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Monday, February 8, 2010

A man from the Naperville, Illinois, United States area has been accused of allegedly threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend and her current boyfriend via messages posted on her Facebook account. 

Nineteen-year-old Christopher J. Bensfield was arrested Jan. 28 at his home in unincorporated DuPage County near the far west-central part of Naperville. He is being held on a $12,500 bond at the DuPage County Jail in Wheaton. He is scheduled to appear at the DuPage County Circuit Court on a felony charge of harassment via electronic communication. Police Sergeant Gregg Bell said the ex-girlfriend, a Naperville-resident, asked Bensfield to stop sending the messages many times before she submitted printed copies of the threatening messages to Naperville police.

Court records indicate Bensfield is already on probation after pleading guilty last September to possession of a controlled substance. He was arrested in August 2008 after disobeying a stop sign in Naperville. Police searched his car and found marijuana and drug paraphernalia. This was the third time Benfield had been arrested for having marijuana since April 2007, when drugs were found in his possession at Naperville Central High School. Last October, a judge issued a fine and required him to join the DuPage County Sheriff’s Work Alternative Program. He has also received five tickets within three months in 2008 for driving violations, including speeding, driving without insurance, transportation of an open alcohol container, and driving too fast for conditions.

Bensfield’s mother also has an order of protection against him. Ms. Bensfield stated that he asked her for money in late December; he then broke into her home in Naperville’s far southeast-side, punching holes in the walls and breaking various items before leaving. Christopher was arrested Dec. 29 and faced a misdemeanor charge of criminal damage to property. He “suffers from bipolar disorder and has not been taking his medication,” according to information the Naperville Daily Herald has received from Ms. Bensfield.

Monday, June 23, 2008

An Australian air safety group claims that Yogyakarta International Airport was opearating illegally with no license when Garuda Indonesia Flight 200, a Boeing 737, crashed at the airport, killing 16 Indonesians and five Australians.

Flight Safety Pty Ltd had been asked to carry out an independent investigation by an anonymous client after the March 2007 disaster, which occurred when the aircraft landed at excessive speed and shot off the end of the runway. Flight Safety has now announced that they have found Yogyakarta International had been granted a five year license but this would be withdrawn after twelve months if several conditions were not met. Since these conditions remained unchanged, the license effectively voided six months before the disaster, claim Flight Safety. One of the conditions was extension of the runway and provision of an adequate Runway End Safety Area (RESA).

The group adds that it also conducted checks on Solo International Airport and Semarang International Airport, and that these airports also had invalid Airport Operating Certificates. The final report was not released at the time as the client in question felt it ‘too sensitive’, and Flight Safety says that it was rapidly covered up three months later when it leaked in Indonesia.

The group says it notified the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), and that they in turn said the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) – who assisted in the crash investigation – was in control of the situation. However, Flight Safety claim that when approached, the ATSB denied knowing about it. Allegedly, the ATSB had missed the licensing discrepancy because they only checked the front page of the airport’s license and did not conduct a detailed analysis of the small print.

Flight Safety claim that the Indonesian Director of Aviation Safety told them that the situation had been rectified. However, the group have now conducted a re-audit and say Solo and Yogyakarta airports both remain illegal. They go on to accuse the ICAO, ATSB and Indonesian Director of Aviation Safety of “keeping quiet” and described them as ‘compromised’.

Flight Safety go on to claim that the survivors of the crash and relatives of the deceased have not been informed either, and say that this will have a serious effect on the compensation process and on any insurance claims. Crikey, an Australian news service, also suggested that AU$12 million of aid promised by Australia to help Indonesia improve air safety is also being misused. All Indonesia’s air carriers are currently on the list of air carriers banned in the EU.

An official statement by Flight Safety head Chris Weir concluded “It [the group’s findings] should now be exposed as the safety issues remain unresolved.”

Mardjono Siswo Suwarno of the National Transport Safety Committee, the body responsible for investigating the disaster, denied that Yogyakarta Airport was illegal, saying “At that time [the license] was still valid, but the RESA was not long enough… But still in the [Garuda] case, even if the RESA length was adequate, the plane would have still overrun because the speed was 1.8 times normal speed.”

The final report found that the pilot-in-command, who has been arrested and charged over the crash, attempted to land after fifteen Ground Proximity Warning System activations to tell him he was landing too fast, and says that although a longer runway and full-sized RESA wouldn’t have stopped an airliner traveling at such excessive speed it could have reduced the toll of deaths and injuries.

The directors of Yogyakarta and Solo airports claim that since the re-audit they have taken steps to improve safety and rectify any problems, but have not actually admitted their airports were illegal. Indonesian director general of air transportation Budi Mulyawan Suyitno said that although local budget limitations have prevented some airports from being improved there are no problems currently at Yogyakarta, with improvements including declaration of a RESA for 140 metres of the 2,250 metre runway and stationing Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting trucks at the airport.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

According to East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme Kenyan chapter head, Andrew Mwangura, the Greek freighter MV Captain Stephanos and all its 19 crew, consisting of 17 Filipinos, one Chinese and a Ukrainian, had been released late Monday, after 78 days in captivity. It was unclear, however, if any ransom was paid. The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said that “there are [still] 91 Filipino seafarers on board six ships still with Somali pirates.”

Somali pirates seized the Bahamas-flagged vessel on September 21 near the Horn of Africa, as the bulk carrier, was cruising in the Gulf of Aden en route and transporting coal to Europe. The captors locked the crew inside the vessel and they were not fed well. The vessel is now headed to Italy and will sail from there to Greece, to meet the ship owners.

Reuters reported that “a surge in attacks at sea this year in the busy Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean off Somalia has pushed up insurance costs, brought the gangs tens of millions of dollars in ransoms, and prompted foreign warships to rush to the area.”

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Two bombs have exploded in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, killing at least 67 people. Both explosions were car bombs, at least one of which is being called a suicide bombing.

The first explosion took place in the Ben Aknoun district in the center of the city, which is near the constitutional court. The second was near the United Nations offices in the Hydra neighborhood. A UN worker said to the BBC that the building has partially collapsed and people may be trapped inside.

Jean Fabre, of the United Nations Development Programme, said that 10 staff members had been killed by the bomb which was outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’s offices.

Several of the victims in the Ben Aknoun attack were students who were in a passing bus.

Officials believe that the attacks were carried out by The al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, which was previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and sometimes still referred to as such.

Algiers suffered a similar attack on April 11 of this year when two suicide car bombers claimed the lives of 33 people. According to Reuters, some people in Algeria have begun to speculate that the attacks on the 11th of the month is an homage to the September 11 against the United States.

Anis Rahmani, security expert and editor of a local paper, told Reuters that “al Qaeda wanted to send a strong message that it is still capable despite the lost of several top leaders. Now the key problem is that social conditions are still offering chances for terrorists to hire new rebels.”

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks while in Indonesia for the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference: “This is just unacceptable. I would like to condemn it in the strongest terms. It cannot be justified in any circumstances.”

Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France, who recently visited Algeria, called the attacks “barbaric, hateful and deeply cowardly acts.”

“President Sarkozy has just called President Bouteflika to express the French people’s solidarity and compassion towards the Algerian people,” said presidential spokesperson David Martinon.

White House spokesperson Gordon Johndroe said: “The United States stands with the people of Algeria, as well as the United Nations, as they deal with this senseless violence.”

The Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem called off a cabinet meeting to allow him to visit the injured in the hospital.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

400 Australian soldiers have been officially farewelled at parade in Darwin, NT, ahead of their deployment to Afghanistan on Tuesday. Wishing the soldiers well, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson says there is a high risk associated with the mission.

“We know that this is a dangerous mission but it’s also an extremely important one,” he said. “They will go beginning this week and be deployed over the next few weeks.”

The group will work around the southern Oruzgan Province. Rising violence in the Taliban heartland province earlier this month prompted Australian Prime Minister John Howard to further strengthen the capability of the Reconstruction Task Force (RTF). Approximately 150 personnel will be added to the 240-strong force announced in May.

Defence says the RTF will form part of the Netherlands-led Provincial Reconstruction Team in the Oruzgan province under NATO.

More than 1800 people have been killed in fighting in Afghanistan this year, 92 of them foreign soldiers (12 being Canadian). A contingent of 190 Australian special forces, supported by a 110-member helicopter detachment, has suffered a steady flow of casualties since September year, with 11 wounded — a rate of one a month. The Age reports the Howard Government has “kept secret” how soldiers suffered the wounds, or the extent or nature of the wounds.

Dr Nelson said the soldiers would perform command, construction, communications intelligence, protection and logistics support. “We must stick with our allies and stand up for our values,” he said. He told the troops they would be “dealing with people who are fanatically opposed to our way of life and everything we stand for”.

Dr Nelson says the Australian contribution will also include skills training for the local population to “ensure the benefits of the deployment continue long after our personnel have returned home.”

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Toilet paper supplies in Trenton, the capital of the US state of New Jersey, may run out by week’s end following their city council’s dispute over budgets.

The council has declined to sign a contract for paper products worth $42,573 after falling out over a $4,000 charge for paper cups.

Lauren Ira, a spokeswoman for Mayor Tony Mack, said that while the money has been made available to purchase the tissue, the Council is unwilling to sign the contract. The decision means that buildings such as Trenton City Hall may run out of toilet paper by Friday.

Former police officer George Muschal, now Trenton’s South Ward Councilman, spoke of the decision in an interview with Bloomsberg. He said the Council was not willing to bow to Mack’s order for paper cups, designed to carry hot beverages. He cited reports that the extreme nature of the order was down to fears some cups would be “stolen” for home use. He told the website: “We’re the checks and balances over the administration, and we’re not going to send out any blank checks.”

The rejected contract for paper products is part of a $182.6 million budget laid out by Mack in November. The budget has yet to be adopted due to arguments over its viability; if agreed, it will go into place on July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

At 12:41 p.m. local time (UTC-5), a man opened fire at Dawson College, in Westmount, Quebec, Canada; the college is located near the heart of downtown Montreal. Police report at least 20 people being injured. The gunman was reportedly killed at the scene by police. Students told reporters that they heard several shots in the building at about 12:45 local time. One student told a local radio station that she saw two people who had been shot, including one who was hit at the neck. The student said a friend told her four people had been shot.

Hundreds of students fled the building, and the area has been cordoned off. Nearby Plaza Alexis Nihon and Westmount Square were evacuated and the Green line of the Montreal Metro was shut down between Lionel-Groulx and Peel. Police officers wearing bullet-proof vests are keeping people away from the college. “They’re telling me, ‘Go the other way, lady, you’re in the line of fire,'” said CBC News reporter Nancy Wood, who reported from the scene.

Local media have reported police hotlines have been established for loved ones to gain more information: +1-(514)-280-2880, +1-(514)-280-2805, and +1-(514)-280-2806. The Montreal General Hospital has also set up a hotline at +1-(514)-843-2839.

Police have reported that the situation has been neutralized as of 20:06, September 13, 2006 (UTC). Police have been told to stand down and are no longer looking for new victims or shooters.

Dawson College is a CEGEP that hosts about 10,000 students.

Friday, January 13, 2017

Yesterday afternoon United States President Barack Obama surprised his two-term vice president Joe Biden in the White House State Dining Room with the country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction.

In a ceremony described by the press as highly emotional, Obama cited his choice of Biden as a running mate as one of the best of his career and described their few arguments as the sort that brothers would have and Biden himself as “a lion of American history.”

This made only the fourth time in U.S. history that this modified form, the Medal of Freedom with distinction, has been awarded. Biden joined Pope John Paul II, then-former President Ronald Reagan, and former General and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Early during the ceremony, Obama noted comically “this also gives the Internet one last chance to talk about our ‘bromance.'” The hashtag “#BROTUS,” a play on the acronym for President of the United States (POTUS), was a common sight on Twitter in 2016.