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Thursday, December 3, 2009

The U.K. Government announced today it has commissioned a report on whether the legal alcohol limit for driving, and whether the laws on driving under the influence of drugs, should be tightened. The report, by Oxford University academic Sir Peter North, should be completed by April for the Secretary of State for Transport, Lord Adonis. Lord Adonis said, “Drink-driving was involved in 430 road deaths in 2008 and research suggests that drug-driving is also a key concern for the public.”

One option that will be considered is whether to lower the limit from 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood to 50 milligrams. This would bring the UK into line with other European countries; a proposal to change the law in Scotland under devolved powers has already been put forward by the Scottish Government. A limit of 50 milligrams would mean that an average person would not be permitted to drive after drinking a standard measure of wine or a pint of beer.

The news was applauded by representatives of motoring organisations. The Automobile Association‘s President, Edmund King, said he was “pleased that these complex issues will be addressed”. The RAC‘s spokesman said drug-driving is a “growing problem”, and lowering the alcohol limit would reduce fatalities. However, the Conservative Party took a different view, with Shadow Transport Secretary, Theresa Villiers, saying they were “yet to be convinced of the case for an across-the-board reduction in the drink-driving limit”, and, would certainly oppose any suggestion of penalties being reduced.

Sir Peter North, 73, is a former Principal of Jesus College, Oxford and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. A former member of the Law Commission, he chaired the Road Traffic Law Review between 1985 and 1988, leading to the Road Traffic Act of 1991. His 1997 report on parades and marches in Northern Ireland led to the foundation of the Parades Commission. Commenting on his task he stated, “[t]he challenge is to see whether changes in the law and its processes can reduce casualties”, adding that whilst the issues “are not easy to resolve”, he intended to consult “widely”.

Monday, January 4, 2010

The United States and the United Kingdom closed their embassies in Yemen Sunday, pointing to ongoing terrorist threats. The closures came after the two nations pledged to boost counter-terrorism support to the Yemeni government.

The American embassy’s website said the threats come from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group linked to the failed Christmas Day airplane bombing attempt in the United States. The message in part said, “The U.S. Embassy in Sana’a is closed today, January 3, 2010, in response to ongoing threats by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to attack American interests in Yemen.”

Further adding, “On December 31, the U.S. Embassy sent a warden message to Americans citizens in Yemen to remind them of the continuing threat of terrorist actions and violence against American citizens and interests throughout the world. The U.S. Embassy reminds U.S. citizens to maintain a high level of vigilance and to practice enhanced security awareness.”

Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John O. Brennan said on CNN’s State of the Union with John King, “There are indications that al Qaeda is planning to carry out an attack against a target inside of Sana’a, possibly our embassy.” Brennan added, “And what we do is to take every measure possible to ensure the safety of our diplomats and citizens abroad, so the decision was made to close the embassy.”

A spokesperson for the British Foreign Office said their embassy would be closed on Sunday and a decision to reopen would be made on Monday.

The closures come a day after U.S. General David Petraeus visited the capital, Sana’a, to discuss security issues with President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The general, who oversees the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, recently announced that the United States would more than double its security aid to the impoverished nation.

The United States gave $67 million last year to Yemen, the only country that receives more aid is Pakistan with $112 million, according to the Associated Press.

Yesterday, in his weekly radio address, President Barack Obama linked the suspect in the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to al-Qaeda saying, “We know that he traveled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. It appears that he joined an affiliate of al-Qaeda, and that this group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America.”

Obama annouced, “So, as President, I’ve made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government-training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al-Qaeda terrorists.”

Obama said that they had already results prior to the Christmas Day bombing attempt saying, “So, as President, I’ve made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government-training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al-Qaeda terrorists.”

Britain has also announced plans to join with the United States in funding a counter-terrorism police unit in Yemen, as well as plans to hold an international conference on Yemeni security later this month.

Earlier today, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the BBC, “This is a new type of threat and it is from a new source which is obviously Yemen, but there are many other potential sources Somalia, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Editor Hakim Almasmari, of the Yemen Post newspaper, thinks the conference might be advantageous if it results in more development projects for rural Yemen. However, he fears what any foreign-backed military attacks could mean.

“Al-Qaeda right now is not very strong,” Almasmari said. “Its followers are not more than 400 in all. However, if the U.S. does attack Yemen, al-Qaeda will get stronger and stronger because people who lose their families in the airstrikes will join al-Qaeda not because they want to but because they want revenge against the Americans and the Yemeni government for the attacks.”

The situation has gained new urgency as the government in Sana’a finds itself overwhelmed not only by the growing terrorist threat, but also two separate rebellions, one of which has become something of a proxy war, at least in rhetoric, between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

U.S. military experts have warned that vast reaches of the impoverished nation, with its booming population and dwindling resources, could spin permanently out of the government’s control.

Militant groups from Somalia said that they would send fighters to help aid al-Qaeda in Yemen. Yemen has vowed to keep foreign extremists out.

The U.S. embassy has faced attacks from the local al-Qaeda group before, with an assault outside its gates in 2008 that left 19 people – civilians and militants – dead.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Kapil Sibal, India’s Minister of Human Resource Development (HRD) held a meeting Monday to present his reform plans for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) sector by increasing the entrance percentage to 80% and above in the class XII (final year) board exams. A three-member committee was set up to review the proposal.

Sibal said, “The present criteria is that students need to secure 60% in class XII for appearing in IIT-JEE. This is not acceptable”, pointing out that the current criteria where students getting more than 60% in the board exam of the twelfth class are eligible for IIT-JEE is not good enough and that it has to be raised to 80-85%.

He also stated that students undervalue final year board exams, preparing instead for the Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE); they enrol in coaching institutes and concentrate on their study material in order to enter IIT. He wants to abolish these “teaching shops.”

The meeting decided that they would set up two committees, one headed by Anil Kakodkar, Atomic Energy Commission (Chairman) and other by T. Ramasamy, Department of Science and Technology (Secretary). The first committee is scheduled to decide final year board percentage and the second one is scheduled to set the curriculum.

The Kakodkar committee also plans to decide how to abolish coaching institutes and how to move IIT field forward with a greater emphasis on research. The committee is expected to submit its report in the next six months. The minister also clarified that some of these will be implemented from the 2010 academic year and some from 2011.

The meeting was also expected to reduce the fee for African and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries as their fees are higher than those of Indians. The review committee says that people of other countries are tempted to study in India but they refrain due to high fees. The Ramasamy committee is expected to submit its report in the next three months.

Lastly, the meeting said that it will appoint board members and directors on the basis of nominations and independent rank and power to ensure IIT’s activity.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Australia’s Department of Defence spent thousands of dollars on controversial development seminars, Australian media reported Wednesday. The seminars are run by a San Francisco, California-based training company called Landmark Education. The company evolved from Erhard Seminars Training “est”, and has faced criticism regarding its techniques and its use of unpaid labor.

Australia’s Defence Minister Warren Snowdon said that the government is in the process of reviewing Defence Department expenditures on career development. “We’re in the process now of doing an audit, completely unrelated with anything to do with Landmark, which is being undertaken into learning and development to make sure that they meet our needs. … We have to be very sure that the courses that people do undertake are relevant, appropriate and indeed in line with what community expectations might be,” said Snowdon in an appearance on ABC Radio.

The Australian and Australia’s ABC News reported that Landmark Education had been listed in France as a “possible cult” in the mid 1990s. When asked about this on ABC Radio, a spokeswoman for the company in the United States, Deborah Beroset, responded: “What happened in France was that a commission established by the French parliament issued a report in which they listed almost 200 organisations as being possible cults … We were never contacted. We were inappropriately included in that list”.

In a program which aired Wednesday, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio program AM reported that Australia’s Defence Department spent at least AUD12,270 of taxpayer funds to send government employees to Landmark Education courses. According to AM, the Defence Department said it does not appear that further funds have been sent to Landmark Education since 2004.

In a statement released by the Defence Department, the government stated: “A search of Defence records does not indicate exactly how many individuals attended courses with this training provider, however it is believed it was a small number of individuals. … Defence has been unable to determine individual reasons for why groups within Defence choose this training provider.”

AM also reported that the use of unpaid labor by Landmark Education “has attracted the attention of the US and French governments,” and that some individuals in the mental health field have accused the company of brainwashing. When asked about the allegations by mental health experts that Landmark Education’s techniques amounted to brainwashing, Deborah Beroset responded: “Well, there is absolutely no credence to that whatsoever.”

In a March 9 article in the Herald Sun, Peter Rolfe reported that taxpayer money was used to send at least 37 police and government staff from Victoria, Australia to seminars run by Landmark Education. Police and Emergency Services Minister Bob Cameron said that “Decisions on the appropriateness of staff attending courses by Landmark Education are made by individual managers who remain best-placed to assess the development needs of their staff,” but State Liberal MP Murray Thompson told the Herald Sun that the funds should have been put towards fighting crime. Apple Inc., Reebok, and Mercedes-Benz have sent employees to Landmark Education seminars, according to a spokeswoman for Landmark.

In October 2006, Landmark Education took legal action against Google, YouTube, the Internet Archive, and a website owner in Queensland, Australia in attempts to remove criticism of its products from the Internet. The company sought a subpoena under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in an attempt to discover the identity of an anonymous critic who uploaded a 2004 French documentary of the Landmark Forum to the Internet. “Voyage au pays des nouveaux gourous” (Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus) was produced by Pièces à Conviction, a French investigative journalism news program. The Electronic Frontier Foundation represented the anonymous critic and the Internet Archive, and Landmark withdrew its subpoena in November 2006 in exchange for a promise from the anonymous critic not to repost the video.

Landmark Education is descended from Erhard Seminars Training, also called “est”, which was founded by Werner Erhard. est began in 1971, and Erhard’s company Werner Erhard and Associates repackaged the course as “The Forum” in 1985. Associates of Erhard bought the license to his “technology” and incorporated Landmark Education in California in 1991.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Ian Narev, the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, this morning “unreservedly” apologised to clients who lost money in a scandal involving the bank’s financial planning services arm.

Last week, a Senate enquiry found financial advisers from the Commonwealth Bank had made high-risk investments of clients’ money without the clients’ permission, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars lost. The Senate enquiry called for a Royal Commission into the bank, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Mr Narev stated the bank’s performance in providing financial advice was “unacceptable”, and the bank was launching a scheme to compensate clients who lost money due to the planners’ actions.

In a statement Mr Narev said, “Poor advice provided by some of our advisers between 2003 and 2012 caused financial loss and distress and I am truly sorry for that. […] There have been changes in management, structure and culture. We have also invested in new systems, implemented new processes, enhanced adviser supervision and improved training.”

An investigation by Fairfax Media instigated the Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning division and ASIC.

Whistleblower Jeff Morris, who reported the misconduct of the bank to ASIC six years ago, said in an article for The Sydney Morning Herald that neither the bank nor ASIC should be in control of the compensation program.

Friday, July 21, 2017

A group of Afghan teenagers was awarded a silver medal for “courageous achievement” on Tuesday in the FIRST Global Challenge Robot Olympics in the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. The six-member Afghan team, which consists entirely of girls, had been denied visas to enter the United States until last week, drawing notice from critics of U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies regarding Muslims traveling to the U.S. The President later personally took action to allow the team into the country.

According to Afghan Ambassador to the United States Hamdullah Mohib, the participation of this team in this science competition shows progress in Afghanistan’s response to nearly two decades of military conflict.

The FIRST Global competition (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technlogy) was founded by Dean Kamen to encourage interest in applied science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in young people. This year’s theme was water security. For the contest, the robots were required to recognize, pick up, carry, and deposit balls colored blue and orange to represent water and pollution, respectively. Teams from different countries were arranged in groups of three, and groups faced off in pairs. The group whose three robots collectively earned the most points won that match. According to the Afghan team’s coach, Alireza Mehraban, in their first matchup, the Afghan team’s robot, named “Better Idea of Afghan Girls,” scored one or two points for the three-nation alliance with the Gabonese and Estonian teams. This year, the European team won the competition overall, with the silver medal going to Poland and the bronze to Armenia.

“We are so interested because we find a big chance to show the talent and ability of Afghans,” team member Rodaba Noori told the press, “to show that Afghan women can make robots too and we can improve in this section — [the] robotics section. We were so interested because we hadn’t long or enough time to get ready for competition but we came to United States and now we are here because of Trump intervention.”

The team arrived in Washington D.C. after many difficulties. They were twice denied visas to enter the United States. Even applying for a visa required the entire team to travel about 500 miles (800 km) from Herat, their home, to the capital in Kabul, through territory controlled by the Taliban. They made the trip twice and were turned down both times. President Donald Trump personally asked the United States National Security Council to help the girls enter the country. After some interplay between the State and Homeland Security Departments, the girls were granted “parole” status on the grounds that their entry would be a “significant public benefit.” The President has drawn both praise for helping the girls enter the U.S. and criticism for his travel ban, which does not cover Afghanistan, and for the atmosphere of hostility toward Muslims that critics blame for denying them entry in the first place.

Citing privacy rules, U.S. officials have not said why the team was initially denied visas, but Afghan Ambassador Hamdullah Mohib says there were concerns they would attempt to remain in the United States or in Canada after the contest. Afghanistan is not one of the nations covered by President Trump’s travel ban, but teams from Sudan, Iran, Libya, and Yemen, which are covered, are among the 163 teams in the competition. There were also two Syrian teams scheduled to compete, one national and one made up of refugees. Syria and all refugees are covered by the ban. The Syrian refugee team listed their country as “Hope” on the backs of their shirts and named their robot “Robogee.” Teams from Morocco and Iran both had difficulties getting themselves or their robots across the U.S. border. Team Estonia had to rebuild their robot entirely after the original disappeared in transit.

“Seventeen years ago, this would not have been possible at all,” said Ambassador Mohib. “They represent our aspirations and resilience despite having been brought up in a perpetual conflict. These girls will be proving to the world and the nation that nothing will prevent us from being an equal and active member of the international community.”

Every team in the contest was sent a collection of robot parts roughly four months in advance of the competition. The Afghan team’s supplies were delayed, leaving them only two weeks left to assemble their robot and only one day to test it before packing it up to mail to the competition site.

The competition ended on Tuesday. This is the first FIRST Global competition, and the organization plans to hold the contest in a different country every year. Next year’s competition is scheduled to take place in Mexico City.