The director of a West Virginia nonprofit agency who called first lady Michelle Obama "an ape in heels" in a Facebook post has been fired and the institution put under outside management, state officials said on Tuesday.
Pamela Taylor, director of the Clay County Development Corp (CCDC), which provides services to poor and elderly residents, drew international condemnation after her comment last month about Obama went viral.
She resigned in November but was reinstated last month, prompting West Virginia to review its contracts with the nonprofit.
Democratic Governor Earl Ray Tomblin's office said the state had secured an agreement under which the Appalachian Area Agency on Aging will manage the CCDC for six months.
"Following the state's request for specific assurances that the CCDC is following anti-discrimination policies, we have been assured that Pamela Taylor has been removed from her position as CCDC director," Tomblin's office said in a statement.
Taylor could not be reached for comment.
The nonprofit in Clay, West Virginia, a small town about 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Charleston, the state capital, receives state and federal funding.
After the Nov. 8 election, Taylor went on Facebook to praise the switch from Obama to former model Melania Trump, the wife of President-elect Donald Trump, a Republican.
"It will be refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified first lady back in the White House. I'm tired of seeing an ape in heels," she wrote.
Beverly Whaling, Clay's mayor, resigned after coming under fire for replying to Taylor's comment: "Just made my day Pam."
The Charleston Gazette-Mail has reported that the nonprofit received about $1.5 million in federal funding and $363,000 in state funding in 2014.
Showing posts with label degree. Show all posts
Showing posts with label degree. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Friday, October 10, 2014
Kim Jong Un absent from annual North Korea celebration
For the second time in less than a month, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has failed to attend a national event. The young leader's sudden absence from the public eye has fuelled speculation about his grip on power.
North Korea's Worker's Party celebrated its 69th anniversary on Friday, but notably without its biggest supporter: Kim Jong Un.
Since rising to power three years ago, Kim has marked the national holiday by visiting the Kumsusan palace mausoleum in Pyongyang, where his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, and his father, Kim Jong Il, are both interred.
This year Kim's name did not appear on the guest list published by North Korea's state media. However, a flower arrangement in his name was reportedly lain at the statues of his predecessors.
The man seen as North Korea's number two, Hwang Pyong So, was reportedly in attendance.
Kim, who is thought to be 30 or 31 years old, last appeared in public on September 3 when he attended a concert alongside his wife. Speculation about his health had already been circulating since the summer after he was seen walking with a noticeable limp in July.
Last month, North Korea state media reported that he was "suffering discomfort." The rare comment about the dictator's health was broadcast in late September hours before a parliamentary session, which he also did not attend.
While his sudden absence has fed the rumor mills, South Korea's Unification Ministry spokeperson, Lim Byeong Cheol, reassured reporters on Friday that a delegation from North Korea had delivered greetings from the young dictator during a surprise visit to Seoul last week.
"So it appears it is being normally ruled by Kim Jong Un," ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol said.
Kim Jong Un rose to power three years ago after his father, Kim Jong Il, died of a heart attack. The young leader has maintained a high-profile in the North Korean media and has repeatedly attempted to exert his power by threatening to attack South Korea and the United States.
kms/lw (AP, AFP, Reuters)
Deutsche Welle - October 2014
North Korea's Worker's Party celebrated its 69th anniversary on Friday, but notably without its biggest supporter: Kim Jong Un.
Since rising to power three years ago, Kim has marked the national holiday by visiting the Kumsusan palace mausoleum in Pyongyang, where his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, and his father, Kim Jong Il, are both interred.
This year Kim's name did not appear on the guest list published by North Korea's state media. However, a flower arrangement in his name was reportedly lain at the statues of his predecessors.
The man seen as North Korea's number two, Hwang Pyong So, was reportedly in attendance.
Kim, who is thought to be 30 or 31 years old, last appeared in public on September 3 when he attended a concert alongside his wife. Speculation about his health had already been circulating since the summer after he was seen walking with a noticeable limp in July.
Last month, North Korea state media reported that he was "suffering discomfort." The rare comment about the dictator's health was broadcast in late September hours before a parliamentary session, which he also did not attend.
While his sudden absence has fed the rumor mills, South Korea's Unification Ministry spokeperson, Lim Byeong Cheol, reassured reporters on Friday that a delegation from North Korea had delivered greetings from the young dictator during a surprise visit to Seoul last week.
"So it appears it is being normally ruled by Kim Jong Un," ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol said.
Kim Jong Un rose to power three years ago after his father, Kim Jong Il, died of a heart attack. The young leader has maintained a high-profile in the North Korean media and has repeatedly attempted to exert his power by threatening to attack South Korea and the United States.
kms/lw (AP, AFP, Reuters)
Deutsche Welle - October 2014
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Just how seriously is Canada’s voice taken now?
It was a moment made-to-order for Stephen Harper’s dark way of talking about the world. Going back to the 2011 election, the Prime Minister has often portrayed Canada as an island of safety in a global sea of dangers. Sometimes that imagery comes off as alarmist, but the rhetoric works when the topic at hand is the rise of Islamic State extremism in Syria and Iraq. So, when Harper rose in the House of Commons last week to make his case for joining U.S. President Barack Obama’s air campaign against the terrorists, he sounded very much himself in framing the disturbing new threat. He also said that deploying CF-18 fighter jets was necessary to maintain Canada’s international standing. “If Canada wants to keep its voice in the world—and we should, since so many of our challenges are global—being a free rider means you are not taken seriously,” Harper said.
Perhaps inadvertently, though, Harper suggested a question: Just how seriously is Canada’s voice taken now? Conservatives’ claims about having restored Canada’s clout on the world stage have always rested heavily on their reinvestment in the military. But Harper’s early defence-spending hikes turned to cuts after the 2009 recession, while he staged a tactical retreat from his high-profile pledge to buy F-35 jets to replace the aging CF-18s—eroding his image as an unwavering builder of the Canadian Forces’ might. After more than eight years of his rule, does Canada’s military reputation really rank noticeably higher? As Obama assembled his coalition to bomb Islamic State (also know as ISIS), the U.S. signed up a raft of other allies days, or even weeks, before Canada, including bigger military powers such as France and Britain, but also the likes of Australia, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.
Of course, standing on defence isn’t the only measure of Harper’s strength or weakness in the world. Back before his 2006 election win, he set Canada-U.S. relations as the litmus test. As Opposition leader in 2002, Harper delivered a tough attack in the House on then-prime minister Jean Chrétien’s “consistent and complete inability” to bolster Canadian economic interests in the U.S. As PM, however, Harper hasn’t fared better. American border restrictions remain a serious Canadian government frustration. The low point came in early 2012, when Obama told Harper there would be no quick approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to siphon Alberta crude to U.S. refineries. A wounded Harper sent out Joe Oliver, then his natural resources minister, to tell reporters the “decision by the Obama administration underlines the importance of diversifying and expanding our markets, including the growing Asian market.”
For those who remember Harper’s opposition days, that message delivered by Oliver, now Harper’s finance minister, had an ironic ring to it. Back in his 2002 assault on Liberal foreign policy, Harper had derided Chrétien’s attempts at diversifying Canada’s trade beyond the U.S. as an unrealistic echo of the so-called “third option” pursued by Pierre Trudeau in the 1970s, “which did not work then and is not working now.” Harper learned the hard way that there was something to the old Liberal position that Washington’s intransigence leaves Canada no choice but to cultivate trade options overseas. Still, Conservative fans of his no-nonsense style can at least take solace in the way Harper has ditched the old soft-power Liberal brand of multilateralism—the ethos behind former preoccupations such as creating the International Criminal Court, or a treaty to ban land mines—for much sterner stuff.
Or has he? In the days leading up to a key Harper speech at the United Nations late last month, advance stories were full of confident predictions about which world issues he would tackle. After snubbing the General Assembly for three years—ever since his government’s embarrassing failure to win a UN vote for a temporary seat on its Security Council in 2010—the PM had to be returning to blast Russia for incursions into Ukraine and to denounce Islamic State outrages in Iraq. Or so it was assumed. As it turned out, he spoke almost entirely about an aid initiative to improve the health of mothers and newborns. Alluding only vaguely to border tensions in Eastern Europe and bloodshed in the Middle East, he urged UN members to look past violent conflicts to “the long-term opportunities and efforts that can truly transform our world.”
It was a classically Canadian internationalist plea, issued in the New York temple to multilateralism held sacred by Harper’s most bitter critics. Was this really the same Harper who had so often scoffed at Canada’s historic approach to the UN as a matter of “going along to get along”? Even more scornfully, he once summed up his foreign-policy philosophy this way: “It is no longer to please every dictator with a vote at the United Nations.” But, with the maternal and child health initiative, a growing preoccupation of Harper’s for several years now, he is clearly trying to put his stamp on what looks like the sort of UN-focused project his Conservatives used to mock Liberals for championing.
It would be an absurd stretch to suggest that the Harper who championed the Forces, was suspicious of the UN, and assigned enormous importance to Canada-U.S. economic relations, has disappeared. But he has found those pillars too unsteady to bear the full weight of his foreign policy. It’s been a steep learning curve. Before he won power in 2006, he had barely travelled outside Canada and had focused almost exclusively on domestic issues, mostly economic and constitutional. “Since coming to office,” he told Maclean’s in a 2011 interview, “the thing that’s probably struck me the most in terms of my previous expectations—I don’t even know what my expectations were—is not just how important foreign affairs/foreign relations is, but, in fact, that it’s become almost everything.”
Harper inherited the most challenging overseas file in a generation: Afghanistan. Five weeks after being sworn in as Prime Minister on Feb. 6, 2006, he was on a Kandahar airfield telling the assembled troops, “You can’t lead from the bleachers; I want Canada to be a leader.” His Conservatives backed that up by boosting annual defence spending from about $15 billion the year before they took power to closer to $20 billion. Impressive as that top-line figure is, though, it hardly tells the whole story.
David Perry, a senior analyst at the Conference of Defence Associations Institute in Ottawa, offers perhaps the most fine-grained analysis of Canada’s military budget available, outside of classified documents. Perry says defence spending, adjusted for inflation, is actually lower today than it was in 2007. He points to four consecutive years of shrinking outlays on new military hardware, a trend he now calls “seemingly irreversible.”
Perry even argues that there never was any sharp divide on defence between Liberal and Conservative times. The real watershed came in 2005, he contends, when the Liberals, flush with surpluses after slaying the deficit, reinvested heavily in the Department of National Defence. Taking over the following year, Harper built on that new spending policy, to be sure, but only until the 2009 recession. Since then, according to Perry’s analysis, spending restraint has again been the order of the day, with defence absorbing fully a quarter of all federal spending cuts in last spring’s budget.
Perhaps inadvertently, though, Harper suggested a question: Just how seriously is Canada’s voice taken now? Conservatives’ claims about having restored Canada’s clout on the world stage have always rested heavily on their reinvestment in the military. But Harper’s early defence-spending hikes turned to cuts after the 2009 recession, while he staged a tactical retreat from his high-profile pledge to buy F-35 jets to replace the aging CF-18s—eroding his image as an unwavering builder of the Canadian Forces’ might. After more than eight years of his rule, does Canada’s military reputation really rank noticeably higher? As Obama assembled his coalition to bomb Islamic State (also know as ISIS), the U.S. signed up a raft of other allies days, or even weeks, before Canada, including bigger military powers such as France and Britain, but also the likes of Australia, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.
Of course, standing on defence isn’t the only measure of Harper’s strength or weakness in the world. Back before his 2006 election win, he set Canada-U.S. relations as the litmus test. As Opposition leader in 2002, Harper delivered a tough attack in the House on then-prime minister Jean Chrétien’s “consistent and complete inability” to bolster Canadian economic interests in the U.S. As PM, however, Harper hasn’t fared better. American border restrictions remain a serious Canadian government frustration. The low point came in early 2012, when Obama told Harper there would be no quick approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to siphon Alberta crude to U.S. refineries. A wounded Harper sent out Joe Oliver, then his natural resources minister, to tell reporters the “decision by the Obama administration underlines the importance of diversifying and expanding our markets, including the growing Asian market.”
For those who remember Harper’s opposition days, that message delivered by Oliver, now Harper’s finance minister, had an ironic ring to it. Back in his 2002 assault on Liberal foreign policy, Harper had derided Chrétien’s attempts at diversifying Canada’s trade beyond the U.S. as an unrealistic echo of the so-called “third option” pursued by Pierre Trudeau in the 1970s, “which did not work then and is not working now.” Harper learned the hard way that there was something to the old Liberal position that Washington’s intransigence leaves Canada no choice but to cultivate trade options overseas. Still, Conservative fans of his no-nonsense style can at least take solace in the way Harper has ditched the old soft-power Liberal brand of multilateralism—the ethos behind former preoccupations such as creating the International Criminal Court, or a treaty to ban land mines—for much sterner stuff.
Or has he? In the days leading up to a key Harper speech at the United Nations late last month, advance stories were full of confident predictions about which world issues he would tackle. After snubbing the General Assembly for three years—ever since his government’s embarrassing failure to win a UN vote for a temporary seat on its Security Council in 2010—the PM had to be returning to blast Russia for incursions into Ukraine and to denounce Islamic State outrages in Iraq. Or so it was assumed. As it turned out, he spoke almost entirely about an aid initiative to improve the health of mothers and newborns. Alluding only vaguely to border tensions in Eastern Europe and bloodshed in the Middle East, he urged UN members to look past violent conflicts to “the long-term opportunities and efforts that can truly transform our world.”
It was a classically Canadian internationalist plea, issued in the New York temple to multilateralism held sacred by Harper’s most bitter critics. Was this really the same Harper who had so often scoffed at Canada’s historic approach to the UN as a matter of “going along to get along”? Even more scornfully, he once summed up his foreign-policy philosophy this way: “It is no longer to please every dictator with a vote at the United Nations.” But, with the maternal and child health initiative, a growing preoccupation of Harper’s for several years now, he is clearly trying to put his stamp on what looks like the sort of UN-focused project his Conservatives used to mock Liberals for championing.
It would be an absurd stretch to suggest that the Harper who championed the Forces, was suspicious of the UN, and assigned enormous importance to Canada-U.S. economic relations, has disappeared. But he has found those pillars too unsteady to bear the full weight of his foreign policy. It’s been a steep learning curve. Before he won power in 2006, he had barely travelled outside Canada and had focused almost exclusively on domestic issues, mostly economic and constitutional. “Since coming to office,” he told Maclean’s in a 2011 interview, “the thing that’s probably struck me the most in terms of my previous expectations—I don’t even know what my expectations were—is not just how important foreign affairs/foreign relations is, but, in fact, that it’s become almost everything.”
Harper inherited the most challenging overseas file in a generation: Afghanistan. Five weeks after being sworn in as Prime Minister on Feb. 6, 2006, he was on a Kandahar airfield telling the assembled troops, “You can’t lead from the bleachers; I want Canada to be a leader.” His Conservatives backed that up by boosting annual defence spending from about $15 billion the year before they took power to closer to $20 billion. Impressive as that top-line figure is, though, it hardly tells the whole story.
David Perry, a senior analyst at the Conference of Defence Associations Institute in Ottawa, offers perhaps the most fine-grained analysis of Canada’s military budget available, outside of classified documents. Perry says defence spending, adjusted for inflation, is actually lower today than it was in 2007. He points to four consecutive years of shrinking outlays on new military hardware, a trend he now calls “seemingly irreversible.”
Perry even argues that there never was any sharp divide on defence between Liberal and Conservative times. The real watershed came in 2005, he contends, when the Liberals, flush with surpluses after slaying the deficit, reinvested heavily in the Department of National Defence. Taking over the following year, Harper built on that new spending policy, to be sure, but only until the 2009 recession. Since then, according to Perry’s analysis, spending restraint has again been the order of the day, with defence absorbing fully a quarter of all federal spending cuts in last spring’s budget.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
IOS 8 Breakdown
With almost two weeks of the IOS 8 the problems have already raised. Some users of the latest IOS have complains that the IOS limits the use of calls and other messaging systems. Apple is working on the problem, IOS 8 is still available for upgrading on the store though.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
BCTF End Strike
The British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF) has officially ended their strike and public school in the province will continue on Monday for most districts. Now the real question for parents are when are we going to get our daycare money from the provincial government.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Snapchat valued at $10bn by backers
The popular messaging app Snapchat has reportedly been valued at $10bn (£6bn) by one of Silicon Valley's most established investment firms.
The evaluation, detailed by the Wall Street Journal, puts the start-up in the same bracket as young tech titans Dropbox and AirBnB.
The newspaper also reported that Snapchat now has more than 100 million monthly users, approximately half of its rival Instagram.
Snapchat was founded in 2011.
The mobile app, which is the brainchild of two US university students, lets users communicate by sending each other photos that automatically delete after a few seconds.
In just a few years, it has grown to compete with messaging and photo apps such as WhatsApp and Instagram - both now owned by Facebook - as well as Chinese companies such as Line and WeChat.
'Facebook territory'Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a renowned technology investment firm in California that was an early backer of Google and Amazon, has agreed to invest $20m in Snapchat, the Wall Street Journal reported, valuing the company at $10bn.
The evaluation, detailed by the Wall Street Journal, puts the start-up in the same bracket as young tech titans Dropbox and AirBnB.
The newspaper also reported that Snapchat now has more than 100 million monthly users, approximately half of its rival Instagram.
Snapchat was founded in 2011.
The mobile app, which is the brainchild of two US university students, lets users communicate by sending each other photos that automatically delete after a few seconds.
In just a few years, it has grown to compete with messaging and photo apps such as WhatsApp and Instagram - both now owned by Facebook - as well as Chinese companies such as Line and WeChat.
'Facebook territory'Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a renowned technology investment firm in California that was an early backer of Google and Amazon, has agreed to invest $20m in Snapchat, the Wall Street Journal reported, valuing the company at $10bn.
The valuation puts Snapchat "instantly in Facebook and Twitter territory", says Ian Maude, of research firm Enders Analysis.
However, he added, those firms "already have substantial revenues", while Snapchat does not.
"The bet investors are making is that it is going to be worth the amount of Facebook and Twitter one day.
"If you have got an audience, you can develop a substantial multibillion-dollar business."
Snapchat's latest round of funding comes after it reportedly rejected a $3bn takeover offer from Facebook.
In February, Facebook paid $19bn (£11.5bn) for WhatsApp.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Liverpool signs striker Balotelli from AC Milan
Liverpool signed Italy striker Mario Balotelli from AC Milan for 16 million pounds ($26.5 million) on Monday, taking a calculated gamble on a headline-grabbing player known as much for his controversies as his goals.
Nineteen months after ending a 2 1/2-year spell with Manchester City to play for his boyhood club, Balotelli will return to the English Premier League as a replacement for Luis Suarez — another of world football’s talented but disruptive stars.
"I’m happy to be back because I left England and it was a mistake," Balotelli said. "I wanted to go to Italy but I realized it was a mistake."
Balotelli, who has signed what Liverpool said is a "long-term deal," spent his first day with his new team watching the Reds lose 3-1 to City in a Premier League game at Etihad Stadium later Monday. He wasn’t registered in time to play.
Liverpool has been looking to strengthen its strikeforce after selling Suarez to Barcelona for $130 million but left it to the last week of the transfer window to secure one of the summer’s most high-profile and intriguing signings.
During his time at City, in which he won the league title, Balotelli was sent off four times, threw a dart at a youth-team player and was involved in an incident that saw fireworks explode in his bathroom. Days before news of the fireworks incident emerged, Balotelli had revealed a T-shirt under his City jersey with the question, "Why Always Me?" after scoring in the team’s 6-1 win over Manchester United.
Balotelli, with his physique, technical ability and qualities as a finisher, is one of the world’s best strikers and, at 24, the best times of his career could still lie ahead of him. At Milan, he scored 26 goals in 43 league matches and he is the Italian national team’s top striker, scoring 13 goals in 33 games.
But with trouble always seeming to follow him, some are questioning whether Balotelli is worth the risk for Liverpool, which has fostered a strong team spirit under manager Brendan Rodgers that helped it finish second in the Premier League last season. Jose Mourinho described Balotelli as "unmanageable" during their time together at Inter Milan, which the striker left in 2010 to join City.
"He knows himself this is probably is last chance," Rodgers said. "Mario is someone we can improve both as a footballer and as a person."
"He has a reputation but we hope he can curb that behaviour," Rodgers added after the City game. "He knows his flaws and faults and he is looking for someone to help him. There is no better club for him. Of course it is a risk."
Rodgers, however, got the best out of Suarez and current first-choice striker Daniel Sturridge, who both had turbulent pasts before arriving at Anfield. Sections of the British media have reported that Balotelli has had to agree to behaviour clauses being included in his contract with Liverpool.
"I believe we have the infrastructure, culture and environment to get the best out of him and help him achieve his true potential," Rodgers said. "We are a strong group here, committed to hard work and he will benefit from being around it.
"I am looking forward to working with him and helping him learn more, improve and progress as a player."
Rodgers’ attempts to bring in a striker has seen him look at France forward Loic Remy of Queens Park Rangers, whose switch to Anfield broke down at the last minute, and former Barcelona, Inter Milan and Chelsea star Samuel Eto’o. Last month, during Liverpool’s tour of the United States, Rodgers was linked with a bid for Balotelli but said "I can categorically tell you that he will not be at Liverpool."
The U-turn was completed on Monday.
"This transfer represents outstanding value for the club and I think we have done a really smart piece of business here," Rodgers said. "There is no doubting Mario’s ability; he is a world-class talent and someone who, for such a young age, has vast experience of playing at the very highest level."
Asked what his targets at Liverpool were, Balotelli said: "I want to take this team to the Champions League."
Nineteen months after ending a 2 1/2-year spell with Manchester City to play for his boyhood club, Balotelli will return to the English Premier League as a replacement for Luis Suarez — another of world football’s talented but disruptive stars.
"I’m happy to be back because I left England and it was a mistake," Balotelli said. "I wanted to go to Italy but I realized it was a mistake."
Balotelli, who has signed what Liverpool said is a "long-term deal," spent his first day with his new team watching the Reds lose 3-1 to City in a Premier League game at Etihad Stadium later Monday. He wasn’t registered in time to play.
Liverpool has been looking to strengthen its strikeforce after selling Suarez to Barcelona for $130 million but left it to the last week of the transfer window to secure one of the summer’s most high-profile and intriguing signings.
During his time at City, in which he won the league title, Balotelli was sent off four times, threw a dart at a youth-team player and was involved in an incident that saw fireworks explode in his bathroom. Days before news of the fireworks incident emerged, Balotelli had revealed a T-shirt under his City jersey with the question, "Why Always Me?" after scoring in the team’s 6-1 win over Manchester United.
Balotelli, with his physique, technical ability and qualities as a finisher, is one of the world’s best strikers and, at 24, the best times of his career could still lie ahead of him. At Milan, he scored 26 goals in 43 league matches and he is the Italian national team’s top striker, scoring 13 goals in 33 games.
But with trouble always seeming to follow him, some are questioning whether Balotelli is worth the risk for Liverpool, which has fostered a strong team spirit under manager Brendan Rodgers that helped it finish second in the Premier League last season. Jose Mourinho described Balotelli as "unmanageable" during their time together at Inter Milan, which the striker left in 2010 to join City.
"He knows himself this is probably is last chance," Rodgers said. "Mario is someone we can improve both as a footballer and as a person."
"He has a reputation but we hope he can curb that behaviour," Rodgers added after the City game. "He knows his flaws and faults and he is looking for someone to help him. There is no better club for him. Of course it is a risk."
Rodgers, however, got the best out of Suarez and current first-choice striker Daniel Sturridge, who both had turbulent pasts before arriving at Anfield. Sections of the British media have reported that Balotelli has had to agree to behaviour clauses being included in his contract with Liverpool.
"I believe we have the infrastructure, culture and environment to get the best out of him and help him achieve his true potential," Rodgers said. "We are a strong group here, committed to hard work and he will benefit from being around it.
"I am looking forward to working with him and helping him learn more, improve and progress as a player."
Rodgers’ attempts to bring in a striker has seen him look at France forward Loic Remy of Queens Park Rangers, whose switch to Anfield broke down at the last minute, and former Barcelona, Inter Milan and Chelsea star Samuel Eto’o. Last month, during Liverpool’s tour of the United States, Rodgers was linked with a bid for Balotelli but said "I can categorically tell you that he will not be at Liverpool."
The U-turn was completed on Monday.
"This transfer represents outstanding value for the club and I think we have done a really smart piece of business here," Rodgers said. "There is no doubting Mario’s ability; he is a world-class talent and someone who, for such a young age, has vast experience of playing at the very highest level."
Asked what his targets at Liverpool were, Balotelli said: "I want to take this team to the Champions League."
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Iceland: Subglacial eruption is underway
REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Iceland's Meteorological Office says a sub-glacial eruption is underway at the Bardarbunga volcano, which has been rattled by thousands of earthquakes over the past week.
Volcanologist Melissa Pfeffer said seismic data indicates that lava from the volcano is melting ice beneath the Vatnajokull glacier. She said it was not clear when, or if, the eruption would melt the ice and send steam and ash into the air.
Minutes earlier, Iceland raised its aviation alert for the volcano to the highest level of red on Saturday, indicating an eruption that could cause "significant emission of ash into the atmosphere." Red is the highest alert warning on a five-point scale.
Scientists had planned to fly over the glacier later Saturday to look for changes on the surface but it was not clear if that would still take place.
Authorities had evacuated several hundred people earlier this week from the highlands north of the Vatnajokull glacier as a precaution. The area is uninhabited but popular with hikers.
Iceland sits on a volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge and eruptions have occurred frequently, triggered when the Earth's plates move and when magma from deep underground pushes its way to the surface.
A 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokul volcano produced an ash cloud that caused a week of international aviation chaos, with more than 100,000 flights cancelled. Aviation regulators since have reformed policies about flying through ash, so a new eruption would be unlikely to cause that much disruption.
Pfeffer said the amount of ash produced would depend on the thickness of the ice.
"The thicker the ice, the more water there is, the more explosive it will be and the more ash-rich the eruption will be," she said.
Volcanologist Melissa Pfeffer said seismic data indicates that lava from the volcano is melting ice beneath the Vatnajokull glacier. She said it was not clear when, or if, the eruption would melt the ice and send steam and ash into the air.
Minutes earlier, Iceland raised its aviation alert for the volcano to the highest level of red on Saturday, indicating an eruption that could cause "significant emission of ash into the atmosphere." Red is the highest alert warning on a five-point scale.
Scientists had planned to fly over the glacier later Saturday to look for changes on the surface but it was not clear if that would still take place.
Authorities had evacuated several hundred people earlier this week from the highlands north of the Vatnajokull glacier as a precaution. The area is uninhabited but popular with hikers.
Iceland sits on a volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge and eruptions have occurred frequently, triggered when the Earth's plates move and when magma from deep underground pushes its way to the surface.
A 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokul volcano produced an ash cloud that caused a week of international aviation chaos, with more than 100,000 flights cancelled. Aviation regulators since have reformed policies about flying through ash, so a new eruption would be unlikely to cause that much disruption.
Pfeffer said the amount of ash produced would depend on the thickness of the ice.
"The thicker the ice, the more water there is, the more explosive it will be and the more ash-rich the eruption will be," she said.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Johannesburg is South Africa’s largest city. It is also one of the most crowded and densely populated. As a result, mobile phone signal often suffers from too many people trying to connect to one cell tower. The dense built-up environment doesn’t do phone reception any favors either.
MTN, one of Africa’s largest mobile operators, has an ingenious solution: The company is installing cell towers on streetlights in the crowded west and north and of the city. The first two streetlight-towers went up this week in Bryanston, a wealthy suburb. MTN recently won a three-year contract with City Power, Johannesburg’s electricity supplier, as part of the utility’s push to commercialize its infrastructure. Although MTN has a license to replace any of the 110,000 lampposts in the city, its initial rollout will be small, with just 100 poles planned for installation by Christmas, reports TechCentral, a tech blog. More will follow, depending on the results of the first phase.
The installation of a new cell-enabled streetlight takes about 11 hours, making it a much faster process than building a traditional mobile base station, Eben Albertyn, MTN’s tech boss, told TechCentral. However, the lamppost-towers also have a much smaller operating radius of 400 to 600 meters (1,300-2000 feet). Traditional towers can, in theory, extend their range over 30 kilometers (18 miles), but in practice tend to be located only a couple of kilometers apart in urban areas. The smaller footprint of MTN’s streetlight means fewer people will be using the same tower, which should allow for fewer dropped calls and faster data connection.Johannesburg’s electricity supplier, as part of the utility’s push to commercialize its infrastructure. Although MTN has a license to replace any of the 110,000 lampposts in the city, its initial rollout will be small, with just 100 poles planned for installation by Christmas, reports TechCentral, a tech blog. More will follow, depending on the results of the first phase.
The installation of a new cell-enabled streetlight takes about 11 hours, making it a much faster process than building a traditional mobile base station, Eben Albertyn, MTN’s tech boss, told TechCentral. However, the lamppost-towers also have a much smaller operating radius of 400 to 600 meters (1,300-2000 feet). Traditional towers can, in theory, extend their range over 30 kilometers (18 miles), but in practice tend to be located only a couple of kilometers apart in urban areas. The smaller footprint of MTN’s streetlight means fewer people will be using the same tower, which should allow for fewer dropped calls and faster data connection.
MTN is not the first company to think of using streetlights for other purposes. Quartz wrote in March about Sensity Systems, an American company, which is one of many with ambitious plans to turn the world’s streetlights into sensor-packed, data-gathering mobile and i
MTN, one of Africa’s largest mobile operators, has an ingenious solution: The company is installing cell towers on streetlights in the crowded west and north and of the city. The first two streetlight-towers went up this week in Bryanston, a wealthy suburb. MTN recently won a three-year contract with City Power, Johannesburg’s electricity supplier, as part of the utility’s push to commercialize its infrastructure. Although MTN has a license to replace any of the 110,000 lampposts in the city, its initial rollout will be small, with just 100 poles planned for installation by Christmas, reports TechCentral, a tech blog. More will follow, depending on the results of the first phase.
The installation of a new cell-enabled streetlight takes about 11 hours, making it a much faster process than building a traditional mobile base station, Eben Albertyn, MTN’s tech boss, told TechCentral. However, the lamppost-towers also have a much smaller operating radius of 400 to 600 meters (1,300-2000 feet). Traditional towers can, in theory, extend their range over 30 kilometers (18 miles), but in practice tend to be located only a couple of kilometers apart in urban areas. The smaller footprint of MTN’s streetlight means fewer people will be using the same tower, which should allow for fewer dropped calls and faster data connection.Johannesburg’s electricity supplier, as part of the utility’s push to commercialize its infrastructure. Although MTN has a license to replace any of the 110,000 lampposts in the city, its initial rollout will be small, with just 100 poles planned for installation by Christmas, reports TechCentral, a tech blog. More will follow, depending on the results of the first phase.
The installation of a new cell-enabled streetlight takes about 11 hours, making it a much faster process than building a traditional mobile base station, Eben Albertyn, MTN’s tech boss, told TechCentral. However, the lamppost-towers also have a much smaller operating radius of 400 to 600 meters (1,300-2000 feet). Traditional towers can, in theory, extend their range over 30 kilometers (18 miles), but in practice tend to be located only a couple of kilometers apart in urban areas. The smaller footprint of MTN’s streetlight means fewer people will be using the same tower, which should allow for fewer dropped calls and faster data connection.
MTN is not the first company to think of using streetlights for other purposes. Quartz wrote in March about Sensity Systems, an American company, which is one of many with ambitious plans to turn the world’s streetlights into sensor-packed, data-gathering mobile and i
Don’t buy the 97-cent iPhone
Perhaps you’ve heard: Walmart has “slashed” Apple’s iPhone 5C down to $0.97, Mashable reports, down from its previous price of $29.
Don’t buy it.
Why not? Unless you absolutely need a new iPhone right now—or you are completely set on an iPhone 5C, with its colored plastic casing—it’s worth waiting a few weeks.
Apple is expected to unveil its new iPhones on Sept. 9, and they are likely to go on sale 10 days later, on Sept. 19. If things go as in years past, prices for all the available models of the iPhone will shift down a rung, which means the 5C would be free. And the superior 5S could become pretty cheap, as well. Or you might find yourself more interested in Apple’s newest phone, which will supposedly feature a larger screen, albeit at a likely higher price.
Either way, it’s important to remember than $0.97—or even $29—isn’t the real cost of the iPhone. Both prices require signing a 2-year contract for mobile service, which typically runs $60 to $100 per month—easily more than $1,000 over the length of the contract, and often more than $2,000. In that context, saving $28.03 just isn’t that great of a deal.
Don’t buy it.
Why not? Unless you absolutely need a new iPhone right now—or you are completely set on an iPhone 5C, with its colored plastic casing—it’s worth waiting a few weeks.
Apple is expected to unveil its new iPhones on Sept. 9, and they are likely to go on sale 10 days later, on Sept. 19. If things go as in years past, prices for all the available models of the iPhone will shift down a rung, which means the 5C would be free. And the superior 5S could become pretty cheap, as well. Or you might find yourself more interested in Apple’s newest phone, which will supposedly feature a larger screen, albeit at a likely higher price.
Either way, it’s important to remember than $0.97—or even $29—isn’t the real cost of the iPhone. Both prices require signing a 2-year contract for mobile service, which typically runs $60 to $100 per month—easily more than $1,000 over the length of the contract, and often more than $2,000. In that context, saving $28.03 just isn’t that great of a deal.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Bank of America reaches record $17B settlement with U.S.
Bank of America has reached a record $17 billion settlement to resolve an investigation into its role in the sale of mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 financial crisis, officials directly familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
One of the officials, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the announcement isn't scheduled until Thursday at the earliest, said the bank will pay $10 billion in cash and provide consumer relief valued at $7 billion.
The deal is the largest settlement arising from the economic meltdown in which millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. It follows agreements in the last year with Citigroup for $7 billion and with JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $13 billion.
Like the Bank of America deal, those settlements were a mixture of hard cash and "credits" for various forms of consumer aid that the banks promised to provide in coming years.
The Bank of America settlement was negotiated through a joint federal and state working group established by President Barack Obama two years ago with the Justice Department and other federal and state authorities. Individual states are expected to share in the settlement.
Justice Department spokeswoman Ellen Canale declined to comment, as did New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a co-chairman of the group. The bank also declined comment.
The deal requires Bank of America to acknowledge making serious misrepresentations about the quality of its residential mortgage-backed securities issued by itself and by Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch. Those institutions were acquired by the bank when they were on the brink of failure in 2008 and they were responsible for the bulk of the questionable loans.
The deals are intended to offer some financial relief to homeowners, whose mortgages were bundled into securities by the banks in question and then sold to investors.
The securities contained residential mortgages from borrowers who were unlikely to be able to repay their loans. Still, the securities were promoted as relatively safe investments until the housing market collapsed and investors suffered billions of dollars in losses.
The poor quality of the loans led to huge losses for investors and a slew of foreclosures, kicking off the recession that began in late 2007. The cash totals now being paid by some of the country's largest banks are not nearly enough to reverse the damages caused by the bursting of the housing bubble and the ensuing recession.
Bank of America had argued that it shouldn't be held liable for the subprime mortgages issued by Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. Combined, those three firms issued $965 billion in mortgage-backed securities from 2004 to 2008, according to public records. Roughly 75 per cent of that total came from Countrywide.
In a federal lawsuit last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Bank of America and two subsidiaries with defrauding investors in an offering of residential mortgage-backed securities by failing to disclose key risks and misrepresenting facts about the underlying mortgages.
The Justice Department filed a parallel civil action against Bank of America alleging violations of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act.
One of the officials, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the announcement isn't scheduled until Thursday at the earliest, said the bank will pay $10 billion in cash and provide consumer relief valued at $7 billion.
The deal is the largest settlement arising from the economic meltdown in which millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. It follows agreements in the last year with Citigroup for $7 billion and with JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $13 billion.
Like the Bank of America deal, those settlements were a mixture of hard cash and "credits" for various forms of consumer aid that the banks promised to provide in coming years.
The Bank of America settlement was negotiated through a joint federal and state working group established by President Barack Obama two years ago with the Justice Department and other federal and state authorities. Individual states are expected to share in the settlement.
Justice Department spokeswoman Ellen Canale declined to comment, as did New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a co-chairman of the group. The bank also declined comment.
The deal requires Bank of America to acknowledge making serious misrepresentations about the quality of its residential mortgage-backed securities issued by itself and by Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch. Those institutions were acquired by the bank when they were on the brink of failure in 2008 and they were responsible for the bulk of the questionable loans.
The deals are intended to offer some financial relief to homeowners, whose mortgages were bundled into securities by the banks in question and then sold to investors.
The securities contained residential mortgages from borrowers who were unlikely to be able to repay their loans. Still, the securities were promoted as relatively safe investments until the housing market collapsed and investors suffered billions of dollars in losses.
The poor quality of the loans led to huge losses for investors and a slew of foreclosures, kicking off the recession that began in late 2007. The cash totals now being paid by some of the country's largest banks are not nearly enough to reverse the damages caused by the bursting of the housing bubble and the ensuing recession.
Bank of America had argued that it shouldn't be held liable for the subprime mortgages issued by Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. Combined, those three firms issued $965 billion in mortgage-backed securities from 2004 to 2008, according to public records. Roughly 75 per cent of that total came from Countrywide.
In a federal lawsuit last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Bank of America and two subsidiaries with defrauding investors in an offering of residential mortgage-backed securities by failing to disclose key risks and misrepresenting facts about the underlying mortgages.
The Justice Department filed a parallel civil action against Bank of America alleging violations of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Brazil 3, Croatia 1: World Cup match report
Neymar rescued a nervy Brazil in the opening match of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, scoring two goals in a 3-1 comeback win over Croatia.
An own goal by Marcelo gave the Croatians a shocking 1-0 lead early on, but Neymar evened the score in the first half and scored the winner from the penalty spot in the 71st minute. Oscar added an insurance marker in injury time to cap an excellent performance of his own.
Key play
A frantic Brazil threw men forward after Marcelo’s unlucky own goal in the 11th minute, and finally gained the lead 20 minutes from time, when Neymar scored his second goal of the match from the penalty spot.
Croatia has a right to feel hard done by. It was a dubious call from Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura. Croatian defender Dejan Lovren was jostling with Brazil’s Fred when the latter seemed to fall of his own accord. But Nishimura pointed to the spot, gave Lovren the card, and Neymar cooly blasted the ball past Stipe Pletikosa for the match-winner.
Man of the match
Neymar. The man with the most pressure on his shoulders at the World Cup delivered when his country needed him the most, and that means good things for the hosts.
It was a good day for…
Oscar. It was a magnificent performance by the Brazil midfielder, who nearly overshadowed Neymar. He set up Neymar’s first goal, regularly barreled his way through several Croatian defenders at a time, and scored a deserved insurance marker.
It was a bad day for…
Marcelo. The Brazilian defender has the dubious distinction of scoring Brazil’s first own goal ever at the World Cup. You read that right. Ever.
An own goal by Marcelo gave the Croatians a shocking 1-0 lead early on, but Neymar evened the score in the first half and scored the winner from the penalty spot in the 71st minute. Oscar added an insurance marker in injury time to cap an excellent performance of his own.
Key play
A frantic Brazil threw men forward after Marcelo’s unlucky own goal in the 11th minute, and finally gained the lead 20 minutes from time, when Neymar scored his second goal of the match from the penalty spot.
Croatia has a right to feel hard done by. It was a dubious call from Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura. Croatian defender Dejan Lovren was jostling with Brazil’s Fred when the latter seemed to fall of his own accord. But Nishimura pointed to the spot, gave Lovren the card, and Neymar cooly blasted the ball past Stipe Pletikosa for the match-winner.
Man of the match
Neymar. The man with the most pressure on his shoulders at the World Cup delivered when his country needed him the most, and that means good things for the hosts.
It was a good day for…
Oscar. It was a magnificent performance by the Brazil midfielder, who nearly overshadowed Neymar. He set up Neymar’s first goal, regularly barreled his way through several Croatian defenders at a time, and scored a deserved insurance marker.
It was a bad day for…
Marcelo. The Brazilian defender has the dubious distinction of scoring Brazil’s first own goal ever at the World Cup. You read that right. Ever.
NBA final: Spurs rout Heat to take 3-1 series lead
MIAMI—One of the big questions after the San Antonio Spurs dismantled the Miami Heat in Game 4 of the NBA final was if they could possibly duplicate the feat in Game 5.
They could.
And more.
In another display of near-perfect offensive basketball coupled this time with brilliant defence — not to mention a shocking capitulation by the two-time defending champions — the Spurs are now within one win of the fifth title of the Tim Duncan-Gregg Popovich era.
San Antonio’s thorough, wire-to-wire 107-86 rout of the Miami Heat here Thursday night — which included the Heat being booed off the court by their home fans at halftime — gave the Spurs a 3-1 lead and they can close out the series Sunday at home.
No team in NBA final history has ever come back from down 3-1 to win and there is no suggestion off the last two games that the Heat would be capable of being the first.
They once again played with no passion and little energy, down 19 points at halftime and never able to get closer; they were dismantled by the brilliant Spurs offence and unable to crack a San Antonio defence that played its best game of the series.
The Spurs, meanwhile, did what they do. They executed a ball-movement offence to near perfection, got outstanding production from so-called role players and did not let the Heat get anywhere close to back in the game after taking control early.
Even a 19-point third quarter from LeBron James couldn’t help Miami, which got little or no production from anyone else. Despite that outburst by James, San Antonio was able to stretch a 19-point lead at the half into a 24-point bulge going into the fourth.
The Heat never made a run in the final 12 minutes and saw a streak of 13 straight playoff wins following losses come to an end.
Tony Parker, the Spurs point guard who is beating up Miami’s Mario Chalmers in an incredibly one-sided matchup, had 19 points for San Antonio while Boris Diaw had another old-school outstanding night with eight points, nine rebounds and nine assists.
Kawhi Leonard, once again playing good defence against James, finished with 20 for the Spurs.
The game was so lopsided that James and Wade watched the final three and a half minutes in disgust from the bench. James had 28 points but Wade was just 3-for-13 from the field and had 10 points.
The Spurs picked up in the first half of Game 5 right where they left off Game 4.
They didn’t shoot 76 per cent from the floor — as they did in a 71-point first half on Tuesday — but they didn’t have to thanks to a stifling defence that held James to nine points, Wade to four and the Heat to 36 points as a team.
The off-day message was heard loud and clear.
“That’s what we spent all of our time on was the defence, because I thought we did a pretty mediocre job,” said Popovich. “It’s always like that. Doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, coaches always find something to moan and groan about.”
The Heat, on the other hand, were strangely dispassionate in the first half, lacking any sense of urgency despite the significance of the game.
They knew what they did wrong on Tuesday and did nothing, really, to correct it, allowing 55 first-half points on 56 per cent San Antonio shooting from the field.
They had a message and apparently ignored it.
“I have a report, but it was pretty obvious the things we needed to do better,” head coach Erik Spoelstra said before the game. “We don’t need all the analytics that I get, 25 pages worth, to see we had 28 turnovers (for) 23 points, (the Spurs) flattened us out offensively, and then defensively them shooting a record-high field-goal percentage.
“That has to change. I don’t have to look any further than that.”
They could.
And more.
In another display of near-perfect offensive basketball coupled this time with brilliant defence — not to mention a shocking capitulation by the two-time defending champions — the Spurs are now within one win of the fifth title of the Tim Duncan-Gregg Popovich era.
San Antonio’s thorough, wire-to-wire 107-86 rout of the Miami Heat here Thursday night — which included the Heat being booed off the court by their home fans at halftime — gave the Spurs a 3-1 lead and they can close out the series Sunday at home.
No team in NBA final history has ever come back from down 3-1 to win and there is no suggestion off the last two games that the Heat would be capable of being the first.
They once again played with no passion and little energy, down 19 points at halftime and never able to get closer; they were dismantled by the brilliant Spurs offence and unable to crack a San Antonio defence that played its best game of the series.
The Spurs, meanwhile, did what they do. They executed a ball-movement offence to near perfection, got outstanding production from so-called role players and did not let the Heat get anywhere close to back in the game after taking control early.
Even a 19-point third quarter from LeBron James couldn’t help Miami, which got little or no production from anyone else. Despite that outburst by James, San Antonio was able to stretch a 19-point lead at the half into a 24-point bulge going into the fourth.
The Heat never made a run in the final 12 minutes and saw a streak of 13 straight playoff wins following losses come to an end.
Tony Parker, the Spurs point guard who is beating up Miami’s Mario Chalmers in an incredibly one-sided matchup, had 19 points for San Antonio while Boris Diaw had another old-school outstanding night with eight points, nine rebounds and nine assists.
Kawhi Leonard, once again playing good defence against James, finished with 20 for the Spurs.
The game was so lopsided that James and Wade watched the final three and a half minutes in disgust from the bench. James had 28 points but Wade was just 3-for-13 from the field and had 10 points.
The Spurs picked up in the first half of Game 5 right where they left off Game 4.
They didn’t shoot 76 per cent from the floor — as they did in a 71-point first half on Tuesday — but they didn’t have to thanks to a stifling defence that held James to nine points, Wade to four and the Heat to 36 points as a team.
The off-day message was heard loud and clear.
“That’s what we spent all of our time on was the defence, because I thought we did a pretty mediocre job,” said Popovich. “It’s always like that. Doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, coaches always find something to moan and groan about.”
The Heat, on the other hand, were strangely dispassionate in the first half, lacking any sense of urgency despite the significance of the game.
They knew what they did wrong on Tuesday and did nothing, really, to correct it, allowing 55 first-half points on 56 per cent San Antonio shooting from the field.
They had a message and apparently ignored it.
“I have a report, but it was pretty obvious the things we needed to do better,” head coach Erik Spoelstra said before the game. “We don’t need all the analytics that I get, 25 pages worth, to see we had 28 turnovers (for) 23 points, (the Spurs) flattened us out offensively, and then defensively them shooting a record-high field-goal percentage.
“That has to change. I don’t have to look any further than that.”
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Two objects spotted possibly related to MH370: Australia
Two objects possibly related to the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been sighted, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Thursday in a potential breakthrough.
Abbott told parliament "new and credible information" had come to light nearly two weeks after the plane vanished.
He said an Australian air force Orion had already been diverted to look into the objects with three more surveillance planes to follow. He did not specify where they were but Australia has taken charge of the search in the southern Indian Ocean.
"The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has received information based on satellite information of objects possibly related to the search," Abbott said, adding that he had informed Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
"Following specialist analysis of this satellite imagery, two possible objects related to the search have been identified."
But he warned against drawing any premature conclusions.
"We must keep in mind the task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult and it may turn out that they are not related to the search for flight MH370," he said.
AMSA was due to hold a news conference with more details at 0430 GMT.
Authorities in Kuala Lumpur on Monday asked Canberra to take responsibility for the "southern vector" of the operation to locate the Boeing 777, which disappeared on March 8 en route to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board.
The Malaysian government believes the jet was deliberately diverted and flew for several hours after leaving its scheduled flight path -- either north towards Central Asia, or towards the southern Indian Ocean.
Australian, US and New Zealand long-range surveillance planes have been scouring a vast tract of the southern Indian Ocean since Tuesday with the search focused on an area of 305,000 square kilometres (122,000 square miles), some 2,600 kilometres southeast of Perth.
Abbott told parliament "new and credible information" had come to light nearly two weeks after the plane vanished.
He said an Australian air force Orion had already been diverted to look into the objects with three more surveillance planes to follow. He did not specify where they were but Australia has taken charge of the search in the southern Indian Ocean.
"The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has received information based on satellite information of objects possibly related to the search," Abbott said, adding that he had informed Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
"Following specialist analysis of this satellite imagery, two possible objects related to the search have been identified."
But he warned against drawing any premature conclusions.
"We must keep in mind the task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult and it may turn out that they are not related to the search for flight MH370," he said.
AMSA was due to hold a news conference with more details at 0430 GMT.
Authorities in Kuala Lumpur on Monday asked Canberra to take responsibility for the "southern vector" of the operation to locate the Boeing 777, which disappeared on March 8 en route to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board.
The Malaysian government believes the jet was deliberately diverted and flew for several hours after leaving its scheduled flight path -- either north towards Central Asia, or towards the southern Indian Ocean.
Australian, US and New Zealand long-range surveillance planes have been scouring a vast tract of the southern Indian Ocean since Tuesday with the search focused on an area of 305,000 square kilometres (122,000 square miles), some 2,600 kilometres southeast of Perth.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Man 'acting violently' on flight to Vancouver arrested
A man on an international flight from China was arrested Sunday morning after the plane landed at Vancouver International Airport.
Richmond RCMP said a pilot had reported at about 6:30 a.m. PT that a passenger was "acting violently" on the China Southern Airlines flight, and had to be restrained.
A passenger on that plane, Tanya Truong, told CBC News that the man — who seemed to be in his 30s and may have had an Australian accent — was behaving strangely even before they all boarded the plane at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport.
"When we were lining up to get on to the flight from Guangzhou, we had already noticed him," she said. "He appeared slightly rowdier than the rest."
But the trouble began about halfway through the 11½-hour flight, she said.
"Everyone was asleep and the lights were turned off in the plane, and he ran down the aisles, screaming and yelling at someone and alarming everyone and waking everyone one up.
"There were several flight attendants trailing him and, I think, trying to get him to calm down.
"He was just screaming a lot of swear words at one of his family members," she said.
Some passengers who had been sitting near him later told Truong that they suspected he had been intoxicated, and overheard flight attendants telling him to stop drinking.
After about an hour or two of the flight attendants keeping watch on him in the back of the plane, first in the kitchen area and then in the back row seated with one of the flight attendants, things apparently got worse.
"Other flight members had to get involved," Truong said.
"He kept trying to provoke the flight attendant," she said. "I think this definitely alarmed a lot of people because this was really loud, and it looks like he was trying to harm the flight attendant, so he had to be taken down."
"Several people had to, kind of like, sit on top of him, and then he was handcuffed," she said.
The flight attendants announced that because the passenger has compromised the safety of the other passengers, he would be taken into police custody when the plane landed.
Richmond RCMP arrested the passenger just after 9:30 a.m. PT at Vancouver International Airport.
Cpl. Stephanie Ashton said he was taken into custody and is being held at the Richmond RCMP Detachment until he appears in court on Monday.
Ashton said "it is unknown where the man originates from or the purpose of his travel to Canada."
Truong said some of the passengers who spoke with the man's family members on the flight said the family had talked about being on their way to go to Whistler to snowboard.
Richmond RCMP said a pilot had reported at about 6:30 a.m. PT that a passenger was "acting violently" on the China Southern Airlines flight, and had to be restrained.
A passenger on that plane, Tanya Truong, told CBC News that the man — who seemed to be in his 30s and may have had an Australian accent — was behaving strangely even before they all boarded the plane at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport.
"When we were lining up to get on to the flight from Guangzhou, we had already noticed him," she said. "He appeared slightly rowdier than the rest."
But the trouble began about halfway through the 11½-hour flight, she said.
"Everyone was asleep and the lights were turned off in the plane, and he ran down the aisles, screaming and yelling at someone and alarming everyone and waking everyone one up.
"There were several flight attendants trailing him and, I think, trying to get him to calm down.
"He was just screaming a lot of swear words at one of his family members," she said.
Some passengers who had been sitting near him later told Truong that they suspected he had been intoxicated, and overheard flight attendants telling him to stop drinking.
After about an hour or two of the flight attendants keeping watch on him in the back of the plane, first in the kitchen area and then in the back row seated with one of the flight attendants, things apparently got worse.
"Other flight members had to get involved," Truong said.
"He kept trying to provoke the flight attendant," she said. "I think this definitely alarmed a lot of people because this was really loud, and it looks like he was trying to harm the flight attendant, so he had to be taken down."
"Several people had to, kind of like, sit on top of him, and then he was handcuffed," she said.
The flight attendants announced that because the passenger has compromised the safety of the other passengers, he would be taken into police custody when the plane landed.
Richmond RCMP arrested the passenger just after 9:30 a.m. PT at Vancouver International Airport.
Cpl. Stephanie Ashton said he was taken into custody and is being held at the Richmond RCMP Detachment until he appears in court on Monday.
Ashton said "it is unknown where the man originates from or the purpose of his travel to Canada."
Truong said some of the passengers who spoke with the man's family members on the flight said the family had talked about being on their way to go to Whistler to snowboard.
Canada's 'shocking' natural gas prices expected to continue to rise
Natural gas customers in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia who were facing record bills in January are being warned to expect another wave of increases in February, the fifth increase in the price of natural gas since September.
Daniel Picard's natural gas metre didn't record any unusual consumption at his Fredericton townhouse in January, so his record natural gas bill caught him off guard.
"I had never seen $400. I have seen maybe $250 or $200 — that's shocking," he said.
Picard is among thousands in the region coping with runaway natural gas prices that have ambushed northeastern North America this winter, according to New Brunswick government energy consultant Jon Sorensen.
"We've seen a record world price - the highest price we've seen for natural gas in the world from New Jersey to Nova Scotia. It's been like a horror movie," he said.
In Halifax, Heritage Gas passed along gas price increases of 110 per cent between September and January. That’s a bargain compared to New Brunswick where prices quadrupled for customers of Irving Energy and quintupled for customers of Park Fuels.
Enbridge executive Gilles Volpe said buying gas on spot markets this winter has been like high stakes roulette.
"Within two or three days we saw price swings from $5 to $75," he said.
Dave Young with New Brunswick's Energy and Utilities Board is warning even worse is on the way.
"The prices you had in January are very likely to be higher in February, so consumers should take whatever action they think they can take to prepare for that," said Young.
Natural gas is the most widely-used form of heating on the continent, heating about half of all homes. The second-most common — electricity — is also vulnerable to the price of natural gas because many power plants that generate electricity are gas-powered.
"This winter looked to be slightly colder than normal, but no one was really screaming for this kind of cold weather,” said Aaron Calder, a market analyst at Gelber & Associates.
All the cold air is resulting in a draw-down of supplies of gas in storage. They’re down 20 per cent from where they were this time a year ago, the U.S. Department of Energy said last month.
At the same time, drillers are struggling to produce enough to keep up with the demand for new gas.
The supply situation has been exacerbated by the fact that in the past, much of gas production was in the Gulf of Mexico. There, weather only plays a role during the Atlantic hurricane season in the summer and fall.
New sources of gas are on the mainland and they’re vulnerable to freezing, ice and snow. Wells that are not designed for such extreme conditions can freeze, halting production.
Daniel Picard's natural gas metre didn't record any unusual consumption at his Fredericton townhouse in January, so his record natural gas bill caught him off guard.
"I had never seen $400. I have seen maybe $250 or $200 — that's shocking," he said.
Picard is among thousands in the region coping with runaway natural gas prices that have ambushed northeastern North America this winter, according to New Brunswick government energy consultant Jon Sorensen.
"We've seen a record world price - the highest price we've seen for natural gas in the world from New Jersey to Nova Scotia. It's been like a horror movie," he said.
In Halifax, Heritage Gas passed along gas price increases of 110 per cent between September and January. That’s a bargain compared to New Brunswick where prices quadrupled for customers of Irving Energy and quintupled for customers of Park Fuels.
Enbridge executive Gilles Volpe said buying gas on spot markets this winter has been like high stakes roulette.
"Within two or three days we saw price swings from $5 to $75," he said.
Dave Young with New Brunswick's Energy and Utilities Board is warning even worse is on the way.
"The prices you had in January are very likely to be higher in February, so consumers should take whatever action they think they can take to prepare for that," said Young.
Natural gas is the most widely-used form of heating on the continent, heating about half of all homes. The second-most common — electricity — is also vulnerable to the price of natural gas because many power plants that generate electricity are gas-powered.
"This winter looked to be slightly colder than normal, but no one was really screaming for this kind of cold weather,” said Aaron Calder, a market analyst at Gelber & Associates.
All the cold air is resulting in a draw-down of supplies of gas in storage. They’re down 20 per cent from where they were this time a year ago, the U.S. Department of Energy said last month.
At the same time, drillers are struggling to produce enough to keep up with the demand for new gas.
The supply situation has been exacerbated by the fact that in the past, much of gas production was in the Gulf of Mexico. There, weather only plays a role during the Atlantic hurricane season in the summer and fall.
New sources of gas are on the mainland and they’re vulnerable to freezing, ice and snow. Wells that are not designed for such extreme conditions can freeze, halting production.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Google Buys DeepMiind Artifical Intelligence Firm
Google says that it has purchased the British startup DeepMind, an artificial intelligence company founded by a 37-year old former chess prodigy and computer game designer.
The American tech giant's London office confirmed a deal had been made but refused to offer a purchase price, which is reportedly $500 million. The company was founded by researcher Demis Hassabis together with Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman.
Hassabis, who is on leave from University College London, has investigated the mechanisms that underlie human memory.
Artificial intelligence uses computers for tasks normally requiring human intelligence, like speech recognition or language translation. DeepMind says the company, based in London, specializes in algorithms and machine learning.
Google, like other tech giants such as Facebook, are anxious to develop systems that work like the human brain.
The American tech giant's London office confirmed a deal had been made but refused to offer a purchase price, which is reportedly $500 million. The company was founded by researcher Demis Hassabis together with Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman.
Hassabis, who is on leave from University College London, has investigated the mechanisms that underlie human memory.
Artificial intelligence uses computers for tasks normally requiring human intelligence, like speech recognition or language translation. DeepMind says the company, based in London, specializes in algorithms and machine learning.
Google, like other tech giants such as Facebook, are anxious to develop systems that work like the human brain.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
US Athletes Cautioned on Wearing Team Gear Outside Sochi Venues
The US Olympic Committee has advised athletes taking part in the upcoming Sochi Games to avoid wearing their uniforms or Team USA logos outside Olympic venues, the State Department said.
The warning, released Friday, came amid growing concerns in Washington over security at the Games and as Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said the United States would work with Russian authorities on "appropriate arrangements" if an emergency required evacuating Americans from Sochi.
On advice from the State Department, the US Olympic Committee told athletes in a memo not to call attention to their nationality outside the Olympic village as a safety precaution, officials said.
"I think it is just common sense that perhaps if you are an American Olympic athlete, perhaps you don't want to advertise that so much, far outside of the venues," a senior administration official told reporters.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said that "we are in very close contact with the US Olympic Committee on issues related to security."
But she added that Russia was not a unique case and that the US government often provides similar advice at "big international events."
The White House has signaled concern over Russia's security preparations for next month's Winter Games in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, with officials privately complaining about Moscow's reluctance to share intelligence on terror threats.
The United States has repeatedly offered to provide help to Russia to ensure security for the event, a question that came up in a telephone conversation between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.
But Hagel, speaking at a news conference after talks with his French counterpart, said Russia had not taken up the US offer so far: "Right now, there has been no request from the Russian government."
The Pentagon has announced it is deploying two warships to the Black Sea as a "precaution" in case of a terror attack.
When asked if the US military had contingency plans in place to evacuate Americans in the event of a terror attack, Hagel said: "If we need to extract our citizens, we will have appropriate arrangements with the Russians to do this."
US officials later said that a potential evacuation might not require a role for the military as commercial planes might be used. And in any emergency, American authorities would need to work closely with the Russian government, officials said.
"First and foremost, Russia has the responsibility in responding to and coping with situations that might affect the safety, security and the presence of their guests," a senior administration official told reporters.
"All the American citizens there are their guests," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The US government will work with the Russian government on the various options should they need to be implemented."
As with previous Olympics, Washington has set up an operations center in Sochi with various security experts and a clear "chain of command" that would apply in any contingency, officials said.
Signaling its concern, the State Department issued an updated travel alert for Russia, urging all Olympics-bound US citizens to "remain attentive regarding their personal security at all times."
"Large-scale public events such as the Olympics present an attractive target for terrorists, and the US government continues to monitor reported threats of potential terrorist attacks in Sochi or in Russia in general," it said.
Insurgents based in North Caucasus republics such as Dagestan who are seeking their own independent state have vowed to disrupt the Games in a bid to undercut Putin.
In a recent video threat posted on a prominent North Caucasus extremist website, two men sitting in front of a jihadist flag warn of planned attacks at the February 7-23 event.
The warning, released Friday, came amid growing concerns in Washington over security at the Games and as Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said the United States would work with Russian authorities on "appropriate arrangements" if an emergency required evacuating Americans from Sochi.
On advice from the State Department, the US Olympic Committee told athletes in a memo not to call attention to their nationality outside the Olympic village as a safety precaution, officials said.
"I think it is just common sense that perhaps if you are an American Olympic athlete, perhaps you don't want to advertise that so much, far outside of the venues," a senior administration official told reporters.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said that "we are in very close contact with the US Olympic Committee on issues related to security."
But she added that Russia was not a unique case and that the US government often provides similar advice at "big international events."
The White House has signaled concern over Russia's security preparations for next month's Winter Games in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, with officials privately complaining about Moscow's reluctance to share intelligence on terror threats.
The United States has repeatedly offered to provide help to Russia to ensure security for the event, a question that came up in a telephone conversation between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.
But Hagel, speaking at a news conference after talks with his French counterpart, said Russia had not taken up the US offer so far: "Right now, there has been no request from the Russian government."
The Pentagon has announced it is deploying two warships to the Black Sea as a "precaution" in case of a terror attack.
When asked if the US military had contingency plans in place to evacuate Americans in the event of a terror attack, Hagel said: "If we need to extract our citizens, we will have appropriate arrangements with the Russians to do this."
US officials later said that a potential evacuation might not require a role for the military as commercial planes might be used. And in any emergency, American authorities would need to work closely with the Russian government, officials said.
"First and foremost, Russia has the responsibility in responding to and coping with situations that might affect the safety, security and the presence of their guests," a senior administration official told reporters.
"All the American citizens there are their guests," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The US government will work with the Russian government on the various options should they need to be implemented."
As with previous Olympics, Washington has set up an operations center in Sochi with various security experts and a clear "chain of command" that would apply in any contingency, officials said.
Signaling its concern, the State Department issued an updated travel alert for Russia, urging all Olympics-bound US citizens to "remain attentive regarding their personal security at all times."
"Large-scale public events such as the Olympics present an attractive target for terrorists, and the US government continues to monitor reported threats of potential terrorist attacks in Sochi or in Russia in general," it said.
Insurgents based in North Caucasus republics such as Dagestan who are seeking their own independent state have vowed to disrupt the Games in a bid to undercut Putin.
In a recent video threat posted on a prominent North Caucasus extremist website, two men sitting in front of a jihadist flag warn of planned attacks at the February 7-23 event.
Baltimore Mall Shooting at Skateboard Store
Police in Maryland say three people died Saturday in a shooting at a mall in suburban Baltimore, including the presumed gunman, and another five people were injured.
The shooting took place at the Mall in Columbia, a suburb of both Baltimore and Washington.
"The shooting took place above the food court in a store called Zumiez, it's a skateboard shop," said Howard County Police Chief Bill McMahon at a news conference early Saturday afternoon.
"He had a large amount of ammunition on and about him. We are approaching this with an abundance of caution," said McMahon. "The situation is still fluid, still evolving, still dynamic."
McMahon said no motive is known yet but revealed that one male and one female, both in their twenties and employees of the store, are dead as well as the gun man, whose identity is still unknown. It wasn't clear whether the shooting was random or if the shooter and victims knew each other.
The five other people injured included one person being treated for a gun shot wound and another four who were injured while trying to escape.
Authorities received a call to the police emergency dispatcher at around 11:15 a.m. local time from someone reporting that shots had been fired. Police responded to the scene and found three people dead, including one person who was found near a gun and ammunition.
The mall is now closed for the rest of the day as investigators piece together what happened.
Gunshots, people running
The mall, which is at the centre of the town, typically opens at 10 a.m. on Saturdays and it was not known how many shoppers or workers might have been present at the time of the shooting.
Witnesses described moments of panic as they heard a succession of gunshots and screaming as people ran for cover into nearby stores and hid behind locked doors.
Joan Harding of Elkridge, Maryland, was shopping with her husband, David, for a tiara for their granddaughter's 18th birthday. She said she heard something heavy falling, followed by gunshots and people running.
"My husband said, `Get down!' and the girl that worked in the store said, `Get in the back,' " Harding said. That is where they hid until police gave the all-clear..
People were directed out of the mall and into a parking lot, where some boarded a bus and others walked toward their cars. Some people were seen crying. McMahon said detectives were interviewing witnesses as they emerged from the mall to try to get a better picture of the events that had unfolded.
Laura McKinzles of Columbia works at a kiosk in the mall. She said she heard between eight and 10 gunshots, followed by people running and screaming. She ran into the backroom of a perfume store and locked the door.
Allison Cohen, who works at the apparel store "Lucky Brand Jeans," said she always felt safe at the mall.
"I truly never thought something like this would ever happen here. It's really, really shocking," Cohen said.
The shooting took place at the Mall in Columbia, a suburb of both Baltimore and Washington.
"The shooting took place above the food court in a store called Zumiez, it's a skateboard shop," said Howard County Police Chief Bill McMahon at a news conference early Saturday afternoon.
"He had a large amount of ammunition on and about him. We are approaching this with an abundance of caution," said McMahon. "The situation is still fluid, still evolving, still dynamic."
McMahon said no motive is known yet but revealed that one male and one female, both in their twenties and employees of the store, are dead as well as the gun man, whose identity is still unknown. It wasn't clear whether the shooting was random or if the shooter and victims knew each other.
The five other people injured included one person being treated for a gun shot wound and another four who were injured while trying to escape.
Authorities received a call to the police emergency dispatcher at around 11:15 a.m. local time from someone reporting that shots had been fired. Police responded to the scene and found three people dead, including one person who was found near a gun and ammunition.
The mall is now closed for the rest of the day as investigators piece together what happened.
Gunshots, people running
The mall, which is at the centre of the town, typically opens at 10 a.m. on Saturdays and it was not known how many shoppers or workers might have been present at the time of the shooting.
Witnesses described moments of panic as they heard a succession of gunshots and screaming as people ran for cover into nearby stores and hid behind locked doors.
Joan Harding of Elkridge, Maryland, was shopping with her husband, David, for a tiara for their granddaughter's 18th birthday. She said she heard something heavy falling, followed by gunshots and people running.
"My husband said, `Get down!' and the girl that worked in the store said, `Get in the back,' " Harding said. That is where they hid until police gave the all-clear..
People were directed out of the mall and into a parking lot, where some boarded a bus and others walked toward their cars. Some people were seen crying. McMahon said detectives were interviewing witnesses as they emerged from the mall to try to get a better picture of the events that had unfolded.
Laura McKinzles of Columbia works at a kiosk in the mall. She said she heard between eight and 10 gunshots, followed by people running and screaming. She ran into the backroom of a perfume store and locked the door.
Allison Cohen, who works at the apparel store "Lucky Brand Jeans," said she always felt safe at the mall.
"I truly never thought something like this would ever happen here. It's really, really shocking," Cohen said.
Friday, January 24, 2014
How do the Knicks Decide Who gets Courtside Seats?
The Knicks stink. But celebs still flock to Madison Square Garden to sit courtside at games. You see them every night: How do they get those tickets? Do they pay for them or are they free? And what if every celeb in the city wants to sit courtside to see LeBron? Who gets a seat and who gets a "sorry"? And who makes the decision?
Well, first off, some celebs pay for their seats. Even Carmelo Anthony's wife, LaLa. But for the rest of them, there's an entire celebrity-handling team with a SERIOUS system in place to determine who gets a seat, and where that seat is.
“If you’re an A-level person and we know the fans are going to go bananas when your picture goes up on the scoreboard, then there’s a value having you there,” Barry Watkins, the executive vice president for communications and administration for MSG's parent company, told The New York Times.
“We think it’s a big part of the brand. Win or lose, it’s one of the reasons people come to the games.”
So the A-listers get the seats on Celebrity Row, along with the celeb perks -- a special entrance and elevator, an usher who shows them to their seats, plus access to Suite 200, where they can enjoy an open bar, fine cuisine and other amenities.
Of course, nothing is really free. Celebs usually are asked to do promo spots for the team, appear at employee events or perform other small services. James Gandolfini appeared in character as Tony Soprano to woo LeBron James and Amar'e Stoudemire when they were free agents.
And if you don't play ball, well, prepare to face the consequences. Woody Allen apparently is banned from Suite 200 because he refused to film a short promo, according to his spokesperson. And Allen "understood completely," she added.
Well, first off, some celebs pay for their seats. Even Carmelo Anthony's wife, LaLa. But for the rest of them, there's an entire celebrity-handling team with a SERIOUS system in place to determine who gets a seat, and where that seat is.
“If you’re an A-level person and we know the fans are going to go bananas when your picture goes up on the scoreboard, then there’s a value having you there,” Barry Watkins, the executive vice president for communications and administration for MSG's parent company, told The New York Times.
“We think it’s a big part of the brand. Win or lose, it’s one of the reasons people come to the games.”
So the A-listers get the seats on Celebrity Row, along with the celeb perks -- a special entrance and elevator, an usher who shows them to their seats, plus access to Suite 200, where they can enjoy an open bar, fine cuisine and other amenities.
Of course, nothing is really free. Celebs usually are asked to do promo spots for the team, appear at employee events or perform other small services. James Gandolfini appeared in character as Tony Soprano to woo LeBron James and Amar'e Stoudemire when they were free agents.
And if you don't play ball, well, prepare to face the consequences. Woody Allen apparently is banned from Suite 200 because he refused to film a short promo, according to his spokesperson. And Allen "understood completely," she added.
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