Friday, September 14, 2007

The Kennedy Center announced that its 30th presentation of the Kennedy Center Honors would go to pianist Leon Fleisher, comedian Steve Martin, singer Diana Ross, director Martin Scorsese and musician Brian Wilson. The Center was opened to the public in 1971 and was envisioned as part of the National Cultural Center Act, which mandated that the independent, privately-funded institution would present a wide variety of both classical and contemporary performances, commission the creation of new artistic works, and undertake a variety of educational missions to increase awareness of the arts.

In a statement, Kennedy Center Chairman Stephen A. Schwarzman said that “with their extraordinary talent, creativity and perseverance, the five 2007 honorees have transformed the way we, as Americans, see, hear and feel the performing arts.”

Fleisher, 79, a member of the Peabody Institute‘s music faculty, is a pianist who lost use of his right hand in 1965 due to a neurological condition. He became an accomplished musician and conductor through the use of his left hand. At 67, he regained the use of his right hand. With the advent of Botox therapy, he was once more able to undertake two-hand performances in 2004, his first in four decades. “I’m very gratified by the fact that it’s an apolitical honor,” Fleisher said. “It is given by colleagues and professional people who are aware of what [an artist] has done, so it really is apolitical — and that much more of an honor.”

Martin, 62, a comedian who has written books and essays in addition to his acting and stand-up comedy career, rose to fame during his work on the American television program Saturday Night Live in the 1970’s. Schwarzman praised his work as that of a “renaissance comic whose talents wipe out the boundaries between artistic disciplines.” Martin responded to the honor saying, “I am grateful to the Kennedy Center for finally alleviating in me years of covetousness and trophy envy.”

Ross, 63, was a product of Detroit‘s Brewster-Douglass Projects when as a teeager she and friends Mary Wilson and Florence Ballardis formed The Supremes, a ground-breaking Motown act. She portrayed singer Billie Holiday in the 1972 film Lady Sings the Blues, which earned her an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe award. “Diana Ross’ singular, instantly recognizable voice has spread romance and joy throughout the world,” said Schwarzman. Ross said she was “taken aback. It is a huge, huge honor and I am excited to be in this class of people.”

Scorsese, 64, is one of the most accomplished directors the United States ever produced, whose work includes Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, GoodFellas, Cape Fear, The Last Temptation of Christ and The Departed, for which he won a 2006 Academy Award for Best Director after being nominated eight times. Scorsese said, “I’m very honored to be receiving this recognition from the Kennedy Center and proud to be joining the company of the very distinguished individuals who have received this honor in years past.”

Wilson, 65, along with his brothers Dennis and Carl, formed the Beach Boys in 1961. They had a series of hits that included “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.” Their 1966 album Pet Sounds is considered one of the most influential recordings in American music. “This is something so unexpected and I feel extremely fortunate to be in the company of such great artists,” said Wilson, who is currently on tour.

The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees is responsible for selecting honorees for “lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts.” Previous honorees, including Elton John and Steven Spielberg, also submitted recommendations. A wide variety of people were under consideration, including Emanuel Ax, Evgeny Kissin, Renee Fleming, Laurence Fishburne, Francis Ford Coppola, Melissa Etheridge and Kenny Chesney.

President Bush and first lady Laura Bush will attend the center’s presentation at its opera house on December 2, 2007, which will broadcast on December 26 on CBS.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Rescuers are searching for the victims of the Tans Peru airliner crash which occurred earlier this month. Emergency services rescued 5 survivors on Thursday morning.

TANS say that 41 people were killed and a further 57 injured in this, the fifth airliner crash worldwide this month. The Boeing 737-200 airliner crash-landed in heavy jungle near the city of Pucallpa, 840 kilometers (522 miles) northeast of Lima, the capital city.

Peruvian authorities have ordered an investigation and have shipped the aircraft’s two flight data recorders, or “black boxes” to the United States for data retrieval.

Jorge Belevan said “We’ve also found five more survivors and that takes the number (of survivors) to 57. Two people are still missing and there are 41 dead,” Local authorities also said that the death toll is likely to rise due to inaccessible location of the crash site. This is the second TANS Peru plane crash in three years, following the January 2003 crash of flight 222 in the Peruvian rainforest. In that plane crash there were no survivors.

Peruvian government lawyer Marco Ochoa said that rescuers are opening the skin of the aircraft to determine whether there are more bodies trapped inside.

Survivors said that the plane was caught in a fierce storm about 10 minutes before the crash. The plane then caught fire and landed in swampland.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Ikeda Kanako, a 21-year-old senior student of the Meiji Gakuin University and the first daughter of celebrity surgeon Yuko Ikeda, was kidnapped at about 1225 (UTC+9), June 26, 2006, in Shibuya, Tokyo.

A bullet was fired and one officer slightly cut when police stormed a Kawasaki apartment to rescue the girl.

Kanako was dressed in a white light half-sleeved cardigan, blue jeans with a bistre belt made of leather, a spring green camisole and carried a bag of Vuitton when she was abducted at a bus stop.

She was found unharmed 13 hours later by Japanese police at a condominium located in Nakahara-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa. The young woman’s make-up was not disordered; Kanako’s long brown fringe was not disheveled at all and she was wearing what she had been when she was kidnapped.

The kidnapping of Kanako was a big story in Japanese media in June, 2006. The story appeared in many newspapers as the front-page news on June 27, 2006.

Kanako and her kidnappers had been in touch with her mother using Kanako’s mobile phone. The effort to free her was helped greatly by a woman who witnessed the moment Kanako was taken; she wrote down the license plate of the van and other details.

Police traced mobile phone calls and were able to locate the van in Kawasaki where they detained two of the kidnappers as they went shopping.

One conspirator Li Yong, 29, from China, led the policemen to the apartment and tricked Kaneo Ito, 49, from Japan, to open the door. Ito managed to discharge one bullet before being restrained by an assistant police inspector, the first man in the room.

The other man involved in the kidnap of Kanako was Choi Gi Ho, 54, from South Korea. Kanato was freed unharmed.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department arrested three men on suspicion of conspiring to kidnap a woman and hold her to a reported 300 million yen ransom.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

The Greek parliament has approved an austerity bill proposed by the government to help rescue the country’s ailing economy.

The proposal, which includes increases in taxes, as well as salary and pension cuts, passed with 172 members of parliament supporting, 121 opposing, and several abstaining; the proposal needed at least 151 votes to pass. There are 300 total parliament seats.

The vote comes after a debate that took the entire day. Meanwhile, rallies and strikes are being held around the country to protest against the measures; the protests have occasionally turned violent, with a firebomb attack on a bank killing three people yesterday.

The Eurozone and the International Monetary Fund had asked for austerity plans to be implemented so that Greece can access a rescue loan package worth US$146 billion in order not to default on debts. The austerity programme is estimated to save $38 billion. Greece also aims to lower the public deficit to less than 3% of the GDP in four years; at the moment it is at 13.6%.

Prime minister George Papandreou described the situation to parliament ahead of the vote, saying: “The situation today is simple – either we vote and implement the deal or we condemn the country to bankruptcy […] The future of Greece is at stake. The economy, democracy and social cohesion are being put to the test.”

Papandreou also expelled three Social deputies from his parliamentary team when they abstained from voting; however, his bloc still has a parliament majority of 157 MPs.

Finance minister George Papaconstantinou also commented that Greece will default on some of its $12 billion debt on May 19 if action is not taken, saying: “The state’s coffers don’t have that money. And because the only way for the country to avoid bankruptcy and suspension of payments is to take the money from our European partners and the International Monetary Fund.”

Opposition parties, however, say the measures will put too heavy a burden on the populace; the leader of the conservatives, Antonis Samaras, commented: “The dose of the medicine you are administering is in danger of killing the patient. You know that these measures have sparked a social explosion […] The citizens of this country have to believe there is a way out. Because whoever cuts pensions of €700 cannot convince anyone.”

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Al-Qaeda has said it will continue to launch more terrorist attacks on the U.S. and warned the death of their leader Osama bin Laden, would “not be wasted”. The statement from the organization, posted on jihadist internet forums, came as the Pentagon released videos filmed inside the terrorist leader’s compound which was raided last weekend. Intelligence officials said at a briefing in Washington, D.C. that the videos showed that bin Laden was still playing an active role in al-Qaeda plotting.

Although the video tapes have no audio, they show bin Laden watching news coverage of himself on television and preparing to record a propaganda film. The tapes are the latest intelligence to emerge from computer equipment seized from bin Laden’s compound during the raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan by U.S. special forces last weekend. Earlier this week it emerged bin Laden had been planning an attack on the American rail network on the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks this year. U.S. officials yesterday stressed that the al-Qaeda plot was only “aspirational”, but involved derailing multiple trains by damaging rail lines at various sites.

Tonight one intelligence official said the information gleaned from the computers was the “single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever.” The computer equipment also revealed that there were hopes of attacking major transportation hubs, and that during the six years he lived at the compound in Pakistan, bin Laden stayed in close contact with senior affiliates and played an active role in developing terrorist plots. An unnamed U.S. official told The New York Times that bin Laden “wasn’t just a figurehead,” but “continued to plot and plan, to come up with ideas about targets and to communicate those ideas to other senior al-Qaeda leaders.”

Confirming the death of bin Laden in a statement this week, al-Qaeda said his killing would be a “curse” on the U.S. and its allies. “Their happiness will turn into sorrow, and their blood will be mixed with their tears. We call upon our Muslim people in Pakistan, on whose land Sheikh Osama was killed, to rise up and revolt.” The revelation that al-Qaeda was planning more attacks against the U.S. comes only several days after officials warned the terrorist group was likely to be plotting a revenge attack to avenge the death of bin Laden.

Four days after the raid on the compound, U.S. president Barack Obama visited Ground Zero in New York on Thursday to pay tribute to the 3,000 people killed in the September 11 attacks, for which al-Qaeda was found responsible. Bin Laden is believed to have masterminded the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. “When we say we will never forget, we mean what we say,” Obama told firefighters in the city. He laid a wreath made from red, white and blue flowers after meeting with relatives of the victims of the attacks. “We are going to make sure that the perpetrators of that horrible act will see justice,” he said. After the wreath was laid, he stood with his head bowed for a moment of silence.

The news of bin Laden’s death after a team of U.S. Navy Seals descended into the compound was greeted with celebrations across the U.S. on Sunday night, but concerns have been raised as to whether the killing was lawful after the terrorist leader’s daughter told Pakistani authorities that he had been captured and then killed. But Attorney General Eric Holder contradicted the statement, saying: “If he had surrendered, attempted to surrender, I think we should obviously have accepted that, but there was no indication that he wanted to do that and therefore his killing was appropriate.”

Obama’s visit came a day after he announced he would not be releasing images of bin Laden’s body. In an interview to be aired on CBS News, the president said: “It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence, as a propaganda tool.” The images—described as “very gruesome”—are reported to show bin Laden shot above the left eye, with parts of his brain exposed.

As Obama travelled to New York, the growing rift between the relations of the U.S. and Pakistan was continuing to grow after officials in Islamabad said the U.S. president may have breached U.N. rules by ordering the raid, because Pakistan was not told in advance. Senior officials within the Pakistani army also ordered the number of American military personnel in the country to be cut to “minimum essential” levels. Salman Bashir, the Pakistani foreign secretary, strained relations further at a press conference when he said there were serious concerns that the U.S. had breached U.N. resolutions on sovereignty, and said Pakistan is determined to “uphold our sovereignty and safeguard our security”. Pakistani army officials risked tautening relations between the two countries again on Thursday as they announced they would consider cutting ties with Washington, D.C. if the U.S. mounted another unannounced raid on their soil, and said they would be expelling U.S. military personnel in retaliation.

The conflict stems from the raid during the weekend on the Abbottabad compound. Pakistan says it was not informed about the raid, which involved U.S. helicopters flying into Pakistani airspace to drop commandos who raided the house. The rift has grown further after U.S. officials questioned how Pakistani intelligence allowed bin Laden to live in the compound, a short distance from a military training academy, and suggested the terrorist leader may have been harbored by the government. The director of the CIA said earlier this week that Pakistan was not informed about the raid because of fears he was being harbored by Pakistani officials who might warn him about the raid. The president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, dismissed “baseless speculation” that his administration was sheltering bin Laden.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted tension between Washington and Pakistan over the raid had been exaggerated, and said she was keen to keep relations with Islamabad. “It is not always an easy relationship. You know that,” she said. “But, on the other hand, it is a productive one for both our countries and we are going to continue to cooperate between our governments, our militaries, our law-enforcement agencies, but most importantly between the American and Pakistani people.”

Thursday, July 7, 2005

A Florida man is being charged with 3rd degree felony for logging into a private Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) Internet access point without permission. Benjamin Smith III, 41, is set for a pre-trial hearing this month in the first case of its kind in the United States.

This kind of activity occurs frequently, but often goes undetected by the owners of these wireless access points (WAPs). Unauthorized users range from casual Web browsers, to users sending e-mails, to users involved in pornography or even illegal endeavours.

According to Richard Dinon, owner of the WAP Smith allegedly broke into, Smith was using a laptop in an automobile while parked outside Dinon’s residence.

There are many steps an owner of one of these access points can take to secure them from outside users. Dinon reportedly knew how to take these steps, but had not bothered because his “neighbors are older.”

Featured articles are selected by the community to represent the best of Wikinews. See the Featured Article Candidates page for nominations and discussions of candidate articles for this page. Or, subscribe to the RSS feed!

[edit]