Two people were taken to a hospital in an ambulance but the injuries were not considered serious, fire department spokesman Kevin Cartwright said. The total number of injuries was not immediately known.

The balloon, which has a cable attached to it, became stuck about 105 metres in the air on a windy afternoon after a winch failed to retract the cable, authorities said.

Rescuers were able to make the winch work slowly and the balloon was brought down about 90 minutes after it became stuck.

The Port Discovery balloon is a giant, helium-filled, tethered balloon that offers visitors a panoramic view of Baltimore and can accommodate as many as 30 passengers.

The balloon is based at Port Discovery, a children's museum near the city's Inner Harbor, and is operated by Balloon Over Baltimore Inc., a non-profit group.

© The Canadian Press, 2004
 

Serena

Administrator
They can hold 30 passengers? I had no idea they could be that large. Thank heaven no one was seriously injured.

:D Only in America, as a wise man said (or was that a wise-guy? :D).
 

Littledragon

Above The Law
yudansha said:
You're welcome, Serena.

Oh, and here's that balloon thing I was telling you about in the chat (I guess there's no better way to deal with an emergency problem than giving a call to 911):


Several sightseers injured as Baltimore helium balloon bumps police HQ

BALTIMORE (AP) - A balloon filled with sightseers bumped into the Baltimore police headquarters Saturday after a mechanical problem caused it to become stuck, causing minor injuries to several of the 15 passengers, a city fire department spokesman said. Two people were taken to a hospital in an ambulance but the injuries were not considered serious, fire department spokesman Kevin Cartwright said. The total number of injuries was not immediately known.

The balloon, which has a cable attached to it, became stuck about 105 metres in the air on a windy afternoon after a winch failed to retract the cable, authorities said.

Rescuers were able to make the winch work slowly and the balloon was brought down about 90 minutes after it became stuck.

The Port Discovery balloon is a giant, helium-filled, tethered balloon that offers visitors a panoramic view of Baltimore and can accommodate as many as 30 passengers.

The balloon is based at Port Discovery, a children's museum near the city's Inner Harbor, and is operated by Balloon Over Baltimore Inc., a non-profit group.

© The Canadian Press, 2004

Yup saw that on the news today, thank god no one was seriously hurt.
 

Littledragon

Above The Law
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/07/18/mideast/index.html

Militants burn building in protest aimed at Arafat
Palestinian leader accused of perpetuating corruption
Sunday, July 18, 2004 Posted: 8:51 PM EDT (0051 GMT)



Musa Arafat, new chief of Palestinian security forces, walks outside his office Sunday after a handover ceremony.



JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades burned down offices of the Palestinian intelligence services Sunday in southern Gaza, protesting a security shake-up announced by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The Palestinian Authority president announced a major restructuring of security services Saturday.

The changes included consolidating more than 12 security agencies into three main units and replacing two top security officials. One was replaced with Arafat's cousin, Musa Arafat.

Within hours of Saturday's announcement, leaders of Arafat's Fatah movement in southern Gaza resigned and about 2,000 demonstrators took to the streets, many of them armed, accusing Arafat of replacing "corruption with more corruption."

Al Aqsa, a militant wing of Fatah, released a statement Sunday saying it burned down the Palestinian Authority building in Khan Yunis.

Al Aqsa members fired on guards outside the building, who then fled. The attackers also released people being held inside the building and stole weapons. Video from the scene showed cars around the building burning.

The statement said Al Aqsa would not be responsible for anything further that happened as a result of the shake-up -- a thinly veiled threat of continued violence.

Al Aqsa is a militant Palestinian nationalist group that has attacked military and civilian targets in Israel, and in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel and the United States consider it a terrorist organization.

Later Sunday, armed men protesting Arafat's security moves exchanged gunfire with members of the Palestinian security service outside the intelligence headquarters in Rafah, Gaza.

The incidents came amid a state of emergency in Gaza and upheaval in the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei announced his resignation Saturday, citing failures to address lawlessness, poverty and peace with Israel. (Full story)

Arafat rejected the resignation. Qorei's Cabinet, in an emergency session, also called on him to stay.

Qorei met with Arafat for four hours Sunday morning. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said Arafat again refused to accept the resignation.

But Erakat said that if Qorei submits it again at a Cabinet meeting Monday, Arafat will likely have no choice but to accept it.

Jordan's King Abdullah II told CNN that Qorei's resignation would only weaken Palestinian institutions "at a time when we really need to be able to move on security."

Qorei was named prime minister in September 2003 when the first man to hold that post, Mahmoud Abbas, resigned amid a dispute with Arafat over control of Palestinian security forces. If Qorei quits, "then we're running out of candidates," Abdullah said.

"This will be a serious blow to all of us that are trying to push the process forward, and I think will reflect very negatively on President Arafat himself," the king said on CNN's "Late Edition."

Qorei's resignation followed three separate abductions Friday that emphasized the lawlessness gripping Gaza.

Palestinian militants kidnapped two Palestinian leaders, four French aid workers and a Palestinian aid worker. All hostages were released after the captors' demands were met.

The Israeli government, in its weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday, discussed preparations for dealing with possible changes in the Palestinian Authority.


Masked militants of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades demonstrate against the new appointments Saturday in Gaza City.
Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said Qorei "is reaping the consequences of Arafat's misbehavior. Arafat is sowing corruption. Arafat is responsible for 12 different security organizations competing with each other. Arafat is responsible for the total disruption of political dialogue with Israel.

"And now the Palestinians are suffering because this is their leader."

U.N. Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen told the Security Council last week that the Palestinian Authority "is in deep distress and is in real danger of collapse," which "cannot be attributed only to the Israeli incursions and operations inside Palestinian towns."

Roed-Larsen specifically blamed Arafat for not carrying out promised reforms.
 

Littledragon

Above The Law
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/18/france.sharon.reut/index.html

PARIS, France (Reuters) -- France has sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon after he urged French Jews to emigrate immediately to Israel to escape what he called "the wildest anti-Semitism."

Branding Sharon's language "unacceptable," a French Foreign Ministry spokesman said Paris had demanded an explanation.

France, home to western Europe's biggest Jewish and Muslim communities, has been troubled by attacks on Jewish people and property in recent years, some of it blamed on youths of North African origin angered by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Sharon, who regularly calls on all the world's Jews to migrate to Israel, acknowledged in a speech to Jewish leaders in Jerusalem that the French government was making efforts to stem anti-Semitism.

But he added that the threat was so grave that French Jews should head for Israel without delay.

"If I have to advise our brothers in France, I'll tell them one thing -- move to Israel, as early as possible. I say that to Jews all around the world, but there (in France) I think it's a must and they have to move immediately," Sharon said.

The French spokesman said: "We have been informed of comments made today by Sharon calling on the Jews of France to emigrate to Israel.

"We immediately made contact with the Israeli authorities to ask for an explanation of these unacceptable comments."

In an attempt to smooth over tension with Paris, a spokesman for Sharon said the prime minister had praised France for its "strong stance against anti-Semitism."

"The prime minister admits, however, that the widespread anti-Semitism in France is due to the demographic factor, that there is a large Muslim populace who are hostile to Israel," the spokesman Raanan Gissin said.

"He is not telling them to flee because of anti-Semitism, rather that this should be a contributing factor (for emigration)," Gissin said, adding Sharon called on all Jews to move to Israel so they could live "a full Jewish life."

Some 600,000 Jews and f5 million Muslims form part of France's population of 60 million.

The French Interior Ministry registered 67 attacks on Jews or their property and 160 threats against Jews in the first quarter of this year compared with 42 attacks and 191 threats in the last three months of 2003.
 

Littledragon

Above The Law
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/07/18/iran.canada.trial.reut/index.html

TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) -- Iran's hardline judiciary abruptly ended the trial on Sunday of an intelligence agent accused of killing a Canadian journalist, prompting angry lawyers to complain key evidence had been ignored or covered up.

Foreign diplomats and journalists were barred from the third day of the trial of the agent, Mohammad Reza Aqdam, over the death last July of Zahra Kazemi, 54, a photographer of Iranian origin who was detained after taking pictures of a Tehran jail.

Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace laureate, said the judge had ignored testimony that might have incriminated a judiciary official.

The case has damaged Iran's relations with Canada, which announced the withdrawal of its ambassador last week, and turned an international spotlight on Iran's judiciary and prisons.

It has also exposed deep rifts between President Mohammad Khatami's reformist government and the judiciary which is run by his hardline opponents.

"I'm so angry I cannot speak. They didn't even pay attention to our evidence and announced the end of the trial," Ebadi, who was representing Kazemi's family, said outside the Tehran court.

"This is not a fair trial. The case hasn't been reviewed. If they issue a verdict it will be unfair," she added.

Aqdam faces a charge of "semi-intentional murder," which carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison. A verdict is expected in a week or so.

The judiciary initially announced Kazemi had died of a stroke. But a government inquiry showed she received a blow to the head inside Evin prison that cracked her skull and caused a brain hemorrhage. She went into a coma and died in hospital.

"Evidence ignored"
Ebadi and Aqdam's lawyers said the court had ignored accounts by witnesses who said Kazemi was hit on the head by a judiciary official shortly after her arrest.

"Aqdam's lawyer identified the real killer but the court doesn't want to pay attention," Ebadi said.

"We will use all legal methods to restore the rights of our client," she said. "We will continue until our last breath."

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman insisted the trial was transparent and warned Canada not to interfere.

"We have to be accountable to Iranian citizens about this case, not to a foreign country," said Hamid Reza Asefi.

The decision to end the trial was denounced by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. "We are incensed by this denial of justice," the press freedom group said in a statement.

"While all the attention of the international community was on Tehran, Iranian justice displayed an unbearable cynicism and hypocrisy," it said.

The trial had resumed on Saturday after a nine-month delay since the opening day. Kazemi's tearful mother accused Iranian officials of torturing her daughter to death.

"There were burns on my daughter's chest, her fingers and nose and toes were broken," Ezzat Kazemi told the court.

Canadian, Dutch, British and French diplomats and foreign media were barred from the court on Sunday, although they had been allowed to attend on Saturday.
 

Littledragon

Above The Law
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/18/cia.korea.spelling.reut/index.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- South Korea has been pushing the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to change the way it spells President Roh Moo-hyun's last name, but the CIA is sticking to its guns, the embassy says.

In an online directory and in its World Fact Book, a standard reference, the CIA spells it "No," rather than "Roh," the South Korean leader's preference.

The embassy has sent the CIA three formal requests, one last year and two this year, as part of efforts to get the entire U.S. government to change its spelling, said Jeongsun Suh, the officer in charge of press and culture.

"Up to now, we didn't receive a response," he said.

The U.S. State Department also uses the transliteration on its Web site.

Suh said the chief rub was the World Fact Book, even though it brackets in the spelling preferred by the president.

The CIA standardizes spelling of foreign names for its online directory of foreign leaders, updated weekly, as well as for an in-house operation that translates and transcribes overseas broadcasts.

The directory of chiefs of state and cabinet members of foreign governments seems to suggest that President Roh should get his wish.

It says the spellings it uses follow transliterations systems "generally agreed upon by U.S. government agencies, except in the cases in which officials have stated a preference for alternate spellings of their names."

The CIA had no immediate explanation of the lag in meeting the South Korean request.

The issue caused a stir last week after the Korean Overseas Information service told the Korea Herald newspaper it would nudge the CIA again.

The agency apparently has been sticking to the so-called McCune-Reischauer system for the Romanization of Korea, first published in 1939 and still the most widely used among Western experts.
 
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