Plans to launch Russian rockets from a space center near Kourou in French Guiana are under threat from raids on its equipment and territory, a contractor said on Wednesday. Vladimir Grezdilov, general director of the Mir company, which has a contract to build a mobile tower for Soyuz-ST carrier rockets, said the company was the victim of ongoing raids from a private security firm.
He said that the raids may prevent it from implementing the contract.
He said that in January the firm had seized 24 Mir buildings, including over 110 engineering tools, with most of the company personnel quitting as a result.
The director said the company was running behind schedule, having completed only 40% of the contracted work so far.
"The raids are continuing. Today 30 people from a private security firm broke onto the territory of the factory...taking away property," he said.
He also added that local police had taken no action against the group.
The first launch of a Soyuz carrier rocket from the Kourou space center is planned for 2009.
The Kourou launch site is intended mainly for the launch of geostationary satellites. Its proximity to the equator will enable the Soyuz-ST to put into orbit heavier satellites than from Baikonur in Kazakhstan and Plesetsk in northern Russia.
Under a contract signed in June with the French satellite launch firm Arianespace, the Soyuz will have a separate launch pad near Sinnamari, a village 10 kilometers (six miles) north of the site used for the Ariane-5, the main European-made booster.
Launches of Soyuz spacecraft are the key part of the Russian-French program of cooperation in space exploration.
A TEENAGE brown belt has saved her mother from a Taser-wielding junkie. Rebecca Kelly, 13, ran and jumped on the back of James Cordingley, 29, as he was trying to drag her mum, Diane, from their car.
Mr Kelly, who was asleep in the passenger seat after drinking at a wake, eventually woke up and held Cordingley down while Rebecca ran to her karate centre to get the help of three friends, all black belts, the Daily Mail reported. "I was really scared but in my head I was working out all the moves I could do to protect us," Rebecca, who was zapped but unhurt by Cordingley during the attack, said.
The friends held down Cordingley until police arrived. He has been sentenced to seven years' jail.
Rebecca's parents bought her some new runners to thank her for her courage.
#2
When I was living in NYC (During the Dinkins era), the daily death toll was 6/day (or over 2,000/year). Rudy Giuliani is the one who turned things around.
The idea of the death toll dropping to 500 a year is just unimaginable to an ex-New Yorker like me.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
11/25/2007 15:55 Comments ||
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#3
And only 100 or less killed by strangers; lovers killing lovers is sad, but probably unstoppable, and drug dealers killing drug dealers doesn't bother me much, at least less than having someone killed by a mugger.
DOCTORS in Chicago have reportedly removed a 4.5kg hairball from a young woman's stomach. About 10 lbs.
The eighteen-year-old woman told a team of gastrointestinal specialists that she had experienced abdominal swelling, vomiting after eating and had lost 18kg over the past five months, the New England Journal of Medicine reported.
Doctors Ronald Levy and Srinadh Komanduri from Rush University Medical Centre said a scope lowered through her esophagus revealed "a large bezoar (hairball) occluding nearly the entire stomach".
"On questioning, the patient stated that she had had a habit of eating her hair for many years a condition called trichophagia," the doctors wrote. "It seemed like she'd been doing this for several years," Dr Levy said in an interview with CNN.
The 4.5kg hairball measured 38cm by 17.8cm by 17.8cm. 16"x7"x7"
Once the giant hairball was removed, the teenager's pain and vomiting stopped and she had regained 9kg. She has also stopped eating her hair. Has she done a Britney Spear?
A controversial reality TV show to be broadcast next month aims to challenge preconceptions about Muslims. But the programme, which sees non-Muslims living under strict Sharia law for three weeks, could also reinforce some peoples antipathy intolerance towards Islam.
One participant accused imams featured in the three-part series of being prejudiced towards her and said she experienced animosity from them. Another, however, was surprised by the confrontational and aggressive attitude British people had towards her as a result of her temporary conversion to a Muslim way of life.
Film maker Narinder Minhas chose the affluent market town of Harrogate in North Yorkshire for his bold experiment . . . a place that is home to just 311 Muslims in a population of 60,000. His guinea pigs include a mixed race couple, a gay hairdresser, an atheist taxi driver and a glamour model . . . all of whom are called upon to give up unmarried sex, alcohol and pork, pray regularly and dress modestly for three weeks.
Minhas, the man behind reality shows Priest Idol and Indian Finishing School, wanted to make the documentary after tiring of too many po-faced programmes about Islam. He said: I wanted to make a series that had some humour in it. Im tired of seeing guys with beards who are a bit scary. I wanted to explore how white people come to grips with a religion theyve kind of heard of. I wanted to portray those people as human beings who go through a range of emotions.
The three-part programme, yet to be titled, will be broadcast on Channel Four on December 16, 17 and 18.
#2
Did they enjoy venerating a pedophile-rapist for three weeks? Did they enjoy assuming absolute moral superiority over all non-believers for three weeks? Did they enjoy praying for the death of the Jews for three weeks?
What's next? Three weeks as a Klan member so we can all understand what it is like to be a white supremacist?
#3
His guinea pigs include a mixed race couple, a gay hairdresser, an atheist taxi driver and a glamour model . . . all of whom are called upon to give up unmarried sex, alcohol and pork, pray regularly and dress modestly for three weeks.
Most of whom would have an Islamic life expectancy of about 25 seconds.
#7
Show the infidels the smiley face of islam. Except there isn't one. It will come off with the warmth of Saddam Hussein stroking the hair of the blond British hostage boy in 1990. More air time for the imams haranguing the infidels please.
Posted by: ed ||
11/25/2007 16:32 Comments ||
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Posted by: Red Dawg ||
11/25/2007 7:30 Comments ||
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#3
Those goats in the trees are one reason why some people advocate their intentional extinction. Endowed with almost baffling agility and a broad dietary intake, this sharp-hooved quadruped can strip out nearly any sort of ecological habitat. As a single domesticated species they are, perhaps, second only to mankind in terms of widespread ecological destruction. Their preference as a food source in the third world results in profound levels of soil erosion, aridization and depletion of ground cover. All of these have a devastating impact on what are often already very sensitive desert or semi-arid ecologies.
RIYADH: A woman in Saudi Arabia sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes despite being gangraped has confessed to adultery, the justice ministry said on Saturday as it tried to fend off mounting criticism.
Despite being sexually assaulted by seven men who kidnapped her with a male companion at knife-point, the unidentified 19 year-old woman was sentenced in November 2006 to 90 lashes.
The judge sentenced her for being in a car with a man who was not her relative, a taboo in the conservative Muslim kingdom which imposes strict segregation of the sexes. But her story hit international headlines last week when her sentence was increased to six months in jail and 200 lashes after she spoke to the media.
The justice ministry said that the woman had owned up to having an extramarital affair with the man in the car. She admitted to ... exchanging sinful relations, the statement said, adding the woman was in state of undress with the man in the car before the attack took place.
The woman and her alleged lover remained quiet about the attack, which was only reported to the authorities several months later when the womans husband received an e-mail from an unidentified source informing him of the affair.
She admitted to what happened and the husband then reported the incident three months after it happened, the justice ministry said, adding it wanted to correct the largely incorrect details published in the media.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/25/2007 16:04 ||
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Link ||
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#1
Oh, well....that makes everything all right then.
Almost an afterthought.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/25/2007 16:26 Comments ||
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#2
Cuz we all know that marital infidelity is just as bad as gang rape.
Also note how the men initially received light prison sentences of between one and five years without any lashes. They could have faced the death penalty for this crime except thatI'm guessingthe woman was not an imam's daughter or wife. I can only suppose that the court viewed this gang rape as an extension of the state's law enforcement and merely jailed the offenders for impersonating mutaween.
HT No Pasaran.
Antoine di Zazzo says he has been 'tasered' more than 50 times and never felt the worse for the ordeal. One of the biggest Taser representatives outside the US, Di Zazzo also gave a surprise blast of the stun gun to French far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen and offered a test dose to Nicolas Sarkozy before he became France's president.
Sarkozy diplomatically declined, according to di Zazzo, but the president's no-nonsense law and order tactics are one reason why the engineer businessman is confident of huge demand for the gun, despite controversy over its use in North America and being declared a form of torture by a UN committee. The French leader vowed before his election in May to buy a Taser -- which paralyses targets -- for every policeman and gendarme in France which could provide a market for at least 300,000 guns alone.
The Taser France chief said he has endured more than 50 Taser shots during tests and demonstrations of the gun. "You cannot call it real pain," said di Zazzo. "I just found that time was infinitely long." Yeah, I bet it does seem long.
In reality, a shot from the gun, which packs a 50,000 volt punch immobilises suspects for a few seconds.
National Front leader Le Pen, who was 79 at the time, went to inspect the gun last year because of the headlines it made when Sarkozy made his pledge as interior minister. "He did not want to try it but I took him a bit by surprise," said di Zazzo. "He has special protection because he is a leading politician but I got round them and fired into his shoulder. He fell over but got up again and then went around telling people: 'You are shaking the hand of the man who has tried Sarkozy's toy'." All the while singing "Can't tase this"... Btw, given Le Pen's youth as a supposedly very skilled streetfighter/commies-smashing student, I'm surprized neither him of one if his bodyguards punched him.
There are already about 250,000 of the stun guns in use, mainly in North America, but about 70 other countries are buying or trying Tasers -- including Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand, said di Zazzo.
All countries are watching the debate in the United States and Canada over the use of the gun which fires two probes at targets at speeds of more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour. The electric jolt in the probes causes what the US company calls the "immediate loss of the person's neuromuscular control". The suspect is temporarily paralysed.
There has been much debate in Canada after a 40-year-old Polish man died last month after he was 'tasered' by police. There have been at least three other deaths this week in the United States after police use of the Taser.
Amnesty International has said there have been about 300 deaths around the world after Taser use and has called for it to be suspended while a full investigation into the impact is conducted.
Because it's much too much to tase someone when a police officer is threatened. They should talk to criminals instead. You know, mellow them out. Don't want to harm criminals, you know.
On Friday, the UN Committee said the stun gun "causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture".
Taser International says that no death has been attributed to the use of the gun and that the controversy is caused by misunderstanding of new technology. It has won more than 50 legal cases in the United States alleging the gun was linked to a death. "If electricity was to kill it would do so straight away," said di Zazzo. "In most of these cases people have carried on fighting or struggling after they were hit by the Taser and had recovered. In a lot of these cases there is a drug overdose or cerebral delirium involved."
"In Canada, the man carried on struggling afterwards and was hit by batons and the police knelt on him. You can also die from being hit with a baton or knelt on," he added.
Batons don't kill people, people kill people ...
Taser says its device "saves lives" because it is an effective alternative to a real gun. Each stun round is videod by a camera on the gun for future evidence.
Di Zazzo's French company is also developing a mini-flying saucer like drone which could also fire Taser stun rounds on criminal suspects or rioting crowds. He expects it to be launched next year and to be sold internationally by Taser. "Zap From Above".
#1
mini-flying saucer like drone which could also fire Taser stun rounds on criminal suspects or rioting crowds.
Ooohh, a party Taser.
Posted by: ed ||
11/25/2007 18:32 Comments ||
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#2
As for the Utah highway incident - which has over a million Youtube hits - it is problematic for law enforcement, because the man was tasered in a passive resistance situation, in which the officer was not in danger. Training is an issue.
#1
South Texas College of Law professor Rocky Rhodes, who teaches the constitution and privacy issues, said, "One issue is going to be law enforcement using this and when, by using these drones, are they conducting a search in which they'd need probable cause or a warrant. If the drones are being used to get into private spaces and be able to view where the government cannot otherwise go, and to collect information that would not otherwise be able to collect, that's concerning to me."
AWP - anarchist with papers.
Folks, if the local news helicopter can toot around the sky in your neighborhood, there is no expectation of privacy in observation from above. Hell, go to Google earth and see a picture of your own house. They're not entering your house or searching your car. I think its a wonderful tool being copied from the front lines that can be applied to gang operations in our own urban areas and an alternative/adjunct to hot pursuits. Too bad they can't have the same ordnance capabilities.
#2
That would be okay, except this is Texas. They would probably use different band sensors, trying to see "through" curtains, and looking for illegal sexual novelties. Of course, if they see an attractive woman in a state of undress, they keep it for their Xmas party "highlights" reel.
When baby Jesus was stolen for the first time from the Nativity scene at Daley Plaza in 1999, an anonymous tipster directed police to the figure, which had been stashed in a locker at Union Station. In 2004, the Christ child was stolen again, this time by a 19-year-old student at the Art Institute of Chicago who was caught a few blocks from the plaza and charged with misdemeanor theft.
On Saturday morning, while volunteers known as the "God Squad" constructed the lifesize Nativity scene, a black cable in a cardboard box was a reminder of the heightened security concerns surrounding the baby Jesus. Since the thefts, organizers have wrapped the cable around the figure's waist, bolted it to the manger floor and covered it with hay. "It's firmly in place," said Jim Finnegan, co-chairman of the Nativity Scene Committee, which sets up the display each year. "There's no way you'd ever be able to get it out."
But he expressed regret that such measures even were necessary at a depiction of Jesus' birthplace. "How sad that we're even talking about this," Finnegan said. "People do this for who knows why."
There is much speculation about the motivation behind such thefts, including pranks and dares involving alcohol, religious animosity and the economics of stealing the figures, which can cost thousands of dollars. Regardless, thefts of Nativity scenes are becoming increasingly common around Chicago and have prompted increased security measures, Finnegan said.
Last December, 32 plastic baby Jesus dolls were stolen from Nativity scenes in people's front yards then lined up along the fence of a South Side woman's lawn. In 2004, after a Nativity scene arranged by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7706 in Barrington was repeatedly vandalized, including thefts of the baby Jesus and the immolation of the entire set, the display was encased in Plexiglas and monitored by video cameras.
In other countries, officials have offered incentives for the return of a stolen Christ child. In 2004, when baby Jesus was stolen from a Nativity scene in Australia, a brewing company offered six cases of beer to anyone who returned the statue, The Associated Press reported.
Dan Gura, who volunteered on Saturday with the God Squad, jokingly suggested placing an electric shock device in the manger so potential thieves "could see Jesus firsthand."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A TEENAGE brown belt has saved her mother from a Taser-wielding junkie. Rebecca Kelly, 13, ran and jumped on the back of James Cordingley, 29, as he was trying to drag her mum, Diane, from their car. 
DOCTORS in Chicago have reportedly removed a 4.5kg hairball from a young woman's stomach.
A controversial reality TV show to be broadcast next month aims to challenge preconceptions about Muslims. But the programme, which sees non-Muslims living under strict Sharia law for three weeks, could also reinforce some peoples 
When baby Jesus was stolen for the first time from the Nativity scene at Daley Plaza in 1999, an anonymous tipster directed police to the figure, which had been stashed in a locker at Union Station. In 2004, the Christ child was stolen again, this time by a 19-year-old student at the Art Institute of Chicago who was caught a few blocks from the plaza and charged with misdemeanor theft.
