Thursday, May 25, 2006

The Australian Labor Party has placed pressure on the federal government to reveal potential sites for nuclear power plants. The pressure comes after the release of a report by The Australia Institute, which identified several locations on the East Coast of Australia as “ideal” nuclear power sites.

Speaking in the Australian House of Representatives on Wednesday, opposition leader Kim Beazley (Brand, Labor) asked Australian treasurer and acting Prime Minister Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal) to name potential nuclear sites.

“As part of the government’s intention to consider nuclear power in Australia, will it nominate the proposed sites of its nuclear reactors and their associated high-level nuclear waste dumps?” Mr Beazley asked.

Mr Costello replied by attacking Labor’s policy on limiting Australia to three uranium mines, supporting uranium exports while being opposed to an Australian nuclear energy industry. Mr Costello said “It would be a funny kind of a policy if Australia was prepared to mine uraniumand to sell it to other countries but was so opposed to the nuclear industry”.

Labor member, Maria Elliot (Richmond, Labor asked Mr Costello to rule out nuclear reactors and waste dumps in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales (part of which falls into Mrs Elliot’s electorate) and the adjoining region of South-East Queensland. Mr Costello gave no assurances that there were no plans to build a reactor in the region.

During an interview whilst in Ireland, Australian PM, John Howard took the opportunity to attack Labor’s nuclear policy. He said Mr Beazley’s opposition was “hypocritical”. “I’m also in awe of his hypocrisy on the issue. Apparently it is alright to export uranium to other countries that will then produce nuclear power with all the problems he says are unacceptable in Australia. Well in my view if nuclear power is unsafe, unacceptable and anti the environment, you shouldn’t export uranium to any other country” he said.

State Labor leaders have voiced their opposition to nuclear energy.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said he would fight strongly against any plans for a nuclear reactor in his state.

NSW Premier Morris Iemma said that NSW had laws prohibiting the building of a nuclear power plant in NSW. Under NSW law, the mining and enrichment of Uranium and construction of nuclear reactors is illegal unless unless the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) operates those reactors. The only nuclear reactor in Australia, HIFAR is owned by ANSTO and is situated in Lucas Heights, South of Sydney in NSW. HIFAR’s replacement OPAL is due for completion in 2007, and will operate alongside HIFAR for six months.

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks said he was strongly opposed to the construction of nuclear reactors in Victoria despite many locations in the state being identified as ideal. As with NSW, Victoria also has laws prohibiting nuclear power generation.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Trusteer, a web security company, reports that a trojan horse virus called Zeus can steal online banking details from infected computers. The virus has infected one out of every 3,000 computers of the 5,500,000 million which the company monitors in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The trojan can infect users of Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows, and steals login information by recording keystrokes when the machine connects to certain websites, usually banks or other financial institutions. The stolen data is transmitted to a remote server and sold to cyber-criminals. “We expect this new version of Zeus to significantly increase fraud losses, since nearly 30% of Internet users bank online with Firefox and the infection is growing faster than we have ever seen before,” said Amit Klein, chief technology officer at Trusteer, to BBC.

The trojan has also affected Wikinews users, including Brian McNeil, who is the founder of Wikinewsie, a restricted-access wiki used to collaborate on sensitive news reports. McNeil reported on his userspace: “On Saturday [April] 17, a Windows-based PC in the house issued a cry for help, the Avira package running on the system had just detected a piece of malware; full scans indicated several known pieces of malware and numerous hidden files. Additional scans revealed that all but one of the USB memory sticks and portable hard drives in the house were infected with something. The Zeus botnet, as it turned out.” E-mail accounts for accredited reporters have also been affected.

Monday, March 12, 2007

The United States Army’s Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley resigned Monday due to the recent Walter Reed Army Medical Center neglect scandal. Lt. Gen. Kiley is the third official to be stripped of command due to the scandal.

Although he officially resigned, Pentagon officials made it clear that he had been dismissed over the scandal that has outraged veterans’ groups and appalled America.

Lt. Gen. Kiley was heavily criticized for his actions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where the hospital was kept in very poor condition and its patients neglected.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Arsenal and PSV met at the Emirates Stadium in London earlier today for the second leg of their Champions League battle. The first match ended 1-0 for PSV, giving them the advantage from the start in this game, as a tie would be all they needed to win. Arsenal, who again were without Thiery Henry to start the football match, played a very young side as usual, although 17 year old Theo Walcott was with Henry on the subs bench. PSV played an attacking side, with Arouna Kone and Jefferson Farfan in the front.PSV started strong out of the gate, and appeared to catch the home team by surprise with their determination. Arsenal were able to stave off the first attacks, and soon had the game under controlled and switched it into one way traffic. Fabregas and Denilson played strongly in the midfield to dictate the play for Arsenal, and soon chances began to show for the Gunners. The first fell to the Ivorian Kolo Toure, who pushed off his fellow countryman Kone, only to see his shot fly harmlessly wide of the net. More chances poured in for Arsenal, but the youngsters did not have the killer touch to finish off any clean shots on the goal. William Gallas of Arsenal had to leave the pitch to replace a contact lens, and PSV took a chance on the man advantage to press forward. Phillip Cocu put himself in a great position behind the defense, but spurned his chance as he headed the ball wide. Arsenal again pressed, as a header by Adebayor went wide, along with two volleys by Julio Baptista.At the start of the second half, Arsenal continued to be frustrated by a combination of poor finishing and good defending by PSV. The Gunners would finally get the goal they needed after 58 minutes, thanks to an own goal by Alex. A corner by Arsenal allowed Adebayor to flick the ball on, and fortuitously it bounced off the hapless defender Alex and into the net. The goal boosted Arsenals confidence, and they continued to press the game. Arsenal nearly doubled their lead when Adebayor was sent one on one with keeper Heurelho, but his shot was directly at the keeper, and the game remained at 1-0 for the home side. As they pushed forward, Arsenal left gaps at the back, and Jefferson Farfan exposed one such gap before Denilson brought him down in the area, but no penalty was given. Henry then joined the fray from the bench, and though he didn’t look completely comfortble, still managed to force Heurelho into a save with a dipping free kick. PSV would make Arsenal pay for their missed chances however, as Alex made up for his own goal and headed and Edison Mendez free kick home, tying the game and giving PSV the lead on aggregate. The aggregate loss concluded a sorrowful series of cup events for Arsenal after they lost in both the FA Cup and the Carling Cup, and now added the Champions League to the list.