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Thursday, March 4, 2010

A powerful 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit southern Taiwan on Thursday. According to USGS the epicenter was 23.1 km (14.4 miles) deep. The quake struck at 8:18 a.m. (0018 UTC) in a mountainous region on the southeast coast and 40 miles east of cities of Tainan and Kaohsiung on the southwest coast. The earthquake was felt in capital Taipei which is 155 miles north of the epicenter.

Several fires were started and Taipei’s high-speed railway lines were stopped and are undergoing safety checks. CTI news agency reported one person was injured by falling debris in Kaohsiung, and one woman was hospitalized in the southern city of Chiayi. One person was hurt by a falling tree according to Central News Agency.

A spokesman for Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou assured that the concerned authorities had been instructed to follow the situation closely and take steps so as to alleviate the damage caused and survey the dislocation. The Ministry of Defense has dispatched troops to report on the damage. The Taiwan Ministry of Interior and the National Fire Agency said electricity was cut off near the epicenter but further information was not possible.

The quake was followed by many aftershocks, the largest of 4.8 on the Richter scale. Kuo Kai-wen who is the director of the Central Weather Bureau’s Seismology Center denied presence of any geological relations between the Chile earthquake and this earthquake in Taiwan.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

A jury in Newcastle Crown Court, northeast England has cleared a police officer of some charges in a trial over serial rapes and related offences, and convicted him of others. Northumbria Police’s Police Constable Stephen Mitchell faced five counts of rape, six of indecent assault and 15 of misconduct in public office. He is guilty of two rapes, three indecent assaults and six counts of misconduct, with most of the sex charge convictions coming yesterday.

In all the case involved 16 women aged from 17 to 48, all of whom were arrested on drugs charges or shoplifting thefts between 1999 and 2006; the prosecution said Mitchell picked his victims based on vulnerability. The prosecution claimed Mitchell used blackmail to demand sex in exchange for favours; Mitchell described a conspiracy to frame him involving “…a very small-knit community in Newcastle city centre’s criminal fraternity.” Mitchell’s defence dismissed the claims as driven by one woman motivated by “self-preservation;” he refused to explain this further in open court.

It was alleged he told one woman who wanted a female officer present when searched said “I am the law. I can do anything. I don’t need a woman here,” and later attacked her in his patrol car. The woman had been arrested for possession of drugs and was 37.

“Each [victim] was vulnerable, whether because of drug abuse, health problems, domestic circumstances or a combination of these factors. The defendant took advantage of their vulnerabilities, usually providing or offering favours, but then requesting, or in some cases requiring by force, sexual favours in return,” was how prosecutor Paul Sloan QC explained the circumstances early in the trial.

Testimony in October included that of one lesbian, now 32, who in June 1999 was interviewed by the officer in Newcastle’s Pilgrim Street police station, and claimed he groped her and “that was the beginning of hell for me”. She told the court from behind a screen how he undid his trousers, saying that in arranging for her to be bailed he had helped her and he expected this reciprocated. “I was gay and had never had sex with a male,” but she claimed she was grabbed by the hair and forced, with a warning her girlfriend would be contacted if she made allegations. She had been arrested for cheque fraud.

She said the next month she was arrested again and he made a similar demand. Her testimony stated that he blackmailed her for four years, receiving regular sex after driving her into the country, culminating in a 2003 handcuffed rape at her home. She told the court he gave her drug money, as well as a lighter and foil to take heroin, after discovering she was in rehab. She says she pretended to take the drug but disposed of it, leaving rehab and beginning to study in 2002 in the belief the man had been evaded.

However, “[my] world just crumbled before me” when he arrived at her door and stole her spare keys, she said. She claimed he regularly visited her Sunderland house when she was away and once left a knife embedded in her pillow. She testified her fear made her sleep beneath her bed. Her testimony stated the policeman used what he said was video evidence of her committing fraud at a Post Office and in 2003 said he was going to hand the tape over.

She said when he arrived “[h]e was furious, he said I had disrespected him by not being in touch. I was trying to calm him down but he handcuffed me and said he was arresting me for fraud at the post office. He threw me over the settee, I couldn’t move with the handcuffs on, I was petrified. He said this is what you’ve wanted for a long time and he raped me.” She moved to Durham shortly after.

Detective Constable Cath Easton of Northumbria Police’s Professional Standards Unit said she visited one woman in June last year during the investigation. Although stating she had no problems with police treatment, Easton testified the woman called the following day. “She was crying, she was hysterical,” Easton told the court.

“It took her a while to get her words out, but she was saying ‘how do I know I can trust you? How do I know he has not sent you to test us?’ She was frightened and she told us she was frightened. She was in a real state… She was absolutely terrified that he knew I had contacted her.”

The alleged victim was assured the investigation was genuine and later called again, claiming Mitchell forced her to perform a sex act following the former heroin addict’s arrest six years previously. Another woman told the court Mitchell raped her whilst in uniform in the woman’s flat, hands cuffed behind her, and blackmailed her for years demanding sexual favours.

One woman, 25 at the time, said while in Newcastle’s Pilgrim Street police station following her arrest for a minor offence she was grabbed and kissed by the policeman. “He put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me, it was a passionate kiss. The door was open and I was shocked, anyone could have walked past or seen him or anything.” She told the court this occurred in the fingerprint room.

“After I was photographed he told me he was finishing his shift, which I took to be a hint,” the witness, another former heroin addict who said she was drunk at the time, continued. “Then when I came out of the station PC Mitchell pulled up in a car and offered to take me home, it seemed the safest way of getting home was with a police officer.” She had no complaint about him during the journey but said she resisted another kiss upon arrival at her house.

The woman, who says she has not used drugs for nine years, stated that he arrived at her house the following day and gave her a second lift. “He said he had a wife and kids but that he would like to see me again. Obviously it was never going to happen but he was saying he wanted some kind of relationship where he was seeing me on a regular basis, I would imagine for sex or something like that. He said we would have to be discreet because he had a wife but I was not interested and eventually he accepted my ‘no’.”

She said he gave her money, suggested they get a private room and was “very persuasive”. Her mother also gave evidence to say Mitchell had called her to discuss the daughter’s drug-addict boyfriend. “You want to stop her going with him, he’s trouble, he’s a bad lad,” she claimed Mitchell said, adding her daughter told her the officer “was pestering her, she said he wanted to take her out.” The boyfriend also gave evidence, saying he had known the officer during former heroin addiction and giving a description of him.

One young mother met Mitchell when released from prison in 2001 after a theft sentence. Days later, he had given her heroin and felt she “owed him” according to testimony, receiving sex in return. She failed to attend Gateshead Magistrates’ Court in December the following year and he arrested her, she told the court. She wept, claiming he raped her in his vehicle. “I could not get out of the car, the doors were locked,” she told the trial.

“He said he wanted to have sex and that it would be the last time. I was shouting for him to let me out of the car, just screaming and shouting at him to let me go. He said if I told anybody, nobody would believe me because I was just a dirty junkie and I would never get my children back,” she said, describing him telling her he would plant drugs at her home and prevent access to her children if she made claims against him.

In November a woman in her fifties, who has four children and was 48 during her alleged attack, testified Mitchell raped her in a room used for reading reports at Pilgrim Street following her July 2006 theft arrest. “No one’s going to believe a thief,” he is claimed to have told her. “I said if you just let me go I’m not going to say anything; I’m not going to tell anyone. No one will ever know this has happened. I just wanted to be away.” She says she explained she was ill and taking cancer medication although “he did not seem bothered.”

Outside the police station following the alleged attack, “…there was two young lasses coming along. I will always remember one had a red Berghaus coat on. They seemed to know PC Mitchell and he did not seem to know whether to stay with me or talk to them and I just walked straight across the road. I was in total shock. I got on the bus home and I was trying to keep from crying and I had a pain in my throat.”

She said her life had been severely affected; “I was always thinking about it and crying for no reason. I just used to burst into tears for no reason and I’m not a crying person. I’m normally bubbly and happy and I really just let myself go. I never ever went with my partner again and from that day to this I have never slept with another man.” She triggered the probe that resulted in Mitchell’s prosecution by reporting him when, she says, he began arriving at her house.

She told Sloan she had not immediately contacted police because “I thought no-one would believe me. I was a shoplifter and he was a police officer. I still would never have been here to this day if he had not kept coming back to the house. If he had not done that it would have been a secret till the day I died.”

Mitchell, who has been a policeman since leaving the military in 1991, stated in the dock this month that the women had discussed their “host of rumours” amongst themselves and they were similar for this reason. “I think it has been demonstrated that people have been talking about this on a number of occasions… I know these people are not always truthful.” “But you are?” responded prosecution QC Paul Sloan. “Yes, these people will grab any opportunity they can,” according to the officer. “They are lying,” he later added.

In an attempt to disprove this defence the prosecution produced a sex tape in which Mitchell uses similar phrases to his partner as the women alleged he had said to them. “So it just so happens the words used are exactly the words you used in the video?” Sloan inquired. PC Mitchell desribed this as coincidence and rejected claims he had used such words to any of the women. He also said supplying heroin to one addict was far too risky for him; “I know police monitor drug dealers’ homes and it would be a massive risk to take my vehicle to the address of a drug dealer. I don’t want people to be on drugs. If I could help them I would.”

Mitchell, 42, divorced in 2005, admitted meeting a woman he had met on duty for sex in 2006, having admitted the same at an internal misconduct hearing in September 2007. He told the court that if interviewing woman it was in his interests as an officer to be friendly, but insisted this was all.

Defended by Toby Hedworth QC, Mitchell said his father’s murder meant he could not possibly have committed one rape in Burdon, near Sunderland, on August 31, 2001 as he had returned to his original home city of Glasgow following his father’s murder. He was accused of raping the woman in a parked car in a field.

“Have you ever been with her in the fields in the Burdon area of Sunderland?” asked Hedworth. “No, I haven’t. My dad was attacked on July 30, 2001 by somebody and subsequently died on August 10, 2001.” Hedworth: “Had your father in fact been murdered?” Mitchell: “Yes. And from the 9th to the 16th of August I was in Glasgow,” he explained. Hedworth took him through denials of every charge, which he said there was “no truth whatsoever” in.

The defence also produced a recording secretly recorded by Mitchell with Detective Chief Inspector Chris Sharman, who headed the rape investigation. Hedworth told the court Mitchell is warned on the tape, made in March, that if he is charged he would “probably be front page of the national newspapers and they are horrible” but the team would “stop digging” if he stepped down.

Hedworth likened the offer to a Monopoly “get out of jail free card” and claimed despite a warning his client was “running the risk of going to jail and going on the sex offender register”, Mitchell chose to fight the allegations – a fact which demonstrated innocence. “What it means is: ‘Resign and this will go away’.” The prosecution denied Northumbria Police were seeking to offer their colleague an alternative to investigation, stating the allegation – made during Hedworth’s closing speech – was untrue and the recording did not indicate an offer to drop the probe.

The jury began deliberations on Wednesday. After three days, on Friday they cleared Mitchell of three rapes, two indecent assaults and two counts of misconduct in a public office. Following this, trial judge Mr Justice Wilkie said he would accept majority verdicts on the remaining charges, instead of unanimous verdicts. The jury departed for the weekend, returning on Tuesday to convict him of six misconduct charges and clear him of the same number; another indecent assault charge also produced an acquital.

Yesterday, the verdicts were delivered on the remaining charges. The remaining seven misconduct charges were acquitals, as did the other indecent assaults. Two charges of rape and three of indecent assault produced guilty verdicts.

At least one of the misconduct charges he was convicted of was unrelated to indecent assault or rape; it concerned a drug-addicted woman caught with non-prescriped diazepam (valium) when her friend was arrested for shoplifting in 2003. Her testimony was that he stroked her leg and tried to kiss her in Pilgrim Street, returned the drugs upon her release, obtained her number and met her several times to give her drugs. She says although he asked to go at night to a hotel she refused, and ultimately she began ignoring his calls while he ceased supplying drugs.

Monday, November 14, 2016

On Wednesday, India demonetised ?500 (about US$7.50) and ?1000 notes, announced as a measure to fight corruption, fake notes, and black money. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the Indian citizens late Tuesday, and said 500 and 1000 rupee notes would cease to be legal tender at midnight.

To minimise possible difficulties to citizens, transactions using old 500 and 1000 rupee notes were accepted at government hospitals, railway ticket bookings, government buses, and airports. The notes were also accepted at public-sector petrol-pumps, government-authorised consumer co-operative stores, milk booths authorised by State governments, and cremation grounds till Friday midnight. These shops were obliged to have a record of their stocks and sales.

In his announcement, Modi said, “For your immediate needs, you can go to any bank, head post office or sub post office, show your identity proof like Aadhar card, voter’s card, ration card, passport, income tax PAN card number or other approved proofs and exchange your old 500 or thousand rupee notes for new notes.” ^{((hi))Hindi language: ??????? ???????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ?? ?? ???? ?? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ??? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ?? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ?? ?? ???? ?? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ????? ????, ???? ??, ???? ?????, ?????? ?????, ???? ?????, ????????, ???? ????? ??? ????? ??????? ???? ?? ??? ??? ??? ???? ?? ??? ??? ???? ???}

Modi also announced those who failed to change their currency till December 30 can exchange the notes at Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s office along with a declaration form till March 31. The notes can be exchanged till December 30 at any branch of any bank across India.

By Saturday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said demonetised money equivalent to almost US$30 billion was deposited in banks across India. According to estimate, the old notes accounted for 85% of the total money in circulation. New 500 rupee and 2000 rupee notes are to be issued. Modi said RBI would exercise caution from past experience and limit the circulation of large-value notes.

International tourists could purchase up to 5000 rupees using the old notes at airport exchanges till Friday.

A limit was imposed on cash withdrawal; a maximum of 10000 rupees each day, and 20000 rupees each week, can be withdrawn. Moreover, from Thursday (November 10) till November 24, 4000 rupees can be exchanged in the banks and post offices. The amount is credited to the bank account.

Government workers were informed about demonetising when the announcement was made. Modi announced all banks would remain closed for public work on Wednesday.

In the United States, Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election on Tuesday, immediately after which stock markets dropped globally. Following the US election and demonetising the money, the Indian stock market fell by 1700 points on Wednesday. Sensex lost 1,688.69 points and Nifty lost 111.55 points on the same day. Indian technology sector companies experienced loss. TCS suffered 4.93% loss and Infosys lost 2.74%.

The Indian rupee is also used in the neighbouring countries of Bhutan and Nepal. The border area uses Indian currency for day-to-day transactions. The Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan (RMA) has announced the exchange of old notes will be facilitated till December 15. RMA governor Dasho Penjore informed Indian news site The Wire, “We do not know exactly how much Indian currency of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 is in circulation in Bhutan. We will get a better idea after the deadline to deposit their amount”. RMA has 30% of its international exchange reserve in Indian rupees. Nepal Rastra Bank directed all Nepali banks to stop conducting transactions using the Indian rupee.

On Thursday, there were long queues in front of ATMs and banks to exchange the old notes and withdraw money. BBC reported some banks ran out of cash. Police were called to some banks to maintain discipline. Banks were open on Saturday and Sunday for money exchange.

Shops did not accept the old 500 and 1000 rupee notes. Some emphasised cash-less transaction as well. BBC reported some traders and small business owners in Delhi threatened to call a strike as this move affected their business.

eRetail websites like Amazon and Flipkart announced they would not accept the old 500 and 1000 rupee notes on Cash on Delivery orders. Amazon also announced 15% discount on gift cards worth 500 or 1000 rupees.

The government ceased all transactions using the old 500 and 1000 rupee notes before Saturday. But a Wikinews correspondent noticed a jeweler shop accepting the demonetised notes on Saturday. When questioned, the jeweler said they were accepting the old notes only on purchase. When the correspondent, who did not identify as a reporter to the shop owners, said the old 500 and 1000 rupee notes were not legal money, they said they will exchange the notes in a bank since there were 50 days to exchange with a new and legal tender. They refused to exchange old 500 rupee notes with change, asserting the customer needs to buy merchandise from their shop.

Friday, December 31, 2010

A memorial service was held Thursday for Adrienne Nicole Martin, the model found dead two weeks ago in the Missouri, US mansion of former Anheuser-Busch CEO August Busch IV. Martin, of Native American ethnicity, was 27 years old when she died of unknown causes, said investigators.

Martin, who had been dating the 46-year-old Busch for “the last several months” according to friends, was a native of Springfield. She had previously been married to 45-year-old doctor Kevin J. Martin until February 2009, when they divorced, and had joint custody of their eight-year-old son. Adrienne Martin had a profile on iStudio, a modeling website, where she said she wanted to become an art therapist. She also expressed a desire to “to do beer advertising” and work in the modeling industry. At the time of her death, Martin had been working toward a master’s degree in art therapy.

The memorial service for Martin was held at South Haven Baptist Church in Springfield. Busch was not among the estimated 100 people attending the service, nor was he mentioned during it. The only speaker was the church’s pastor, Scott Watson, who read letters from Martin’s friends. Her son and other relatives sat in the front row while she was remembered as a gifted artist and dedicated mother. Lacy Elet, one of Martin’s friends, later said Martin was happy that “her life was finally in order.” Her obituary in the Springfield News-Leader called Busch “the love of her life.” However, one of Martin’s uncles, Andy Eby, said after the service, “There are too many questions and not enough answers.”

Martin was found unconscious by Michael Jung, who worked at Busch’s mansion, at 12:30 p.m. local time (18:30 UTC) on December 19. At 1:12 p.m., Jung called emergency services, saying, “This girl’s just not waking up.” When asked if she was breathing, Jung responded with, “We don’t know. It’s dark back there. I’m gonna get a light and try and see.” At 1:26 p.m., Martin was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency workers. Law enforcement officials said the room was dark because there were blackout “curtains drawn in the bedroom.”

An autopsy on Martin’s body did not find any trauma-related injuries, and the official cause of death has not been established by investigators. A toxicology report, expected to take several weeks, will likely be used to determine the reason Martin died. Police said Martin’s body did not exhibit any “apparent signs of trauma or other indications of cause of death.” According to her ex-husband, Adrienne Martin had a rare heart condition, called Long QT syndrome, which can cause palpitations and sudden cardiac death. Kevin Martin said his ex-wife never sought medical advice on her condition and did not talk about it with friends.

Police said that Busch was home at the US$2 million mansion when Martin was discovered, and that the ongoing investigation is being handled by the Frontenac Police Department and the St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s Office. Art Margulis, a lawyer for August Busch IV, said Martin was visiting the Huntleigh residence and that there is “absolutely nothing suspicious” surrounding her death.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

A judge at Liverpool Crown Court in England, UK has allowed the media to report on crimes committed by a serving policeman involved with gang warfare. Salim Razaq, fired from his position as sergeant by Lancashire Constabulary, entered guilty pleas last month but this information was kept from the public pending the outcome of a separate trial.

Five others have also admitted charges in the case, including the officer’s brother Hafiz and mother Gulshan. Salim was caught when police bugged phone calls Hafiz was making from prison on remand awaiting trial for kidnapping and assaulting a rival gang member. The gangs were fighting a ‘turf war’ over drugs sales.

In the conversations the pair discussed intimidation of witnesses in a bid to prevent prosecution of Hafiz, and money laundering. Lancashire Police’s Professional Standards Department then raided Salim’s home in Walton-le-Dale, near Preston, and found £72,000 in cash hidden in the sergeant’s bedroom. Three machine guns — two Uzis and a Sten — were concealed under the stairs. 228 bullets, a bullet-proof jacket, a balaclava, and a knuckle-duster were also confiscated.

Razaq, who became an emergency response officer when he joined the police in 2001 and became a sergeant in January last year, was dismissed in June when the force convened a Special Case Hearing to fast-track the process. He has entered guilty pleas to nine offences: misconduct in a public office, two charges of perverting the course of justice, three charges of possession of a firearm, possession of ammunition, conspiracy to transfer criminal property, and conspiracy to acquire or retain criminal property.

Salim and Hafiz’s mother Gulshan admitted perverting the course of justice; her role was to intimidate witnesses. Hafiz entered guilty pleas to money laundering and two counts of perverting the course of justice. Two more gang members — Jason Lawrenson and Daniel Cookson — admitted money laundering, and another man, Louis Bamber, admitted possession of a firearm. The five will be sentenced on November 11.

Details had been kept secret while Salim Razaq faced trial on a charge of fraud by inflating the value of his salary — £33,000 a year — to obtain a mortgage. Judge Henry Globe QC decided he was innocent of that charge and ordered the jury to find him not guilty. He then lifted the restrictions imposed on the media.

Lancashire Police’s Assistant Chief Constable Andy Cooke spoke to the press outside the court. “Salim Razaq was nothing short of a criminal in a police uniform and I am appalled by the fact that a police officer was involved at the level he was in this criminality. However, I am extremely proud of the Lancashire officers who put this case together, the quality of which is reflected in the guilty pleas. I am sure that the sentences will reflect the seriousness of these crimes.”

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

The University of California, Berkeley announced that one of its graduate students, Michael Park, rediscovered on May 24 the Mount Diablo buckwheat, a plant not sighted since 1936 and believed to have been extinct.Found nearly 30 miles east of San Francisco, Park [aged 35] identified the small pink flowering plant said to resemble baby’s breath during a routine visit to the mountain. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in integrative biology.

The significance of the find drew comparisons to the recent discovery of the Ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas earlier this year in April. The exact location of the flowering plant is, for now, being kept secret. Several botanists have confirmed it along with the nearly dozen or so other plants.

The property is being preserved by the Save Mount Diablo conservation group operating in the Mount Diablo State Park.

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

On Monday, two US Republican Party legislators, Greg Walden and Frank Pallone Jr., respectively the chairman and the ranking member of the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce, co-wrote a public letter to Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation, about open-source software (OSS) and improving its security. They requested Zemlin to answer their questions by no later than April 16.

The letter contained the following four questions; each of the first two has a further two follow-up questions.

1. Has the CII [Core Infrastructure Initiative] performed a comprehensive study of which pieces of OSS are most crucial to the “global information infrastructure”?
1. If not, does the CII plan to perform such a study?
2. What would the CII need in order to do so?
2. Has the CII, or any other organizations, compiled any statistics on OSS usage?
1. If not, does the CII plan to perform such a study?
2. What would the CII need in order to do so?
3. In your estimation, how sustainable and stable is the OSS ecosystem?
4. Based on your response to the previous question, how can the OSS ecosystem be made more sustainable and stable?

Walden and Pallone exemplified Heartbleed, a “critical cybersecurity vulnerability” that allowed the hacking of websites and passwords, and millions of medical records in 2014. They also wrote that, in response to that vulnerability, The Linux Foundation established a multi-million dollar project, the Core Infrastructure Initiative, intended to improve the global infrastucture of such software.

The politicians noted large tech companies like Microsoft, Apple Inc., and Adobe Systems respond more quickly to such critical vulnerabilities than distributors and developers of open-source software.

Open-source software is “publicly accessible” and usually freely-licensed for a wide range of use, such as modification and commercial uses. Walden and Pallone also expressed praise toward open-source software and cited a 2015 survey conducted by Black Duck Software saying 78% of companies used such software.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Catherine Mullany, a newly married British woman, and her husband, Ben Mullany, have been shot while on honeymoon in Antigua. Catherine died on the scene, while Ben is in a critical condition in Hospital.

The families of the Mullanys have described themselves as “deeply shocked and devastated.”

The incident occurred at 05:00 Antigua time (09:00 GMT) on Tuesday, and it is being treated by police as a robbery. A police spokesperson described the incident. “Shortly after 5am this morning officers from the Bolans Police station responding to a call, arrived at Cocos Hotel and Restaurant in the Valley Church area, the scene of a murder.” UK police have been asked to help in the inquiry.

Catherine Mullany was a doctor, who, before her death, planned to become a GP. Ben was a physiotherapy student at the University of the West of England (UWE), which is located in Bristol, England. Mary Price, the Media Relations and Internal Communications Manager for UWE, gave Wikinews the following statement: