A compilation of brief news reports for Monday, May 7, 2007.

A 30 meter section of a gas pipeline in Luka (near Kiev) in Ukraine has been destroyed by an explosion. Although supplies to Europe via this pipeline have stopped, Ukrainian Energy Minister Georgi E. Boyko said that supplies to Europe would not be affected.

“There are no changes in volumes of gas being transported,” Yuri Korolchuk said. “Volumes due to pass through the damaged section are being redirected through the Soyuz pipeline.”

Normal flows are reported in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania.

Sources

• “Blast damages pipeline in Ukraine” — Russia Today, May 8, 2007
• Natalya Zinets, Reuters. “Blast hits Ukraine gas pipeline” — The Scotsman, May 7, 2007

Copper prices are rising. Between record copper imports from China, and a mining strike in Peru, the prices have climbed to over $8100 (United States dollars) a tonne, for a gain of $575 dollars over the last week. However the upward trend is not new, it has been climbing for quite some time. In April 2003, the price of copper was under $2000 a tonne.

The metal market has been tending up due to growth in the Chinese industrial production. This trickles down to the local level, where the buying price at scrap yards is ever climbing, making scrap metal collection a more profitable endeavour for individual people using pick up trucks or other such vehicles to collect and cash in the scrap metal at metal buying yards. It can be collected via agreements with businesses, from the garbage, or, sometimes, by theft.

Copper prices fell today on the NYMEX commodity exchange from US$3.7545 per pound to US$3.7125 based on the July futures contract.

Sources

• “Copper up but crude oil down” — Financial Express, May 6, 2007
• Millie Munshi. “Metals Bubble Poised to Burst on Increasing Supplies” — Bloomberg L.P., May 7, 2007
• “Commodity Futures” — Bloomberg L.P., accessed May 7, 2007

One man was killed and another injured by an exploding backpack in the parking lot of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The explosion happened at 4 a.m. PDT when the victim tried to remove a the object left on top of his car.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) are on the scene. Aerial images did not show any apparent damage.

“We believe the victim was the intended target of this,” Bill Cassell said, spokesperson for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. “This is being treated as a homicide in which the weapon used to cause death is a non-traditional weapon.”

Both of the victims worked at the Luxor.

Sources

• Associated Press. “1 dead, 1 hurt in Las Vegas parking lot blast” — MSNBC, May 7, 2007
• “Explosion kills man in Vegas outside Luxor hotel” — Reuters, May 7, 2007

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Researchers say that new, ten million-year-old fossils found in Ethiopia, prove that the theory that humans may have evolved from a species of great apes eight million years ago, may not be true, but that humans may have split from apes as long as 10.5 million years ago.

At least nine fossilized teeth, one canine tooth and eight molars, of a previously unknown species of apes found in Africa were discovered by a team of researchers from Ethiopia and Japan who then compared the 3-D make up of the teeth to other fossils that date back as far as 8 million years and found that the fossils are likely a “direct ancestor” of apes currently living in Africa and that the new ape fossils were that of a species of gorilla who ate mostly plants high in fiber.

Current fossils and research say that the evolutionary split from apes to humans occurred at least eight million years ago. The new fossils say that the split may have happened as long as 10.5 million years ago.

“Based on this fossil, that means the split is much earlier than has been anticipated by the molecular evidence. That means everything has to be put back,” said researcher at the Rift Valley Research Service in Ethiopia and a co-author of the study, Berhane Asfaw.

Despite the finds, other researchers are not convinced that the findings are correct.

“It is stretching the evidence to base a time scale for the evolution of the great apes on this new fossil. These structures appear on at least three independent lineages of apes, including gorillas, and they could relate to a dietary shift rather than indicating a new genetic trait,” said a Professor at the London Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom, Peter Andrews who also added, “but the fossil evidence for the evolution of our closest living relatives, the great apes, is almost non-existent.

Researchers have named the newly discovered species Cororapithecus abyssinicus whose remains were found in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, the same place where the remains of Lucy were discovered in 1974.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Wikinews interviewed author Nancy Many about her book My Billion Year Contract, and asked her about life working in the elite Scientology group known as the “Sea Org“. Many joined Scientology in the early 1970s, and after leaving in 1996 she later testified against the organization. Published in October, Many’s book has gone on to become one of the top selling new books on Scientology at Amazon.com.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

U.K. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has announced a voluntary pilot scheme for identity cards. Greater Manchester has been chosen for the pilot and passport holders over sixteen will be able to submit applications for the card at post offices and pharmacies.

A number of other high street retailers are negotiating with the government to be permitted to take photographs and fingerprints for the scheme.

Opposition leaders stand against the planned compulsory nationwide scheme, calling for the £5.3 billion programme to be scrapped. The pricetag does not include the costs that agencies and other government departments will incur procuring equipment to verify the cards.

The trial is also supposed to be in effect at London City and Manchester airports. This is opposed by the British Air Line Pilots Association (BALPA), claiming it is effectively compulsory; in order to get airside passes pilots will have to produce one of the new national identity cards.

BALPA general secretary, Jim McAuslan, emphasised some of the concerns of the association’s members, “Like every other citizen, they ask themselves what will happen to the data they are coerced into providing; whether it will it [sic] be safe, whose hands might it fall into, and what might they do with the data?” As do many of the ID card scheme’s detractors, he made the Orwellian comparison, “Our members increasingly have a sense that a line is being crossed in the relationship between state and citizen; a sense that Big Brother knows best.”

Wikinews contacted NO2ID about the proposal, and received feedback from their press spokesman, Michael Parker. He emphasised that this announcement is not a sure sign that the cards will actually be available later this year. Regarding the choice of post offices and chemists to serve on the front line of issuing the cards he said, “…it totally undermines the whole idea of the project as a ‘gold standard’ ‘unbreakable’ ID card that would guarantee we are who we say we are. When any old chemist in Wythenshawe or Ancoats (Manchester districts) is responsible for collecting personal information that is supposed to be private and secure, there is a real chance for that information to be used for fraudulent purposes.”

NO2ID is an independent group set up to campaign against the ID card system, and what they describe as the ‘database state’. When Wikinews asked if they trust the UK Government with a database of 60 million individuals’ details his response was cutting and blunt, “I would say ‘Not as far as I could throw them’, but then it would be easy to download 60m peoples’ details onto a CD and then throw that quite far…”

Despite the existence of pressure groups such as NO2ID, the government asserts that there is broad public support for the introduction of compulsory ID cards.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

A truck carrying 35,500 pounds (16,100 kg) of explosives used in mining and seismic exploration overturned and exploded on a rural mountain section of U.S. Highway 6 in Utah’s Spanish Fork Canyon Thursday afternoon.

The wreck occurred shortly after 2 pm, as driver Travis Stewart, 30, of Rexburg, Idaho, was leaving Ensign-Bickford Co., a commercial explosives manufacturing plant at the mouth of the canyon. Company officials said the truck was destined for Oklahoma.

Witnesses said Mr. Stewart appeared to lose control of the truck after entering a curve in the road at a high rate of speed. Utah Highway Patrol Lt. Ken Peay said, “speed was a factor” in the wreck of the truck but refused to speculate on how fast the truck was traveling when it wrecked. Lt. Peay said the posted speed limit on the road is 60 mph, but the advised speed is 40.

At least 17 people received minor injuries and the explosion left a 35 foot deep crater in the highway. The driver was transported via helicopter to a hospital, where he was listed in fair condition, and was later released. The co-driver Troy Lysfjord, 37, of Blackfoot, Idaho, was helped from the wreck by passers by and listed in fair condition at Utah Valley Regional Hospital in Provo.

The wreck site occurred on a major thoroughfare between Denver and Salt Lake City – about 60 miles south of Salt Lake City – was already under reconstruction by nightfall, as road crews began installing 10 inches of asphalt on the two lane road.

Utah Department of Transportation spokesman Tom Hudachko said officials hoped to have the road fully repaired by Friday afternoon, adding that, “When you take a look at that hole that was there 24 hours ago, I think it’s amazing the progress that was made.” As of press time, the mouth of the canyon was reopened to traffic, while traffic at the accident site was impassible, and rerouted nearby.

The explosion consumed all but about 60 pounds of explosives, and loosened some boulders on the north side of the highway, damaged railroad tracks and some fiber optic lines buried along the roadway. Amtrak and Union Pacific reported delays resulting from the wreck. Uinta National Forest spokesman Loyal Clark said forest firefighters were unable to respond to several small fires nearby that were apparently started by flying debris, and that helicopters dropped water to extinguish them. High humidity and lack of fuel from a previous fire delayed the fire’s spread.

The cost of repairs, while paid immediately by the state, will ultimately be borne by the trucking company’s insurance carrier. The truck is registered to R&R Trucking of Duenweg, Missouri.

UHP Lt. Peay said the investigation findings will be turned over to Utah County Attorney Kay Bryson whom would make any final decision about what charges, if any, would be pressed.