Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Authorities in the Mexican state of Sonora arrested 7 state officials, from the state finance department, yesterday; and charged them with negligent homicide for the deaths of 47 children in a fire at a daycare centre that occurred earlier this month.

In 2005, the Hermosillo, Mexico daycare was advised to carry out repairs in a safety inspection went unheeded. It is felt that negligence contributed to the massive fire Friday afternoon, June 5, taking the lives of 47 toddlers and infants and injuring the majority of the 142 children being cared for by six staff who were also hospitalized.

The ABC Daycare Centre installed a brightly coloured tarpaulin as a ceiling below the high roof. In 2005 the owners were advised to remove the tarp, and equip emergency exits and the main exit with larger and wider regulation sized doors. The daycare owners did not make the recommended changes, and continued to receive contracts to operate and also passed subsequent safety inspections including one a couple of weeks before the fire.

Officials have determined that the fire began in the neighboring warehouse which was used by the northern Sonora state Finance Department and contained license plates, tires, and paperwork. Nobody was working Friday and this warehouse was locked with the air conditioner left running. The air conditioner overheated, short circuited and melted its aluminum housing which began flames in the paperwork below. This neighboring warehouse had no fire alarms, fire extinguishers nor water sprinklers installed.

“The fire was caused by the overheating of an air conditioner due to continuous and prolonged use,” said Eduardo Medina Mora, the Attorney-General.

The fire and smoke rose above the wall connecting the daycare and Finance Department warehouse, and was trapped in the daycare between the tarp and the warehouse ceiling. The daycare fire alarms were installed below the tarp, and did not alert the staff to the fire trapped above the tarp until the tarp itself caught fire which instantly dispersed smoke and flames onto sleeping infants below. One of the emergency fire exits was padlocked shut and could not be used the day of the fire by rescue teams.

Seven finance department officials have been arrested on negligence and charges of negligence are to be laid also against seven others. “They are employees and officials with the Finance Department who have a direct responsibility for the warehouse where the fire started,” said Abel Murrieta, the state Attorney General.

The fire chief of Hermosillo has been removed from his position.

The wives of two high ranking state officials operated the privately run daycare under contract from the Social Security Institute. These two state officials have resigned. The owners will be charged with negligence by the state’s Finance Department. The Social Security Institute will also begin a civil lawsuit against the owners. The head of the Social Security Institute has stepped down and others have been suspended.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Zayn Malik, one of the members of British pop boy-band One Direction, has left the group after five years. The band confirmed yesterday that Malik has left the group with a statement on Facebook. They also announced they would continue with the remaining four members and their fifth album would be recorded later this year.

The statement posted on One Direction’s Facebook page said “After five incredible years Zayn Malik has decided to leave One Direction. Niall, Harry, Liam and Louis will continue as a four-piece and look forward to the forthcoming concerts of their world tour and recording their fifth album, due to be released later this year”.

Malik, 22, also released a statement through Facebook confirming his departure. He said “My life with One Direction has been more than I could ever have imagined. But, after five years, I feel like it is now the right time for me to leave the band. I’d like to apologise to the fans if I’ve let anyone down, but I have to do what feels right.”

After news of Malik’s departure spread fans took to social media to share their disappointment. On Twitter the hashtag #AlwaysInOurHeartsZaynMalik was created and 48,000 comments were left on the statement posted by the band on Facebook. The Employer Advice Service, based at Manchester company Peninsula, said 220 people had called overnight regarding compassionate leave relating to the news. Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, employment law director Alan Price said “While I sympathise with One Direction fans, I hardly think this qualified as compassionate leave”.

One Direction formed as a group in 2010 after competing as single artists on the British reality music competition The X Factor. The band was signed by Simon Cowell’s record label after the show, which they finished third on. The remaining members of the group are Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Leaders from NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) member states met in Wales over Thursday to Friday in a summit addressing the organisation’s role in Afghanistan and new threats from Russia and the Islamic State.

Since the 2010 NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal countries involved in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), NATO’s military operation in Afghanistan, have been committed to full transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces by the end of 2014. This would mark the end of ISAF’s 13 year mission in Afghanistan, with troops changing to a training and assistance role.

Plans had originally intended for Afghanistan’s new President, or President-elect, to attend this year’s summit, but due to the political situation and ongoing election process it is still unknown who will replace outgoing President Hamid Karzai. Bismullah Khan Muhammadi, the country’s defence minister, instead attended the summit in the absence of a President.

This political stalemate has put at risk NATO plans for a continuing military presence in the country, with troops expected to pull out at the end of the year without new security agreements being signed, signature not possible without a new President in place. NATO members have urged Afghanistan’s presidential candidates to reach an agreement, with officials indicating that if no agreement can be reached by the end of the month, then troops would begin to leave.

On Thursday, NATO leaders pledged support for Ukraine at a meeting with the country’s President, Petro Poroshenko, in the face of recent moves from Russia. On their website, NATO outlined four areas where the alliance would provide support for Ukraine, “rehabilitation for injured troops, cyber defence, logistics, and command and control and communications”, with assistance expected to have a monetary value of about 15 million euros (about US$19 million).

On Friday, peace talks in Minsk, Belarus resulted in a ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and rebel forces, whom NATO has accused Russia of supporting in their bid for separation of eastern regions of Ukraine. The UK said sanctions being prepared are likely to go ahead, regardless of the outcome of these talks, until it is seen that Russia is acting upon them.

On Friday morning, a meeting of ten countries chaired by the UK and US agreed to jointly working to combat the threat posed by the Islamic State in the Middle East. John Kerry, US Secretary of State, stated after the meeting that the group should aim to make firm plans and raise support from within the region affected before the UN General Assembly annual meeting later this month. Philip Hammond, UK Foreign Secretary, also said it was clear that regional support was needed, adding “with a new and inclusive Government of Iraq leading the efforts”.

It was also announced NATO would help a non-sectarian Iraqi government, on request, to build defence capabilities in Iraq to help fight the Islamic State, as well as coordinating the humanitarian airlift of supplies.

Plans for a Readiness Action Plan were agreed at the summit. Speaking on Monday before the summit, NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, described this as a response to “Russia’s aggressive behaviour”, but outlined how he hoped it would increase the responsiveness of the alliance to face any security challenge.

These plans aim to allow reinforcements to reach any NATO member state within 48 hours, in what Rasmussen described as a “spearhead” of the preexisting Response Force. This requires logistical, and headquarters facilities to be set up in Eastern European countries, the ones most under threat from an attack by Russia, or the Islamic State. These plans are also to be rehearsed through joint military exercises.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

In May, periodical cicadas with 17 years life cycle emerged on the East Coast of the USA after underground development as juveniles since 1996. Researchers and scientists worked to map and study the rare wave, and the locals prepared for the noisy event. First recorded in 1666, the Magicicada septendecim species recently emerged in 1979, 1996, this year, with a next wave due in 2030.

This week, Wikinews interviewed Chris Simon, an ecology and evolutionary biologist at University of Connecticut, about the cicadas.

((Wikinews)) What caused your initial interest in periodical cicadas?

Chris Simon: As an undergraduate student, I was interested in the formation of species so when I went to graduate school I looked for a study organism that was likely to be in the process of forming new species. I chose periodical cicadas because they are broken up into reproductively isolated broods (or year classes). Reproductive isolation leads to speciation so I planned to study biochemical differences among the broods.

((WN)) You study the emergence of the periodical cicadas. What do you study? What observations are you making?

CS: We record exactly where each cicada population emerges (using GPS automated mapping and crowd sourcing). We record the presence or absence of each of the three morphologically distinct species groups of periodical cicadas (Decim group, Cassini group, and Decula group). We collect specimens for DNA analysis. We look for cicadas coming up one and four years early and late. We dig up cicada nymphs and monitor their growth rates.

((WN)) What equipment do you use?

CS: Nets, shovels, automated GPS recorders, cameras, laptop computers, automated DNA sequencers.

((WN)) Do you study the periodical cicadas with anyone else? What is their role?

CS: Yes, there are a large number of people studying periodical cicadas in my lab and in other labs. My lab is made up of Research Scientists, Postdoctoral Researchers, a technician, graduate students, and undergraduates. Research Scientist John Cooley is the leader of the GPS mapping project; he invented the automated GPS recorder; he built our crowd-sourcing website, and he is instrumental in public outreach. Postdoctoral research David Marshall also participates in the mapping project and leads the part of the research related to the mapping of stragglers. John and Dave and Technician Kathy Hill all study periodical cicada mating behavior and conduct mating and hybridization experiments. One of my graduate students Beth Wade has participated in the nymph collections and will soon start genetic work involving genome wide association mapping designed to locate genes related to life cycle. My graduate student Russ Meister is studying the genes of the bacterial endosymbionts of cicadas. My current undergraduate honors student Erin Dwyer is also studying the development of Magicicada nymphs and is helping to design a lab exercise for college students around the eastern US to do the same. Many of my past undergraduate students have studied the biochemical genetics and development of periodical cicadas. See the Simon Lab website.

CS: We are collaborating with Teiji Sota at the University Kyoto and Jin Yoshimura at Shizuoka University in Japan. They are studying the phylogeography of Magicicada. We are collaborating with John McCutcheon of the University of Montana who is studying the endosymbiont genomes.

CS: We are also collaborating with ecologists Rick Karban and Louie Yang, both professors at UC Davis who have an interest in cicada population dynamics and nutrient cycling in the ecosystem.

((WN)) You studied the periodical cicadas in 1979 and 1996 too. What changes with time?

CS: I have studied periodical cicadas since I was a student back in 1974. What changes with time is increased human development constantly shrinking the patch size of cicada populations.

((WN)) What are your thoughts on the long life span of the periodical cicadas? Why could it be so? What advantages and what disadvantages does it have?

CS: Most or all cicadas have long life cycles compared to your typical annual insect. Examples have been found of two-year to 9-year cycles in different species. Periodical cicadas evolved an even-longer life cycle and I think that part of this relates to the evolution of their synchronized life cycles and peculiar safety-in-numbers strategy for survival. To become synchronized, periodical cicadas had to evolve an exact length life cycle and all adults would have to appear in the same year. Because the nymphs grow at different rates underground, a longer life cycle and a way of counting years must have evolved so that the individuals that get to the last nymphal (underground juvenile) stage first would wait long enough for all other individuals in the population to become ready to emerge.

((WN)) News reports mention this is ‘Brood II’ of the periodical cicadas. What are the distinctive features of this specific species and what is its full scientific name?

CS: The same species exist in multiple broods. No species is restricted to Brood II. The three species present in Brood II are: Magicicada septendecim, M. cassini, and M. septendecula. These same three species are found in every 17-year brood (except the farthest north which only has M. septendecim).

((WN)) At what depth do the cicadas juveniles live underground?

CS: Most live within the top foot of soil but some have been found deeper. We do not know if they go deeper in winter. We need to do much more digging to understand the nymphs.

((WN)) How do people prepare for the cicada emergence?

CS: Of course various people prepare in different ways. Ideally, everyone prepares by studying information available on the web (especially on our websites Magicicada Central and Magicicada.org).

((WN)) Do cicadas affect transport in the local area?

CS: No, not really. Occasionally individuals can be seeing flying across highways and sometimes they smash into cars.

((WN)) Do cicadas usually stay outside or do they also invade houses too?

CS: They stay outside. One might accidentally fly in through an open window but that would be rare.

((WN)) What do the cicadas eat?

CS: Cicadas suck xylem fluid (the watery fluid coming up from the roots of plants) in deciduous forest trees and herbs. Essential amino acids in the cicada diet are supplied by their bacterial endosymbionts. There are two species of endosymbionts. One makes 8 essential amino acids and one makes two essential amino acids.

((WN)) Do cicadas damage crops or city vegetation? What damage?

CS: Cicadas do not chew leave so they do not damage crops like other insects. They can inflict some damage by their egg laying. Cicadas lay eggs in pencil-sized tree branches. If there are not enough branches available, too many female cicadas may lay eggs in a single branch weakening it and making it susceptible to breakage by wind. This can sometimes cause damage in fruit orchards. If the branches break, the eggs die so this behavior is selected against by natural selection.

((WN)) Thank you.

CS: You’re welcome. I am happy to have this opportunity to communicate with your readers!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The U.S.-based multibillion dollar online search engine, Google Incorporated, has announced Tuesday in a public statement on its official blog that the company has been the victim of a “highly sophisticated” and “targeted attack” against their corporate infrastructure that they allege “originated from China.”

The author of said statement, David Drummond, Google’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, noted that Google was not the only multinational corporation targeted. “As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses—including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors—have been similarly targeted.” The names of these other corporations in question have yet to be released. To this end, Google states that they are “currently in the process of notifying these companies,” and they are cooperating with the “relevant authorities.”

Drummond goes on to say that through a separate and unrelated investigation, Google has additionally discovered that the accounts of “dozens” of Gmail users worldwide who are “advocates” of political and human rights in China “appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties” as well.

However, he affirms that “…these accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.”

As a result of what has occurred here, Google said it has already made significant changes to the security infrastructure of its users’ accounts as to prevent something like this from ever happening again.

At the same time, Google advised individual users to use more discretion while online, “We would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords.”

Google launched its Chinese-language search engine, Google.cn, in January 2006. The only precondition to operating in China was that the company had to acquiesce to certain censorship demands from the one-party government. When defending their controversial rationale for operating in the socialist republic, Google said “…that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China, and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results.”

Nevertheless, Google has still been widely criticized for this voluntary censorship of search results of topics, such as the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, movements for Tibetan and Taiwan independence, and the Falun Gong religious movement along with other information considered harmful to the Chinese government. Some feel it goes against and is hypocritical of Google’s informal motto, “Don’t be evil”.

In response, a spokesperson for the Chinese Consulate in New York City, Wenqi Gao, said in a phone interview to The New York Times, “I want to reaffirm that China is committed to protecting the legitimate rights and interests of foreign companies in our country.”

In contrast, Sharon Hom, the executive director of Human Rights in China said, “It’s a wakeup call for the international community about the risks of doing business in China. The tendency has been for companies to keep their eye just on the benefits of doing business. But the risks are real—The risks are to our intellectual property. The risks are to our values.”

Analysts noted that this move has the potential to financially hurt Google, which has a somewhat limited share of the Internet search market in China, which is dominated by the Chinese-based Google-like website Baidu. Google’s shares fell just under two percent after hours to US$579.50. Meanwhile, Baidu shares rose five percent to US$406.

Harvard Business School professor David Yoffie said, “The consequences of not playing the China market could be very big for any company, but particularly for an Internet company that makes its money from advertising.”

“It will hurt their profits. They get eight to ten percent of their revenues from China,” said Trip Chowdhry, an analyst for Global Equities Research. “If they walk, they will eventually be invited back into China, because the Chinese people will request that. Openness always wins, but it will take some time.”

Tim Ghriskey, the chief investment officer for Solaris Asset Management said, “Clearly not good news for Google and clearly not good news for consumers. You’ve got to think that eventually Google figures out a way to deal with this. If they do have to shut down their Chinese operations, that they would be able to reinstate them. Hopefully soon. I can’t imagine that this would be permanent.” He added, “China is a great growth engine for every business. It is a great opportunity for Google as well.”

In response to all that has happened and what has been said, Drummond explains that this has “led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China.”

He goes on to state, “We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Drummond concludes his statement by trying to assuage the situation the best he can, “The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences…We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.”

The time is 17:00 (UTC) on May 26th, 2006, and this is Audio Wikinews News Briefs.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Experts are now fearing the worst for the northern bottle-nosed whale that is still swimming in the Thames river London. The Thames Whale was first spotted on Thursday, with widespread media coverage yesterday and huge crowds of spectators attracted to the river.

There were hopes that the whale was heading back out to sea, but these were dashed by a fresh sighting of the whale from Albert bridge in Chelsea.

Experts say that the whale is now looking increasingly distressed, with numerous cuts to its body. The whale has already been partly beached on a few occasions, but each time has managed to free itself.

According to blogger Andrew (eyedropper.co.uk), a BBC picture editor, if the whale should die it would be up to Admiral the Lord Boyce GCB OBE ‘to arrange for a tooth to be extracted and sent to the Natural History Museum, and a proper burial to be made’.

Friday, January 12, 2007

The iPhone only made its appearance as a prototype and there have been controversies aroused.

The dispute has come up between the manufacturer of the iPhone (which was resented on Wednesday for the first time) – Apple Inc. – and a leader in network and communication systems, based in San Jose – Cisco. The company claims to possess the trademark for iPhone, and moreover, that it sells devices under the same brand through one of its divisions.

This became the reason for Cisco to file a lawsuit against Apple Inc. so that the latter would stop selling the device.

Cisco states that it has received the trademark in 2000, when the company overtook Infogear Technology Corp., which took place in 1996.

The Vice President and general counsel of the company, Mark Chandler, explained that there was no doubt about the excitement of the new device from Apple, but they should not use a trademark, which belongs to Cisco.

The iPhone developed by Cisco is a device which allows users to make phone calls over the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).

Sunday, February 13, 2005

LONDON – The big-budget Hollywood movie The Aviator and the low-budget Brit flick Vera Drake have scooped the main prizes at the 2005 Orange BAFTA Film Awards. Four gongs went to The Aviator with the top ones being Best Film and Cate Blanchett for Best Supporting Actress. Vera Drake got three gongs with Best Director, Best Actress & Costume Design. Jamie Foxx got Best Actor with Ray and Clive Owen got Best Supporting Actor with Closer.