Wednesday, January 6, 2010

A failed test of security at Slovakia’s Poprad airport resulted in a 49 year-old man unknowingly carrying plastic explosives from Slovakia to Dublin, Ireland. The explosives were concealed so well that the man did not find them when he unpacked his bag at his apartment.

On Saturday, Slovak authorities planted contraband in passengers’ luggage at Poprad’s Poprad-Tatry Airport without the knowledge of passengers. Seven of the eight items were recovered, while an eighth made its way to an apartment in Dublin. Slovak authorities realised on Tuesday that one package of explosives were missing and notified Irish authorities who searched the man’s apartment.

During the search, parts of Dublin’s inner-suburbs were sealed off and evacuated causing disruption to residents and businesses. At the apartment authorities found the package and arrested the man under anti-terrorism laws; he was later released without charge after it was established he was innocent.

The man, a Slovakian electrician had been living in Ireland for some time. He was holidaying in Slovakia over Christmas.

Ireland’s Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform issued a statement saying, “Following contact earlier today from the Slovakian authorities with the Airport Police at Dublin Airport, members of the Garda Síochána have recovered a small quantity of explosive material from the luggage of a passenger who had flown into Dublin from that country on Saturday last.”

The package contained 90 grams (3 ounces) of the plastic explosive RDX, also known as cyclonite or hexogen. According to Commandant Gavin Young, a spokesperson for the Irish Defense Forces, “On their own, this type of explosive does need to be combined with other elements to make it into a bomb, but obviously this type of high-grade explosive is potentially extremely dangerous.”

Slovakia’s Minister for the Interior Robert Kalinak has apologized to Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern over the incident and expressed his “profound regret”. Irish authorities are now investigating the incident and the government has ordered for a full report to be delivered.

The Irish Opposition has expressed concern about the incident. Labour Party spokesman Joe Costello said “This incident led to the closure of roads in the area, the evacuation of businesses and the lives and safety of residents could have been put at risk. We also need to know what protest the government is going to make about this breach of our security.”

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

An Indian guru who taught some of the 20th century’s most famous celebrities and created a multi-billion dollar spiritual empire has died. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation movement, died at his home in the Netherlands. He is believed to have been 91 years old.

Known for his long white beard and tendency to giggle, he became a well-known counter-culture figure in the 1960’s. Members of the Beatles rock music band made repeated pilgrimages to the Himalayan foothills to study his meditation technique, known as TM.

Little is certain about the yogi’s early life in central India. His given name and birthday are disputed. It is known he studied physics at Allahabad University.

A professor of psychology at the school, Emmanuel Ghosh, says the guru’s academic training, combined with study under a Vedic swami, helped to make him accessible to those in the West seeking alternative answers to life’s questions during the socially tumultuous 1960’s.

“He had a rational approach,” said Ghosh. “He had a scientific background and he could tell the West that ‘You could test my theories through science.’ He was the first one who started this whole system of reducing stress by breath control, by meditation and you could measure it in objective terms.”

Maharishi also tutored other pop musicians, Hollywood actors and film directors. His TM movement attracted millions of followers worldwide who paid hundreds of dollars to receive a personal mantra to recite for 20 minutes, twice a day.

Professor Ghosh at Allahabad University says, despite his fame and success overseas, Maharishi was just one among many gurus in his native India.

“His influence in India has been negligible. Every guru is independent to propagate his own method of salvation or nirvana,” said Ghosh. “So he took off for a while [in India] as long as he was appreciated in the West.”

Perhaps his biggest legacy in India is the country’s largest chain of privately owned schools. Other institutes and universities based on his teachings also exist in the United States and Europe.

In later years, some of the guru’s projects and beliefs earned him ridicule, such as hoping to raise $10 trillion to achieve world peace and banish poverty and encouraging followers to learn what he called “yogic flying”. While many adherents praise Maharishi for propagating a scientifically verifiable ancient method to help them deal with the stress of modern life, some disenchanted followers considered TM a quasi-religious cult more interested in raising funds than spirits.

Thursday, February 2, 2006

In response to recent accusations that United States government employees have engaged in Wikipedia vandalism and other forms of perceived negative editing of articles, Wikipedia editors have set up a webpage listing all Wikipedia edits made through IP addresses that are allocated to the United States House of Representatives and other United States government agencies. The House IP address was briefly banned from editing Wikipedia articles in the wake of the initial controversy, but the ban was lifted on January 30 after Wikipedia administrators decided that there have been a number of valuable contributions made through the House and Senate IP addresses in addition to the controversial edits.

On January 31 and February 1, however, the U.S. House of Representatives’ common IP address, 143.231.249.141, were banned again for three hours due to vandalism. Because the IP address is shared by House staff members, it is uncertain whether or not the same person(s) responsible for the previous vandalism are also responsible for the latest.

Examples of contributions submitted through the House IP address included removing, “In 2005, he has come under scrutiny for accepting campaign contributions from embattled former house leader Tom Delay,” from the article on Thad McCotter, removing election statistics from the article on Dan Lungren, and, in the article on Marilyn Musgrave, changing the paragraph

“As a state legislator, Musgrave spent much of her time on social issues, particularly authoring bills to deny marriage rights and parental rights for gay and lesbian families. One of her final, failed bills would have made it much more difficult for same-sex parents to see their children in the hospital during an emergency. Musgrave also cast the only vote against legislation to give battered spouses paid leave from work.”

to

“As a state legislator, Musgrave spent much of her time on social issues, particularly authoring bills to protect children and the traditional definition of marriage, as well as gun owner’s rights.”

After the block from Wikipedia expired, the House of Representatives user continued to edit the article on Chris Shays. Chris Shays had co-sponsored a bill with Marty Meehan, whose staffers had previously been found to have been negatively editing Wikipedia entries, The American Civil Liberties Union said of the bill “key elements of Shays-Meehan violate the First Amendment right to free speech because the legislation contains provisions that would violate the constitutionally-protected right of the people to express their opinions about issues through broadcast advertising if they mention the name of a candidate.” All mentions of the bill were removed from the article. Also removed was a paragraph about Chris Shays raising $70,000 with House Speaker Dennis Hastert at a country club event.

Again, the IP address was blocked for an eight-hour period.

Wikipedia edits in Congress are not coming from the House of Representatives alone. An edit from the Senate in July removed references to a plagiarism scandal with Senator Joe Biden, who has informally said he may seek a Democratic nomination for president in 2008. As of February 4, 2006, the edit has not fixed by Wikipedia users.

IP addresses from the CIA, the Department of Justice, the Marines, and the Navy are listed on the site as having made several cases of vandalism. Some examples of vandalism from the Department of Justice IP ranges involve articles on TV and radio shows, a baseball player, or just complaining about their work. In addition to accusations of vandalism, there have also been accusations of government employees introducing perceived bias, political spinning, or misinformation into Wikipedia articles by adding or removing information.

These cases include articles on an Irish politician, and in the George W. Bush article, introducing accusations of Hugo Chavez being a dictator, and removing information covering the George W. Bush substance abuse controversy. In addition, a person using a Department of Justice IP address edited a page covering indicted former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The editor removed two paragraphs stating a judge ruled that Tom DeLay had broken state law by not disclosing over $600,000 of fundraising money, a quote from Tom DeLay in which he stated that it drives the Democrats crazy wondering why the Republican Party institutes pro-Israeli policy, and a subsection on controversies involving DeLay’s relatives. Edits to George W. Bush’s article were done within the span of an hour. Edits to Tom DeLay’s article were made within an hour as well, although followed by a shorter, minor second session of editing later that day.

An editor using a CIA IP address is accused of vandalizing an article on the current president of Iran. Editors using Marine and Navy IP addresses based in Pensacola, Florida are accused of vandalizing an article on a rock song and on former U.S. president Bill Clinton, and accused of adding racist comments to articles on an actor and Martin Luther King, Jr., and adding comments that are perceived to criticize the men and women in the Navy reserves.

The IP addresses of the Department of Justice, the CIA, and the Navy and Marines stationed in Pensacola, Florida were found using the American Registry for Internet Numbers at the official website. Neither the government nor the Wikimedia Foundation have released an official statement.

The U.S. House of Representatives’ IP address is not the first governmental address to have been blocked after accusations of disrupting Wikipedia. The IP address belonging to a subdivision of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development in Alberta, Canada was blocked for three months since late 2005. An IP address belonging to the German Bundestag has been repeatedly blocked from the German Wikipedia after accusations of vandalism, including sexually explicit comments.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Marvin Schur, a 93-year-old man from Bay City, Michigan has died after the electric company limited his electric use due to his failure to pay over US$1,000 in past-due payments.

Bay City Electric Light & Power installed a power-limiting device on his home on January 13. The device would limit the amount of power the resident uses and would essentially shut it off if that limit is reached, or if the resident fails to pay the outstanding bill within 10 days of installation. In order for the electricity to be turned back on, the limiter must be reset by pushing a button.

Bay City power says that a warning, indicating that the power was to be turned off and a limiter installed, had been placed on Schur’s front door. Despite that, the company says that they are now “looking at our website and possibly doing an automated phone message. We obviously need to get the word out.”

The autopsy performed on Schur’s body concluded that he had died “a slow, painful death” caused by hypothermia. Dr. Kanu Virani, who performed the autopsy, explained: “Hypothermia shuts the whole system down, slowly. It’s not easy to die from hypothermia without first realizing your fingers and toes feel like they’re burning.”

It was less than 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 Centigrade) in Schur’s home when neighbors found Schur dead on January 17. Virani commented that it was his first time performing an autopsy on a body in which “the person froze to death indoors.”

“His furnace was not running – the insides of his windows were full of ice the morning we found him,” said George A. Pauwels Jr., who was with his wife when they found Schur’s body.

In Michigan it is illegal for a utility company to disconnect power to any home between November 1 and March 31 when a resident is over the age of 65. Limiters are also not supposed to be used during that time frame. However, municipally-owned electric utilities like the one in Bay City, are not regulated by the state. The Michigan state attorney general’s office has launched an investigation into the incident.

Residents around Schur’s home say he was hard of hearing, and the city states that the device’s function and operation were never explained to him. When word of the story got around, people from all over the United States began to call the city in anger.

“I’ve taken calls from Canada, Massachusetts, Texas, New York, Alabama – and that’s just the ones I can think of off the top of my head,” said Melody Roth of the city’s administrative office, who also added that people from all over are “calling all city departments, not just our office.”

Schur has no known children, and his wife had died several years prior to the incident.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

On the morning of January 4, 2008, while at the 2008 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships, 19-year-old goalie Steve Mason received a phone call from Canada informing him that he was traded by the Ontario Hockey League’s London Knights to the Kitchener Rangers.

In a press release Friday, Kitchener Rangers Head coach and General Manager Peter DeBoer announced the trade to the Knights. In return for obtaining Mason, the Rangers have sent the Knights, Centre Phil Varone, Defenceman Steve Tarasuk along with 2nd, 3rd and 4th round draft picks in 2011 and a 2nd round pick in 2012.

Mason said that he had an enjoyable time playing for the London Knights, but nonetheless, he believes that he has a bright future playing for the Kitchener Rangers. He also notes that he doesn’t want the trade to distract him from playing in the Gold Medal Game, against Team Sweden.

Team Canada won the game in overtime 3-2.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

A team of eight transplant surgeons in Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA, led by reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow, age 58, have successfully performed the first almost total face transplant in the US, and the fourth globally, on a woman so horribly disfigured due to trauma, that cost her an eye. Two weeks ago Dr. Siemionow, in a 23-hour marathon surgery, replaced 80 percent of her face, by transplanting or grafting bone, nerve, blood vessels, muscles and skin harvested from a female donor’s cadaver.

The Clinic surgeons, in Wednesday’s news conference, described the details of the transplant but upon request, the team did not publish her name, age and cause of injury nor the donor’s identity. The patient’s family desired the reason for her transplant to remain confidential. The Los Angeles Times reported that the patient “had no upper jaw, nose, cheeks or lower eyelids and was unable to eat, talk, smile, smell or breathe on her own.” The clinic’s dermatology and plastic surgery chair, Francis Papay, described the nine hours phase of the procedure: “We transferred the skin, all the facial muscles in the upper face and mid-face, the upper lip, all of the nose, most of the sinuses around the nose, the upper jaw including the teeth, the facial nerve.” Thereafter, another team spent three hours sewing the woman’s blood vessels to that of the donor’s face to restore blood circulation, making the graft a success.

The New York Times reported that “three partial face transplants have been performed since 2005, two in France and one in China, all using facial tissue from a dead donor with permission from their families.” “Only the forehead, upper eyelids, lower lip, lower teeth and jaw are hers, the rest of her face comes from a cadaver; she could not eat on her own or breathe without a hole in her windpipe. About 77 square inches of tissue were transplanted from the donor,” it further described the details of the medical marvel. The patient, however, must take lifetime immunosuppressive drugs, also called antirejection drugs, which do not guarantee success. The transplant team said that in case of failure, it would replace the part with a skin graft taken from her own body.

Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a Brigham and Women’s Hospital surgeon praised the recent medical development. “There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.

Leading bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania withheld judgment on the Cleveland transplant amid grave concerns on the post-operation results. “The biggest ethical problem is dealing with failure — if your face rejects. It would be a living hell. If your face is falling off and you can’t eat and you can’t breathe and you’re suffering in a terrible manner that can’t be reversed, you need to put on the table assistance in dying. There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.

Dr Alex Clarke, of the Royal Free Hospital had praised the Clinic for its contribution to medicine. “It is a real step forward for people who have severe disfigurement and this operation has been done by a team who have really prepared and worked towards this for a number of years. These transplants have proven that the technical difficulties can be overcome and psychologically the patients are doing well. They have all have reacted positively and have begun to do things they were not able to before. All the things people thought were barriers to this kind of operations have been overcome,” she said.

The first partial face transplant surgery on a living human was performed on Isabelle Dinoire on November 27 2005, when she was 38, by Professor Bernard Devauchelle, assisted by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard in Amiens, France. Her Labrador dog mauled her in May 2005. A triangle of face tissue including the nose and mouth was taken from a brain-dead female donor and grafted onto the patient. Scientists elsewhere have performed scalp and ear transplants. However, the claim is the first for a mouth and nose transplant. Experts say the mouth and nose are the most difficult parts of the face to transplant.

In 2004, the same Cleveland Clinic, became the first institution to approve this surgery and test it on cadavers. In October 2006, surgeon Peter Butler at London‘s Royal Free Hospital in the UK was given permission by the NHS ethics board to carry out a full face transplant. His team will select four adult patients (children cannot be selected due to concerns over consent), with operations being carried out at six month intervals. In March 2008, the treatment of 30-year-old neurofibromatosis victim Pascal Coler of France ended after having received what his doctors call the worlds first successful full face transplant.

Ethical concerns, psychological impact, problems relating to immunosuppression and consequences of technical failure have prevented teams from performing face transplant operations in the past, even though it has been technically possible to carry out such procedures for years.

Mr Iain Hutchison, of Barts and the London Hospital, warned of several problems with face transplants, such as blood vessels in the donated tissue clotting and immunosuppressants failing or increasing the patient’s risk of cancer. He also pointed out ethical issues with the fact that the procedure requires a “beating heart donor”. The transplant is carried out while the donor is brain dead, but still alive by use of a ventilator.

According to Stephen Wigmore, chair of British Transplantation Society’s ethics committee, it is unknown to what extent facial expressions will function in the long term. He said that it is not certain whether a patient could be left worse off in the case of a face transplant failing.

Mr Michael Earley, a member of the Royal College of Surgeon‘s facial transplantation working party, commented that if successful, the transplant would be “a major breakthrough in facial reconstruction” and “a major step forward for the facially disfigured.”

In Wednesday’s conference, Siemionow said “we know that there are so many patients there in their homes where they are hiding from society because they are afraid to walk to the grocery stores, they are afraid to go the the street.” “Our patient was called names and was humiliated. We very much hope that for this very special group of patients there is a hope that someday they will be able to go comfortably from their houses and enjoy the things we take for granted,” she added.

In response to the medical breakthrough, a British medical group led by Royal Free Hospital’s lead surgeon Dr Peter Butler, said they will finish the world’s first full face transplant within a year. “We hope to make an announcement about a full-face operation in the next 12 months. This latest operation shows how facial transplantation can help a particular group of the most severely facially injured people. These are people who would otherwise live a terrible twilight life, shut away from public gaze,” he said.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

With the hopes of funding the creation of a statue in northern India that would end up dwarfing the Statue of Liberty, an unprecedented collection of Buddhist artifacts continue crisscrossing American, Europe, and Asia in three different, but related collections.

The Maitreya Project, the brainchild of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, seeks to build a monument and development dedicated to Buddhism at Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh in northern India. The centerpiece of this massive development will be a 152m (500 ft) bronze statue of the Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha of the future.

Buddhist belief says that there have been Buddhas in the distant past and there will be Buddhas in the distant future. The historical Buddha, the one who was born in India about 2500 years ago, is known as Shakyamuni Buddha. Buddhist belief says that sometime in the distant future the teachings that Shakyamuni Buddha brought to Earth will fade away. At that point the Maitreya Buddha will be born and gain enlightenment in order to refresh and renew Buddhist teachings.

Along with the statue, the development is also planned to include temples, exhibition halls, parks, a museum, library, and a theater as well as a hospital and educational center.

In order to move forward with this project the Maitreya Project has created collections of artifacts that are touring the world. Once the statue is built these artifacts will be housed in it for viewing.

Buddhist artifacts are usually associated with the body of the person involved. While they can be such things as bone and teeth, usually they are pearl-like objects that are found and collected after the enlightened person is creamated. These pearl-like objects are called ringsel.

There are three collections of artifacts currently touring American, Europe, and East Asia. They include relics from the immediate past Buddha, called Kasyapa, the historical Buddha, five of his original disciples, several Tibetan and Zen masters, and the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.

Wikinews reporter Richard Kinne spent three days with the relics when the North American tour came to Ithaca, NY a few weeks ago. The relics travel with two caretakers, one of whom is always in close proximity to the relics. Setup for the relics display can take about four hours depending on the venue. Taking it down takes a bit under two hours.

Each morning of the tour the relics are taken out of their padded case and placed in clear plexiglass display cases. The relics are displayed individually in small containers called stupas. Some containers appear very full, while others contian just one very small object. Each evening the process is reversed and the padded case stays with the relic caretakers.

Between the morning and the evening people from all walks of life come to see the relics – believers, people who are curious, academics, Buddhist monks and nuns, both older folks and small children. While the Heart Relic Tour just does deals with displaying the relics, the sponsoring venue can add to the display in various ways such as lectures, meditation classes and demonstrations, or various other rituals.

The tour in North America reaches Jacksonville, FL during the first weekend of December. From there it will go to Miami between the 9th to the 11th, and then to Phoenix, AZ between the 15th to the 17th. In Asia the tour spends time in Malaysia in the first part of December.