mynewhopeumc.org

Friday, September 26, 2008

On October 14, 2008, Canadians will be heading to the polls for the federal election. New Democratic Party candidate Max Lombardi is standing for election in the riding of Cambridge. Lombardi is an information technology specialist who has lived in Cambridge for 25 years.

Held since 2004 by Conservative Gary Goodyear, the riding of Cambridge includes the city of Cambridge, Ontario and the Township of North Dumfries, Ontario. Also running in the riding are Gord Zeilstra (Liberal) and Scott Cosman (Green).

Wikinews contacted Max Lombardi, to talk about the issues facing Canadians, and what they and their party would do to address them. Wikinews is in the process of contacting every candidate, in every riding across the country, no matter their political stripe. All interviews are conducted over e-mail, and interviews are published unedited, allowing candidates to impart their full message to our readers, uninterrupted.

For more information, visit the campaign’s official website, listed below.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a review Friday into the design and manufacture of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, following five incidents in five days involving the aircraft and two Japanese airlines.

On Monday, an electrical fire broke out aboard a Japan Airlines 787 at Boston’s Logan International Airport, when a battery pack which powers the auxiliary power unit, for when the plane is on the ground, caught fire. The fire was discovered by maintenance workers after passengers and crew disembarked following their flight from Tokyo’s Narita Airport.

The next day, a separate Japan Airlines 787, also at Logan International Airport, heading to Tokyo, suffered a fuel leak that spilled around 40 gallons, which was spotted by the crew of the aircraft taxiing behind them. “That Japan Air may know it, but they’ve got fuel or something spilling out the outboard left wing. Quite a bit,” said the pilot of aircraft behind them on local air traffic control frequencies.

Wednesday, in Japan, an All Nippon Airways 787, the launch customer for the aircraft, cancelled a flight after a brake problem was reported.

Earlier Friday, two All Nippon Airways suffered separate incidents in Japan. An oil leak was noticed in the engine after one aircraft had landed in Miyazaki, coming from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Another flight, flying between Haneda Airport and Matsuyama said the pilot’s side window in the cockpit suffered a crack.

The FAA in a statement said “In light of a series of recent events, the FAA will conduct a comprehensive review of the Boeing 787 critical systems, including the design, manufacture and assembly.” Further adding, “The purpose of the review is to validate the work conducted during the certification process and further ensure that the aircraft meets the FAA’s high level of safety.”

According to the statement, “The review will also examine how the electrical and mechanical systems interact with each other.” The Boeing 787 relies more on electrical, as opposed to mechanical, systems than past aircraft from the manufacturer including having electronics operate hydraulic pumps and using electric brakes. Large portions of the plane’s structure use lightweight carbon fiber composite instead of more traditional metal airframe.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, “The safety of the traveling public is our top priority […] This review will help us look at the root causes and do everything we can to safeguard against similar events in the future.”

“We are confident that the aircraft is safe. But we need to have a complete understanding of what is happening,” said newly sworn-in FAA Administrator Michael P. Huerta. “We are conducting the review to further ensure that the aircraft meets our high safety standards.”

Boeing released a statement saying, “[The company] is confident in the design and performance of the 787. It is a safe and efficient airplane. The airplane has logged 50,000 hours of flight and there are more than 150 flights occurring daily.”

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

According to the payroll services company ADP, United States private sector employers cut 742,000 jobs in in March. The figures were almost 80,000 more than the average analyst prediction of 663,000 losses. This is the largest monthly payroll decline since January 2001, when the ADP began tracking job activity.

ADP also updated its job loss statistics for February, from 697,000 to 706,000.

“The sharp employment declines among medium- and small-size businesses indicate that the recession continues to spread aggressively beyond manufacturing and housing-related activities to almost every area of the economy,” said Joel Prakken, the chairman of the company that conducts the ADP survey, Macroeconomic Advisors LLC.

“Despite some recent indications that stock prices, consumer spending, and housing activity may be bottoming out, employment, which usually trails overall economic activity, is likely to remain very weak for at least several more months,” he added.

The US Labor Department‘s report for employment statistics for March is due to be out on Friday. Analysts predicted that the department will announce the unemployment rate increased to 8.5% with 660,000 jobs eliminated in March. However, the bad news from ADP has prompted some to think that the current forecasts are too optimistic.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Pakistan security forces attacked Taliban strongholds in northwest Pakistan yesterday. Aided by fighter jets and gunship helicopters they claim to have killed 21 Taliban militants in Kurram and Bajaur. The offensive targeted the remote town of Bajaur, along the Afghan border; this area has been frequently targeted to attack Islamic extremists.

Sources claim the first attack occurred in the Damdola, Sewai and Shago segments of Mamoond tehsil. The latter is a renowned Taliban stronghold located only about fifteen miles northeast of the town of Khar.

“Air strikes by the jet fighters continued for more than two hours. Ten militants have been killed and several hideouts were destroyed,” stated a Frontier Corps official in Khar.

Speaking for local authorities, Firamosh Khan confirmed the attack, “[i]t is true that several militants were killed.”

Bajaur was the location of anti-terrorist actions in late 2008; by February last year the army claimed to have secured the area. Despite this, conditions of the area have been tumultuous; air attacks are again frequent. Such attacks are part of an offensive against Taliban strongholds throughout northwest Pakistan, started last year.

The Pakistani government also sent approximately 30,000 troops, assisted by fighter planes, to fight Taliban extremists in South Waziristan in October. The army claims this attack has progressed, and they have attained some success.

Related to this, helicopter gunships shelled Salarzai, about twenty kilometers northwest of Khar. Pakistani security sources claimed this action resulted in the deaths of two militants.

In a separate incident, eleven suspected insurgents died when security forces, along with jets and helicopters, raided their hideouts. Official sources claimed four such hideouts were demolished.

In the past day, about 23 extremists have been captured by security forces. The arrests were made during search and raiding in multiple areas of Khyber Agency, say sources.

In a statement yesterday, NWFP Frontier Corps expressed hope that the situation at Kurram Agency had marginally improved. They added that the Thal-Parachinar Road is now partially open.

On Sunday, near Badama, explosives were detonated which injured two soldiers of the Pakistani army. One suspected militant was arrested by security in Bajaur Agency, on Saturday. Two other suspects were located in Dir district; they were handed over to Lal Qila police.

A compilation of brief news reports for Friday, August 14, 2009.

A body recovered by Indonesian police on August 8th is not that of Noordin Mohammed Top. The Indonesian authorities had been optimistic that Top, the mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombings, had been killed on Saturday in a gun battle that concluded a 17 hour siege in the Temanggung district of Central Java.

DNA tests suggests that the body is that of a man identified only as Ibrahim, a florist who was the inside man in the attacks on luxury hotels in Jakarta this July.

Sources

• Dicky Christanto and Mustaqim Adamrah. “Ibrohim played key role in Jakarta hotel bombings: Police” — The Jarkarta Post, August 13, 2009
• “Bali bombing mastermind escaped deadly police siege” — Xinhua News Agency, August 12, 2009
• Anne Tang. “DNA test shows JI leader Top still alive” — Xinhua News Agency, August 12, 2009

Attempts by President Barack Obama to reform the health care in the United States has been met with grassroots opposition. Critics fear that Obama’s reforms are an attempt to socialise health care. However, the President has dismissed such apprehension as an attempt to “scare and mislead” by vested interests hoping to derail the reforms.

Opposition adverts which feature the alleged failures and rationing of healthcare in the British National Health Service (NHS), have been rebutted by citizens, politicians and the media. Spurred on by American commentators that described that the NHS as “evil’ and Orwellian, with over a million responses to an on-line Twitter campaign, called welovetheNHS started in support of the NHS.

Sources

• Patrick Foster. “Anti-healthcare lobbyists duped us, say Katie Brickell and Kate Spall” — The Times, August 14, 2009
• Clare Ellicott. “‘I owe my life to the NHS’: Stephen Hawking tells US to stop attacking health service” — The Daily Mail, August 13, 2009
• “Tough questions, frustrations continue in town halls” — CNN, August 13, 2009
• Kerry Sheridan. “Obama aims to sooth concerns amid healthcare fury” — Agence France-Presse, August 13, 2009

Three British soldiers of have been killed by an explosion whilst on foot patrol near the town of Sangin in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

The death of the soldiers — two from the 2nd Battalion The Rifles and one from 40 Regiment Royal Artillery — brings the number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 199.

“[These deaths] brings us very close to the sad milestone of 200 fatalities in this conflict. We cannot help but reflect on the toll the mission has taken…” said Bob Ainsworth, the British Secretary of State for Defence.

Sources

• “Three UK soldiers die in Helmand” — BBC News Online, August 13, 2009
• “Soldiers killed in Afghanistan to be named: report” — Agence France-Presse, August 13, 2009

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Until a patch is issued, Microsoft recommends that users close or block TCP port 3389, the port opened when the Remote Assistance service of its Microsoft Windows operating system (OS) is enabled. The Remote Assistance feature is a service of the OS that allows Internet Technology administrators of corporate workgroups remote access to other desktops to perform maintenance and other configuration tasks from their own computer. It can also be used by on-line tech support sites. A support assistant can go into a user’s machine, if the service is enabled, and themself make changes directly to another person’s computer to resolve an issue.

To initialize the remote assistance feature, the user of the helper computer must first make a request of the user of the target computer. Compliance must be granted by the user of the target machine, which then fully opens the communication port of the target machine to the helper computer. The operator of the helper computer then has control of target computer to make changes at will. The user of the target machine can watch in a separate window the actions of the helper, and either party to the session can end it at any time.

In a telephone conversation with a Microsoft representative Tuesday, it was learned that work to develop a security patch is underway, but when it will be available is unclear. It was cited that a patch must work consistently across multiple platform versions of the OS.

The vulnerability, thought at first to affect only Windows XP SP2, is now believed to affect all current Windows editions, including Windows 2000, Windows XP SP1, Windows XP Professional x64, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows Server x64.

The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is not enabled by default, however if the service is enabled, a Denial of Service attack could cause the OS to restart unexpectedly according to Microsoft, or experience buffer overflows according to Symantec. The RDP is enabled by default on Windows XP Media Center Edition.

Microsoft suggests users block TCP port 3389 (the port used by RDP) on their firewall, or disable Terminal Services or Remote Desktop if not required by the user. The remote desktop connections could also be secured using either Internet Protocol Security or a virtual private network connection until a patch is ready.

To disable Remote Assistance on a Windows XP Edition, the steps are:

1. click ‘Start’, right-click ‘My Computer’, select ‘Properties’
2. select ‘Remote’ tab on top of the ‘Systems Properties’ window, clear checkbox that says “Allow Remote Assistance invitations to be sent from this computer.”
3. click ‘Apply’ button

The group, Internet Storm Center, detected spikes in scanning for port 3389 beginning July 6. Larger numbers of systems scanned were reported on July 13. Crackers may be scanning for vulnerable machines, the group said.

“It’s a kernel vulnerability,” said VP of engineering for Symantec Alfred Huger, “so it will be difficult to exploit reliably. But he [the original discoverer] found the vulnerability with a commonly-used tool, so if he can find it, so can others. I don’t think it will turn it into a large-scale worm, but then, some kernel vulnerabilities have ended up as just that, like the Witty worm.”

[edit]

Thursday, December 7, 2006

A tornado has struck Kensal Green in North West London. Up to 150 houses have been damaged, and six people were injured, one seriously. Residential roads were closed off, but most have now been re-opened. Residents have had to seek temporary accommodation. Traffic was also diverted causing disruption but has now returned to normal. The cost of the damage is estimated to be at least £20,000,000.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

After an early morning fire began, four out of the nine people living at the Riverview Individual Residential Alternative group home located in Wells, New York were killed by the blaze. The Sunmount Developmental Disabilities Services Office, which supervises the home, told the media that the fire started at approximately 5:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time. Two staff members were at the home at the time, who safely evacuated four of the five survivors.

The names of the residents killed in the fire were not able to be released due to New York’s Mental Hygiene Law, but are able to be identified as two adult men, aged 32 and 52, and two adult women, aged 43 and 60. A 71-year-old male was injured in the fire, and was taken to a hospital in Utica, a nearby city. The other four residents have been relocated to an unnamed group home. Both staff members are also being examined at the hospital.

“On behalf of all New Yorkers, I wish to extend my heartfelt condolences to the families, loved ones and friends of the four victims and to continue to pray for the full recovery of those five people and two staff members who survived this incident. I also want to express my thanks and appreciation for the first responders and volunteers who worked swiftly and diligently to respond to this tragedy,” David Patterson, the governor of New York, said to the media.

The exact cause of the fire has yet to be determined. However, the New York Civil Liberties Union stated that “the blaze appears to have been an electrical fire and the sprinkler system was knocked out immediately.” They also called for “an immediate investigation into the causes of and contributing factors of the fire.”

The New York State Department of State Office of Fire Prevention and Control is currently investigating the causes of the blaze, with help from New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the New York State Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities.