Friday, August 27, 2010

Apple Inc. will hold a music-centered event in San Francisco, California on September 1. It has been widely speculated that the company will introduce an updated line of iPod portable music players and a new Apple TV.

The company e-mailed invitations for the event to various media organizations on Wednesday. The message included a picture of a guitar and the time of the event. Apple did not release any information about what products would be involved.

Apple has released new iPods through previous similar events in September in anticipation of the holiday shopping season. This year, Apple may unveil a new iPod Touch with two cameras, similar to their recent iPhone 4 design. It will likely also update the iTunes music store and software.

Speculation about a new Apple TV is mixed. While many blogs are reporting that a refresh of the device will be announced, analysts say that it is unlikely to happen during next Wednesday’s event. According to Reuters, sources are saying that Apple is negotiating with major television networks, including ABC and NBC, in order to provide shows for purchase on iTunes. However, they also reported that the deal has not been completed, and none of the companies involved have commented on the rumors.

It has also been rumored that Apple will introduce a new online music service. In 2009, Apple took over a company that allowed users to stream music online rather than download individual songs. Apple has not confirmed the rumors.

Last September’s media event saw the return of Apple CEO Steve Jobs after he took a break to undergo a liver transplant. This year, the event will be held in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, previously used by Apple in April for the unveiling of the iPad.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

The name Robert Cailliau may not ring a bell to the general public, but his invention is the reason why you are reading this: Dr. Cailliau together with his colleague Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, making the internet accessible so it could grow from an academic tool to a mass communication medium. Last January Dr. Cailliau retired from CERN, the European particle physics lab where the WWW emerged.

Wikinews offered the engineer a virtual beer from his native country Belgium, and conducted an e-mail interview with him (which started about three weeks ago) about the history and the future of the web and his life and work.

Wikinews: At the start of this interview, we would like to offer you a fresh pint on a terrace, but since this is an e-mail interview, we will limit ourselves to a virtual beer, which you can enjoy here.

Robert Cailliau: Yes, I myself once (at the 2nd international WWW Conference, Chicago) said that there is no such thing as a virtual beer: people will still want to sit together. Anyway, here we go.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Canadian Astral Media Inc. will buy out Standard Radio Inc., which runs many radio stations in Canada. Standard Radio Inc. is the largest privately owned multimedia company in Canada.

Montreal based Astral Media Inc. will buy all of the assets from Standard Radio Inc. for about CAN$1.2-billion. Standard Radio Inc.’s 52 radio stations, and Astral’s 29, will be brought together by Astral Media Inc. This will give Astral 81 radio stations in total. This makes Astral the largest radio operator in Canada of FM and AM radio.

“With the acquisition of Standard Radio, Astral Media will not only be acquiring the best performing radio stations in the country, we will at the same time acquire a company with similar values and culture. said Ian Greenberg, President and CEO of Astral Media.

“Over the past four decades the Slaight family has built a remarkable collection of strong radio brands and has contributed meaningfully in shaping the Canadian radio industry as we know it today. We are delighted with the prospect of welcoming Standard Radio’s employees into our team.”

Gary Slaight, President and CEO of Standard Radio also commented on the deal.

“We are looking forward to becoming a part of the Astral Media family,” said Gary Slaight, President and CEO of Standard Radio. “We are pleased to see our legacy live on with a company such as Astral that has such a strong track record and commitment to its employees and to the Canadian radio and television industries.”

All of Astral’s radio stations are run in Quebec and Atlantic Canada and it also runs various television stations across Canada. Astral also has two french channels that broadcast on Sirius satellite radio Canada.

The company hopes to finalize the deal in or before April.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Japan’s government has declared its first ever “nuclear emergency” after pressure rises in the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, combined with a minor radiation leak, caused a 10 km radius around the plant to be evacuated. An attempt to relieve the pressure inside the containment vessels of the plant has been delayed.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company’s 40-year old nuclear facility, 270 km NE of Tokyo, reported mechanical difficulties with its cooling system, although the automated shutdown systems worked correctly. With the core reaction shut down the plant is no longer actively generating heat, but the fuel rods continue to generate excess heat and radiation and need constant cooling.

The cooling system runs a constant flow of water to take the heat away from the submerged fuel rods, but the pumping system requires electricity to operate even after the plant is no longer producing electricity itself—generally from back-up diesel or natural gas generators.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

In an article published on Wednesday by The Washington Post, reporter Joby Warrick alleged that the Bush administration and the CIA “possessed powerful evidence” that contradicted assertions made by President Bush one month after the Iraqi war began, where trailers found in Iraq were said to have been mobile biological weapons labs.

On May 27, 2003, President Bush made public statements on these trailers by asserting that “We have found the weapons of mass destruction,” which coincided with the CIA publishing a whitepaper that detailed how the trailers were allegedly used to produce biological weapons.

Warrick’s news report revealed that evidence exists to support that two days before the presidential statements were made and the CIA whitepaper was published, that a fact-finding group reached an opposite conclusion.

The group was comprised of U.S. and British civilian experts that investigated the labs and concluded unanimously that they had nothing to do with biological weapons production. They relayed their results back to Washington, where Warrick said in the front page Washington Post article that the newspaper interviewed six of the nine group members.

According to The Washington Post, this preliminary report was followed up with a detailed 122 page final report three weeks later, titled “Final Technical Engineering Exploitation Report on Iraqi Suspected Biological Weapons-Associated Trailers.” The report remains classified to this date.

Reuters reported that an unnamed U.S. official confirmed the existence of the field report filed on May 27, 2003, and said that the field report had not been evaluated at the time of Bush’s statement. “You don’t change a report that has been coordinated in the (intelligence) community based on a field report,” he reportedly said. The Bush administration continued to make claims about having found mobile biological weapons facilities throughout 2003.

On June 8, 2003, an unnamed senior CIA official stood by the interpretation that the trailers were mobile bioweapons labs saying “It is what we think it is, to the best of our knowledge”.

Then Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed in June 2003 that “confidence level is increasing” that the trailers were intended for biological weapons production.

White House speaker Scott McClellan said on July 16, 2003, that “We’ve seen some of the evidence of his weapons of mass destruction program through two mobile biological weapon labs that have been discovered.”

Vice President Dick Cheney claimed in September 2003 that the trailers were “mobile biological facilities”. Then CIA director George Tenet claimed in a speech on February 5, 2004, that the trailers “could be made to work” as biological weapons labs.

The alleged existence of mobile biological weapons laboratories was one of the cornerstones in Colin Powell’s presentation in front of the United Nations to make the case for war on February 5, 2003. Much of the information came from an Iraqi defector dubbed Curveball who was an asset of the German BND. The credibility of this source was disputed by the BND.

The Iraq Survey Group reported in September 2004 that the trailers were “impractical” for biological agent production and “almost certainly” designed and built for the generation of hydrogen. Asked about the prospects to turn the trailers into biological weapons labs, Rod Barton, a member of the Iraq Survey Group, said “It would be easier to start all over with just a bucket”.

The Washington Post cites unnamed sources among officials and members of the initial survey group as claiming that the original classified report from May 27, 2003 and the classified final report three weeks later came to the same conclusions as the unclassified findings of the Iraqi Survey Group.

Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector, wrote September 8, 2003:”However, it now is clear that these so- called labs were nothing more than hydrogen generation units based upon British technology acquired by Iraq in the 1980s, used to fill weather balloons in support of conventional artillery operations, and have absolutely no application for the production of biological agents.”

In the April 12, 2006 press conference, Scott McClellan said “I will point out that the reporting I saw this morning was simply reckless and it was irresponsible. The lead in The Washington Post left the impression for the reader that the President was saying something he knew at the time not to be true. … The President’s statements were based on the joint assessment of the CIA and DIA that was publicly released the day before [the President made his statements].”

He did not answer repeated questions whether the President knew of the secret report at the time he was asserting that “we found biological laboratories” on May 29, 2005. When asked why the secret report was not made public earlier McClellan responded by saying that “it takes a substantial amount of time to coordinate and run through a declassification process”.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Following the Pilkhana massacre which occurred February 25 and 26 leaving 74 dead and the inferno at the Bashundhara City shopping mall complex March 13 leaving seven dead, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said security measures are being tightened countrywide across Bangladesh.

Fire drills will be enacted at all key-point installations (KPI). Fire fighting systems will be examined by the fire brigade and the public works department (PWD) to ensure functionality. Security measures will be enhanced supplementing areas under private security such as at the Bashundhara City Complex.

The Fire Service and Civil Defence Department requires modernization and needs new equipment to fight fires past the sixth floor of buildings. The Fire Brigade says it needs turntable ladders, snorkels, foam-tenders, lighting units, emergency tenders, fireproof uniforms, and rescue ropes for fire fighting and rescue operations. Transportation to fires is also an issue due to narrow roads, low electrical wires and congestion.

The Bangladesh National Building Code requires fire fighting equipment installed in buildings over seven floors. This code is to be monitored by authorities to ensure compliance with the new guidelines and to make sure buildings are being maintained.

The Bashundhara City Complex opened Monday for shoppers two days after Friday’s blaze. A probe is underway to determine the cause of the fire and to assess structural damage.

Loss of life was minimized as the blaze broke out on a Friday, the beginning of the weekend in Bangladesh, so offices in the upper floors were empty. The lower eight floors are used for shopping and the upper floors are all Bashundhara Group offices.

The mall is valued at Tk 7.0 billion (US$100 million). It is not known if the complex is covered by fire insurance.

It is estimated that it will take over two years to rebuild the area damaged by flames which were burned down to a skeleton. Bashundhara City’s technical advisor, Latifur Rahman, estimated damages at Tk 2.0 billion (US$29m).

Only one television cameraman has been allowed in to film the burnt area. None of the 2,500 shops, cinemas or cafes were burnt by the inferno. The seventh and eighth floors still experience smoke damage, and there was water damage to merchandise.

A three member committee is currently investigating the cause of the fire which will consist of Iqbal Khan Chowdhury, joint secretary of the ministry, representatives of the police, IGP Noor Muhammad, and fire brigade, Director General Abu Nayeem Md Shahidullah. The committee is required to report within the week with their findings. The forensics department is also sifting through the burnt remains.

The Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industries has also formed a committee which has begun interviewing witnesses and recording their testimony alongside the government committee.

It has been discovered that 150 closed circuit cameras were not being used when the fire started. Another mystery is why the mall fire fighting system has been found unused.

“In the shopping mall there is an ultra-technology elevator which runs even without electricity but we have found that locked,” Iqbal Khan Chowdhury, joint secretary (Police) of the home ministry, said. “Why the fire burnt so fiercely is a matter to think. We have to see if there was any incendiary substance there. These matters seem to be mysterious.”

Mall management has been asked to submit substances and items which would have been in the upper floors when the fire started. The fire erupted on the 17th floor and spread quickly to the two floors above and engulfed the three floors below. The aerial ladders belonging to the Fire Service and Civil Defence reached as high as the 13th floor of the 21-storey building.

Videos have been sent to the United States (US) for examination to assist in determining the cause of the fire and to help in the damage assessment. Experts from the US are expected to arrive soon.

Firefighters were brought to the rooftop of the 20-storey tower by helicopter. The only fatality in this operation was Baki Billa, a firefighter of Bashundhara City firefighting department, who fell when climbing down a rope from a helicopter to the roof of the building. Three other firefighters made the transition safely. At this same time, the chief security officer was safely rescued by the Bangladesh Air Force helicopter, a Bell 212. Six security officers of the complex also lost their lives.

Monday, March 1, 2021

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