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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Pedro Pablo Perez, a Cuban cyclist who had qualified for the Olympics in Beijing, will miss the event after a car crash left him in a coma with brain trauma.

Perez is receiving treatment at the Abel Santamaria hospital, in the province of Pinar del Rio where the accident took place. Details are unclear, but it is known Perez was driving the car at the time when the crash occurred in San Cristobal. It has not been reported by Cuban media if anyone else was in the car, or if other vehicles were involved, but it is known his wife, 2004 world scratch cycling champion Yoanka Gonzalez, was not present.

He received “cerebral … lacerations and remains in a coma” according to state newspaper Granma.

Perez, 31, has won the Tour of Cuba five times, competed in the 2000 Sydney Games and received medals at the 1999 and 2003 Pan American Games.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

In the Los Angeles, US arson spree, where more than 50 attacks occurred in four days, local police arrested a German national Monday. The suspect, reportedly 24-year-old Harry Burkhart, was stopped in the vicinity of West Hollywood due to the appearance of his van, matching a description law enforcement authorities issued earlier.

The city saw numerous arson attacks start on December 30, with 17 vehicles and structures set alight. Many of the incidents took place in driveways and carports. In one case, a former home of The Doors late lead singer Jim Morrison was damaged. Despite increased attention by the police force and residents, eleven of the fires occurred in under two hours up until 2:50am (local time) on Monday.

Law enforcement revealed that, only hours before these fires, the State Department alerted the Los Angeles police (LAPD) about Harry Burkhart, believed to be connected to arson attacks in Germany. Acting on that information, police were searching for a blue Dodge minivan. Just before 3am that morning, reserve sheriff deputy Shervin Lalezary — a real-estate lawyer who volunteers with the LAPD for $1 a year — spotted Burkhart’s vehicle and pulled him over. He later recounted, his approach to the van was covered by other officers. A search of the car produced material that could be used for arson, according to various media reports fire sticks and charcoal briquettes.

Police said the suspect was Harry Burkhart, a German national from Frankfurt, with Chechnyan travel papers. Canadian media reports a minivan, ostensibly his, has licence plates from British Columbia and there is a traffic offence record for a Harry Burkhart in Vancouver. He had been in the US for several years, and lived in an apartment on Sunset Boulevard. In a court hearing concerning his mother’s immigration problems, according to police, Burkhart had ranted against the United States.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck voiced optimism about the case: “I feel very good that we’ve got the right guy. He had the right stuff in his van and I am confident in the arrest.” Officials held a press meeting Monday evening about the developments.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Controversial and explicit Canadian workplace safety ads have been pulled from television, and paper ads from some bus shelters for the Christmas season. However, the ads will return to air in January.

“It’s totally erroneous to suggest we’re pulling anything,” chairman of the Workplace Safety and Information Board of Ontario, Steve Mahoney said. “Our plan from Day 1 was to stop the ads around the middle of December when most of the advertising that’s in the media is focused on Christmas and purchasing gifts. We just didn’t want to be competing with all that stuff.”

In one of the TV ads a woman accidentally slips on grease on the floor and a large steaming pot falls onto her face, and she starts screaming to death. The ads end with the message “There really are no accidents”.

A paper ads shows a construction worker who is in a pool of blood with a forklift operation manual stuck in his chest. Another with a man who is slit by a “Danger” sign with his leg stuck in a machine. They show the messages: “Lack of training can kill” and the other “Ignoring safety procedures can kill”.

“The critics amount to about 25 per cent rating, and I’m delighted they’re upset about the ads because I wouldn’t want anyone to enjoy watching them.”

The videos have been viewed more than 70,000 times on the Board’s website and are gaining large amounts of views on YouTube.

The transit authorities of Hamilton and Mississauga will show modified advertisements. The transit authority of Guelph will show the ads in bus shelters, but the transit authority of Windsor will not because of the graphic nature.

“We’re not against workplace safety, but this is too graphic,” said Caroline Postma, chair of the Transit Windsor board.

Mississauga city councillour Carolyn Parrish said: “My son-in-law was telling me that they shouldn’t be on in prime time because when [my grandson] watches them he just about bursts into tear. Now he follows his mom around the kitchen to make sure she doesn’t spill grease. And he’s only four. There’s too much of a chance that … people are really badly affected by it, and can’t really do anything about it anyway.” She suggested the ads only be aired to workers with the jobs shown in the commercials.

Mahoney changed the earlier promise to air the ads only after 8:00pm to after 9:00pm at last nights meeting with Mississauga city council.

Mahoney said the commercials and paper ads are not “too graphic at all”. And they are “absolutely appropriate and they’re doing what they’re intended to do, they’re creating what I call a water cooler topic of conversation.”

Ninety-eight Canadian workers so far have been killed on the job this year.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov has banned the playing of recorded music on television, at public events, and both public and private wedding ceremonies. Turkmenistan’s official daily newspaper, Neitralny Turkmenistan, quotes President Niyazov as stating that the ban is intended to “protect true culture, including the musical and singing traditions of the Turkmen people.” The office of the president said recorded music and lip synching has “a negative effect on the development of singing and musical art.” In a cabinet meeting broadcast on national television, Niyazov said “Unfortunately, one can see on television old voiceless singers lip-synching their old songs. Don’t kill talents by using lip synching… Create our new culture.”

President Niyazov has a history of regulating cultural influences in Turkmenistan. He has outlawed long hair or beards and capped teeth, required video monitors in all public places, and banned car radios and certain performing arts like opera and ballet, deeming them “unnecessary.”

Sunday, December 24, 2006

A unanimously passed United Nations Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran has been dismissed by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a “piece of paper.” Ahmadinejad said that it is in “the best interest of the West” to have a “nuclear Iran” and that Iran will not stop enriching uranium.

“It is a piece of torn paper … by which they aim to scare Iranians … It is in the Westerners’ interests to live with a nuclear Iran,” said Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad also goes on to say that anyone who “backs” the U.N. resolution will “soon regret” their acts. He also added that in “February, Iranians will celebrate” the nation becoming a nuclear power.

“This resolution will not harm Iran and those who backed it will soon regret their superficial act. Iranians are neither worried nor uncomfortable with the resolution … we will celebrate our atomic achievements in February,” added Ahmadinejad.

On December 23, 2006, the U.N. stated that the resolution is “determined to give effect to its unmet 31 July demand that Iran suspend all uranium enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. The Security Council today imposed sanctions on that country [Iran], blocking the import or export of sensitive nuclear material and equipment and freezing the financial assets of persons or entities supporting its proliferation sensitive nuclear activities or the development of nuclear-weapon delivery systems,” reported the press release on the U.N.’s website.

The U.N. also said that Iran must suspend all uranium enrichment and that the sanction would be lifted if the country complies with the U.N..

“Unanimously adopting resolution 1737 (2006) under Article 41 of the Charter’s Chapter VII, the Council decided that Iran should, without further delay, suspend the following proliferation sensitive nuclear activities: all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development; and work on all heavy-water related projects, including the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water. The halt to those activities would be verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).”

The U.N. also stated that “specifically, all States [countries] should prevent the supply, sale or transfer, for the use by or benefit of Iran, of related equipment and technology, if the State determined that such items would contribute to enrichment-related, reprocessing or heavy-water related activities, or to the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems. The Council decided it would terminate the measures if Iran fully complied with its obligations, or adopt additional ones and possible further decisions if the country did not.”

Iran also said that beginning on “Sunday morning, we [Iran] will begin activities at Natanz” which has “3,000 centrifuges” which they “will drive them with full speed” in response to the U.N.’s resolution.

“From Sunday morning, we will begin activities at Natanz, the site of 3,000-centrifuge machines, and we will drive it with full speed. It will be our immediate response to the resolution,” said Ali Larijani, the top nuclear negotiator for Iran.

The U.N. will review the resolution and Iran’s activities in 60 days.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Researchers say that new, ten million-year-old fossils found in Ethiopia, prove that the theory that humans may have evolved from a species of great apes eight million years ago, may not be true, but that humans may have split from apes as long as 10.5 million years ago.

At least nine fossilized teeth, one canine tooth and eight molars, of a previously unknown species of apes found in Africa were discovered by a team of researchers from Ethiopia and Japan who then compared the 3-D make up of the teeth to other fossils that date back as far as 8 million years and found that the fossils are likely a “direct ancestor” of apes currently living in Africa and that the new ape fossils were that of a species of gorilla who ate mostly plants high in fiber.

Current fossils and research say that the evolutionary split from apes to humans occurred at least eight million years ago. The new fossils say that the split may have happened as long as 10.5 million years ago.

“Based on this fossil, that means the split is much earlier than has been anticipated by the molecular evidence. That means everything has to be put back,” said researcher at the Rift Valley Research Service in Ethiopia and a co-author of the study, Berhane Asfaw.

Despite the finds, other researchers are not convinced that the findings are correct.

“It is stretching the evidence to base a time scale for the evolution of the great apes on this new fossil. These structures appear on at least three independent lineages of apes, including gorillas, and they could relate to a dietary shift rather than indicating a new genetic trait,” said a Professor at the London Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom, Peter Andrews who also added, “but the fossil evidence for the evolution of our closest living relatives, the great apes, is almost non-existent.

Researchers have named the newly discovered species Cororapithecus abyssinicus whose remains were found in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, the same place where the remains of Lucy were discovered in 1974.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

In the year 2000, Dries Buytaert created Drupal, a freely licensed and open source tool to manage websites, as a bulletin board for his college dorm. Since Dries released the software and a community of thousands of volunteer developers have added and improved modules, Drupal has grown immensely popular. Drupal won the overall Open CMS Award in 2007, and some speakers in Drupal’s spacious developer’s room at FOSDEM 2008 were dreaming aloud of its world domination.

Buytaert (now 29) just finished his doctoral thesis and has founded the start-up Acquia. The new company wants to become Drupal’s best friend, with the help of an all-star team and US$7 million collected from venture capitalists. Wikinews reporter Michaël Laurent sat down with Dries in Brussels to discuss these recent exciting developments.