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Monday, July 25, 2005

A suspect package discovered in Little Wormwood Scrubs, west London is apparently a fifth bomb made to the same design as those used in the 21 July attacks. The device was subjected to controlled explosion by the police over the weekend and its discovery has led to speculation that a fifth bombing attempt may have been intended that day. The device was apparently a nail bomb.

Little Wormwood Scrubs is just north of Shepherd’s Bush (scene of one of Thursday’s bombing attempts) and White City (the location of the BBC’s TV centre). It also borders on North Pole sidings, which are used by the Eurostar cross-channel train which travels through the Channel Tunnel.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

The Canterbury Crusaders won the inaugural Super 14 title, downing the Wellington Hurricanes 19 points to 12 at Jade Stadium, Christchurch. The game was dominated by surreal conditions – a thick fog made viewing the game from the top of the stands impossible. Only one try was scored in the mistake-riddled game, to Crusaders centre Casey Laulala.

Both sides were consulted prior to the match on whether the final should be postponed, as a thick fog engulfed the sold-out Jade Stadium. Patrons in the South Stand turned their attention to the stadium screen behind them, as they could not see anything through the mist. The television audience was in a similar position, with most of the pictures being shrouded in a white cloud. Sky Sports commentators split the commentary between themselves and a sideline commentator, as they could not see the other side of the pitch from the commentary box.

Referee Jonathon Kaplan and the players of both the Crusaders and Hurricanes were asked if they wished to continue at half time, there was apparently a clear view that everyone wanted to continue with the final. The final score was 19 points to 12, a converted try being the difference. For the Crusaders, it was the team’s sixth championship in 11 years. Despite the eerie conditions, jubilant celebrations followed after full-time.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Seven people were killed and 26 injured in the city of Kohat in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday after a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb near a police station, police officials said.

“It was a suicide attack, the target was a police station,” Dilawar Khan Bangash, police chief of Kohat, told AFP news agency. He said that all those killed in the attack were civilians. The explosion occurred at the back of the police station.

“Seven people have been killed and 21 were injured in this car suicide attack,” Abdullah Jan, another high ranking police official, told reporters. His statement was made soon after the attack, before the number of injured was revised upward. “These incidents are a reaction to the military operation in the tribal areas,” he claimed. Another police officer confirmed what Jan and Bangash had said, saying that approximately 200 kilograms of explosives were used.

The station was badly affected by the attack, and three rooms of a government-run primary school were destroyed. Seven local shops were also severely damaged.

This attack occurred a day after an earlier suicide bombing killed over 40 people near the same city, and two days after an attack in southern Pakistan killed upwards of ten people.

Monday, March 30, 2009

First becoming famous in her native Ukraine in the 1990s, long-haired self-described “Amazon” Ruslana gained international recognition for winning the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest with her song “Wild Dances,” inspired by the musical traditions of the Hutsul people of the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains.

In the five years since, Ruslana has decided to use her name and public status to represent a number of worthy causes, including human trafficking, renewable energy, and even the basic concept of democratic process, becoming a public face of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution and later serving in Parliament.

Currently, she is on an international publicity tour to promote her album Wild Energy, a project borne out of a science fiction novel that has come to symbolize her hopes for a newer, better, freer way of life for everyone in the world. She took time to respond to questions Wikinews’s Mike Halterman posed to her about her career in music and her other endeavors.

This is the fifth in a series of interviews with past Eurovision contestants, which will be published sporadically in the lead-up to mid-May’s next contest in Moscow.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

According to reports, a joint covert operation by United States and Pakistan forces have captured the Taliban’s top military commander, Mullah [[w:Abdul Ghani Baradar]|Abdul Ghani Baradar]]]. Baradar was captured seven to nine days ago according to officials.

Officials describe Baradar as second in influence only to the Taliban’s founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar. They say he is the most important Taliban figure detained since the war in Afghanistan started in late 2001.

The Taliban in Afghanistan deny Baradar has been captured, calling the report a rumor and a diversion. A spokeperson for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid said, “This is just rumor spread by foreigners to divert attention from the Marja offensive.” Adding, “They are facing big problems in Marja. In reality there is nothing regarding Baradar’s arrest. He is safe and free and he is in Afghanistan.”

Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents say they are interrogating Baradar, who was in charge of the Taliban’s day-to-day military operations and its governing political council.

Speaking in Islamabad, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik would not confirm the report of Baradar’s arrest.

But he said that since the U.S.-led coalition invaded the Taliban stronghold of Marja in southern Afghanistan several days ago, Pakistan has arrested suspected militants who have fled across the border.

“There are a number of arrests of people who were running away from Afghanistan and coming to Pakistan. And we are very much alert. The day we get any information [of] who are they, we will tell the people of Pakistan,” said Malik.

He also said that it is true the United States and Pakistan share intelligence information. However, he stressed that Pakistan is a sovereign nation and does not allow foreign forces to take part in anti-militancy raids within its borders.

Officials say his capture suggests a new level of cooperation between Pakistani and American intelligence agencies. In the past, U.S. officials have accused Pakistan’s intelligence agencies of maintaining ties with the Afghan Taliban leadership and being reluctant to pursue them in sanctuaries in Pakistan. Pakistani officials have denied the claim.

The New York Times first reported Baradar’s capture late Monday. The paper says it learned of the operation last week, but delayed reporting it at the request of White House officials, who argued that making it public would compromise the effort to gather intelligence.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

A British Airways (BA) flight from London to Denver made an emergency landing at an airport in Iceland today after smoke was seen emerging from an oven in the aircraft’s rear kitchen.

A BA spokesman said that the Boeing 777 landed safely at Keflavik Airport. He added that the plane’s 268 passengers left the craft unharmed.

A spokeswoman from the Iceland Civil Aviation Administration ruled out any terrorist involvement. She added: “They were 50 miles from Keflavik when it was thought there was a fire. But it turned out to be only smoke.”

The flight should complete its journey to the US tomorrow. Passengers are spending the night in a hotel.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

New York –”Buy cheap Viagra through us – no prescription required!” Anyone with an active email account will recognize lines like this one. According to some reports, unsolicited advertisements (spam) for Viagra and similar drugs account for one in four spam messages.

Ever since pharmaceutical giant Pfizer promised to cure erectile dysfunction once and for all with its blue pills containing the drug sildenafil citrate, spammers have tried to tap into male anxiety by offering prescription-free sales of unapproved “generic” Viagra and clones such as Cialis soft tabs. Legislation like the U.S. CAN-SPAM act has done little to stem the tide of email advertising the products.

Now Pfizer has entered a pledge with Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest software company, to address the problem. The joint effort will focus on lawsuits against spammers as well as the companies they advertise. “Pfizer is joining with Microsoft on these actions as part of our shared pledge to reduce the sale of these products and to fight the senders of unsolicited e-mail that overwhelms people’s inboxes,” said Jeff Kindler, executive vice president at Pfizer.

Microsoft has filed civil actions against spammers advertising the websites CanadianPharmacy and E-Pharmacy Direct. Pfizer has filed lawsuits against the two companies, and has taken actions against websites which use the word “Viagra” in their domain names. Sales of controlled drugs from Canadian pharmacies to the United States are illegal, but most drugs sold in Canada have nevertheless undergone testing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This is not the case for many of the Viagra clones sold by Internet companies and manufactured in countries like China and India. While it was not clear that CanadianPharmacy was actually shipping drugs from Canada, Pfizer’s general counsel, Beth Levine, claimed that the company filled orders using a call center in Montreal, reported the Toronto Star.

For Microsoft’s part, they allege that the joint effort with Pfizer is part of their “multi-pronged attack on the barrage of spam.” As the creator of the popular email program Outlook, Microsoft has been criticized in the past for the product’s spam filtering process. Recently, Microsoft added anti-spam measures to its popular Exchange server. Exchange 2003 now includes support for accessing so-called real-time block lists, or RTBLs. An RTBL is a list of the IP addresses maintained by a third party; the addresses on the list are those of mailservers thought to have sent spam recently. Exchange 2003 can query the list for each message it receives.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Space Shuttle Discovery’s final launch on the STS-133 mission to the International Space Station has been delayed at least an additional day. Launch is now targeted for 3:29 PM EDT on Thursday.

The launch was originally scheduled for this past Monday, but was delayed two days because of helium and nitrogen leaks on board the shuttle.

Technicians are now working to repair technical glitches discovered yesterday on a main engine control computer.

The weather outlook, however, appears to be unfavorable for the new targeted launch day; there is an 80 percent chance of undesirable weather, according to the NASA space shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters.

The mission management team (MMT) is meeting today to discuss and troubleshoot Discovery’s newfound electrical problems.

STS-133 is scheduled to be an 11-day mission to the International Space Station to ship supplies to the crew, as well as additional components for the orbital outpost’s construction, including the Permanent Multipurpose Module and the third of four ExPRESS Logistics Carriers. The mission is the 133rd of the Space Shuttle Program and the 39th of Discovery.