blackstoneharness.com

Monday, November 6, 2006

There were a record amount of fire calls during Guy Fawkes night, the festivities had emergency services stretched to the limit, a spokesman for the NZ Fire service said that it was “like driving through a war zone.” Despite this, no major structure fires were reported.

Preliminary numbers show that the amount of minor fires reported amounted to 1,729 between the period of October 27 and November 5. For the same period last year, 2005, there were only 1,632. Last year’s numbers were also record setting at the time. Over the Guy Fawkes weekend, November 4 – November 5, there were 784 reports of fires. The actual numbers will be released soon, as the false alarms and multiple reports are separated out. A safety campaign by the NZ Fire brigade advising the public to call 111 on the suspicion of any fire is expected to have increased the number of calls per incident. Discussions on the NZ volunteer firefighter’s mailing list suggest that the majority of bad behaviour occurred in urban areas.

The New Zealand police had to report to 423 reports of disorder in the top half on the North Island alone and in just seven hours. There was a fight which involved 40 people, in Whitianga; police were called to break up that fight and were also called to stop youths from getting fireworks from a shop. Also, in Tauranga, police were called to a fight party of 200 youths at 1.00 a.m. In Mount Albert, Auckland, police were forced to retreat and wait for reinforcements during an incident.

In Wellington, New Zealand, the police had to make 39 arrests, including assaults, disorderly behaviors and liquor ban breaches. The police said it was as bad as New Year’s Eve. “It was as busy as New Year’s Eve. It was one of the busiest nights we have had this year,” Sergeant Maggie Windle said, “Alcohol was a big factor in a lot of the arrests and a lot of the offending. We were dealing with the bulk of this mass disorder.”

Remarkably, the St John’s Ambulance Service reported only one serious firework related injury; a stabbing following an incident involving fireworks.

Mike Hall, chief executive/national commander of the New Zealand Fire Service, said: “The unfortunate result vindicates his call for a retail ban on fireworks, made last month. Despite warnings and a safety campaign, and even with parts of the country being much wetter than they were last year, firefighters were still called out more times than ever. That means that firefighters cannot respond as quickly as they would like to genuine emergencies, and thousands of volunteers across the country are needlessly called away from work and family commitments.”

The Government had previously warned the public that a ban on the public sale of fireworks would be enacted if behaviour was deemed unacceptable over the Guy Fawkes season.

Opinon polls indicate that the public is divided 50:50 over permitting the sale of fireworks, or wanting to see fireworks restricted to public displays or licensed operators. Mr. Hall said “the public are also sick of the danger to themselves, property and pets posed by misuse of fireworks, not to mention the late-night noise and mess associated with people letting off fireworks indiscriminately. The lack of a major fireworks-related fire or fatality at the weekend was pure luck.”

Allegedly Dunedin students were burning furniture in the streets.

Marian Hobbs, Member of Parliament, said that she has put in a bill to stop fireworks to be used by the public: “I’m not saying ban fireworks. I’m not a killjoy. But it does give us powers to stop what is dangerous, time-consuming and expensive. We have to make a start and put our foot down on this.”

Wednesday, May 3, 2006

On Friday, April 28, Wikinews interviewed Ethan Zuckerman, the founder of Geekcorps, a non-profit organization that sending people with technical skills to developing countries for development projects. Ethan has also founded Global Voices Online and helped found Tripod.com, the free web-hosting company now owned by Lycos. He serves a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Tripod.

The interview was held publicly in a dedicated IRC channel.

• What insipred you to get behind Geekcorps, and has there been a big Geekcorps mission, yet?

I got interested in Geekcorps because I’d lived in Ghana as a student in 1993 and 1994While over there, I was amazed at just how little internet connectivity was availableI did a bit of volunteer work helping wire an environmental organization, but basically the only people who had regular net access were US embassy employees.So I was fascinated to learn that my friends in Ghana were getting online in the late 1990s, and I wondered whether anyone would start building net-based businesses, as people were doing in the USMy wife and I went back to Ghana to visit friends and found that there was a huge deal of enthusiasm about the web and the potential it represented, but almost no expertisepeople were really desperate to learn, but very few people were able to teach at the same time, I was ready to step down from Tripod, and I knew a lot of burned out geeksI started wondering whether some of my friends would be interested in sharing their skills in the developing world and whether that would be a useful thing to dolots of international development folks seemed to think it was a good cause, so I started working on it fulltime.We ended up sending about 100 people overseas over the four years I was involved with the projectwe usually sent about 6-8 to a country at a time, working with a variety of businesses, NGOs and government agencies biggest projects were in Ghana, Mali, Mongolia, Senegal.

• With Geekcorps you pushed the idea that newly tech-savvy citizens of developing countries could start online businesses to do digital work for the developed world. But from an American perspective, that’s outsourcing, the bane of US workers. How do you justify working towards a goal that might cost Americans their jobs?

Basically, I’m concerned about the ability of people all over the world to make a good living, send their children to school, build nice houses, have enough food and clean water, etc there’s clearly something of a tradeoff offered by all sorts of globalization – as millions of Chinese are lifted out of rural povery, industrial manufacturing jobs in the US disappear but the US has a pretty good history of innovating and creating new jobs in fields that require a lot of intellectual endeavor the US continues to found interesting software companies, pioneer new net services and generally do a lot of the interesting development on the cutting edge of tech I think a lot of routine coding jobs are up for outsourcing, but I don’t think that people who design software – or who manage the outsourcing and software development process – are going away any time soon it’s very hard to outsource creative activities – it’s somewhat easier to outsource repetitive processes.I think we need to worry less about individual job loss and more about the ability to continue creating new projects. at the same time, I’m very excited to see companies in the developing world moving up the value chain as well, starting to innovate and create new projects as well…

• Lately you’ve been involved with projects including Global Voices and Worldchanging. Where and how do the two dovetail, and where and how do they differ? What are the strengths of each?

They’re very different projects and communities, WC is a magazine -it’s a chance for a small group of smart people to write original content on green issues it’s a lot less global than GV – perhaps overly focused on the US and Europe – and has a tight subject focus GV is an edited aggregator People are not so much writing original, opinionated content on GV as they are linking to other content indeed, we ask people to try very hard not to be especially opinionated on GV. Not NPOV, but a similar perspective – you point, you don’t advocate<ethanz> also GVO is huge – 10 regional editors, about 60 regular contributors, a network of about a thousand blogs we regularly link to the community has a very different feeling – much more international, more 24/7. both are fascinating projects, successes in their own ways, but quite different on the tech issues, a little – in both cases, we’re taking very simple weblog tools and asking them to support very large communities. And a little bit on the issue of how they interface with mainstream media in both cases, we’re interested in amplifying memes and getting them picked up by popular press as well as on the web.

• Isn’t that a contradiction? you’re asking people to be “less” opinionated, but not asking them to be unopinionated?

Blogs are essentially about opinion, asking for NPOV in the blog space misses the point – we want to know what opinions people in Syria have but we want our middle east editor to try to fairly represent the different opinions taking place in that space that said, he’s got an opinion as well so asking for NPOV isn’t the right thing to do – asking him to point to a diversity of opinions is, in our case

Geekcorps can be found online at www.geekcorps.org and Global Voices Online is at www.globalvoicesonline.org.

Tuesday, May 3, 2005

The animated series Family Guy returned to the FOX television network with a new episode Sunday for the first time since it was taken off the schedule three years ago. Although the show kept most of its audience that lead-in The Simpsons gave, FOX was still fourth out of five major broadcast networks in the half-hour, losing most notably to ABC‘s hit Desperate Housewives (UPN, the other major American broadcast network, does not air original programming on Sundays).

However, the season premiere of Family Guy and the series debut of American Dad (which helped usher in what the network termed “The New FOX Sunday”) helped bring FOX to the #2 spot out of five networks in the crucial 18 to 49 demographic, one of the most important to advertisers in the key May sweeps period. “Sweeps” occurs four times a year and helps networks and independent affiliates determine how much a fixed amount of time for commercial advertisement will cost (the higher the ratings, the more revenue for the networks selling the time to advertisers).

On the whole, Family Guy averaged a 6.3 rating in the overnights as posted by Zap2It. While the overnight ratings are fairly accurate, the numbers are preliminary and are subject to minor change. One ratings point is equal to 1,096,000 households, as there are now 109,600,000 households in the United States with at least one television. This translates into a little more than 6.9 million households whose sets were tuned into Family Guy, as recorded by the sample of “Nielsen families,” who record their viewing habits and contribute to the ratings process the US uses. The use of the word “share” in the article means that it is the rough percentage of viewers with their sets on at that hour tuning into a certain program. For example, nine percent of viewers in the United States with their televisions on at 9 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time were tuned to Family Guy.

This only added up to a 9 household share for the hour, compared to an 11 share for Law & Order: Criminal Intent on NBC, a 14 share for a CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame movie of the week (traditionally only aired during the key sweeps periods), and a 23 share for the aforementioned Desperate Housewives. Averaged with the performance of American Dad, a cartoon produced by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, FOX earned a mere 5.8 rating/9 share for the hour.

The episode revolved around a big scheme Peter Griffin, the main character of the series, conjured. To give his wife Lois (who no longer finds him sexually attractive) a second honeymoon in order to “spice up” their love life, he pretends to be actor Mel Gibson so they can stay in a new luxury hotel for free. Peter stumbles upon a sequel to the film The Passion of the Christ, and vows to keep the movie from ever seeing the light of day. To get the movie back, Gibson kidnaps Lois and keeps her captive on top of Mount Rushmore, which leads to a scene in which the three battle on top of the monument, in a homage to the film North by Northwest.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

The province of Alberta, Canada is considering legal action against Canadian National Railway for failing to warn that a derailment last week contaminated Wabamun Lake with a hazardous chemical.

The 700,000 litres of heavy Bunker C fuel oil that spilled into the lake asphyxiated birds and killed fish.

In addition, one of the ruptured tanker cars sent 70,000 liters of Imperial Pole Treating Oil into the lake. This oil is a yellow mixture of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and aliphatic hydrocarbons. Naphthalene, a component of this “very toxic material” is suspected of causing skin cancer if touched and lung or other cancers if inhaled.^[1] Inhalation is promoted by actions that cause splashing or foaming. The mineral oil is used in connection with pentachlorophenol for preserving wooden utility poles.

Wabamun Lake is a popular summertime recreational area about 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Edmonton, Alberta.

The 766-megawatt Keephills power generating plant, one of 3 in Wabamun, was shut down because the coal-fired plant uses water from the lake. Edmonton’s health authority ordered people not to swim, boat or rescue animals in the lake and to stop using its water or any water from nearby wells for cooking, drinking, showering or brushing teeth. These warnings came 3 days after many residents, including children, had been wading into the oil slick without protective clothing to save wildlife injured by the spill and others had been routinely depending on the lakewater for home use. Why the alert was not issued sooner remains under investigation and may result in criminal charges. Canadian National Railway had been informed of the nature of the oil when it was loaded by Imperial Oil Ltd., Canada’s largest petroleum company. Imperial Oil is posting informational updates on a special website [2]. In addition The Wabamun Residents Committee has established an information website [3].

Saturday, April 23, 2022

On Wednesday, Indian steel giant, Tata Steel announced that it was cutting all business ties with Russia. This made Tata Steel the latest multi-national company to stop business with Russia following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A spokesperson from the company’s European division, Tata Steel Europe, said in a statement that it “does not have any operations or employees in Russia”.

The company added, its steel manufacturing units in India, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands had arranged for raw materials to be sourced from elsewhere ending its dependence on Russia.

With the announcement, Tata Steel became one of the few Indian companies to halt business activities in Russia. Last week, Infosys, India’s second largest information technology company announced that it had stopped its operations in Russia.

The Indian Government has not yet condemned the Russian invasion by taking a neutral stand amid pressure from Western countries.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Police in the West Midlands in England today said nearly 200 kilograms worth of drugs with value possibly as great as £30 million (about US$49 million or €36 million) has been seized from a unit in the town of Brownhills. In what an officer described as “one of the largest [seizures] in the force’s 39 year history”, West Midlands Police reported recovering six big cellophane-wrapped cardboard boxes containing cannabis, cocaine, and MDMA (“ecstasy”) in a police raid operation on the Maybrook Industrial Estate in the town on Wednesday.

The seized boxes, which had been loaded onto five freight pallets, contained 120 one-kilogram bags of cannabis, 50 one-kilogram bags of MDMA, and five one-kilogram bricks of cocaine. In a press release, West Midlands Police described what happened after officers found the drugs as they were being unloaded in the operation. “When officers opened the boxes they discovered a deep layer of protective foam chips beneath which the drugs were carefully layered”, the force said. “All the drugs were wrapped in thick plastic bags taped closed with the cannabis vacuum packed to prevent its distinctive pungent aroma from drawing unwanted attention.” Police moved the drugs via forklift truck to a flatbed lorry to remove them.

Detective Sergeant Carl Russell of West Midlands Police’s Force CID said the seizure was the largest he had ever made in the 24 years he has been in West Midlands Police and one of the biggest seizures the force has made since its formation in 1974. “The impact this seizure will have on drug dealing in the region and the UK as a whole cannot be underestimated”, he said. “The drugs had almost certainly been packed to order ready for shipping within Britain but possibly even further afield. Our operation will have a national effect and we are working closely with a range of law enforcement agencies to identify those involved in this crime at whatever level.”

Expert testing on the drugs is ongoing. Estimates described as “conservative” suggest the value of the drugs amounts to £10 million (about US$16.4 million or €12 million), although they could be worth as much as £30 million, subject to purity tests, police said.

Police arrested three men at the unit on suspicion of supplying a controlled drug. The men, a 50-year-old from Brownhills, a 51-year-old from the Norton area of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, and one aged 53 from Brownhills, have been released on bail as police investigations to “hunt those responsible” continue. West Midlands Police told Wikinews no person has yet been charged in connection with the seizure. Supplying a controlled drug is an imprisonable offence in England, although length of jail sentences vary according to the class and quantity of drugs and the significance of offenders’ roles in committing the crime.