Posts Tagged ‘police’
Brasilia police cancel embarrassing order for World Cup raincoats
They’re safe even if Kaka prays for rain!
Brasilia police have canceled an order for 17,000 raincoats for use at the World Cup because next year’s tournament will be played in the dry season…”The military police made a mistake in listing the product among those to be acquired with a view to the World Cup which will be held in the dry season,” said the Federal District government…
Brazilian media had criticized the plans as an example of wasteful spending by authorities, pointing out that the jackets would have cost a total of $2.66 million.
Rainfall is very rare between May and July in Brasilia and the air humidity often drops to 30 percent.
The Brazilian capital, a planned city founded in 1960, will stage five matches at the World Cup and will also host games at the Confederations Cup in June.
Most of the proper football fans I know are hoping for a successful tournament. What really counts is getting to watch our favorite sport without interference from greedy grasping businessmen and their kissing cousins in politics.
Businessman going to jail for selling phony bomb detectors
A British businessman was convicted Tuesday of selling gussied-up golf ball detectors as devices that could detect bombs, drugs and even diamonds.
Jim McCormick, 57, faces a substantial prison term for fraud, the Evening Standard reported. Investigators said he made millions of dollars selling useless detectors for as much as $40,000 each, with customers that included the Iraqi military…
Trial witnesses included Belgian Police Superintendent Theiry Meunier, who described his experience with one of McCormick’s devices.
“It was not only the cheapest machine, it was the only machine,” Meunier said. “We had no results from it. We tried to use the device for detecting drugs in cars for several months. We also provided the detector to detectives seeking to detect drugs. The results again were negative.”
McCormick, who lives in the Bath area, went on trial in March after a three-year investigation by Avon and Somerset police.
Investigators said he put lives at risk by selling a device that might give security officers a false sense of confidence.
While McCormick has continued to maintain his devices do the job they were supposed to, police, prosecutors and unhappy customers say they are simply golf-ball detectors given a fancy look and fancy marketing.
There’s some sort of object lesson inside this farce. Maybe something to do with the folks in charge of detecting crime, providing security against fraud – unable to figure out on the spot when they’re being hustled, eh?
Dubai coppers the latest to add Lamborghini chase car
Dubai Police has added a Lamborghini Aventador to its fleet, the force announced on its Twitter feed.
On Wednesday, the official DubaiPoliceHQ feed posted a photo of its latest purchase driving outside Dubai Mall, the world’s biggest shopping centre, and said: “Dubai Police patrols, now at your service.”
The Lamborghini Aventador, named after a bull, is capable of speeds of up to 349km/h and has a price tag of around $400,000…
The Italian-made Lamborghini Aventador will be mostly dispatched to tourist areas to show – in the words of deputy police director General Khamis Matter al-Muzaina – “how classy Dubai is”…
The car is reported to be the crown jewel of a wider upgrade in Dubai police wheels.
The force is also adding some American Camaros cars.
How cool is this?
Doctor in Brazil suspected of murdering patients to “make space”
The Brazilian health ministry has begun a review of the medical records of 300 patients treated by a doctor suspected of killing seven terminally ill patients.
Prosecutors on Wednesday claimed Virginia Soares de Souza and her medical team administered muscle relaxing drugs to patients, then reduced their oxygen supply, causing them to die of asphyxia at the Evangelical Hospital…
Investigators are combing through 1,700 medical records of patients who died in the last seven years at the hospital, where De Souza headed the intensive care unit.
It is believed the deaths were a bid by the doctor and her staff to free up beds at the Curitiba hospital’s intensive care wing.
De Souza denies the charges. Her lawyer said investigators had misunderstood how an intensive care unit works and she would prove her innocence.
The 56-year-old widow was arrested in February and charged with seven counts of aggravated first degree murder.
Another three doctors, three nurses and a physiotherapist who worked under De Souza have also been charged with murder.
Yes, this could be politicians acting like they are medical experts. Could also be a new world record [yippee!] for a doctor eliminating patients taking up productive and profitable bed space.
Cripes.
Jet airliner reports close encounter with drone – over Brooklyn!
This is similar to the design seen by the Alitalia pilot
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a report from a pilot of an Alitalia passenger jet who says he saw an unmanned aircraft while landing at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
“We saw a drone, a drone aircraft,” the pilot can be heard telling controllers on radio calls captured by the website LiveATC.net.
“The FAA is investigating a report… he saw a small, unmanned or remote-controlled aircraft while on final approach to Runway 31 Right,” according a statement sent to CNN by FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown. “The sighting was approximately four to five miles west of the airport at an altitude of approximately 1,500 feet,” she said.
That description puts the aircraft somewhere over Brooklyn and on the other side of the airport from where the plane was coming in for a landing…
The Alitalia aircraft did not have to take any evasive action and landed safely at JFK…
For recreational hobbyists, flying remote-controlled planes is only allowed by the FAA up to 400 feet in the air, and within sight of the operator. If they are going to fly within three miles of an airport, they have to let air traffic controllers know.
Flying unmanned aerial vehicles is illegal for most business purposes; however, governments and public entities such as police departments can apply for permission to operate them.
20 years ago, it would have been called a UFO.
Quebec language coppers try to ban ‘pasta’ from restaurant menu
An Italian restaurant with Italian words in the menu – how dangerous!
They are known as the language police, a unit within the regional Quebec government that seeks to protect French from the rising tide of English. It deploys inspectors to rein in recidivist anglophones, take on big corporate transgressors such as Guess, the Gap and Costco and conduct spot checks to follow up thousands of public complaints.
Now, however, zealots in the Office québécois de la langue française…may have gone a step too far in picking a fight with an Italian restaurant known for its celebrity clientele including Bono, Rihanna, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jerry Seinfeld and Robert De Niro.
After a five-month investigation into an anonymous complaint, Massimo Lecas received a letter from the board telling him that his establishment, Buonanotte, had broken the law by including the words “pasta” on the menu and “bottiglia”, the Italian word for bottle, instead of the French word bouteille.
Outraged, Lecas posted the letter for 2,500 of his Facebook friends to see. In doing so, he unleashed a political tempest over one of the most sensitive topics up for debate in the province. The outcry has forced the Quebec government to rein in its language inspectors, ensure exceptions to the rules are made for ethnic food and restaurant menus and order a review of how it handles public complaints. Anglophones and the many ethnic communities that call Quebec home are now celebrating a victory. French-language advocates and Quebec separatists, meanwhile, see signs of a campaign by a cabal of English-speakers in Quebec and across Canada to undercut what they view as the only tool to ensure that French thrives.
Lecas, who was born and raised in Canada’s second-largest city, and who also speaks French, does not hide his linguistic frustrations. But he says this episode is no sinister plot. Rather, it is a perfect storm propelled by social media.
“I think that when they circled the word pasta that was the sensitive spot,” he said. “It wasn’t an anglophone thing so right away the francophones jumped in [to support the restaurant] because it was an Italian word…”
In the meantime, Quebec premier Pauline Marois is introducing a bill to apply French-first laws to small companies and to prevent towns and cities where the majority of the population is francophone from also offering services in English.
Her government’s rallying cry that French remains threatened so long as it is surrounded by the cacophony of English voices in North America is undiminished. And in a period of severe cutbacks, Quebec’s recent budget included one notable increase: the yearly allotment for the language police.
The populist side of nationalism is no less elitist than bigoted. Extending the ban on English creeping in from the surroundings to every other language is logical only in the mind of politicians whose career is built upon Francophone fears. It also demeans the growth of education and understanding natural to people who feel they have something to contribute to the larger world.
The Parti Québécois is demonstrating its willingness to perpetrate the subjugation it says it fears.
Rape victim dies – Justice waits for present and future generations
LUCKNOW: The death of the 23-old Delhi gang-rape victim Nirbhaya in Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital triggered a series of protests in Lucknow on Saturday. Thousands of students from various schools and colleges and activists especially women demanded implementation of strict laws related to crimes against women and speedy trial of the rape cases. Most of the protestors demanded death penalty for the accused in the rape cases.
Holding banners and placards, which read ‘Ladki ki nahi, insaniyat ki maut hai’; ‘Delhi ho ya Aashiana, nahi chalega koi bahana’; ‘Kapde nahi, soch badlo’, ‘Prime minister awas ki suraksha kyu badha di gayi- Kyu?? Kya desh ki agli abla Manmohan Singh hai?’, the protestors demanded strict law against rape, as people from different walks of life continued to gather at the Gandhi Memorial till late in the evening to raise their voice against women safety. Candle marches were also carried out in support of rape victims…
…Tahira Hasan, national vice-president of All India Progressive Women Association said that we want to build pressure on the government to call an emergency session of Parliament to form strict law for the crimes against women. She added, “Many politicians from various parties are passing sexually offensive comments. The women member of such parties should condemn their colleagues for passing such comments.”
Young men and boys also gathered at Gandhi memorial to pay condolence to the girl and support the cause. Sudhanshu Bajpai, convenor, All India Student Association said, “Our politician have Z-plus security, while common man is unsafe. We want safety for our citizens.”
India is not alone, of course, in electing politicians to lead who rely only on the past to get re-elected. Working hard, fighting for standards which illuminate the future is beyond the ken of many if not most of the self-centered breed who take up politics as a career.
They ensure the best of everything for themselves while looking down in the idea of law and order, healthcare, safety and justice for ordinary folk. They personify the hypocrisy of the narrow class of nterests they truly represent.
Protests over rape in India continue — Coppers turn violent! — UPDATED!
Democracy as practiced by police in India – click to enlarge
Protests over a recent gang rape quickly gained force over the weekend, tapping into longstanding fury against entrenched corruption and lopsided justice, and leading to clashes with the police.
Seven days of demonstrations peaked Sunday, as thousands of people joined women’s and students’ groups despite a hastily enacted ban on protesting in New Delhi. The crowds taunted the police and attacked the car of a member of Parliament. The police, in turn, fired tear gas and water cannons, beat protesters with bamboo sticks and arrested dozens.
What corrupt, entrenched politicians and their police flunkies call “even-handed”.
“Many students who were protesting peacefully were attacked,” said Jayati Ghosh, a professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, who had joined the protest with her daughter. “These are patriotic and respectable citizens. You cannot respond to them in this ham-handed manner.”
Kulsoom Rashid, 27, rubbed her eyes and said she had been tear-gassed. “This is how they are responding,” she said, seething. “Hundreds of rapists are running scot-free, and the entire Delhi police is standing here to stop people like me?”
By late afternoon Sunday, political parties had joined the crowd, increasing the number of confrontations with the authorities…
After several recent, highly publicized rape cases, India has been struggling to come to grips with the scale of the vastly underreported problem. Even when rapes are reported, suspects are rarely found and arrested.
In the most recent case, a 23-year-old medical student who boarded what she thought was a public bus on Dec. 16 was brutally raped and beaten nearly to death by a group of men. Six suspects are in jail.
The rapid reaction has done little to stem public anger. On Sunday, protesters jostled with the police, calling them “cowardly,” “corrupt” and “inept,” as they tried to push through the cordon…
“These people have lost patience with a government that has no sense of justice, no sense of accountability and is totally corrupt at the top,” said Prem Shankar Jha, a former editor of the Hindustan Times.
You can witness the reality of what is called democracy in many countries by how police are allowed to treat peaceful demonstrations. Regular readers will know I hold no brief for anarchists and other loonies. They deserve what they get when they try to burn down London or Seattle. But, I was able to follow the course of these demonstrations quite closely over the weekend – via al Jazeera and CCTV9.
The Indian police were merciless in their attacks on peaceful demonstrators, ordinary people, mostly young people, marching because they are fed-up with institutional corruption and injustice. It reminded me of nothing more than early days in our own civil rights movement, North and South.
Subaru SHARC wins 2012 LA Design Challenge
Subaru’s SHARC (Subaru Highway Automated Response Concept) has been named the winner of the 2012 LA Design Challenge. The futuristic concept car was chosen by the judges as the best embodiment of the “Highway Patrol Vehicle 2025.”
Subaru’s SHARC beat six other automotive design studios, each of which presented its own concept of “the ultimate 2025 law enforcement patrol vehicle that supports the needs of dynamic urban environments.”
Subaru’s design for an unmanned 24-hour highway monitoring vehicle is intended for use by Hawaii’s highway patrol to police the state’s hypothetical “Paradise Highway” spanning the waters between the islands in 2025. The design is meant to be not only cutting edge, but also to conform to Hawaii’s UltraGreen carbon-neutral environmental regulations and eliminate the need for a large patrol staff in a time of shrinking budgets.
The SHARC is basically a big kevlar balloon with a framework made out of memory material that changes when you run a charge through it. Launched out of a tube, it expands to full size revealing wheels that are shockingly multipurpose. Each one has a 96 bhp electric wheel hub motor and the band-like tires have two tread surfaces set at an angle so the SHARC can make high-speed runs or navigate rough terrain. In between the treads is a slot for the headlamps and tail lights to shine through and the blade-like wheel spokes are actually propellers for when the SHARC takes to the air.
At the end of the day, SHARC deflates itself, rolls itself up again and goes back in its tube.
Um, imaginative comes to mind.
Prime suspects in Afghan bank robbery? Afghan police officers!
American expertise in training bank security
The bank robbers were men who were often seen around town in uniform – police uniforms. They were, in fact, police.
Three Afghan National Police officers fled a bank in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province after breaking in after hours and stealing more than 29 million afghanis (about $550,000) late Friday night, according to Gen. Ghulamullah Nuristani, the provincial police chief.
You might call it an inside job. The officers were assigned to guard the bank, a local branch of Afghanistan’s central bank, Nuristani said.
Two of the officers were cornered in a nearby home and arrested, Nuristani told The Los Angeles Times. He said the home belongs to Abdul Rahman Kahan, who had been in charge of security guards for the province’s previous government.
Police recovered most of the money and were pursuing the third bandit and the rest of the cash, Nuristani said.
Nuristani said he suspected that powerful local figures loyal to the previous provincial government may have had a hand in organizing the robbery.
“Possibly there are some power-brokers behind this,” Nuristani said by telephone from the isolated, mountainous province in northeastern Afghanistan. “The police have launched an investigation to find out who else is behind this.”
It’s doubtful they’ll provide a larger number of police to guard local banks, though. That would diminish the size of each copper’s share in future robberies.
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