Monday, March 19, 2007

The Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger plane, was set to land in the United States of America on Monday after a test flight. One of the A380s is flying from Frankfurt to Chicago via New York; the airplane will be carrying about 500 people.

It is being billed as the first time it has carried a near-normal number of passengers, though most will be staff of Airbus and German airline Lufthansa.

A second A380 is also travelling to the U.S. on Monday, but without passengers. This will be branded as a Qantas flight and fly from Frankfurt to Los Angeles LAX airport. The first leg of the flight going towards New York will be travelling under a Lufthansa flight number, and is due to arrive at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport at 12:30 EST (16:30 UTC).

The test flights are being used to monitor everything from how easily the plane docks at the terminal gate to the way the in-flight dining and entertainment services work. Deliveries to Singapore Airlines, its launch customer, are not due until October – two years late.

Delays of the production of the A380 have cost Airbus more than 6 billion dollars. Airbus has warned there could be additional charges to come.

These monetary problems have led to a recently-announced restructuring program at Airbus, called Power8, in which 10,000 jobs go and several factories will be sold to Airbus partners. France will lose 4,300 jobs, followed by Germany having a loss of 3,700 jobs, while the United Kingdom and Spain will see 1,600 and 400 jobs cut respectively.

The Belgian government has announced that it will give up to 150 million € (US$ 199 million) in aid to help sub-contractors which supply Airbus and employ thousands of workers.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

A team of researchers from the Thomas Jefferson University‘s Biotechnology Foundation Laboratories (BFL) in the United States have managed to increase the amount of oil produced by tobacco leaves. Tobacco oil can be very efficiently converted to biofuel, but most oil is located in the seeds, which the plant does not produce many of.

Tobacco seeds produce around 40% oil per dry weight but a crop of the plant yields only around 600kg of seeds per acre. The leaves have an oil content of around 1.7–4% oil per dry weight. The oil has previously been tested for powering diesel-fueled vehicles and can be more efficiently converted than the product of many other crop plants.

The team from BFL identified that oil production in the leaves was controlled by two genes: the diacyglycerol acytransferase (DGAT) and the LEAFY COTYLEDON 2 (LEC2) genes. By genetic engineering, they achieved oil yields of 5.8% oil per dry weight by modifying the DGAT while changes to the LEC2 resulted in a yield of 6.8% per dry weight.

“Tobacco is very attractive as a biofuel because the idea is to use plants that aren’t used in food production,” said cancer biology assistant professor at Thomas Jefferson Dr Vyacheslav Andrianov, Ph.D. “In some instances, the modified plants produced 20-fold more oil in the leaves.”

Various efforts are being made to find biofuel sources that are not also potential food, in order to steer clear of causing further rises in global food costs. Last month the US government anounced funding for research that used nonphotosynthesising micro-organisms to manufacture biodiesel, in the hope that this will prove more efficient than options that rely on photosynthesis. This also escapes one criticism of biofuels like tobacco; that competition for land to grow crops on will result in biofuel crops displacing foodstuffs and pushing food prices up. In November 2009 a Spanish team launched a study to determine if tobacco, as well as the prickly pear, was capable of withstanding the harsh conditions of land not suitable for growing food, selecting these plants for their ability to survive water shortages.

Monday, April 23, 2018

On Saturday, India’s Union Cabinet approved capital punishment in an ordinance for the rape of girls under the age of twelve. This comes after nationwide protests that took place in various cities after an eight-year-old girl was gang-raped and killed in Kathua city in Jammu and Kashmir.

“Government has taken serious note of incidents of rape in various parts of the country […] while expressing deep anguish over such incidents, it has been decided to devise a comprehensive response to deal with the solution”, the special emergency cabinet said. Earlier this month retired government official Sanji Ram and several others —including multiple police officers— were arrested for, or in relation to, the gang rape and murder of Asifa, an eight-year-old Muslim girl, who police said was held captive and sedated at a temple in Kathua. On April 13, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Kuldeep Singh Sengar, a Bharatiya Janta Party’s Minister of Legislative Assembly, who is accused of raping a teenage girl in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh. Another rape and murder of an eleven-year-old girl took place in Gujarat’s Surat district. According to the postmortem report, she was tortured, raped, strangled and smothered.

The ordinance, which was approved by India’s president Ram Nath Kovind on Sunday, prescribed National Crime Records Bureau to maintain nationwide database and profiles for sexual offenders, setting up new fast-track courts, special rape-case forensic kits in all police stations and hospitals, and setting up special forensic labs.

The cabinet also recommended mandatory completion of rape investigation within a period of two months, prison term for convicts of rape of girls under the age of sixteen has been raised to twenty years, extending up to life-long imprisonment. Previously, it was ten years. Prison term for convicts of rape of females above the age of sixteen has been increased from seven to ten years. The ordinance document had no mention of rape of boys and men, Reuters reported.

In 2016, about 40 thousand rape cases were reported across the union, and roughly 40% of the victims were children. A law ministry official said, “An ordinance today is the best was to deal with the issue. An amendment bill will have to wait when the monsoon session of parliament commences.” The monsoon session of the Parliament of India begins in July.

The Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences and Evidence Act are affected by the ordinance.

Women’s right activist Kirti Singh told Al Jazeera, “Studies have shown that death penalty does not act as deterrent. Our experience shows the same. We are against death penalty.” She added, “Some people in India act in with impunity, thinking that they won’t be punished. The certainty of the punishment, rather than severity of it, should be made sure”.

The December 2012 gang rape case in India’s capital New Delhi led to the amendment of criminal laws, establishing a provision of the death penalty to the convict if a woman is killed or left in a “vegetative state” after rape. It came as an ordinance, originally. The adult convicts of that case were sentenced to death, but it has not been carried out. The last time a convict received capital punishment in India was in 2015.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Dell Inc., a global leader in computer hardware manufacturing and sales, announced yesterday that it will delay filing of its annual performance report, the Form 10-K, required for compliance with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Nasdaq listing rules.

In a press release, Dell explained that an audit committee of the company’s board of directors is carrying out an investigation into accounting and financial reporting issues. The company stated that it would delay filing of the 10-K since the investigation had not been completed.

The internal investigation has found evidence of accounting errors, misconduct, and deficiencies in areas of financial control.

The chairman of Dell’s audit committee, Thomas Luce III, indicated that the delay in filing would extend past the April 3, 2007 deadline as well as an April 18, 2007 extension date. “As we move toward the conclusion of our investigation, we are committing the time and resources required to ensure a thorough and comprehensive review and resolution of all identified issues and the implementation of appropriate remedial measures,” said Luce.

The investigation is to determine whether the restatement of any financial disclosures are warranted, based on the accounting errors identified. The probe will also assess whether there are deficiencies in Dell’s internal control over financial reporting.

Friday, April 22, 2005

Las Vegas, Nevada – San Jose police arrested the woman who made the claim she found a human finger in a bowl of Wendy’s chili. Police made the arrest of Anna Ayala on Thursday night at or near her Las Vegas home.

A sign on the front door of the Ayala residence urged reporters and curious onlookers not to disturb the occupants. The sign reads, “Trust Me Do Not Knock On Door Emotionally Disturbard Thanx”.

Anna Ayala was arrested on a fugitive warrant so no bail was set. Early this morning, Ayala was still behind bars at the Clark County Detention Center.

Police spokesman Enrique Garcia said further details on the 39-year-old Ayala will be released at a news conference scheduled for 1pm Friday.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the arrest came hours after Wendy’s concluded its own internal investigation that found no link to the finger in its food distribution chain.

Wendy’s offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the source of the finger.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Lai Changxing, dubbed the Bandit King, has been given a life sentence for years of smuggling and corruption that added up to billions of US dollars or Pounds sterling. The Chinese court described the values as “massive”.

Lai smuggled goods worth more than £2 billion into Xiamen, bypassing more than £1 billion in import duty. He paid 64 local officials a total of almost £4 million in bribes, giving him effective control of the city from 1995 to 1999. He fled China after becoming a wanted man in 1999 and went to Canada via Hong Kong; the following year, Premier Zhu Rongji said “If Lai was executed three times over, it would not be too much”.

As head of the Yuanhua Group, Lai smuggled in cars, chemicals, oil, cigarettes, and other goods. He distributed bundles of cash to the poor, owned and played for his local football team, built stadia, owned a bulletproof Mercedes that once belonged to President Jiang Zemin, and attempted to construct a tower that would have been the nation’s tallest building. He attained local popularity for funding construction projects including schools, hundreds of tower blocks, and the local airport.

As well as money, officials were offered alcohol and prostitutes. Many were offered time at Lai’s seven-storey brothel, the Red Mansion, and feasted at a replica of the Forbidden City.

State TV has broadcast footage depicting a banquet table with a tiger skin laid upon it, cars given to officials, a young woman alleged to have been donated as a lover, and a sackful of gold rings. The case’s prominence was such that Liu Liying, boss of the national Central Discipline Inspection Committee, took charge of bringing Lai down.

Subsequent investigations have examined more than 1,000 suspects with police at one stage turning over an entire hotel to the probe, filling rooms with suspects. National newspaper The People’s Daily has suggested it is the most serious economic crime in modern Chinese history. He was the nation’s top car importer and one of the main traders in oil and imported cigarettes.

Hundreds of officials have been convicted and it is estimated hundreds more remain. Fellow life-sentence prisoners from the case include the city’s deputy mayor and its head of customs. The nation’s former vice-minister for security, Li Jizhou, has a suspended death sentence. Other suspects have killed themselves.

Upon his escape from the nation Lai became China’s most-wanted fugitive. Twelve years of negotiations ended with a Chinese promise Lai would be spared the death penalty, and Canada extradited him last year. Numerous lower-ranking members of Lai’s empire have already been given life imprisonment or death sentences. With execution off the table, the court gave Lai the highest sentence possible: in addition to the life term, he received fifteen years for bribery and had all his possessions confiscated.

The court justified the “double sentence” on the grounds “the sums involved are unusually large, and the details are extraordinarily serious”. “The crimes involve massive sums and particularly serious circumstances,” court officials told Xinhua. Lai had denied corruption at his trial, although he accepted exploiting loopholes to avoid import duty.

“I don’t have a good family background,” Lai said previously in a press interview. “I have to do things step by step by myself. That’s how people came to respect me. I never fussed about big money.” Lai was born as one of eight siblings in the midst of famine.