Thursday, May 6, 2010

An NBC employee won US$266 million from the California Lottery’s Mega Millions drawing.

The winner, wishing to remain anonymous, will receive $165 million in total, after federal taxes, reports spokesperson for the lottery Cathy Doyle Johnston.

David Reese, a KNBC assistant manager, was informed by the winner around 2:30 local time Wednesday. Reese told the employees working the night shift to keep the name a secret until the winner wishes to step forward.

Reese said the winner worked for NBC as a freelancer for four years, and her husband was laid off two weeks ago.

L & L Hawaiian BBQ in Pico Rivera, California, sold the winning ticket with the numbers 9, 21, 31, 36, 43, and the “Mega Number” 8. Danny He, the owner of the BBQ, will receive $1 million from the lottery for selling the winning ticket.

According to lottery officials, there was a 1 in 175,711,536 chance in winning with all six numbers with 38 other states and the District of Colombia playing as well.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Guantanamo captive Benyam Mohammed was returned to the United Kingdom on February 23, 2009 after years of negotiation. Benyam Mohammed’s case stirred controversy for years. He was a legal resident of the United Kingdom who had come to the UK as a refugee from Ethiopia when he was a child. He explained that he had traveled to Afghanistan in an attempt to quit a drug habit he acquired in the UK.

He claimed that all the very serious allegations that he reportedly confessed to were extracted while he was being tortured. He had claimed that he wasn’t held in military custody when he was first captured, stating instead that the CIA had temporarily transferred him to a brutal prison in Morocco where the interrogation techniques included mutilating his genitals. He later spent time in the CIA’s network of secret interrogation centres including “The Dark Prison”.

The Bush administration eventually stopped denying that he had spent considerable time in CIA custody prior to his transfer to Guantanamo. They continued to deny he had been tortured. He faced the allegation that he had plotted with José Padilla and Majid Khan to explode a dirty bomb — a radiological weapon — in the United States.

He was one of the two dozen Guantanamo captives to face charges before a Guantanamo military commission. He was charged twice in late 2005 before a presidentially authorized commission. Two years after the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the original presidentially authorized military commissions he was charged again before a military commission authorized by the Military Commissions Act.

His lawyers initiated legal proceedings through the United Kingdom’s justice system to compel the UK government to release to them its role in his detention. The Office of Military Commissions dropped the charges against him in October 2008. Benyam Mohammed was reported to have engaged in a hunger strike as a protest during the last months of his detention. His lawyers claimed his weight had dropped to a level where he was just “skin and bones”, fainted during their meetings with him, and that his health was at serious risk.

All of the British citizens held in Guantanamo were repatriated by 2005. Seven long term British residents were not returned to the UK. Initially it was the British position that they had no responsibility for individuals who weren’t citizens. When British resident Bisher al-Rawi‘s story that he had been an MI5 informant started to be confirmed, there was public pressure for his return.

In 2006, a frustrated member of the team negotiating Al Rawi’s return leaked that the process had become stalled because the Americans were insisting that they would only release Al Rawi if the United Kingdom was prepared to accept all the former British residents and keep them under round the clock surveillance. After his repatriation to the United Kingdom Mohammed spent a few hours being debriefed by British security officials before he was set free. Three former British residents remain in detention in Guantanamo: Shaker Aamer, Ahmed Beltacha and Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

A former Wikileaks employee has destroyed 3,500 unpublished leaks to Julian Assange’s site, and taken the site’s encrypted system to create a spinoff project.

Daniel Domscheit-Berg, Assange’s former right-hand man, left Wikileaks last year after a disagreement between the pair; and, has now demolished files sent to the Wikileaks site such as the US no-fly list, Bank of America documents and “detailed information about 20 neo-Nazi groups”.

Domscheit-Berg took the whistle-blower site’s submission system to create a rival-site, OpenLeaks, consequently Wikileaks will not be able to receive online leaked files, and will have to use “snail mail” from an Australian PO box.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, Domscheit-Berg said the unpublished documents had been shredded to protect their sources. In his book published this year, ‘Inside Wikileaks’, he revealed his motives for destroying the files and taking the encrypted system, writing, “children shouldn’t play with guns”. He stated the material would be returned to Assange “if and when he can prove that he can store the material securely and handle it carefully”.

Wikileaks retaliated, claiming the destroying of documents hindered the “leaking of many issues of public importance”, accusing Domsheit-Berg of theft and sabotage. Via twitter, Wikileaks gave several responses over the weekend, writing, “DDB spits on every courageous whistleblower who leaked data if they destroy the keys and refuse to return it”.

In a statement made by Wikileaks, Assange claims Domscheit-Berg was in contact with the FBI, and is assisting the US investigation into the site. Another statement from Wikileaks claims Domscheit-Berg has “repeatedly attempted to blackmail Wikileaks by threatening to make available, to forces that oppose Wikileaks, these private communications”.

On August 14, Wikileaks accused OpenLeaks of stealing its ideas. Domscheit-Berg aims to make the rival site a more transparent and democratic site than Wikileaks.

Saturday, July 25, 2020

The following is the second edition of a monthly series chronicling the 2020 United States presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

This month’s spotlight on the campaign trail includes interviews with the vice presidential nominees of the Prohibition Party, Reform Party, and the Life and Liberty Party.

Sunday, November 5, 2006

Figures released by Simon Power, law and order spokesman for the National party, show that the New Zealand Labour led government lets 81% of all prisoners not do any work while in prison. Newspaper, Sunday News says that some Christchurch prisoners have been given a barbecue for good behavior.

Simon Power’s figures show that of the 7,612 prisoners only 19% (1,470) of them took part in Corrections Inmate Employment during 2006. But in 2005 it was at 23% and in 2004 it was at 26%. He says that the prisons with the least amount of inmates working are: Rolleston with 8.6%, Mount Eden with 8.7%, Rimutaka with 11%, Christchurch Women’s with 13.5% and Dunedin with 13.8%. Mr Power said: “These figures are an appalling indictment on this Government’s approach to prisoner rehabilitation and preparing them for release.”

“In May, Corrections Minister Damien O’Connor announced a strategy that he said would help in ‘significantly increasing the number of prisoners in work and training. But a week later this was shown to be nothing more than window dressing when the Budget increased funding for prisoner employment by a measly $336,000 – up 1%.”

“They have cut funding [on the Corrections Department] by 27% since 2001/02, from $46.5 million to $34 million.”

Mr Power blames the low work rate on the big prison construction budget of $490 million. “There would have been more than a miserable $336,000 extra to spend on effective rehabilitation and work schemes,” he said.

“[Mr O’Conner] seems happier to spend $11 million on landscaping four new prisons and allow prisoners to sit around playing Playstations and Xboxes on their flat-screen TVs than he is about helping them get better prepared for when they are released.”

“Prisoners should be doing meaningful work, training or study while they are in prisons, and I imagine the public would agree,” Mr Power added.

Mr Power, commenting on the barbecue, said: “These people are in prison because they were found to be in serious breach of the law. The victims of their crimes will be grossly offended by the idea that they are being rewarded for anything. This is the just the latest in a long line of incredibly bad decisions made by the Corrections Department over the past year and taxpayers have had enough.”

Bevan Hanlon, president for the Corrections Officers Association, said: “The Mobsters getting a BBQ was a “joke”. (Christchurch Prison) staff are reporting the smell of dope every day. Mobsters are threatening staff on a daily basis and there appears to be high cellphone use (mobile phones are banned in jail). So what happens? They are given a BBQ.”

Friday, May 12, 2006

Peter Costello’s budget announcement has led to rejoicing for small businesses, but the lack of joy for those pushing for radical corporate taxation reform has led to many businesses asking “what about us?”

Personal taxation and small business have been the big winners after this year’s federal budget. Although dampened by the twin economic threats of rising interest rates and petrol prices, there should be a reasonable amount of real income savings for both low and high income earners, with those receiving Medicare, or a superannuation benefit, privy to an even lower level of taxation (0% for those on super benefits).

Small business also has benefited from the Howard government’s 11th annual budget, with them receiving a higher level of reducing depreciation, leading to a higher level of deductions in the years following the uptake of new technology or other capital. They are also privy to a AU$435 million dollar tax cut to compensate for their changing accounting requirements under the government’s new AIFRS reporting standards, as well as increasing the uptake of both the small business tax relief scheme and CGT (Capital Gains tax) Concessions.

The budget was not a complete loss for big business however, as superannuation laws have been tweaked to streamline contribution and payment rules previously impeding those with multitudes of staff.

But this is not enough, says Big 4 accounting firm Ernst & Young. In their newly published paper “Taxation of Investment in Australia: the need for ongoing reform”. In it they lead the charge for a greater streamlining and organization of the corporate tax system in Australia, submitting that it will lead to reductions in “disincentives to work save and invest in Australia [as well as improving] the international competitiveness of Australian businesses.” This follows from a recent report brought out by Mr. Costello himself about the need for tax reform in Australia.

A budget night Mr. Costello was notably coy about any future reform of corporate tax in Australia. He alluded to the report by his ministers but kept from outlining the government’s plan precisely.