A compilation of brief news reports for Saturday, January 3, 2009.

Jett Travolta, the 16 year old son of movie stars John Travolta and Kelly Preston, has died in The Bahamas, after he suffered a seizure while on holiday there at the Old Bahama Bay Hotel on Grand Bahama Island.

Jett, who has a history of seizures, died at the scene after striking his head on a bath. He was the eldest of the couple’s two children.

Sources

• “Travolta’s Son Dead” — Internet Movie Database, January 2, 2009
• Associated Press. “John Travolta’s 16-year-old son dies in Bahamas” — Yahoo News, January 2, 2009

The United States National Transportation Safety Board has released an initial report into the December 20 crash of Continental Airways Flight 1404 at Denver International Airport.

The Boeing 737 veered off the runway and skidded 2,000 feet, injuring 37 of the 115 passengers and crew on board. The report notes strong winds of 27m.p.h., gusting up to 37m.p.h., but stated that this should not have prevented a normal, safe takeoff. Investigations are continuing.

Sources

• “Wind gusts noted in Denver airport crash report” — USA Today, January 2, 2008
• “Wind gusts noted in Denver airport crash report” — Associated Press, January 2, 2008

KP Fashion, the United States chain that sells clothing designed by 16-year-old Russian designer Kira Plastinina, has filed for bankruptcy. Papers supplied to the court in Manhattan show the Los Angeles based company has assets of $9.7 million compared to debt of $54.4 million.

Plastinina’s father spent $80 million founding the company for her seven months ago and most of the twelve open and two new stores are to go. The company also has outlets in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, and a webstore that is listing 70% discounts. Cyprus-based Lendero is the biggest creditor seeking repayment on a $29.9 million loan.

Sources

• Bob Van Voris. “Teenage Russian Designer’s Company Files Bankruptcy” — Bloomberg L.P., January 2, 2009
• Santosh Nadgir and Deepak Kannan. “Teenage Russian designer’s co files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy” — Reuters, January 2, 2009

The International Cricket Council has announced plans to launch a cricket hall of fame as part of its centenary year events. All 55 players already on a list by the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations are to be honoured, and more will be added each year.

The current list features 22 English, 12 West Indian, 11 Australian, three Indian, three Pakistani, two South African and one New Zealand cricekters, including 1899 retiree WG Grace. The most recent to leave the sport is Javed Miandad, with no current players on the list.

Sources

• “Ex-England aces dominate ICC list” — BBC News Online, January 2, 2009
• Clive Wellington. “Cricket: ICC marks centenary year with new Hall of Fame” — The Scotsman, January 3, 2009

Thursday, July 24, 2008

A bus crash in Victoria, Australia has injured at least 20 people, two of whom are listed as critical. One victim is reported to be still trapped in the wreckage.

The accident occurred between a bus and a semi-trailer on the Princes Highway in the Traralgon area around 10:50am AEST. The La Trobe Valley Busliner bus was traveling east when it collided with the back of a heavy haulage truck.

Those critically injured are being airlifted to a hospital in Melbourne. Others are being transported by Ambulance to La Trobe Valley Hospital in Traralgon.

SES crews are on scene, along with St. John Ambulance and fire crews.

The eastbound lanes of the highway have been blocked by police and traffic is being diverted.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The UK’s Communication Workers’ Union have effectively rejected a belated revised pay offer by telecoms giant British Telecom. Their statement, released early this evening, indicates a formal ballot on strike action is inevitable – unless the company revises their two percent offer for 2010.

The deadline set by the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) passed at noon last Friday, apparently unheeded by BT. The union’s announcement of their intent to ballot members apparently resulted in the offer — one with no new money on the table for this year.

Last week, when their ultimatum was ignored, CWU deputy secretary general (DSG) Andy Kerr expressed deep disappointment, citing the substantial profits made by the company in the last financial year: “[w]e’re obviously very disappointed that BT has not improved its pay offer of 2% despite their healthy profits this year.”

The turnaround from losses of £244 million to a billion-pound-plus profit has, the union claims, galvanised their membership into seriously considering industrial action. Reports of senior directors receiving million-pound bonuses, and former Labour minister Patricia Hewitt landing over over £50,000 extra per-year, are characterised as “directors’ ‘snouts in the trough'”. Hewitt was suspended from her parliamentary party in March over cash-for-access accusations, and works two to three days each month on BT’s remuneration committee.

The UK’s Press Association described the now-rejected offer as being worth 2% this year, and an additional 3% in 2011 with staff bonuses of up to £250. The package supposedly contains pledges on no compulsory redundancies and the return of call centre and non-frontline work from outsource companies in India.

Wikinews called both the Communication Workers’ Union, and British Telecom, seeking clarification on a number of points. Richard Knowles, a BT press officer in London, forwarded their terse sub-400-word statement, refusing to be drawn on reports that the offer includes the repatriation of call centre and back-office jobs. When challenged on this work being carried out in a jurisdiction with less-stringent data protection, and computer misuse legislation, our reporter was referred back to the company’s statement.

Sian Jones of the CWU’s Press Office, commenting prior to the union’s evening statement, remarked that repatriation of call centre work was an issue that the union had prior, unrelated, discussions with BT about; she gave no indication to Wikinews this was, or was not, part of BT’s revised offer.

The press release, shortly after 1630 BST, expressed clear intent to carry on with the process of balloting members on strike action. In the statement, CWU DGS Andy Kerr states, “[w]e’re very disappointed that BT’s revised offer remains materially unchanged for this year in terms of pay.”

Continuing, he emphasised, “[…] we’ve made clear, 2 per cent is unacceptable for our members as it does not reflect the reward they expect given the contribution they have made to cost savings of £1.75 billion and profits of over £1bn. In addition, inflation is at 5.3 per cent and staff are comparing this offer with the large salary rises and bonuses for senior executives which expose the blatant double standards being adopted by the company when it comes to remuneration.”

The CWU statement also expresses concern over BT’s disclosure of details within the offer; “BT’s decision to leak their offer to the media today has also raised trust issues for us with the company.”

Any sustained action by CWU members in BT’s employ could have a major impact on the country’s communication infrastructure. Millions of UK households and businesses are reliant on BT for internet access – in addition to telephony services.

Following the release of their statement, the CWU’s Sian Jones confirmed that the union had not, as-yet, given BT the formal seven-days notice of balloting members on strike action.

Any ballot would run for a two-week period; following such, the union would, again, be required to give seven days notice to BT; this time of their intent to take workers out on strike. She emphasised, “nobody wants to be on strike”, stressing that the union last took such action in 1987, and would prefer round-table discussions and an improved offer.

The structure of BT’s privatisation, and breakup to permit level playing-field telephony and broadband competition, would see other Internet service providers who rely on the ageing, once GPO-owned, copper POTS infrastructure unable to resolve customer faults. According to the CWU, BT has been querying managerial staff on their skillsets – as a form of preparation for any industrial action. A union spokesperson described this as “laughable”.

When called for comment on the union’s rejection of their revised offer, the BT press office declined to comment at this time.

All games held at Richmond Coliseum, Richmond, VA

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

With the election campaign just beginning, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has promised AU$34 billion in personal income tax cuts over the next three years. That is on top of $31.5 billion announced in May, and $36.7 billion announced in 2006.

The new tax cuts are based on new projections for growth in the Australian economy. The Treasury estimates that the economy will expand by 4.25% in the 12 months to June 2008, up from growth of 3.75% predicted in May.

The Government has challenged the Labor opposition to announce their tax policy immediately.

“The biggest, boldest tax plan that we’ve seen in a long time is presented yesterday, it deals with participation, competitiveness, building capacity in the Australian economy, and what does Kevin Rudd say? Nothing,” treasurer Peter Costello said. “He better have an answer today.”

Costello described the government tax policy as “very responsible” and said Rudd was a “Nothing Man” because he has not revealed Labor’s tax policy.

The Shadow Treasurer, Wayne Swan, replied “The only responsible course of action here is to study the detail. We’ve said we’ll put out all our policies well before the election and we’ll do that”.

“But in terms of what the Government’s put forward, we will take our time to study the detail. That’s the only responsible and reasonable thing to do.”

Economists from Access Economics, the ANZ Bank, HSBC and Macquarie Bank noted that the tax cuts will boost demand at a time when the Reserve Bank is trying to slow the economy. The Reserve Bank has been raising interest rates to keep the inflation rate within its target range. Households with substantial mortgages could end up worse off.

Rudd has said the Opposition will reveal its tax policy in its own time – mimicking John Howard’s approach when he was Opposition Leader in 1996.

Thursday, October 19, 2017

On Monday, digital security researchers Mathy Vanhoef and Frank Piessens of Belgium’s KU Leuven university publicly disclosed a security vulnerability in the WPA2 Wi-Fi (wireless local-area networking) protocol, which they called KRACK (for Key Reinstallation Attack). Their study claimed KRACK affects every modern device using Wi-Fi; it can be fixed by a software update, researchers said.

Vanhoef wrote, “Attackers can use this novel attack technique to read information that was previously assumed to be safely encrypted. This can be abused to steal sensitive information such as credit card numbers, passwords, chat messages, emails, photos and so on.” Vanhoef notified vendors about the flaw in July, including UNIX-like operating system OpenBSD. “If your device supports Wi-Fi, it is most likely affected. […] In general, any data or information that the victim transmits can be decrypted”, he wrote.

The study papers, which were submitted for review on May 19, were kept in confidence allowing companies to fix the security flaw. The United States-based Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) informed vendors on August 28. The Wi-Fi Alliance said it “could be resolved through a straightforward software update.” OpenBSD released their software patch on August 30.

Exploring the flaw which affected every device the researchers had tested, National Cyber Security Centre of the UK said “the attacker would have to be physically close to the target”. But due to this flaw, an attacker can send malware or ransomware on the websites, Vanhoef claimed.

Linux-based operating systems including Android v6.0 and higher are especially affected by this flaw, while Windows and iOS are not as vulnerable as Android by this flaw as they do not fully implement WPA2.

Microsoft reportedly has released security patches for Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. Google said Android operating systems would receive the updates in the software update scheduled to be made available on November 6. Apple has implemented the patch in the beta versions of their operating system iOS, macOS, tvOS and watchOS, however it is yet to roll out patches for stable operating systems.

WPA2 protocol has been used for more than a decade, and has been compulsory for Wi-Fi since 2006. KRACK would also affect various home appliances which can be controlled over Wi-Fi, within the so-called “Internet of things”. Andrew Martin from Oxford University said, “We can be sure a lot of these devices won’t be patched[…] Whether that matters for this attack or only for some future attack is yet to be seen.”

The study and its findings are scheduled for presentation at the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Computer and Communications Security conference on November 1.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has given the late Jack Poole their highest honour, The Olympic Order, according to a report by the Vancouver Sun.

Mr. Poole, one of the people behind the bid by Vancouver to host the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, passed away on October 23 after losing a fight with pancreatic cancer.

The CEO of the Vancouver organizing committee (VANOC), John Furlong, was quoted as saying “Jack Poole is truly deserving of the tremendous honour of the Olympic Order in recognition of his enormous contribution to the 2010 Games,” also stating that further comment will be made when the IOC makes a formal announcement of the award.

This marks the second award that has posthumously been given to Poole, having been awarded the Canadian Olympic Order by the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) earlier in the month, with word that he will also be inducted to the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame.