Thursday, June 8, 2006

The international forces in East Timor have reached an agreement about the coordination of the military and police forces in the field. Representatives of the four countries reached the agreement during an urgent meeting after an incident between Australian and Portuguese soldiers yesterday.

In the agreement reached between Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Portugal and the Timorese government, operational autonomy is given to the international forces, which will operate in cooperation and coordination with each other.

The agreement also stated that in an initial phase Dili will be divided into sectors, and each area will be under the control of an international force. Outside of its area of responsibility, the military or police force will only be able to operate if other international forces request their actions. Also was agreed that the police forces will assume total control of the city after the military forces leave their current occupied positions. A situation that is expected after the arrival of the remaining equipment, mainly vehicles, for the Portuguese Republican National Guard (GNR) and the arrival of the remaining Malaysian police officers and their equipment.

In an official notice, the Timorese Foreign Minister, José Ramos Horta stated that “the objective on a long run is for the GNR to operate has a tactical intervention force in all the city of Dili”.

Ramos Horta explained that “in the next days, maybe already tomorrow morning, they [the Australian, Malaysian, New Zealand and Portuguese forces] will do some coordination training, in way to assure that the four forces know exactly what each one will do”. “Since some are from the Army and the others [Portuguese Republican National Guard] are a specialized police and that they never worked together, its useful to carry out some practical exercises”, he added.

In another subject, Ramos Horta explained that the Australian soldiers that are in Maubisse, next to a rebel group lead by major Reinado, and in Gleno, Ermera, next to another group of “military opponents”, are there “containing those elements”.

“Those groups are not comparable with other people that are here in Dili and that must be disarmed”, Ramos Horta said.

“The Australian presence in Maubisse and Gleno aims in containing those groups on their areas, until arrives the moment in which the President decides that is time for also mister Alfredo Reinado and the others to put down their weapons”, he said. “This is not urgent because they are not causing problems to anyone”, he justified.

The urgency of the resolution and clarification of the command and cooperation of the international forces was originated after an incident between Australian and Portuguese soldiers. When yesterday a Portuguese GNR patrol transported three people to a temporary detention center managed by Australian soldiers.

The detainees were arrested by a GNR Special Operations team, after being caught looting a governmental warehouse, in Balide, Dili.

The Australian soldiers then refused to receive the detained men, questioning the legitimacy of the Portuguese soldiers to make arrests. The Portuguese contingent transported the detainees to the Timorese prison services in Dili.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Early afternoon saw a shooting in the church parking lot of New Life Church, an Evangelical Megachurch, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States. According to a report quoting the church’s pastor four people were shot by a gunman in the car park.

At this time it is unknown if there is any connection with yesterday’s shooting approximately 70 miles away in Arvada, Colorado, where a gunman shot two and injured two people at Faith Bible Chapel’s missionary training centre in a dormitory.

Even without LaDainian Tomlinson and Philip Rivers, the Chargers made sure the Indianapolis Colts won’t repeat as Super Bowl champions.

Now San Diego must make sure it doesn’t repeat its last performance at New England.

That will be especially difficult without an injured L.T., who departed in the first half with a bruised left knee, and starting quarterback Rivers, who went out in the third quarter with a damaged right knee in the Chargers’ stunning 28-24 victory Sunday.

With Billy Volek at quarterback and Michael Turner as the main runner, San Diego went 78 yards on eight plays, with Volek sneaking in from the 1 with 4:50 remaining for the lead. The Chargers’ big-play defense then held on downs at its 7, and stopped Indy again in the final moments to preserve their eighth straight win.

To make it nine in a row and advance to their second Super Bowl — the other was a loss to San Francisco after the 1994 season — the Chargers will need all the resourcefulness they showed at Indianapolis. Being undermanned against undefeated New England hardly is an enticing prospect.

Still, with All-Pro cornerback Antonio Cromartie getting an interception and fumble recovery, and linebackers Shawne Merriman and Shaun Phillips plaguing Peyton Manning, the Chargers showed they have the ability to throw off any offense. Maybe even the most prolific attack in NFL history.

The Chargers didn’t come close against the Patriots in Week 2, falling 38-14. That was the beginning of a slide to 5-5 for San Diego, but the Chargers (13-5) are rolling now.

It was a gutty showing by Rivers, who threw for three scores — he banged his right knee on a 56-yard screen pass TD by Darren Sproles to end the third quarter. And Turner, who could be a starter elsewhere but usually sits behind league rushing leader Tomlinson, gave the offense the balance it desperately needed in the late stages of the upset, rushing for 71 yards.

The Chargers’ opportunistic defense, which led the league in takeaways (48) and turnover margin (plus-24), grabbed two interceptions — both on tipped balls — and a fumble. While San Diego couldn’t stop Manning’s offense from steadily marching downfield most of the game, it could make the key plays that get you closer to the Super Bowl.

Still, if Tomlinson is limited or sidelined, how much chance do the Chargers have against the perfect Patriots? Not to mention perhaps missing Rivers or tight end Antonio Gates, who courageously played much of the day on a dislocated toe.

For the Colts (13-4), it was a bitterly quick elimination from the postseason.

A year ago, they won three playoff games, then beat Chicago in the Super Bowl. They couldn’t recapture their touch on offense or defense this time, and a defense that allowed the fewest points during the season wore down against the equally physical Chargers.

Manning did throw for 402 yards, completing 33 of his 48 throws, but both interceptions killed deep scoring threats.

Rivers was 14-of-19 for 264 yards, and Volek went 3-of-4 for 48 yards in his clutch relief role. Vincent Jackson became Rivers’ top target and had seven catches for 93 yards and a score.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

A diverse group of approximately 25 people gathered at the Johnson County Library on Monday to participate in reference librarian Scott Vieira’s class, Wikiwhatia? Wikipedia.

Scott opened the session by sharing a disparaging quote from Robert McHenry (former editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica) comparing Wikipedia to a public restroom. He then shared a quote from Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur, in which he stated Wikipedia is the blind leading the blind. Scott shared Wikipedia usage data from a 2007 Pew Internet study showing 36% of adults have consulted Wikipedia and that that Wikipedia receives 10,000-30,000 searches per second. Scott also pointed out that Wikipedia now has over two million articles in English alone (over nine million articles in 250 languages). So there is a discrepancy here, lots of critics and lots of use.

Scott then shared some historical information in order to provide a context for understanding Wikipedia. This included some important names and dates in the history of encyclopedias… including Pliny the Elder (23-79 C.E.) who published 37 Volumes of Natural History, and Joachim Sterck van Ringelbergh (c. 1499-1556) who first used the term encyclopedia, and then d’Alembert and Diderot who published 17 volumes of their French Encyclopedia from 1751-1765. Encyclopedia Britannica was first published in Scotland in serial format 1768-1771.

Scott also discussed more recent history, sharing a photo of Ward Cunningham –who is credited with being the inventor of wiki software. Wikipedia was founded on Jan 15, 2001 by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales. Sanger left Wikipedia in 2002 and founded Citizendium in 2007 a complementary project which now has 4500 articles.

After the historical perspective, the class moved into using Wikipedia. Everyone in the audience had used Wikipedia. The class explored the content of Wikipedia, realising there is a whole lot going on. Scott demonstrated that the article about “frogs” for example, is semi-protected. The “history of science” article was examined, including the history of changes. Discussion covered how people contribute, who contributes and edits. The group also talked about Wikipedia bots, which aid in routine tasks in a semi-automated or automated fashion.

A discussion about teachers, school media specialists and students regarding their use of Wikipedia ensued. Some teachers and school media specialists are negative about Wikipedia, but Scott’s hope is that they will use it to start a discussion about the need to evaluate and critically think about information (even when it’s from more traditionally reviewed and edited sources).

An unanswered question from an audience member was, “What was the first Wikipedia article?”

Discussion topics from Scott to audience were as follows:

• Do you think Wikipedia is less accurate than published resources and how important is that accuracy to you?
• How do we determine authority on a subject? How important is it that an article be written by an expert? How is Wikipedia changing our idea of what an authority is?
• Currency – the ability to publish immediately – what are the advantages and what are the disadvantages?
• What do we think about the content selection in Wikipedia?
• Should Wikipedia be used by librarians?
• What do you think about the future of Wikipedia?

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Two 16-year-old British girls were arrested in Accra, Ghana earlier this month for apparently attempting to smuggle £300,000 worth of cocaine in laptop bags.

Yasemin Vatansever, of Cypriot descent and Yatunde Diya of Nigerian descent were arrested as they attempted to board a British Airways flight from the Kotoka International Airport on July 2, 2007. The arrest was by the Ghanaian Narcotic Control Board. They were alleged to be carrying 6.5 kg of drugs. They are currently in Ghana police custody and have been visited by British High Commission staff.

The girls who are both students from Islington, north London, had left home after informing their families they were making a school trip to France. They are expected to be charged with “possessing narcotic drugs and attempting to export drugs”, for which they could be jailed for up to ten years if found guilty.

The arrest is part of the Operation Westbridge project set up in November 2006 as a collaboration between the Ghanaian Narcotic Control Board and HM Revenue and Customs of the UK. It is to curb the influx of drugs into Europe and the UK through West Africa which is now being used as a transit point from South America. The project involves the provision of technical and operational expertise to the Ghanaian teams and training in the use of specialist scanning equipment. Ghana is the first country in Africa to introduce such equipment.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Diamond Brownridge, a 5-year old girl from Chicago, Illinois, has died after a visit to the dentist. Children’s Memorial Hospital officials say that the girl was rushed to the hospital when she never woke up after being sedated for a dental procedure. She had been in a coma, on life support, since being admitted to the hospital early in the weekend.

“She passed very peacefully and beautifully,” said the hospital in a statement that the family issued.

Ommettress Travis, the mother of the girl, was asked not to remain inside the room while dentists were operating on the girl to repair two cavities and to have at least two caps replaced. Travis says after thirty minutes she was asked to come back in and found Brownridge not breathing, in the dentist chair.

Hicham Riba, a specialist and professional in anesthesia, who was also licensed, was the dentist in charge of the procedure.

“My family and I are so sad. May God bless Diamond and her family. Every time you have a tragedy like this, you pray more. I don’t think I will ever go back to a normal life after an experience like this,” Riba said in a statement on Wednesday, September 28.

According to the family, the girl had been given at least a triple dose of medicine that sedated her. Those drugs include: nitrous oxide gas, a single dose of an “oral agent” and an IV.

A judge has ordered that all equipment and materials used during the operation be protected and examined. The girl’s medical records have also been ordered to be examined.

There is no word on whether or not any charges will be filed against Riba or any of the dentist’s staff.