Wednesday, June 9, 2010

A circus elephant managed to escape from her handler on Sunday night in the city of Zurich, Switzerland before being recaptured by local police and circus animal keepers. The 26-year-old female elephant, named Sabu, is from Switzerland’s Zirkus Knie. She was able to make her escape just before being put into a trailer, while the keeper was not paying attention.

Around 1930 local time (1730 UTC), Sabu was seen wading in Lake Zurich for a short time before walking back onto city streets. Zurich police said that Sabu wandered along the Bahnhofstrasse avenue of Zurich, which is known as the city’s most exclusive shopping street. She also passed by Zürich Hauptbahnhof (the city’s main rail station) and Paradeplatz, a square of Bahnhofstrasse, where both Credit Suisse Group AG and UBS AG have headquarters.

For nearly an hour, police chased the elephant around the city before she was finally peacefully recaptured in the Talstrasse section of Zurich. Circus officials and police followed Sabu, but a circus spokesperson said that she did not respond to their calls. Sabu was also said to have been moving so fast that police had difficulty keeping up with her. At about 2000 local time (1900 UTC), a keeper was able to control the animal and load her onto a truck to take her to Winterthur, where the other circus animals were. There were no reports of any damage or injuries during the incident, and although police held back onlookers, at least one bystander managed to capture video of the event.

The circus said that Sabu may have escaped after being frightened by storms near Zurich. After returning to the circus, she was said to be tired, but “pleased to be back.”

Thursday, February 12, 2009

An article in the February 12 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reports on an unusual cause for an outbreak of low blood sugar among men in Singapore: illegal use of sexual performance enhancement drugs that were contaminated with a diabetes drug.

Between January and May 2008, 149 men and one woman between 19 and 97 (mean age 51) were admitted to five public hospitals for unexplained low blood sugar. Similar cases were reported in media reports from Hong Kong. Seven Singaporean patients remained in a coma because of prolonged sugar starvation of the brain, and four subsequently died. The diabetes drug glyburide was found in blood and/or urine samples in 85% of cases; 30% admitted having used illegal sexual performance enhancers.

The contaminated products were a counterfeit version of the drug Cialis (meant for the treatment of genuine erectile dysfunction), and three purported herbal preparation (the affected brands included Power 1 Walnut and Santi Bovine Penis Erecting Capsule). All four preparations additionally contained Viagra in varying concentrations. Two herbal products contained traces of the weight loss drug sibutramine, a compound related to amphetamines.

The drug packaging mentioned names of non-existent overseas production facilities, so the source of the contamination with the diabetes drug could not be established.

The authors underline the risks that is known to be associated with purchasing drugs from unreliable providers or from online resellers. The clandestine use of impotence drugs as sexual performance enhancers seems to have provided a good illustration of this problem. They further call for more efforts by national and international health and law enforcement agencies to curb the manufacturing, international transport and sales of untrustworthy medication.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The United States 2008 federal deficit has reached a record high, US$454.8 billion—more than double last year’s deficit. Financial experts believe that next year, the deficit will reach over $700 billion, while the National Debt Clock has recently run out of digits to record over $10 trillion in national debt.

The deficit is now equivalent to 3.2% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States, with the government’s total income being 17.8% of GDP, and total outlays being equivalent to 21% of GDP.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson blamed the deficit on the housing market, related markets, and slow growth. He said the news would “reinforce the need to not only address short-term challenges, but pursue policies that promote economic growth and fiscal responsibility, and address entitlement reform”.

Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad, however, placed the blame on “President Bush’s failed policies“. “The reality is that the next president will be inheriting a fiscal and economic mess of historic proportions,” said Conrad, adding that “it will take years to dig our way out”.

Another Democrat, House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, also blamed the Bush administration. “The eight years of this administration will include the five biggest budget deficits in history,” he said. “The resulting debt will be passed to our children and grandchildren.”

Jim Nussle, director of the Office of Management and Budget said that he believes that the deficit will start to decline. “The bipartisan stimulus bill and the slow economy are the primary reasons for the increase in deficit as reflected in this year’s budget results. This increase reinforces the need to adopt and maintain policies that promote economic growth and fiscal responsibility, including entitlement reform and pro-growth tax policies. I am confident the economy can return to stronger growth with a declining deficit—after working through current challenges if Congress limits wasteful and excessive spending.”

Monday, February 28, 2005

Charlotte, North Carolina — One of the biggest domestic banks in the United States, Bank of America, has admitted to losing computer tapes containing 1.2 million federal employee accounts, including the accounts of several U.S. senators, in a statement by the bank. According to the Pentagon, most of the accounts belong to staff and civilians in the Department of Defense. The bank said the tapes were lost in December 2004 as they were being transported to a data back-up centre by a commercial plane.

Currently, the U.S. Secret Service are looking in to the matter, a federal agency whose brief includes investigations of serious financial crime such as this. All parties concerned are worrying about possible identity theft as it contained valuable information such as bank account numbers, names and addresses.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

U.S. Prohibition Party presidential candidate Jim Hedges of Thompson Township, Pennsylvania took some time to answer a few questions about the Prohibition Party and his 2012 presidential campaign.

The Prohibition Party is the third oldest existing political party in the United States, having been established in 1869. It reached its height of popularity during the late 19th century. The party heavily supported the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which banned the sale of alcohol, and resulted in the US period known as Prohibition (1919–33). It was repealed in 1933. The party has declined since this period, but has continued to nominate candidates for the presidential election.

In 2003, the party split into two factions. Preacher Gene Amondson and perennial candidate Earl Dodge were nominated for the presidency by their respective factions. After Dodge’s death in 2007, the party reunified and named Amondson as its sole presidential nominee for 2008. During the election, Amondson was interviewed by Wikinews. He died in 2009, leaving an opening in the party for 2012.

Jim Hedges is a longtime Prohibition activist, who holds the distinction of the first individual of the 21st century (and the first since 1959) to be elected to a political office under the Prohibition Party banner. In 2001, he was elected as the Thompson Township tax assessor, and was re-elected to the post in 2005. He served until his term expired in 2010. Hedges declared his intent to run for the Prohibition Party presidential nomination on February 18, 2010. This marks his first run for the presidency.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

American and European scientists say the upgraded Hubble space telescope has spotted the oldest galaxies ever seen. The images were taken with the telescope’s new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in August this year.

The galaxies are about 13 billion light years from Earth, meaning they formed less than one billion years after the Big Bang — the cosmological model of the initial conditions and subsequent development of the universe.

WFC3 was installed in May this year, during a mission by the space shuttle Atlantis to repair and upgrade Hubble. Experts say the new instrument will let them peer even further back in time, to when the universe was in its infancy. The more distant a galaxy is, the more its light is “redshifted” due to expansion of the universe. Light from the furthest galaxies is shifted to infrared wavelengths invisible to the human eye, but WFC3 can detect these.

The new image was taken in August, in the same region as a 2004 visible light image known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The 2004 photo previously showed the most distant galaxies, but the new infrared pictures from the WFC3 allow even more remote galaxies to be seen.

Capturing the image took four days, and the total exposure lasted 173,000 seconds. In the three months since, twelve scientific papers have been submitted on it. On Tuesday one of these confirmed the galaxies as the furthest ever seen.

They are also the oldest, with the light from them having taken around 13 billion years to reach Earth.

“At these distances, you’re really looking back in time, like you have a time machine,” said Ray Villard, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “Those things don’t exist anymore.”

The photo could be one of the ultimate achievements of the Hubble telescope, now almost twenty years old.

“These new observations are likely to be the most sensitive images Hubble will ever take,” said Professor Jim Dunlop of the University of Edinburgh.

The servicing mission in May extended the telescope’s life by around five years, but it is scheduled to be replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2014. This will use infrared imaging and have a greater collecting area than Hubble, and it is thought that it may be able make out objects from just 100 million years after the Big Bang.

“We’ve really pushed Hubble to its limits,” said Villard, “and we need a bigger space telescope to go back even farther. It shows us there are really exciting things to look for with the Webb telescope.”

Monday, March 21, 2011

Sales of existing homes in the U.S. fell 9.6% in February, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) said today, in a sign that the U.S. housing market is still depressed. The figure was worse than the 3.9% decline anticipated by the economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and questions whether the U.S. housing market is beginning to recover or will continue to fall.

A combination of foreclosures and short sales, where the mortgage holder sells the house for less than owed on the mortgage, accounted for almost 40% of the sales.

Millions of foreclosures have forced down home prices and the number of foreclosures are predicted to rise this year. The inventory of existing homes listed for sale rose 3.5% at the end of February, a 8.6-month supply at the current sales rate. As more homes are listed in the spring, the inventory of houses for sale will probably increase. A five or six month inventory is usually considered a healthy balance between supply and demand.

According to Moody’s Analytics, another 3.6 million bank-owned homes and possible foreclosures will be added to the inventory by 2013, adding to the 6.7 million home foreclosures since 2006. Thus housing inventories will probably continue to remain high, delaying the point when prices stabilize. The median sales price in February fell 5.2%, down to a price level not seen since April 2002.

“We have an uneven, choppy recovery,” said NAR’s chief economist Lawrence Yun. “Hopefully it is a recovery that is taking place.”

Sunday, April 17, 2011

United States officials have unveiled new plans which require air traffic controllers to have longer rest periods between shifts after a spate of controllers fell asleep while on duty at airports across the country. Announcing the plans, transport secretary Ray LaHood said he was “outraged” by the incidents.

The new plans, which the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the U.S. government agency responsible for aviation, said would be implemented immediately, come after another controller was suspended this week when they fell asleep while directing aircraft near Miami. The incident was the sixth this year; controllers have fallen asleep in Nevada, Washington D.C., and Tennessee. In one incident, two commercial passenger jets landed without any direction from the control tower because the controller on duty had fallen asleep.

LaHood said controllers would be required to have a minimum of nine hours rest between shifts, an increase of an hour, and more supervisors would be required during night shifts, and they will be restricted in what shifts they can swap with colleagues. “I don’t know when I’ve ever been madder,” LaHood said in a television interview on Fox News Sunday. “We’re not going to stand by and let that happen.”

“We’ve taken steps, as of this morning, to begin changing schedules for controllers, to change schedules for managers, and to make sure that controllers cannot switch in and out of their schedules in order for the convenience of them if they are not well-rested,” LaHood said. He vowed that he would ensure any controllers falling asleep on duty would face consequences. “On my watch, controllers will not be paid to take naps,” he said. “We’re not going to allow that.”

Earlier this week, Hank Krakowski, the head of air traffic organization at the FAA, resigned from his position after LaHood said the crisis in U.S. control towers was “unacceptable”, and vowed to resolve the issue. “I am totally outraged by these incidents,” LaHood said. “This is absolutely unacceptable. The American public trusts us to run a safe system.”

The results of a study on how fatigue affects controllers will soon be published and the FAA may make changes. But LaHood insisted controllers had to “take personal responsibility” for the safety of aircraft over the U.S., and they should not make irresponsible shift changes which will make them tired and put passengers at risk. He said all the controllers involved in the incidents had been suspended, and could ultimately be sacked. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a labor union representing controllers in the U.S., said the FAA had their “full support” in implementing the new steps to tackle fatigue.