‘The Euro Is Irreversible’: ECB Will Buy Debt Nobody Else Wants
September 6th, 2012Via: New York Times:
The European Central Bank on Thursday announced a sweeping program for buying the bonds of troubled euro zone countries, giving the bank potentially unprecedented power.
While the bank’s president, Mario Draghi, insisted that the central bank was not violating a prohibition on its financing governments, it was effectively becoming lender of last resort to countries as well as banks.
“We will have a fully effective backstop to avoid destructive scenarios with potentially severe challenges for price stability in the euro area,” Mr. Draghi said during a news conference. “The euro is irreversible.”
DARPA Funded Cheetah Robot Treadmill Test at 28MPH
September 6th, 2012Via: BBC:
Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, said the robot was “an incredible technical achievement, but it’s unfortunate that it’s going to be used to kill people”.
Research Credit: jb
Spaniards Loot Grocery Stores in Cadiz and Sevilla
September 6th, 2012Via: SHTFplan:
Social safety nets across the continent are visibly under stress and breaking down, so much so that unemployed Spaniards have begun raiding supermarkets in order to put food on the table. As recently as last month the people of Cadiz and Sevilla, which have a reported unemployment rate of 32%, joined together to loot local grocery stores of three tons of food – some of which was distributed to local food banks…
‘It kinda resembles a military operation’
September 6th, 2012Via: Kansas City Police Department:
Research Credit: pookie
Honduras Sets Stage for 3 Privately Run Cities
September 6th, 2012Update: It’s Over for Now: Honduran Supreme Court Rejects ‘Model Cities’ Idea
This was sent in by almaverdad2.
Via: AP:
Honduras’ Supreme Court has struck down a plan to build a series of model cities with their own independent tax and justice systems, a proposal that was meant to spur economic growth in this Central American country struggling with corruption and crime.
Court spokesman Daniel Aguirre said the justices voted 13-2 Wednesday evening that legislation permitting the creation of special development zones outside the jurisdiction of ordinary Honduran law was unconstitutional, partly because it placed Honduran territory out of government control.
Proponents of the model cities project said Thursday that the court decision was a blow to Honduran efforts to attract more international investment. Opponents said they were happy with the decision, which was expected to put an end to the model cities idea.
—End Update—
Update: Court: Private Cities ‘Unconstitutional’
This was sent in by almaverdad2.
Via: AP:
The constitutional chamber of Honduras’ Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that privately run cities in the Central American country would be unconstitutional, threatening a project to build “model cities” with their own police, laws, government and tax systems.
The five-judge panel voted 4-to-1 in a ruling that goes against the Honduran government and the country’s elite.
Because the decision was not unanimous, the case now goes to the full 15-member Supreme Court, which is expected to take it up within 10 days.
The constitutional judges argued that “the foreign investment expected to be received by the state of Honduras implies transferring national territory, which is expressly prohibited in the constitution,” according to a copy of the ruling obtained by The Associated Press.
—End Update—
Update: Plan for Charter City to Fight Honduras Poverty Loses Its Initiator
This was sent in by latitude38.
Via: New York Times:
“I do feel disappointed on behalf of the people I have gotten to know,” said Mr. Romer, an economist at New York University’s Stern School of Business and the director of its Urbanization Project. “The Hondurans who hoped this would be a way to escape from business as usual.”
The tipping point came with the announcement a few weeks ago that the Honduran agency set up to oversee the project had signed a memorandum of understanding with its first investor group.
The news came as surprise to Mr. Romer. He believed that a temporary transparency commission he had formed with a group of well-known experts should have been consulted. He withdrew from the project.
—End Update—
Update: Human Rights Lawyer Murdered, Had Helped Prepare Motions Declaring Proposed Private Cities Unconstitutional
Via: AP:
A prominent Honduran human rights lawyer gunned down after a weekend wedding had long complained about death threats, including in documents filed last year seeking protection from a powerful billionaire landowner.
Antonio Trejo Cabrera, 41, who died early Sunday after being ambushed by gunmen, was a lawyer for three peasant cooperatives in the Bajo Aguan, a fertile farming area plagued by violent conflicts between agrarian organizations and land owners. The most prominent is Dinant Corporation owned by Miguel Facusse, one of Honduras’ richest men. Thousands of once-landless workers hold about 12,000 acres (5,000 hectares) of plantations they seized from Dinant.
…
Before his death, Trejo had publicly said that if he were killed, Facusse would be responsible.
In a statement received by The Associated Press late Monday, Facusse denied any role, direct or indirect, in Trejo’s murder.
…
Trejo had also helped prepare motions declaring unconstitutional a proposal by the Honduran government and a U.S. company, MGK Group, to build three privately run cities with their own police, laws and tax systems.
Just hours before his murder, Trejo had participated in a televised debate in which he accused congressional leaders of using the private city projects to raise campaign funds.
MGK director Michael Strong said the company is “horrified” by Trejo’s killing.
“We believe that Antonio Trejo, had he lived long enough to get to know us, would have concluded that our approach is 100 percent beneficial to Honduras and Hondurans. We are saddened for his family and understand what a tragedy this is for trust and goodwill in Honduras,” Strong said in a statement to The Associated Press.
—
Update: MGK Website
Cryptogon.net user keti found the website for Grupo MGK: grupomgk.com.
From the About page, this was all I could find about who is providing the money:
Most of our U.S. investors are based in Silicon Valley…
And still, nobody has collected my US$10 bounty for the answer to the simple question:
Who is paying for this?
Also, GrupoMGK doesn’t list a physical address.
—
Update: More on Michael Strong
Via: Conscious Capitalism:
Michael Strong is an Author and Thought Leader. He is lead author of Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems, co-authored with John Mackey, Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Hernando de Soto, Co-Chair of the U.N. Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, and others. Michael’s work is featured in academic journals (The Journal of Business Ethics, Economic Affairs, Critical Review, etc.), specialty publications (Microfinance Insights, Policy Innovations, Carnegie Ethics, etc.) and in media reaching popular audiences (The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, RealClearPolitics, Barron’s, etc.). He serves on the board of Conscious Capitalism, Inc., The Free Cities Institute, The Seasteading Institute, and the Advisory Boards of The Lifeboat Foundation, Trilinc Global, The Moorfield Storey Institute, and is a mentor for developing world entrepreneurs for the MIT Legatum Center for Entrepreneurship and Development.
—
Update: Honduras Approves Private Cities Project
The link on this update mentions Decree #123-2011, which is just 15 pages long, but will have you wondering, “Is this real?”
I’m asking everyone out there: Is this real?
Let’s assume it is, for a few minutes anyway.
I took one semester of International Law, so I’m far from being an expert on these matters, but this thing is far and away the most breathtaking voluntary forfeiture of sovereignty by a state that I’ve ever encountered.
Look at Articles 15 and 69:
Article 15.- Other domestic and foreign authorities cannot interfere in matters within the exclusive jurisdiction of the RED’s.
…
Article 69.- The government of the RED?s may apply immigration controls on the entry, stay and departure of people from other States to the RED’s.
These REDs will have governments that are independent of the Honduran Government, borders that they control and their own police forces (Article 8). They are able to lease out and otherwise encumber the land, but they don’t own it. Because they don’t own the land, I suppose they wouldn’t pass the sovereignty test, but this is getting pretty damn close. The REDs, for example, are free to enter into foreign relations with other states independently of the Honduran Government.
The political structure is a mix of oligarchical and democratic. A, “Transparency Commission” appoints governors. The initial members of the Transparency Commission, arbitrarily appointed by the President of Honduras are:
George Akerlof – Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley, Senior Resident Scholar at the International Monetary Fund, and Nobel Prize Winner
Harry Strachan – Former President of INCAE Business School, Director Emeritus at Bain & Co., and Managing Partner at Mesoamerica Partners and Foundation in Cost Rica
Ong Boon Hwee – Former Chief Operating Officer of Singapore Power and Former Brigadier General in the Singapore Armed Forces
Nancy Birdsall – President and Co-Founder of the Center for Global Development , former Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and former Executive Vice President at the Inter-American Development Bank
Paul Romer (Commission Chair) – Professor of Economics at the New York University Stern School of Business
Really, Bain & Co.? Really.
Ok, so the core of the unelected regime that will pick the governors of the REDs is made up of a couple of economics professors, a Bain & Co. executive, a bank executive and a former Singaporean general. This thing is like a board of directors and the governors are like division heads in a corporation.
The Normative Councils have legislative and advisory roles. Members of the Normative Councils will be elected.
I’ll definitely be following developments with this story, but I have to move on right now. I’ll pay a US$10 bounty to anyone who can tell me the names of the people who are putting up the initial $15 million. I have not been able to find that information after 30 minutes of searching, which I find interesting.
—
Via: Honduras News:
Honduras signed a deal for an initial investment of 15 million dollars to create the first “Private City” in the country. (Also referred to as “Free Cities”, “Charter Cities”, “Model Cities”, or in Spanish, “RED – Regiones Especiales de Desarollo”, and “Ciudades Modelo”.) The city will be built in Trujillo, in the Department of Colón, where it does not have the full support of the Garifuna people, as they fear that the loss of their land may be on the agenda.
Carlos Pineda, the president of Coalinza, stated that this was not just an agreement, but the most important project for the development of the country in 50 years.
Michael Strong, an executive with the MKG Group that was granted this project, stated that the objective is to create a secure and prosperous community for Hondurans.
The development of the physical infrastructure laid out in phase one of the project will result in 5,000 new jobs, as well as 15,000 indirect new jobs.
Juan Hernández, the President of the Honduran National Congress, stated that this is a giant step forward for the country. Last July, the Honduras Congress passed Decree #123-2011, which in a nutshell, takes care of all constitutional issues related to the creation of these RED zones, or model cities, as we refer to them in Honduras.
—
I have found that Michael Strong has a site: The Purpose of Education.
He is a libertarian. This is from his About page:
In order to create an educational system capable of improving the happiness and well-being of humanity, we need to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, government involvement in education at all levels, as well as government restrictions on the free pursuit of whatever occupation one desires. Government financing and regulation of education at all levels prevents the emergence of the more authentic, humane, and effective forms of education that we need. Thus around the world we need to move towards a principled separation of school and state, occupation and state, and research and state.
Sometimes, “libertarian,” means, libertarian, and other times, it means, corporate fascist. It’s a spectrum that seems to be determined by the scale of one’s endeavors.
Which is the case here?
I’m not sure yet. I have to go out and collect eggs, feed the chickens and help Becky get the kids fed, bathed and into bed. I’ll return to this later tonight.
In any event, this is clearly the most interesting story that isn’t getting much play in the regular media at the moment.
Via: ABC News / AP:
Investors can begin construction in six months on three privately run cities in Honduras that will have their own police, laws, government and tax systems now that the government has signed a memorandum of agreement approving the project.
An international group of investors and government representatives signed the memorandum Tuesday for the project that some say will bring badly needed economic growth to this small Central American country and that at least one detractor describes as “a catastrophe.”
The project’s aim is to strengthen Honduras’ weak government and failing infrastructure, overwhelmed by corruption, drug-related crime and lingering political instability after a 2009 coup.
The project “has the potential to turn Honduras into an engine of wealth,” said Carlos Pineda, president of the Commission for the Promotion of Public-Private Partnerships. It can be “a development instrument typical of first world countries.”
The “model cities” will have their own judiciary, laws, governments and police forces. They also will be empowered to sign international agreements on trade and investment and set their own immigration policy.
Congress president Juan Hernandez said the investment group MGK will invest $15 million to begin building basic infrastructure for the first model city near Puerto Castilla on the Caribbean coast. That first city would create 5,000 jobs over the next six months and up to 200,000 jobs in the future, Hernandez said. South Korea has given Honduras $4 million to conduct a feasibility study, he said.
“The future will remember this day as that day that Honduras began developing,” said Michael Strong, CEO of the MKG Group. “We believe this will be one of the most important transformations in the world, through which Honduras will end poverty by creating thousands of jobs.”
Shooting in French Alps
September 6th, 2012Update: Ex-Policeman Arrested in Village Near Scene of al-Hilli Shootings
Via: Guardian:
French police on Tuesday arrested a 48-year-old former policeman in a French Alpine village close to the layby where the Iraqi-born British engineer Saad al-Hilli, two members of his family and a French cyclist were murdered.
The arrest came after police issued an efit in November of a man wearing an unusual model of motorcycle helmet.
The motorcyclist was spotted near the scene on an isolated road near Annecy where Hilli, 50, his wife Iqbal, 47, and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, 74, were murdered on 5 September 2012. A passing cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, 45, was also shot dead.
The 48-year-old man, who was arrested as he left his home in the village of Lathuile close to Chevaline, where the murder took place, has not been identified.
Media reports in France, citing sources close to the case, said he was fired from his job as a municipal policeman last June in Menthon-Saint-Bernard, south of Annecy. He was described by Le Monde as a “taciturn” loner and “arms collector”.
Weapons were reportedly found at his home, where he lives with his girlfriend. Police were carrying out other searches and examining the garden of a house in another nearby village, Tailloires.
It is the first arrest by French police, who have teamed up with British colleagues to investigate the murder.
Eric Maillaud, the Annecy prosecutor, cautioned that it was “impossible to say” at this stage whether the detained person may have anything to do with the killing. He does not have any connection to the Hilli family. Maillaud also suggested that more arrests may follow.
—
Update: Police Believe Killer Was Experienced
Via: BBC:
Police in France say they believe whoever shot dead three members of a British family in the Alps one year ago may have been an experienced gunman who had killed before.
Research Credit: PW
—
Update: Police Arrest Zaid al-Hilli, Brother of Alps Victim
Via: Independent:
The brother of an British-Iraqi shot dead with his family in the French Alps was today arrested as part of investigations into an alleged dispute over a family inheritance.
Although Surrey police declined to identify Zaid al-Hilli as the suspect arrested today, a source in France confirmed that it was the 54-year-old older brother of Saad al-Hilli whose family was savagely attacked by a gunman on a forest track near Lake Annecy in September last year.
Surrey Police said the man was detained at an address in Chessington, Surrey at around 7:30am on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. Detectives were later seen carrying evidence bags, a box and a ladder as they emerged from the block of Chessington flats where Zaid al-Hilli lived.
—
Cyclist Was Shot First
Via: BBC:
Police investigating the shooting of a British family in the French Alps believe the cyclist also found dead at the scene was shot first, according to a leaked provisional scenario.
Sylvain Mollier was hit by the first bullets, the report leaked to the French Le Parisien newspaper suggests.
The killer then shot Saad al-Hilli, his wife and mother-in-law while they sat in their car.
French investigators suggest the killer was acting alone.
The family, from Surrey, were on a camping holiday on the shores of Lake Annecy when they were killed.
The report details how forensic tests suggest Mr Hilli was outside the car with his seven-year-old daughter Zeinab when the shooting started and had attempted to escape with his family before being shot, the BBC’s Christian Fraser in Paris says.
—
Was Cyclist Sylvain Mollier the Primary Target?
Via: Daily Mail:
Mr Mollier worked for Cezus, a subsidiary of the Areva Group, specialising in zirconium metalworking for nuclear fuel containers.
Cezus is owned by the Areva group which in 2007 was forced to deny a report in Der Spiegel that it had flouted UN sanctions by providing Iran with enriched uranium.
—
Was Saad Al-Hilli Assassinated Over Secret Defense Contract?
Via: Telegraph:
Detectives investigating the shooting in the alps massacre are looking into whether Saad Al-Hilli could have been targeted over links to the defence industry.
Mr Al-Hilli was killed alongside his wife and mother-in-law last week. His daughters Zainab, seven, and Zeena, four, survived the killing.
There is growing speculation over the motives for the killings. French detectives are reportedly keen to question work colleagues of Saad after discovering that he was killed while working on a secret contract for one of Britain’s biggest defence companies.
Mr Al-Hilli worked for Surrey Satellites Technology Limited (SSTL) near Guildford, and detectives are expected to ask colleagues about whether his work may have made him a target for assassination.
Mr Al-Hilli was part of a team involved in an undisclosed project linked to European Aeronautic Defence and Space. The company designs and launches satellites for clients who want an “eye in the sky” for commercial, civil or security purposes.
…
It also reported that Mr Al-Hilli had worked at the internationally-renowned Rutherford Appleton research centre in the 1980s.
According to an ex-colleague at the Rutherford lab in Didcot, Oxon, Saad worked on a giant particle accelerator which can make radioactive material, The People reported.
—
Bomb Squad Arrives at Saad Al-Hilli Home
Via: BBC:
Army bomb disposal experts have arrived at the Surrey home of a British man, shot dead with his wife, mother-in-law and a cyclist in the French Alps.
Surrey Police have evacuated neighbours and closed the road around the home of Saad al-Hilli, amid concerns over items found at the house in Claygate.
—
‘You can forget it being carried out by a local villain and I don’t think it was a botched robbery’
Via: Sky:
The killing of a skilled Iraqi-born engineer and two of his family in the French Alps may have been terror-related, a former police chief has told Sky News.
Police in France are considering a number of possible motives for the shooting.
Here, former commander of the Flying Squad John O’Connor and criminologist Professor David Wilson offer their insights.
John O’Connor, former commander of Flying Squad:
“The shootings look like they are terrorist-related. The people that have done it are military trained. It certainly seems to be a military assassination. The killers were sending a message about not crossing them. It doesn’t sound like a gangland hit.
“Was the Iraq-born victim involved in the intelligence world? He reportedly worked for AMS 1087 Ltd which is listed as Aerial Photographers and Surveys. Is there any significance in this?
“The killers don’t sound UK-based and I don’t see any connection with criminals in this country.
“It appears the gun was an automatic weapon, used professionally – because of the accuracy. This would lead one to think of trained personnel, terrorists.
It was well planned and professionally executed. You can forget it being carried out by a local villain and I don’t think it was a botched robbery.
“The police should be concentrating on the victim’s background, who he works for, what his movements have been.
“The killings would have taken a lot of planning. A surveillance operation takes time and money. Who is going to sponsor them?
“These sort of cases are always notoriously difficult to solve. If the police run into a brick wall of silence, then this would suggest that this is a more organised and almost certainly terrorist inspired hit.”
—
Names of Employers Changes, Neighbor Claims Al-Hilli Was Living In Fear, Possible Inheritance Issue
Via: Mirror:
The man gunned down with his family in the French Alps had been living in fear.
Businessman Saad al-Hilli, 50, told a friend he was scared after being caught up in a bitter inheritance row.
As French police searched for a motive for the bloodbath, one of Mr al-Hilli’s neighbours revealed the businessman admitted he feared for his safety in the weeks leading up to the killing.
Jack Saltman, 67, said Mr al-Hilli mentioned “two or three times” over the last two months something which gave him “cause for concern”.
He added: “He had family in Iraq and I know he was worried about their safety and spoke to them on the phone.
“He told me something about a problem he had and before he left he came round and saw me and asked if I would keep an eye on his house.”
Mr Saltman, a former journalist, said he had passed on the information to detectives.
When asked exactly what Mr al-Hilli had told him, he said: “I am not prepared to say anything more.
“I’ve told the police and if it is relevant I’m sure they will follow it up.”
He added: “He told me he had a problem on more than one occasion.”
It also emerged yesterday that Mr al-Hilli had recently become involved in a bitter legal dispute over an inheritance worth more than €1.2million.
Family friend Zaid Alabdi said: “He told me he had employed lawyers and was involved in a dispute over a lot of money.”
…
He worked in Guildford for a satellite engineer company called Surrey Satellite Technology and also had his own company called SH Tech, which does technical design for the aircraft industry.
—
Known to the Intelligence Services
Via: Daily Mail:
Pictured looking relaxed and smiling in a restaurant, this is the British father in the French Alps massacre who it emerged today was known to the intelligence services.
Engineer Saad Al-Hilli, 50, was born in Iraq and was put under Special Branch surveillance during the second Gulf War. He was ambushed with his family on Wednesday during a family caravanning trip.
—
Satellite and Aerospace Industries
Via: BBC:
But the fact that the murdered man in the car was born in Iraq and worked in Britain in the satellite and aerospace industries has prompted a raft of conspiracy theories, even talk of a covert hit team.
—
Saad Al-Hilli Worked for AMS 1087
Via: Telegraph:
Her father, found slumped in the front of the car, was named as Saad Al-Hilli, 50, from Claygate, Surrey. He was born in Baghdad, Iraq.
Mr Al Hilli is understood to have been the secretary of a Wiltshire-based aerial photography company, AMS 1087, since 2007.
—
Gunman Used an Automatic Weapon and May Have Been a Professional Killer
Via: Sky:
Police have removed the bullet-ridden BMW from the scene of a mystery shooting which left four people dead in the French Alps.
Detectives believe the gunman used an automatic weapon and may have been a professional killer.
They said three of the victims received bullet shots to the centre of the forehead during the shooting near the village of Chevaline, near Lake Annecy, in the Haute-Savoie region.
French President Francois Hollande, speaking at a press conference in London, where he was attending the Paralympic Games, said “everything will be done” to find the killer.
The British husband and wife killed were named by neighbours as Saad and Iqbal al Hilli.
Their two children, who survived the bloody attack, were named as eight-year-old Zehab and four-year-old Zaina.
—
Sixty Casings
Via: NBC:
Sixty casings littered the crime scene…
—
Girl Found Alive Under Bodies
Via: Sky:
A four-year-old girl has been found alive hidden in a car under the bodies of the victims of a shooting in the French Alps.
Public prosecutor Eric Maillaud told AFP the child was only discovered when investigators gained access to the crime scene, some eight hours after a cyclist happened upon the carnage.
Confirming that the three victims in the BMW were from a family of British holidaymakers, he said: “She was hidden under the bodies for some eight hours and didn’t move for the whole time.”
The identity of a dead man described as the father of the family has been “almost certainly” established, while two female victims are yet to be formally identified, the Haute-Savoie prosecutor told AFP.
The suspected assassination happened in a forested area near the village of Chevaline, near Lake Annecy, in the Haute-Savoie region.
The male victim was found at the wheel of the car, and the two dead women in the back – apparently covering the girl, four, who survived.
Another young girl was found near the car, and initial reports said she died later from her injuries. A local prosecutor has now said she is in a critical condition in hospital in the city of Grenoble.
The body of a male cyclist was also found nearby.
—
Via: Telegraph:
Three people were found shot dead inside a British-registered BMW following a gun massacre that also left a male cyclist dead and a young girl fighting for her life at a French alpine beauty spot near Chevaline, in the French Alps.
Three of the bodies were found inside a British-registered BMW estate car, while the body of a male cyclist was found nearby in what was described as a “dramatic” crime scene.
The girl was found seriously injured next to the car when emergency crews arrived at the woodland car park near Chevaline, close to Lake Annecy in the French Alps.
Items found in the car suggested that the victims were British.
A British cyclist is understood to have discovered the bodies at 3.50pm yesterday, and is now helping police despite being badly shaken.
One police source said the cyclist had “stumbled across a massacre”, adding that the dead appeared to have been victims of a “deliberate assassination”. Cartridges found at the scene appeared to show that the gunshots came from outside the vehicle.
The Foreign Office said that it was investigating the reports in order to dispatch staff from the nearest British consulate in Marseille to Grenoble where the young girl was in hospital. It could not say for certain if the victims were British. The British embassy in Paris was liaising with UK police.
One theory being investigated is that the occupants of the car may have been targeted because they were in an expensive vehicle, and were tricked into pulling off the road before robbery turned to murder. Police believe the cyclist who was found dead may have tried to intervene when he witnessed an armed robbery taking place.
Eric Maillaud, the investigating prosecutor from Annecy, said: “Two men and two women are the victims. The car is a British-registered BMW estate. One of the male victims was a cyclist. He was found near his bike in his cycling gear. The other man was in the driving seat of the car. The two women were in the back of the car.
“It is a dramatic crime scene like we see on the TV. There is a large number of gun cartridges at the crime scene.”
A police spokesman said a “young girl probably under the age of 10” was airlifted to hospital after being “seriously injured by gunfire”. The spokesman added: “We are looking at the possibility that the three dead people in the car and the young girl were all from the same family. A full multiple murder investigation is under way.”
No firearms were found either inside or near to the vehicle, the officer said.
Firemen who were the first officials to arrive on the scene found the three bodies in the car, which had bullet holes in the bodywork.
Pauline Marois Possible Target of Quebec Election Gunman
September 6th, 2012[???]
Via: National Post:
Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois was abruptly dragged off stage by bodyguards midway through her victory speech Tuesday after a 62-year-old man wearing a blue robe and a balaclava allegedly opened fire into the theatre where she was speaking.
Moments later, TV cameras showed a man in glasses being arrested and police seizing what appeared to be two firearms, a handgun and a rifle. The man, from Quebec, is believed to have had previous dealings with police.
“The anglos are waking up” the ranting suspect said in French with an English accent as he was led away by police. Then alternating between English and French he added: “There’s going to be f—-ing payback. It’s enough. Wanna make trouble.”
The shooting left one person dead and a second in critical condition. Because of the possibility that Marois herself may have been the target of the shooting, the Quebec Provincial Police have taken control of the investigation.
Google’s Eric Schmidt: 1.3 Million Android Activations a Day
September 6th, 2012So it goes…
Via: Engadget:
Kicking off the Motorola event in NYC, Google’s Eric Schmidt has revealed some new Android figures for its captive audience of journalists and bloggers. It’s now notching up some 1.3 million activations a day, which includes around 70,000 tablets (“We were late to them”, notes Schmidt) every 24 hours.
Related: ‘Cell phones are tracking devices that make phone calls.’
Arizona: Three Hour Emergency Room Visit for Scorpion Sting Cost $83,046
September 6th, 2012Identical treatment in Mexico: $200.
Via: Arizona Republic:
Her symptoms subsided after she received two doses of the drug Anascorp through an IV, and she was discharged from the hospital in about three hours.
Weeks later, she received a bill for $83,046 from Chandler Regional Medical Center. The hospital, owned by Dignity Health, charged her $39,652 per dose of Anascorp.
The Arizona Republic reported last year about the pricey markup Arizona hospitals were charging for the antivenom made in Mexico. Pharmacies in Mexico charge about $100 per dose.
Feds Say Mobile-Phone Location Data Not ‘Constitutionally Protected’
September 6th, 2012Via: Wired:
The Obama administration told a federal court Tuesday that the public has no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in cellphone location data, and hence the authorities may obtain documents detailing a person’s movements from wireless carriers without a probable-cause warrant.
Related: ‘Cell phones are tracking devices that make phone calls.’
