A victim rises up
The News Review:
- A victim rises up
- Improved X-ray vision to stop nuke smugglers
- From The Economist print edition
- Why Australia’s minorities are unhappy with PM Howard
- WINE: EU SETS ASIDE EURO 450 MILLION FOR VINEYARD RECONVERSION.(Brief…
A victim rises up
St. Petersburg Times – Oct 20, 2005
Yet, for all its wincing material, North Country is also an entertaining film with occasional comic relief from McDormand (Is there a better female buddy in movies today?) and a wisp of budding romance between Josey and Bill. The bad guys, led by Jeremy Renner’s sharp portrait of a slime ball, get what they deserve, although they could have been better people with a few better choices. Chris Menges’ cinematography makes grime and labor seem poetic, while Caro’s New Zealander curiosity notices things a home-grown filmmaker might have overlooked. By all counts, North Country is a winner. North Country Grade: A
Director: Niki Caro
Cast: Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, Woody Harrelson, Sissy Spacek, Michelle Monaghan, Jeremy Renner, Sean Bean, Thomas Curtis
Screenplay: Michael Seitzman, based on the book Class Action: The Story of Lois Jensen and the Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law
Rating: R; harsh profanity, sexual situations, violence
Running time: 123 min. © 2007 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg
Times
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Improved X-ray vision to stop nuke smugglers
New Scientist – New Scientist (subscription) – Oct 20, 2005
What they don’t realise is that they have also nodded through a container in which is stowed a 50-kilogram canister of stolen highly-enriched uranium. Unlike the bananas, the low-energy gamma rays it emits are easily absorbed by the 2-centimetre-thick sheet of lead around it, so it passes through the radiation monitors unnoticed. Some time later, home-grown terrorists build two nuclear bombs, take one across the country in a car and set off simultaneous explosions in New York and San Francisco. Nightmare scenarios like this have already prompted the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to spend $300 million installing radiation-detection equipment at the nation’s ports. But despite this, US ports remain vulnerable, according to the many scientists, government and port officials who testified on the technology for detecting smuggled nuclear materials before a special hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security in June. “We’d be crazy to assume that the bad guys aren’t thinking of this,” says Bruce Schneier, a security expert based in Mountain View, California. Around 80 per cent of freight containers coming into the US are already screened by a radiation portal monitor, which detects any gamma rays and neutrons that escape from the container, and that figure is expected to rise to 100 per cent by the end of the year.
From The Economist print edition
economist.com – Oct 20, 2005
There, hanging on a wall beside a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi, is a plaque of patent number 5,072,402, for a “Routing System and Method for Integrated Circuits”, granted to Mr Mody by America’s patent office. Sasken, a publicly traded firm with $55m in revenue and over 2,400 employees, writes the code that is embedded deep inside the hardware of telecoms equipment, from mobile phones to high-speed internet modems. The patent on the wall is a visible sign that the company, like India itself, is trying to shift from low-end work to more sophisticated technologies, complete with home-grown inventions. The same thing is happening in China. And both countries are using the intellectual-property system to stake out their turf.
Why Australia’s minorities are unhappy with PM Howard
Khaleej Times – Oct 20, 2005
Stanhope recently went to a summit with Howard and the country’s other state Premiers, where he reluctantly agreed to support the new laws. Stanhope is a left wing Labor politician with a deep conviction for social justice issues. However, he was confronted at the closed door meeting by the heads of Australia’s key spy agencies who gave him secret intelligence that implied there was a clear and present danger of an attack by a “home grown terrorist”. Stanhope agreed in principle to support the new laws which will allow police to lock people up for two weeks under so-called preventative detention orders if they are suspected of being involved or having knowledge of a terrorist act. Suspects detained by police will be allowed one telephone call to loved ones but will be not allowed to tell them where they are, while judges can stop suspects from using the Internet or telephones for a year after their detention. Now Stanhope has taken a stand – he has upset Howard’s tightly controlled agenda by posting the draft legislation on the ACT government web site. This has created a huge row, for two reasons – Stanhope has broken the unwritten rule that security issues being negotiated between governments remain confidential until final agreement is reached, and he has revealed that Howard has gone further with the draconian laws than originally thought.
WINE: EU SETS ASIDE EURO 450 MILLION FOR VINEYARD RECONVERSION.(Brief…
Free with registration – Europe Agri – AccessMyLibrary.com – Oct 20, 2005
| Europe Agri (October, 2005). A budget of euro 450 million was earmarked by the European Commission on October 13 to help the EU’s wine-producing member states reconvert their.