Author: Admin

Thursday, April 3, 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Microsoft announced on Thursday they are partnering with KIND Financial to help governments track the production and distribution of legal marijuana. Kind Financial, a California-based start-up company, began selling its Agrisoft Seed to Sale software three years ago. Microsoft is admitting Kind’s software on the Government portion of its Azure cloud service.

Although Kind Financial CEO David Dinenberg stressed to The Guardian they “absolutely do not touch the plant”, his company does business with growers and distributors of marijuana, as well as the governments that regulate it. State law in twenty-five US states — but not US federal law — has legalized marijuana, whether medicinally or for recreational use. Kimberly Nelson, Microsoft executive director of state and local government solutions, said they expect significant demand for technology to help states make sure cannabis distribution within their state is done according to their laws.

Kind also provides kiosks similar to automated tellers (ATMs) to facilitate marijuana transactions in dispensaries. The distribution of marijuana is often done only with cash or through machines like the ones Kind offers since many banks in the United States shy away from the marijuana industry entirely. Microsoft is not interacting with this part of Kind’s operations, however.

Microsoft and Kind will apply for contracts with state governments for their software. Currently, they have applied to Puerto Rico, a US territory, where medical marijuana has recently been made legal. BioTrackTHC, a company similar to Kind Financial, already has contracts with Washington, New Mexico, and Illinois.

Dinenberg said his company’s partnership with Microsoft is a major step in advancing the legitimacy of cannabis-related businesses.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Nine months after announcing the interoperability between their instant messaging (IM) services, Internet rivals Microsoft and Yahoo! began limited public beta (pre-release) testing of the program. This enables users of the two services to communicate with each other using their existing IM client, Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger) and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.

Users wishing to use the new feature can go to a special page on the service’s website, where they have to review and accept an agreement. After signing out and signing in again, the interoperability is enabled without downloading any new software.

The service is designed to allow users to see each others’ online presence, view personal status messages, share select emoticons, view offline messages and add new contacts from either service. However, more advanced features, like voice calls and shared folders are not interoperable between the two services.

The program is available internationally in more than 15 markets.

Monday, March 21, 2005A Houston jury resumes deliberations today in a federal smuggling case where 19 illegal immigrants died from heat and lack of oxygen. The defendant, Tyrone Williams, 34, could face the death penalty for his alleged involvement in harboring and transporting illegal immigrants across the US-Mexican border.

He was reportedly paid $7,500 to bring the immigrants to Houston in a tractor trailer truck.

Williams, a Jamaican citizen, was a member of a smuggling ring. He alone faces capital punishment charges, while 14 other ring members were charged with less serious offenses for their involvement in the case. Williams allegedly made a four-hour trip across the border and then parked at a truck stop in Victoria, about 100 miles from Houston. He left the truck while 75 persons suffered in the cargo area of the trailer during sweltering heat.

The prosecution claims he abandoned the trailer while ignoring screams for help and banging on the walls from those inside the trailer.

His defense attorneys argue Williams was unable to hear anything from the trailer, and they further say greed by other ring members was the cause of the deaths since the trailer was so overcrowded. Williams should not be singled out, his attorneys maintained, just because he was the driver of the truck.

“He didn’t care,” said federal prosecutor Daniel Rodriguez during closing arguments. “To him, these weren’t people, they were merchandise.”

The jury asked U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore three questions before the trial was adjourned for the weekend.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Avalanches following the worst snow in two decades have killed over 100 people south of Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir, with many more still missing and remote areas still isolated. Forty-five tourists have been rescued, and the death toll is expected to rise as rescuers–including a large number of Indian troops–deal with the 4.5 metres of snow that have fallen since last Friday.

The crisis has cut off electricity in Srinagar for three days and is not affecting the water supplies. There are queues for cooking gas, and helicopters have been bringing in additional supplies.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Computer systems used by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) for the handling of tax filing data for Canadians have been temporarily shutdown due to infrastructure problems.^[1] A March 7 article in the Toronto Star^[2] states that due to errors in the electronic filing system, Canada Revenue Agency will be unable to accept any tax filings electronically or corrections to prior filings.

A fact sheet from the CRA ^[3] states that “until the problem is resolved, we cannot process returns filed on paper, or returns filed electronically before the system interruption. Refunds will be delayed until processing is resumed”.

A check of the taxing authority’s website^[4] regarding the issue states “We have temporarily shut down public access to electronic services to ensure the integrity of taxpayer information.” and that “We have now traced the source of the problem to software maintenance conducted on March 4, 2007. We are currently working to bring all systems back online gradually.”

A CRA press release dated March 6 ^[5] states “Commissioner of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) Michel Dorais today instructed some computer applications related to personal income tax filing to be temporarily halted.” he also said, “there is no indication that this situation was caused by intrusion, hacking, or computer virus”. Further, “These applications include online services like Efile, Netfile, and My Account. Mr. Dorais said that he instructed that this preventative measure be taken following indications that CRA computer systems have run into infrastructure problems. In order to safeguard existing systems and to maintain the integrity of CRA’s taxpayer information holdings, Mr Dorais ordered tax filing processes halted.”

An article in The Globe and Mail ^[6] states that taxpayers “can wait for Netfile to return to service, or they can print their returns and mail them to the CRA”, which will be processed when the computer glitch is resolved.

The deadline for Canadians to submit tax returns is April 30. The CRA indicates it is too soon to speculate on whether the filing deadline will be extended. They expect to restore all services, including EFile and Netfile, well in advance of the filing deadline.^[7]

The shutdown also affects third-party companies that prepare tax returns and electronically file the data using the EFile facility on behalf of clients. According to the CRA, millions of individual Canadians use the Netfile service each year.

The Agency will provide updates daily to the media until the situation is resolved.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Unknown individuals gained access to a server of University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU). As a result, around thirteen years of email correspondence between researchers is now available worldwide. Substantial previously unpublished climate change observations are included.

According to initial reports by TGIF Newspaper and the Watt’s Up With That blog, hundreds of emails and documents were made available from a FTP site on a Russian server with an accompanying statement:

“We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents”

Some journalists suppose that this event is a consequence of increased attention on CRU after it played a substantial role in the IPCC fourth assessment report (2007).

The released data is a 62 megabyte zip file, containing around 160 megabytes of emails, pdfs and other documents. Some of the contents have been confirmed as genuine by the head of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, Dr Phillip Jones. In an interview with TGIF Newspaper, he stated that a breach of security had taken place and that a large quantity of files had been “stolen”. The interviewer discussed one of Dr. Jones’ published e-mails:

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow. I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd [sic] from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values…

The interviewer asked Dr. Jones to explain the phrase “hide and decline”, but he answered that he had no idea what he meant by using them (as they were made in the context of a discussion taking place 10 years ago), and he had not attempt to mislead:

No, that’s completely wrong. In the sense that they’re talking about two different things here. They’re talking about the instrumental data which is unaltered – but they’re talking about proxy data going further back in time, a thousand years, and it’s just about how you add on the last few years, because when you get proxy data you sample things like tree rings and ice cores, and they don’t always have the last few years. So one way is to add on the instrumental data for the last few years.

In a press release by the University of East Anglia, Dr. Jones stated that:

“That the world is warming is based on a range of sources: not only temperature records but other indicators such as sea level rise, glacier retreat and less Arctic sea ice.

“Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Center in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them.

“[…]My colleagues and I accept that some of the published emails do not read well. I regret any upset or confusion caused as a result. Some were clearly written in the heat of the moment, others use colloquialisms frequently used between close colleagues.”

One such colloquialism, “trick,” is frequently used by scientists and engineers to refer to an essential or non-obvious element in the solution of a problem, as opposed to the common political usage connoting deception.

Commentators argue that the published messages show the researchers’ reluctance to publish scientific material, though it contains serious global warming observations. Some of the correspondence portrays the scientists as feeling under siege by skeptics’ and worried that any stray comment or data glitch could be turned against them.

The East Anglia University has shut down the original server, from which the information was stolen. A university spokesman stated that data was published without permission, but did not confirm whether all of the published communication is genuine:

We are aware that information from a server used for research information in one area of the university has been made available on public websites.

Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm that all of this material is genuine.

This information has been obtained and published without our permission and we took immediate action to remove the server in question from operation.

We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and we have involved the police in this enquiry.

The release of the documents comes just weeks before a major climate-change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, meant to lay the groundwork for a new global treaty to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and fight climate change.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Caracas, Venezuela — The fifth edition of the Expo Gastronomía food event finished its run yesterday in Caracas at the Plaza Francia in Altamira. It was the first time the event was held at this particular location. Starting on Thursday, it was the first edition of the event to be held in 2013, and was organized by Carlos Garcia and Yolanda Martin.

In its fifth version, the exhibition organizers estimated to receive between 10,000 and 13,000 people to the event, which had nine pavilions representing eight countries around the world. The exhibitors were divided into four categories: typical food of the country they represent, handicrafts, gastronomy (comprised of cooking books and products, and metalwork ^{((es))es:Orfebrería: ?orfebrería}), and hotel businesses and tourism.

The event was sponsored by Coca-Cola, La Granja, Oroweat, G2000 Events, CGYM Group, and the Chacao Mayor’s Office. In addition, the food company Cosecha San José participated as one of the exhibitors. According to organizers, the sixth edition of the event is planned for later this year.

The festival first took place on April 2011, with a attendance of around 3,000 people. On that occasion, eight countries participated in the event.