Wednesday, 8 December 2010
STD fears sparked case against Julian Assange
Swedish Director of Prosecution Marianne Ny answers questions during a news conference at the police headquarters in Gothenburg December 7, 2010. The sexual misconduct case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a personal matter and not connected with his work releasing secret U.S. diplomatic cables, Ny said on Tuesday.
Credit: Reuters/Adam Ihse/Scanpix Sweden
The two Swedish women who accuse WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of sexual misconduct were at first not seeking to bring charges against him. They just wanted to track him down and persuade him to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases, according to several people in contact with his entourage at the time.
The women went to the police together after they failed to persuade Assange to go to a doctor after separate sexual encounters with him in August, according to these people, who include former close associates of Assange who have since fallen out with him.
The women had trouble finding Assange because he had turned off his cellphone out of concern his enemies might trace him, these sources said.
Assange, who was arrested and held in custody by a British court Tuesday, has both admirers and detractors. His WikiLeaks group publishes secret documents from governments and companies, most recently making public a vast trove of U.S. State Department cables between Washington and embassies abroad that have cast a revealing and sometimes embarrassing eye on the inner workings of U.S. diplomacy.
Assange's elusiveness may have worked against him in the Swedish investigation, which might well have gone nowhere had he taken the women's calls and not left Sweden when police started looking into the allegations.
The Swedish investigation has undergone head-spinning twists and turns. After initially issuing a warrant for Assange's arrest on rape and molestation charges in mid-August, a Swedish prosecutor dropped the rape charge the next day. After this U-turn, it appeared likely that the whole investigation of the 39-year-old Australian computer hacker would be abandoned.
Assange's accusers then hired a lawyer who declared he would press prosecutors not only to keep the investigation going but to reinstate rape charges. The case was soon transferred to one of Sweden's three Directors of Public Prosecutions, Marianne Ny, who indeed decided to reinstate the rape investigation and continue the molestation probe. She ordered that Assange should be subject to official interrogation about the allegations.
After Assange left the country, Swedish authorities issued a European arrest warrant under which Assange could be detained and returned to Sweden. A spokeswoman for Swedish prosecutors affirmed, however, that at the moment Assange is not formally charged in Sweden with any criminal offense, but is only wanted for questioning...
The women went to the police together after they failed to persuade Assange to go to a doctor after separate sexual encounters with him in August, according to these people, who include former close associates of Assange who have since fallen out with him.
The women had trouble finding Assange because he had turned off his cellphone out of concern his enemies might trace him, these sources said.
Assange, who was arrested and held in custody by a British court Tuesday, has both admirers and detractors. His WikiLeaks group publishes secret documents from governments and companies, most recently making public a vast trove of U.S. State Department cables between Washington and embassies abroad that have cast a revealing and sometimes embarrassing eye on the inner workings of U.S. diplomacy.
Assange's elusiveness may have worked against him in the Swedish investigation, which might well have gone nowhere had he taken the women's calls and not left Sweden when police started looking into the allegations.
The Swedish investigation has undergone head-spinning twists and turns. After initially issuing a warrant for Assange's arrest on rape and molestation charges in mid-August, a Swedish prosecutor dropped the rape charge the next day. After this U-turn, it appeared likely that the whole investigation of the 39-year-old Australian computer hacker would be abandoned.
Assange's accusers then hired a lawyer who declared he would press prosecutors not only to keep the investigation going but to reinstate rape charges. The case was soon transferred to one of Sweden's three Directors of Public Prosecutions, Marianne Ny, who indeed decided to reinstate the rape investigation and continue the molestation probe. She ordered that Assange should be subject to official interrogation about the allegations.
After Assange left the country, Swedish authorities issued a European arrest warrant under which Assange could be detained and returned to Sweden. A spokeswoman for Swedish prosecutors affirmed, however, that at the moment Assange is not formally charged in Sweden with any criminal offense, but is only wanted for questioning...
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Mo Money Mo Problems: The Printing Mistake that Cost Billions
Getting your printed poster back from the shop can sometimes be cause for frustration—if the colors don’t match, if the dimensions don’t fit, and so on. But rarely is that the cause of a billion-dollar problem, as the US government is now in the midst of, reports CNBC.
The US recently unveiled a new, high-tech hundred-dollar bill that sports a 3D security strip among others. Initially scheduled for release in February 2011, the bills have now been quarantined after a billion of them have been found to contain a printing error, CNBC said. The total value of the bills amount to US$110 billion, about 10% of the entire supply of US currency.
The printed bills have a creasing problem on one of its edges that when unfolded, reveals a blank portion of the note, people close to the matter told CNBC. All these new bills have been stored in vaults—only about 30% of them are flawed, but there is no way to sort out the good ones from the rotten.
CNBC estimates that to hand-sort through the deluge will take approximately 20 to 30 years, or a mechanized system could be developed that will reduce that time to about a year.
Since the bills aren’t in circulation, the US hasn’t exactly wasted US$110 billion but the loss is still in the millions. Each note cost 12 cents to produce—about twice as much as the normal bill—which makes the total production cost US$120 million, reports Fast Company.
As one official astutely told CNBC: “Somebody has to pay for this.”
The US recently unveiled a new, high-tech hundred-dollar bill that sports a 3D security strip among others. Initially scheduled for release in February 2011, the bills have now been quarantined after a billion of them have been found to contain a printing error, CNBC said. The total value of the bills amount to US$110 billion, about 10% of the entire supply of US currency.
The printed bills have a creasing problem on one of its edges that when unfolded, reveals a blank portion of the note, people close to the matter told CNBC. All these new bills have been stored in vaults—only about 30% of them are flawed, but there is no way to sort out the good ones from the rotten.
CNBC estimates that to hand-sort through the deluge will take approximately 20 to 30 years, or a mechanized system could be developed that will reduce that time to about a year.
Since the bills aren’t in circulation, the US hasn’t exactly wasted US$110 billion but the loss is still in the millions. Each note cost 12 cents to produce—about twice as much as the normal bill—which makes the total production cost US$120 million, reports Fast Company.
As one official astutely told CNBC: “Somebody has to pay for this.”
Santa Claus’ “Naughty/Nice” List Released by Wikileaks
“The ‘Naughty vs Nice’ files maintained by Santa Claus ahead of his annual Christmas gift-giving flight around the globe are the latest documents released by self-proclaimed ‘whistleblower,’ Wikileaks.
“The file is divided into a ‘naughty list,’ for children who misbehaved or treated people badly, who are therefore less deserving of presents; and a ‘nice list,’ which includes an inventory of gifts for children whose actions fall under the rubric of ‘good.’
“The confidentiality of the file is considered vital to a Christmas season filled with joy, surprises and holiday cheer.
“Santa Claus - known in some countries as Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or St. Nicholas- reacted with fury at the leak.
“‘That's it. Assange is on the permanent ‘naughty’ list,’" he fumed from his North Pole workshop. ‘No more Swedish women for him!’”
@Huffington Post
“The file is divided into a ‘naughty list,’ for children who misbehaved or treated people badly, who are therefore less deserving of presents; and a ‘nice list,’ which includes an inventory of gifts for children whose actions fall under the rubric of ‘good.’
“The confidentiality of the file is considered vital to a Christmas season filled with joy, surprises and holiday cheer.
“Santa Claus - known in some countries as Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or St. Nicholas- reacted with fury at the leak.
“‘That's it. Assange is on the permanent ‘naughty’ list,’" he fumed from his North Pole workshop. ‘No more Swedish women for him!’”
@Huffington Post
Psychology of fire survival
December 1 is the first day of summer and in some areas of the country, that heralds bushfire season. Just under two years ago the Black Saturday bushfires swept parts of Victoria killing 173 people and destroying more than 2000 homes.
A Victorian Royal Commission into the Black Saturday bushfires looked in detail at the circumstances surrounding deaths of those 173 people. Psychologists working for the Commission also examined the mental attitudes of people who survived.
In this report: Dr Jim McLennan, Bushfire CRC, School of Psychological Science, La Trobe University, Melbourne; Dr Susie Burke, Australian Psychological Society.
Listen to or download story.
Listen to or download story.
jonsnowC4 Who wags the tail of Amazon,Paypal,EBay,VISA,Mastercard? Happy to make money with Wiki-leaks until..oh dear, was that uncle sam at the door?
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