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Thursday, August 27, 2009

Police officers in Richmond in south-west London, England are removing valuable items like handbags and laptops from unlocked vehicles and leaving notes telling owners to collect their items in Twickenham police station in a bid to try and encourage car drivers to lock the doors of their vehicles.

There is a high number of in-car thefts or “smash and grab” attacks in the borough. Last year, 1,300 of these attacks were reported in the area. 220 of those cases involved satellite navigation systems or sat-navs. But the numbers of these thefts occurring have been rising recently. The figure has risen by 40% until July.

25 cars have been targeted so far but there has been only one car where an item has been removed with a note left for the owner to collect it. If there is nothing on display but the car is unlocked the owner will be sent a letter telling them to be more careful. These tactics should only be attempted by police officers if they cannot find the owner nearby.

The project has received the backing of Richmond Council. A council spokesman from Richmond-upon-Thames said: “We have issues with theft in the borough — particularly theft from cars. We see our borough as a green and pleasant place. Car owners therefore can be lulled into a false sense of security in that they leave items displayed prominently in unlocked cars.”

Monday, November 9, 2009

Former Formula One McLaren designer Gordon Murray has unveiled a new all-electric car.

The car model, which is known as the T.27, is due to be developed over the course of the next 16 months with four prototypes. The process that will be used during the course of the manufacturing of the vehicle is called iStream. The technology iStream had been invented by Gordon Murray in 1999 and means that all the parts are designed using a computer.

The project has approximately received £9,000,000 (US$14,919,000) in investment. The electric car is designed for urban purposes, such as in cities or towns. The weight of the vehicle is just 600 kilograms. It has the ability to travel at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour and can go for a maximum of 100 miles between recharges.

The designer thinks that motorists will some day be travelling in vehicles like this. Murray believes that the new car will be ‘the most efficient electric vehicle on earth’.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Before turning the gun on himself, a 20-year-old male opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 28 people, 20 of them children ranging from five to ten years old. Approximately 600 students were inside the school.

The New York Post identifies the shooter as 20-year-old Adam Lanza. He was reported to be in possession of a .223-caliber assault rifle and two hand guns when he opened fire inside the school. His motives are not yet clear, but reports say his mother Nancy, who was also killed, may have been the target. She was a teacher of a kindergarten class at the school. Adam’s brother Ryan, who was initially reported to be the shooter, is also in police custody.

United States president Barack Obama spoke in a televised address saying, “The majority of those who died today were children — beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them — birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own. Among the fallen were also teachers — men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams.

“So our hearts are broken today — for the parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children, and for the families of the adults who were lost. Our hearts are broken for the parents of the survivors as well, for as blessed as they are to have their children home tonight, they know that their children’s innocence has been torn away from them too early, and there are no words that will ease their pain.”

A hospital near the school, in Danbury, Connecticut, is currently on lock down. According to The New York Times and Danbury Hospital’s Facebook page, the hospital is treating three of the shooting victims.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Two medium intensity seisms were registered in Chile. These quakes are aftershocks of the March 11 Pichilemu earthquake. According to the University of Chile Geological Survey, the first one took place at 9:59 local time (13:59 UTC); its epicenter was located 17 kilometers northeast of Pichilemu, with a magnitude of 4.7. It lasted about ten seconds. The second aftershock had a magnitude of 5.1, and occurred at the 10:57 local time (14:57 UTC), with its epicenter located 15 kilometers north of Cobquecura.

The National Emergencies Office graded the scale of the seisms on the Mercalli scale, which attempts to quantify the amount of physical damage caused by an earthquake. The intensities of the smaller aftershock were determined to be V in Pichilemu, III in Talca and II in San Fernando, while the larger 5.1 magnitude earthquake only hit IV in Pichilemu, but registered a IV in Talca as well, due to its closer proximity to that city.

Thursday morning the Municipality of Pichilemu posted a letter via Facebook to all those affected by the February 27 and March 11 earthquakes in the surrounding areas of Pichilemu, like Ciruelos, Alto Ramírez, and others. However, they didn’t name the village of Espinillo. The mayor of Pichilemu, Roberto Córdova, was criticized for not giving aid to the village. Córdova responded that he was “doing his best to aid [the surrounding areas]. [The Municipality] is going to replace the [balustrades] destroyed by the 11 March earthquake,” and “these places are receiving the aid they require.”

Saturday, September 16, 2006

A report released on September 13 called “Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity: How Do We Measure Up?” states that if strict measures are not implemented, in just four years, over 20 percent of American children will be obese. The report called current measures aimed at tackling childhood obesity “fragmented and small-scale”.

The report was released by the Institute of Medicine, but including an explicit disclaimer that ‘Any opinions, findings, conclusions, are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organization [Institute of Medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation] that provided support for the project.’

Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the organization that funded the report, said “if we do not reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity, millions of kids and our society will be robbed of a healthy and hopeful future”. The percentage of children who are overweight or obese has been increasing worldwide in recent years. Food Consumer reports that according to the World Health Organization (WHO), childhood overweight and obesity is a “global pandemic”.

According to an estimate based on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), 34 percent of American children were overweight in 2003-2004, compared to 28 percent in 1999-2000. In 2002, 16 percent of American children and teens were obese. In 2004, the rate was 17 percent. The rate is expected to rise to 20 percent, according to the report.

Childhood obesity increases risk of several chronic diseases, including diabetes mellitus type 2, hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, heart disease, poor self-esteem, and a lower health-related quality of life. Type 2 diabetes is at an all-time high in American children. According to WHO, obesity also increases the risk of stroke and certain forms of cancer.

While there is no single cause of childhood obesity, experts cite sedentary lifestyle, labor-saving technology, not eating enough fruits and vegetables, calorie-dense fast foods, and deceptive advertising as some of the main causes. A recent report by International Obesity Task Force has said that junk food manufacturers target children, for example, through Internet advertising, chat rooms, text messages, and “advergames” on websites.

The article also mentions the greater prevalence of obesity among two minority populations, African-Americans and Hispanic/Latino, but does not consider in its analysis of the increase in obesity the increase of these populations as a proportion of the United States population.

African-Americans and Hispanic/Latinos have a higher rates of obesity than White Americans, while Asian-Americans have a relatively low rate of obesity. Despite only representing one third of the U.S. population, African-Americans and Hispanic/Latinos represent about one half of the population growth.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

US doctors are to interview 12 patients with a view to performing the first ever transplant of a human face.

The Cleveland Clinic will choose between seven women and five men to find the person most suited for the experimental procedure, which is a radical and controversial solution to extreme facial scarring or disfigurement.

Having practiced the procedure on bodies donated for medical research, the Cleveland Clinic team believe they have a 50% chance of success. The procedure will not live up to science-fiction predictions and give the recipient the appearance of the donor; the underlying bone structure is the deciding factor in the final appearance. The new face will end up resembling neither the donor nor recipient.

Surgeons in several other countries have announced being ready to perform this procedure in the past. However, the risk and non life-threatening nature of disfigurement have meant that gaining approval for the groundbreaking surgery has been difficult. Like many other transplant operations, the recipient would be required to take drugs to prevent tissue rejection for the remainder of their life. These drugs can have side effects and carry their own risks involving the patient’s immune system.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Former President of Liberia Charles Taylor was today found guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes by the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague, Netherlands. Taylor was acquitted of actually ordering the offences or being part of a joint enterprise to conduct them.

The eleven-count indictment produced a four-year trial that heard allegations of rape, murder, sexual slavery, cannibalism, arms dealing, “blood” diamond trade, and use of child soldiers. Prosecution witnesses totalled 94 whilst the defence had 21 including the accused. Taylor spent his seven months of evidence claiming he was a peacemaker.

The allegations date to civil war in Sierra Leone, which ran from 1991 to 2002. Taylor, who had been a warlord since the ’80s, backed the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Taylor was elected Liberian president in 1997 after a different civil war concluded.

Six years later he was ousted when an arrest warrant was issued and fled to Nigeria. He was arrested there in 2006 whilst again trying to flee. Taylor, who had been facing a rebellion against him since 1999 in Liberia, had received training from Libyan ruler Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

Testimony included claims that Taylor-backed fighters adorned roads with human intestines and ate human flesh. One claimed to have seen Taylor himself eat human liver, something Taylor denied. One described asking RUF rebels to sever his only hand in exchange for his young son’s life.

Further allegations said teenage children were involved in the fighting and that Taylor sold illegally mined diamonds to finance arms purchases for the RUF. Western celebrities Naomi Campbell, a model, and Mia Farrow, an actress, described an incident at a charity dinner held by Nelson Mandella, then South Africa’s head, in 1997. Campbell and Farrow said Taylor gifted Campbell a number of diamonds. Taylor is claimed to have ordered seizure of Sierra Leone’s diamond deposits by RUF soldiers.

It was claimed in court that child soldiers were used in conflict, as diamond mine guards, and to carry out amputations. Allegations of forced amputation were made.

The court, which has spent a year considering its verdicts, unanimously found Taylor guilty. It ruled Taylor knew at least from 1997 the full extent of RUF activities in Sierra Leone, and that he helped bankroll activities dealing in blood diamonds. A judge said more than a thousand youngsters had ‘RUF’ carved into their skin to prevent escape. From the moment he receives the full judgement Taylor has two weeks in which to file an appeal.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International welcomed the verdict, which is the first conviction of a head of state before an international court since the Nuremburg trials prosecuted Nazi leaders after World War Two. Karl Dönitz was convicted after he took brief control of Germany in the aftermath of Adolf Hitler’s suicide.

Former President of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic faced trial but died before a judgement was handed down. Laurent Gbagbo, once Presldent of the Ivory Coast, is in custody at The Hague awaiting trial before the International Criminal Court. Taylor joins eight other Special Court convicts, all of whom are from Sierra Leone. He is the first African ruler to appear in The Hague.

The Special Court was formed jointly by Sierra Leone’s present administration and the United Nations.

The Netherlands agreed the process could be held there on the condition Taylor did not serve sentence there if convicted. He is expected to be sent to the UK, where Foreign Office has promised to uphold an agreement to imprison him there made by ex-Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

The Blunkett diaries, being serialised in the Guardian, claim that Gordon Brown opposed the war against Iraq. Only at the last minute did he give in, according to the diaries, when he realised that Blair would sack him otherwise.

Gordon Brown, interviewed by the Guardian, said he did not think Blunkett had ever said such a thing and that, if he was reported as having done so, he was being misquoted.

The diary entries are contemporary with the events and were recorded shortly after the Cabinet meeting on Iraq.

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