All posts by Admin

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Oakland, California —A developer’s recent glossy sales brochure hails the Coliseum Gardens housing development in East Oakland as the most comprehensive development to date for one of Oakland’s largest nonprofit housing developers, but close scrutiny of the project reveals that only 4 out of the 178 low-income public housing families displaced by the development actually managed to return to the newly rebuilt housing complex that was recently christened as Lion Creek Crossings.

Phase 1 of the 20 acre project at the Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek Crossings mixed income housing development was completed in June of 2006, with phase 4 of the development expected to be completed by December 2008.

Documents reveal that as an effort to reduce violence and drug trafficking within and around the Coliseum and Lockwood communities of Oakland, the HOPE VI program enabled the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA) to use nearly $61 million in federal funding to displace Oakland’s low-income communities from the above mentioned locations.

These projects are only a small part of what is known as the Oakland Coliseum Redevelopment Area, which is approximately 11 square miles in size, extending from 22nd Ave., all the way to the San Leandro City limits, and is located between E. 14th St., and the Oakland Estuary/Airport.

The OHA’s Board of Commissioners approved the selection of the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), the Related Companies of California (Related Companies), and Chambers General Construction as co-developers of the Coliseum Gardens public housing site during its board meeting on October 21, 2002. As partners in the development project, the OHA owns the land, and the developers own the buildings.

As a result of the OHA approval, local nonprofit housing developer EBALDC and Related Companies, LLC., out of New York City, created Creekside Housing Partners, L.P., to take control of Oakland’s public housing property at the Coliseum Gardens site.

After the eviction of 178 families and the demolition of their 178 public housing units during 2004, Creekside Housing Partners (CHP) moved as quickly as possible to rebuild and finish off “phase 1,” of their project. Phase 1 of the development is managed by Related Companies, the tenants pay their rents to the New York based firm, and during the past 6 months the developers have moved people into 115 newly rebuilt housing units at the development.

Twima Early works at the management office of Related Companies located at Lion Creek Crossings and was eager to help shed some light on whats been going on at the newly privatized public housing site in East Oakland.

In an October 18 interview, Twima Early said, “During the past 6 months, we have completed phase 1 of our project and moved people into 115 housing units at our new development. Out of the 178 families who were originally displaced by our project, the OHA sent us a list of 13 families who were eligible to move back into this location, and only 4 of those families actually moved into our new development.”

“It seemed odd that the Housing Authority would only allow 13 families to move back into this location, and I can’t explain why so few were allowed to return,” said Early.

When Randy Shaw of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic learned how few of the original public housing tenants that were actually allowed to move back into the Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek housing development, he said, “The Hope VI program has once again proved to be the major cause of the displacement of low-income people. I’ve never heard of numbers so skewed before in regards to the displacement of families who were promised that the Hope VI project would be beneficial to them.”

Since 1994, Oakland officials and the Federal Government have targeted Oakland’s poor with nearly $84 million in federal funding through the Hope VI program.

The privatization of Oakland’s public housing units have been occurring at a rapid pace. When wealthy billionaire Stephen M. Ross, CEO of Related Companies, teamed up with local nonprofit housing developer EBALDC to re-develop the Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek housing complex, it became apparent that the developers made out much better than the displaced families did.

Carlos Castellanos of EBALDC is involved in the Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek development, and when I asked how did this project benefit the families who used to reside there or how is the City of Oakland benefitting from the displacement of so many families, Castellanos said, “These are loaded questions and not something that I want to talk about. I think that a lot of those tenants did not really want to move back, and I think that you really need to talk to the Housing Authority to find out what happened to all of those families.”

Vivian Haine resided in a public housing unit near the Coliseum Gardens site, and said, “About a year ago, Kim Boyd the site manager where I resided at, told me that I’m lucky to be living here even if there is no money for repairs at this building, because they didn’t have enough funding to finish off the project at Coliseum Gardens, and most of the evicted tenants had no where to go. I believe that many of the families displaced from the Coliseum Gardens development couldn’t find any housing to move into and may have become homeless,” Haine said.

Records show that on June 24, 2006, the OHA’s Board of Commissioners approved the use of market rate rents in its Project-Based Section 8 program at the Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek development, to cover a $600,000 funding shortfall after the EBALDC/Related Companies claimed that they needed more money to complete phase 3 of the project.

A Sept. 19, 2006, OHA memo mentions that EBALDC/Related Companies are co-developing the rental portion at Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek Crossings site, which will include 157 units of public housing. The total number of rental units, including public housing, now planned is approximately 440 units, plus another 28 units of for-sale housing which are planned to be developed by Chambers Construction Company.

With the demolition of 178 public housing units by the developers, and only 157 public housing units being rebuilt at the Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek Crossings housing site, theres been a net loss of 21 public housing units at this location.

The OHA and City of Oakland continue to funnel millions of dollars to the EBALDC/Related Companies partnership, in an effort to privatize part of Oakland’s public housing program in East Oakland.

Since its inception, the Hope VI program has resulted in the demolition of more than 120,000 public housing units across the nation, only to be replaced by 40,000 mixed income units, and less than 12% of the displaced families have managed to gain entry back into the locations they were originally evicted from. In order to make way for the new housing projects being developed that resulted in the privatization of the nation’s public housing properties, around 30% of the displaced families are given Section 8 vouchers, 49% are moved into other public housing units, and most of the rest of the tenants often end up losing their rental assistance.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

George Lucas has announced that there will be one last Star Wars movie to end the saga, but it won’t have any actors visible.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, an animated film is scheduled to be released into theaters on August 15 of this year.

“I felt there were a lot more ‘Star Wars’ stories left to tell. I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the art of animation forward,” said Lucas in a statement to the media.

Lucas says that although the film is animated, people can expect the same kind of galactic space battles and action that all the other Star Wars films have. The approximate running time of the film is 100 minutes.

The film is produced by Warner Brothers and Lucasfilm LTD. The new movie is also set to continue as an animated, 30 minute “mini-movie” series this autumn. The show can be seen on the Cartoon Network.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

In an interview on a television show called the No Drug Show, hosted by Larry Byrnes, the Church of Scientology blamed both the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and the attack on Pearl Harbor on psychiatrists and the drugs they prescribe their patients. Scientology considers psychiatry to be barbaric and a violation of human rights.

The video was posted on the video sharing website YouTube, but was later removed “due to a copyright claim by Axiom 10 Productions, Inc.” Mark Bunker of XenuTV questioned why Axiom 10 would utilize the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to remove the video from YouTube, as it was promoting their ideology about psychiatrists. It was later re-added to another site called Vimeo.com.

David Figueroa, a spokesperson for the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a human rights group founded by the Church in 1969, said, “terrorism employs violence. Against not just the general public, like in 9/11, but against individuals when they are captured.” Figueroa is president of the CCHR organization in Florida.

“To take [a] person, and turn them into a killing machine, against their will or have them do things that are against their nature, you need something behind that. Psychiatrists employ drugs and conditioning techniques in order to change people from what they would normally be, into killing machines,” added Figueroa. He also says that the leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden got the idea to form the terrorist group from his second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri in 1988. Then 13 years later, 19 terrorists hijacked four U.S. commercial airliners, crashing two into the World Trade Center towers, one into the The Pentagon and one into a field in Pennsylvania. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people.

“He was [bin Laden] just transformed from someone who was a supporter” of the “jihad” against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, into someone whose “whole thought patterns and his entire viewpoint was changed by Zawahiri, and by whatever types of drugs Zawahiri used to make that change in bin Laden, we don’t know”, said Figueroa, who adds that Zawahiri was acting as a “psychiatrist”. In another show hosed by Byrnes, former CCHR-International president Dennis H. Clarke claims Zawahiri to be a “psychiatrist, a therapist”; Zawahiri is referred to in this program as the “guy who runs” bin Laden. However, Zawahiri is actually a surgeon; he is not a psychiatrist or a psychologist.

Figueroa goes on to say that Japanese kamikaze pilots responsible for bombing Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in December of 1941 were “on amphetamines which is a psychiatric drug” when they attacked. However, the Japanese did not employ kamikaze tactics until later in the war. Wikinews has contacted the CCHR for a statement regarding Figueroa’s remarks, but have yet to receive a reply. Scientology-associated publications have also attributed tragedies including the Jonestown massacre and the Holocaust to psychiatry.

At the conclusion of the television program, the host promotes a brochure which he says illustrates how “notorious terrorist acts like 9/11 were basically created by psychiatrists operating behind the scenes”.

The issue of Scientology’s stance on psychiatry was brought to the forefront in the media during a 2005 appearance by Tom Cruise on NBC’s program Today with Matt Lauer. At the time Cruise told Lauer he was critical of psychiatry and the use of antidepressants. In a December 2008 appearance on the Today show on a promotional tour for his film Valkyrie, Cruise told Lauer he wanted to apologize and felt he appeared arrogant in his 2005 interview.

This is not the first time the Church made false accusations for acts of violence. In October 2008, the Church falsely accused the internet protest group Anonymous of a 2007 school shooting in Finland. They accused Anonymous of being involved in the November 2007 shooting at Jokela High School, in which a man named Pekka-Eric Auvinen shot and killed nine people, including himself. The Church accused Auvinen of being part of Anonymous, and further accused the group of plotting the attack. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Finland later told Wikinews that Anonymous had nothing to do with the crime.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

On the third day of the 2007 Taipei IT Month in Taiwan yesterday, notebook computers and desktop computers built with AMD’s Phenom processor and Intel Penryn processor openly battled for the consumer-market after each company launched their quad core processors.

Intel with partners like Acer, Genuine, ASUS, and Lenovo promoted their desktops with Core 2 Quad and notebooks with Centrino Duo, even though Intel didn’t plan to exhibit in IT Month. Intel’s Taiwan division is holding two road shows for DIY experts. One was on December 1 while the second will be on December 8.

AMD, on the other hand, put on a showcase for IT Month with a “Bee Movie“ booth-style exhibit at halls 1 and 3 of the Taipei World Trade Center. AMD’s subsidiary company ATI showcased HDMI and Full HD with a demonstration of a new graphic card named “Radeon HD2000”.

As the two rivals postured over factors like performance and high-definition, Wikinews reporter Rico Shen interviewed some of their partners. BenQ and Micro-Star International both said: “No matter whether the consumer chooses a computer with AMD or Intel, the consumer should consider it based on functionality and practically before purchasing. For example, some low-price notebook computers (EeePC, OLPC) were launched before the show because notebook computer manufacturers had considered and evaluated what a consumer really want. Sincerely, I recommend a consumer not be fooled by a its price but to consider its functionality first!”

Monday, April 8, 2013

Wikinews interviewed David Palmer, a member of the USA 2013 World Wheelchair Curling Championship team, about the 2014 Winter Paralympics being held in Sochi, Russia.

((Wikinews)) The US qualified a team for the Sochi Games. How likely are you to be on the final team? As these games would be your first, how excited are you about the possibility of representing your country?

David Palmer: It is very likely that I and the team that went to Sochi in 2013 will be the team in the Paralympics 2014 as long as no sickness or injury and we all continue to perform at our level.

DP: I am very happy and honored to represent my country. After competing in the last two world championships which were very exciting, I can not wait for the chance to compete at the Paralympics.

((WN)) Were you happy with your team’s fourth place finish at this year’s World Championships?

DP: I was happy with the way the team played, we all thought we should have medaled. We finished third in the round-robin with a record of 7–2 and the closest behind us was 4–5. We all made a few mistakes and did not finish as well as we would have liked, but we are looking forward to next year.

((WN)) What steps is the team taking to try to get a gold medal in Sochi?

DP: We will be training harder and hopefully playing more bonspiels (tournaments). Because this is a Paralympic year we hope to get more funding, to travel for more high level bonspiels. Because the team is scattered across the country it is hard to get together for practice and bonspiels so we have to do the majority of it on our own. We will be reviewing the tapes from the worlds [World Wheelchair Curling Championship] and video conferencing with team and discussing strategy and performance.

((WN)) Why do you participate in wheelchair curling? Why not wheelchair fencing, tennis, basketball or athletics?

DP: I do participate in other sports at a recreational level. I have done waterskiing, monosking, wheelchair tennis and basketball, handcycling. I played and competed in sled hockey for about 12 years, but I found as I got older and the competition got younger it was pretty physical on the body. I went and tried curling at Cape Cod Curling Club in 2009, I found that I not only liked it but I was also pretty good at it. A member there (Tony Colacchio) took me under his wing and showed me the possibilities there were to compete at the National level. I thought he was crazy at first, but four years later here I am curling on team USA and traveling the world.

((WN)) What is the nature of your disability? Do you use a wheelchair for most daily activities?

DP: I am a T4 Paraplegic, due to a motorcycle accident in 1993. Yes I am dependent on my wheelchair for mobility.

((WN)) How does being a parent impact your ability to compete at elite levels?

DP: I am married and have three children. Having a family does make it a harder to compete at elite levels, not only being away traveling, when I am home I am on the ice training a lot. But thanks to the support from my family I have been able to do so. Hopefully it has a positive impact on my children, showing them you can achieve anything you put your mind to.

((WN)) Does participating in wheelchair curling cost a lot money?

DP: Well that depends! At a recreational level, if you have a wheelchair already all you need is a delivery stick which is about $60.00 and to join a club which has dues usually 300.00 to 500.00 per year. To compete at the highest level, there is travel and lodging involved which can get quite expensive.

((WN)) How do you afford to compete at the highest level? Do you have any sponsorship deals?

DP: Getting started was tough, I got help through the members of cape cod curling club and a grant from Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) and some out of my pocket. But once I made the National team there is funding to help with expenses. I have no sponsorship deals at the moment, but I am open to negotiation!

((WN)) Do you think USA Paralympic competitors get enough financial support to enable the country to compete at the highest level? Is funding equitable in the United States across sports and competitor visibility?

DP: No, there is funding, but not nearly enough for an athlete to compete at the highest level.

DP: Not from what I hear. I believe the higher viewed sports get a lot more funding. I have been told curling is at bottom for funding.

((WN)) What are your thoughts on the classification system and processes for your sport? Do you know of anyone who has been impacted as a result of it?

DP: I am not really clear on how the classification system works. I feel that they should make it as equal as possible for everyone who competes in wheelchair curling. Everyone one has different disabilities and different situations, but as long as they are delivering the stone from a stationary wheelchair with a delivery stick from the same position it should be equal.

DP: I know of a young man from state of Washington who uses a wheelchair most of the time but is able to walk and has mobility, that he probably would not qualify for the national team.. Yet I know of a man in Canada that uses a wheelchair only for curling and competes on the National team.

((WN)) Have you gotten much media coverage? What do you think of media coverage for curling in general and wheelchair curling specifically?

DP: I Have had some media coverage from my locals newspaper, when I was competing in the worlds and when I made the National team.

DP: I do not think there is enough coverage for curling on television although there was quite a bit of coverage at the last Olympics, but not the Paralympics. I think if there were more coverage people would understand the sport better and perhaps grow to love it like I have. There is a lot more to it with strategy and skill than people think.

((WN)) What has been your favorite moment as a wheelchair curling competitor?

DP: I think this past worlds in Sochi was my favorite time. Curling at the Olympic Venue (which was state of the art Facility), being the first one ever to curl there was special. Being there when they played our national anthem and I was representing my country was priceless! All of the volunteers there were young college students, they were so friendly and helpful and were asking us for our autographs. I felt like a celebrity. I cannot imagine what the Paralympics are going to feel like! I just hope I am there!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Chicago, Illinois police arrested William Balfour, the estranged brother-in-law of Oscar-winning American actress and singer Jennifer Hudson, on Monday, multiple media outlets reported. Balfour is expected to be charged with three counts of murder for the slayings of three of Hudson’s relatives in October.

“We have obtained an arrest warrant for William Balfour. He was released to Chicago detectives,” Chicago Police Department spokeswoman Monique Bond told Reuters.

Hudson’s mother, Darnell Donerson, 57, and brother, Jason Hudson, 29 were found dead in Donerson’s home on October 24 and the body of Hudson’s 7-year-old nephew, Julian King was found four days later in a stolen SUV. A handgun police say is tied to the case was found nearby, but Reuters reports that Bond did not comment on any evidence in the case.

The Associated Press reports that police took Balfour into custody on Oct. 24 and held him for 48 before the Illinois Department of Corrections took possession of him on an alleged parole violation. Balfour previously served nearly seven years for a 1999 conviction attempted murder, vehicular hijacking, and possessing a stolen vehicle. CNN reports he was out of jail on parole at the time of the shootings.

Balfour’s mother, Michelle Davis-Balfour, spoke to the press Monday night, saying she thought that there was no case against her son.

“If they found gun powder on his hands, you got a case; if they found a gun on him, he had a case; if they found a fingerprint on the truck that he did this, you got a case; but they don’t have nothing,” Davis-Balfour said, according to the Associated Press. She also said: “My son did not do this. I am sick of this. They need to focus on somebody else.”

Davis-Balfour also accused at least one witness of lying while providing an alibi for his son, saying he was with one of three girls friends when the killings happened.

“He was with Diana that night and with Kate in the morning,” she said, according to CNN.

Attorney for Balfour, Josh Kutnick, told CNN that his client is innocent. “He believes when the evidence comes out, he will be found not guilty,” Kutnick told CNN.

Hudson became famous in 2004 when she was one of the finalists on the third season of the American hit television show American Idol. She later won multiple awards for her role in the 2006 motion picture Dreamgirls.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

The former CEO of Tyco International, Dennis Kozlowski, as well as CFO Mark Swartz are convicted of taking more than $600 million from the company. Charges include grand larceny, securities fraud, conspiracy, and falsifying business records.

The first trial ended in a mistrial after one juror received a threatening letter. Nancy Salomon says of the second trial that the “Defense was counting on the jury not reaching a verdict; they had used their challenges during the jury selection process to kick almost every potential juror who had a college degree, or had any business experience or Wall Street experience off the jury … they were hoping that this case was just going to be too confusing for the jury.” While the jury did take 11 days to arrive at their decision, they found Kozlowski and Swartz guilty on 22 of the 23 counts. To combat the aggressive jury selection strategy undertaken by the defense, the prosecution “basically gave the jury several credit hours worth of an MBA“, teaching them about following paper trails and detecting falsification of business records. It paid off during deliberation as the jury requested over 100 documents to review.

Kozlowski and Swartz directly stole approximately $150 million USD from Tyco and acquired $430 million more by inflating the company’s stock value and then secretly selling company shares. Bail was set at $10 million each. The two former executives face a minimum of eight years in prison, up to a maximum of 25 years. In addition, Kozlowski is accused of evading $1 million in sales taxes on six paintings that he bought in 2001 in a separate New York State case, and Swartz faces tax evasion charges in New Hampshire. If convicted in these cases as well, they would face up to 30 years in prison.

Friday, April 22, 2005

Las Vegas, Nevada — The San Jose Police Department has announced that Anna Ayala, the woman who claims to have found a human finger in a bowl of chili at a Wendy’s restaurant in San Jose, California, was arrested at or near her home in Las Vegas on Thursday evening, in connection with the case.

According to court documents, she has been charged with one count of attempted grand larceny related to the chili case, and one count of grand larceny in an unrelated real estate deal, and is being held without bail in Clark County, Nevada, pending extradition. A press conference by the San Jose Police and Wendy’s was to be held on Friday, April 22, at 13:00 PDT.

Wendy’s had offered a reward of as much as $100,000 for information leading to an arrest in the case. Ayala claimed to have discovered the finger while eating at a Wendy’s on March, 22. Ayala later dropped plans to sue the restaurant after previous lawsuits, including one against another fast food restaurant, were made public.

The charges place the value of the attempted theft against Wendy’s at $2.5 million. The unrelated charge stems from an incident, also in San Jose, when Ayala allegidly received an $11,000 down payment on a mobile home she did not own. Ayala will face an extradition hearing on Tuesday, April 26.

Friday, December 28, 2018

Police on Tuesday warned new owners of drones to obey the law after Gatwick Airport, the second-largest airport in Britain, faced days of closure on account of drone sightings. About 150,000 travellers have had their plans affected. Two suspects were arrested but later released without charge.

Airport authorities closed the facility’s single runway on December 19. The airport briefly reopened two days later, on Friday, but was shut down again after renewed drone activity. In total the airport, which serves London, was not able to operate normally for about 36 hours.

Over the three days, people reported seeing drones fly over the airport 67 times but, according to Sussex Police Detective Chief Superintendent Jason Tingley as of Monday, there was no video of any drone activity and “always a possibility that there may not have been any genuine drone activity in the first place”, though the police generally referred to the sightings as credible and were examining a downed drone found not far from the airport.

“Before anyone uses a drone it is vital that they make themselves aware of their responsibilities and the rules to make sure these devices are operated in a safe and responsible way” said Deputy Chief Constable Serena Kennedy, a national lead on drone policing. The law on drone misuse was tightened in July and presently provides for fines and up to five years in prison. She continued “Police officers will use all available powers to investigate reports of drones being misused and seek the appropriate penalty”.

The law prevents drone use above 400ft and within a kilometre of airports. UK rules planned for late next year mandate registration of any drone above 250g (about 9oz) and the taking of an online safety exam before piloting them.

Airport authorities grounded all planes in the airport, and diverted the planes meant to arrive at Gatwick to other airports in England or even other countries, such as London Heathrow, Luton, Birmingham, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Manchester, Dublin in Ireland, Glasgow in Scotland, and Paris in France.

Gatwick Airport authorities instructed travellers to check how their flights had been affected before coming to the airport. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has said since this is an “extraordinary circumstance”, travellers may not be owed money by the airline they were travelling with.

The British army was called in during the incident. Police said there was no reason to think the incident was terrorism, but was probably a deliberate attempt to disrupt the airport.

Couple Paul Gait and Elaine Kirk were arrested on Friday and named in several newspapers, before being cleared by police and released without charge. They said on Monday they feel “completely violated” by the incident and its press coverage. In light of a landmark legal ruling earlier this year, libel lawyer Mark Stephens of media law specialists Howard Kennedy said they were likely in line for a payout of £75,000 to £125,000 if they chose to take any publishers to court.

Hacked Off, a campaign group seeking media reform, was also critical of the media outlets that named the couple. Trevor Kavanagh, former politics editor at The Sun, defended that paper’s decision to release their names, on the basis press attention had hastened the police’s identification of a “cast-iron, watertight alibi” proving their innocence. TV personality Piers Morgan apologised for claiming Gait and Kirk were “terrorists”.

Planes can sustain significant damage from collisions with drones. The Guardian recently outlined a few possible ways to stop drones from entering restricted areas, such as blocking the radio signals. This was used in English prisons in an attempt to stop drugs from being smuggled in via drones. However, in an airport, this could also stop important signals getting through. Training eagles to take down drones has also been attempted by the Dutch police. Another possible method is firing nets at the drones.

According to The Guardian, most drones can fly for roughly half an hour. The drone sightings at Gatwick continued for hours. The Guardian speculated there might have been multiple drones involved or an operator changing out the battery packs to allow the drone or drones to relaunch quickly. However, the packs take time to recharge, so it would take a large number of packs and effort to operate drones for so long, constantly.

According to The Guardian, despite this short flying time, most drones’ range is mainly limited by signal strength. Some drones are able to fly up to five miles away from the controller. With a big enough budget, drone range is nearly unlimited.

Gatwick airport’s CEO said that he is sorry about the disruption, but must keep the travellers’ safety as the most important thing. He claimed he was working with the police and government to resolve this problem. He said the incident highlighted a weak area in British aviation and drones should not be able to do this much damage.

Prime Minister Theresa May said she “feels for all those passengers” affected. Britain’s transport secretary said that this was an “entirely new kind of threat”.

Gatwick Airport offered a £50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the ongoing investigation. Crimestoppers chair Lord Ashcroft added another £10,000 to the sum.

Drone incidents are increasing in the UK, with the CAA reporting for the year until December 4, 120 incursions of drones into airspace close to other aircraft. This represents a roughly 30% increase from the previous year. 2014, by contrast, had less than ten such occasions. According to Farming UK on Monday, in an incident earlier this year a Tornado jet belonging to the Royal Air Force came within 22m (about 70ft) of an agricultural drone whilst flying at low altitude at over 500mph. The drone was at a 100m (about 330ft) altitude and the incident came to CAA attention after being reported by the farmer.

Also reported earlier this month, in August a Boeing 737 approaching Stansted Airport, which also serves London, came within 15m (about 50ft) of hitting a drone at a 10,000ft altitude. Gatwick, meanwhile, is not the only English airport to face disruption over the Christmas travel period. On Sunday Birmingham Airport closed for two hours due to malfunctioning air traffic control equipment.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Twenty-four thousand delegates from over 132 countries are expected to attend the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto this week

Delegates include scientists, politicians, health care workers, government and non-governmental officials, people with AIDS and celebrities. In attendance will be Bill and Melinda Gates, Bill Clinton, Richard Gere, Olympia Dukakis and Sandra Oh.

The theme of the conference is “Time to Deliver” and is meant to focus attention on the need to meet past promises to increase funding for treatment, care and prevention. The conference began on August 13th and is scheduled to end on August 18th.

There is growing frustration with the failure of developed countries to provide drugs to combat the AIDS crisis in the developing world, particularly Africa.

“What the Western world has to do is deliver on its promises, which it never does. It always betrays the people of Africa,” Stephen Lewis, the UN secretary general’s special envoy for HIV-AIDS in Africa, told CBC News.

In the week leading up to the conference, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates announced a donation of US$500 million spread over five years to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Gates and former US President Bill Clinton will be sharing the podium during this week’s conference.

International AIDS conferences have usually been attended by world leaders, particularly the leader of the host country. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been criticized for snubbing the conference by sending his health minister, Tony Clement, to attend in his place. The prime minister, who is touring Canada’s far north this week, officially declined his invitation to attend three weeks ago.

“It’s a dreadful mistake in political judgment, and it’s not excusable,” said Lewis, who was Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations in the 1980s. “It’s a lost opportunity to tell the world how Canada feels about this pandemic.

“The Arctic sovereignty issue will still be there on August 18 (when the AIDS conference ends),” said Lewis. “Forty million people worldwide carry this virus, and most will die preventable deaths. What greater scourge is there than that?”

This is the second major international event Canada has hosted which Harper has snubbed. Last month, he did not appear in Montreal for the 2006 World Outgames, a celebration of elite gay, lesbian, and transgendered athletes.

The AIDS conference is expected to be the largest in history and will be ten times the size of the first which was held in Atlanta in 1985. It has become a biennial event and is convened by the International AIDS Society (IAS), an independent association of HIV professionals, with more than 7,000 members from 153 countries.