Each time we read or hear of a car accident, the first thing that catches our attention is the brand name of the car, almost always with the model detail as well. Now think about all the news you have read about the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, and dwell on how many times you have come across the brand name ‘Boeing’. After all, the missing aircraft is a Boeing 777. Take a look at a few stories from earlier today. Check CNN’s article titled ‘Australian leader cites ‘credible leads’ as Flight 370 search resumes’ and the first paragraph says,“With more planes searching than ever before, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Sunday expressed optimism the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will be solved.” In a 1700-word article, ‘Boeing’ has been mentioned twice. The missing aircraft is a Boeing, but that has somehow rarely been mentioned: AP The Guardian’s ‘Flight MH370: China sends ships to verify debris’ goes without mentioning the Boeing even once. The Telegraph’s Live Blog for today has mentioned the ‘B’ word only twice so far. Same for the March 22, 2014 live blog. However, there are more than a handful of articles validating the Boeing’s safety. The Guardian has a piece dated March 8, 2014, immediately after the flight disappeared on the same day, quoting aviation experts who are ‘surprised at disappearance of ‘very safe’ Boeing 777′. Funnily enough, a news article on Yahoo! News UK has a glowing piece on the Boeing P-8A Poseidon, a hi-tech anti-submarine aircraft that is helping search operations of the MH370. However, not once has ‘Boeing’ been mentioned in connection to the disappearance of the Malaysian flight.
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/world/the-curious-disappearance-of-the-name-boeing-from-news-1446471.html?utm_source=ref_article
LANGSTON, Oklahoma –
The U.S. Geological Survey has recorded 15 earthquakes in Oklahoma since about 9:30 p.m. Friday, the largest being a magnitude 4.0.
The 4.0 magnitude quake was recorded at 10:05 p.m. Friday about seven miles south of Langston. Three other quakes of magnitude 2.9, 3.0 and 3.3 were recorded Saturday afternoon in the Medford area.
The other quakes ranged from magnitude 2.4 to 2.9.
No injuries or damage are reported.
Geologists say earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 to 3.0 are generally the smallest felt by humans.
Scientists are studying why earthquake activity has increased in Oklahoma and whether it is connected to wastewater disposal related to oil and gas production — but have found no answers.
The energy industry denies that the method is to blame for the increased seismic activity.
(Reuters) – NATO’s top military commander said on Sunday that Russia had a large force on Ukraine’s eastern border and said he was worried it could pose a threat to Moldova’s mainly Russian-speaking separatist Transdniestria region.
NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, voiced concern about Moscow using a tactic of snap military exercises to prepare its forces for possible rapid incursions into a neighbouring state, as it had done in the case of Ukraine’s Crimea region.
Russia launched a new military exercise, involving 8,500 artillery men, near Ukraine’s border 10 days ago.
“The (Russian) force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizeable and very, very ready,” Breedlove told an event held by the German Marshall Fund think-tank.
The president of ex-Soviet Moldova warned Russia last Tuesday against considering any move to annex Transdniestria, which lies on Ukraine’s western border, in the same way that it has taken control of Crimea.
Microsoft is defending its right to break into customers’ accounts and read their emails.
The company’s ability — and willingness — to take such an approach became apparent this week. Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) admitted in federal court documents that it forced its way into a blogger’s Hotmail account to track down and stop a potentially catastrophic leak of sensitive software. The company says its decision is justified.
From the company’s point of view, desperate times call for desperate measures.
“In this case, we took extraordinary actions based on the specific circumstances,” said John Frank, one of the company’s top lawyers, in a blog post Thursday night.
According to an FBI complaint, Microsoft in 2012 discovered that an ex-employee had leaked proprietary software to an anonymous blogger. Fearing that could empower hackers, Microsoft’s lawyers approved emergency “content pulls” of the blogger’s accounts to track it down. Company investigators entered the blogger’s Hotmail account, then pored over emails and instant messages on Windows Live. The internal investigation led to the arrest on Wednesday of Alex Kibkalo, a former Microsoft employee based in Lebanon.
The state of Tennessee doesn’t want you to know how it will kill the condemned.
It doesn’t want you to know who will flip the switch, sending a lethal dose of pentobarbital through the veins of death row inmates. And it doesn’t want you to know how it obtained that pentobarbital — which isn’t available from any legal drug manufacturer — as well. State correction officials have even banned the media from visiting inmates on death row.
As Tennessee makes an unprecedented push to set execution dates, it is doing so in the shadows, cloaking its plans in secrecy. Legislators passed a bill a year ago that allowed the state to withhold all information about the drugs it plans to use to execute death row inmates. Georgia, Oklahoma and Missouri have enacted similar laws shrouding information about their lethal injection drugs.
But a collection of death row inmates has sued Tennessee to pull back that shroud.
They’re not a particularly sympathetic group: 11 murderers, convicted of some of the state’s most heinous crimes. Nine already have execution dates scheduled. But they want one simple question answered first: How will the state kill us?
Pope Francis on Saturday named a woman molested by a priest as a child to be part of a core group to help the Catholic Church fight the clerical sexual abuse of minors that has haunted it for over two decades
The first eight members – four women and four men – hail from eight different countries and include Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, former Polish Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka and Baroness Sheila Hollins, a British psychiatrist.
The victim is Marie Collins, who was abused in her native Ireland in the 1960s and has campaigned for the protection of children and for justice for victims of clerical pedophilia.
“Pope Francis has made clear that the Church must hold the protection of minors amongst her highest priorities,” Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement.
The formation of a group of experts, initially announced in December, comes just over a month after the United Nations accused the Church of putting its reputation before the well-being of children and imposing a “code of silence” among clerics on the issue of sexual abuse.
Guinea’s government raised the death toll in the Ebola epidemic raging through its southern forests to 59.
The health ministry told the AFP news agency workers battling to contain the outbreak in the border region had added a further 25 deaths to the toll of 34 given earlier on Saturday, with a total of 80 cases registered.
“The Ebola fever epidemic raging in southern Guinea, including the prefectures of Gueckedou and Macenta, since February 9 has left at least 59 dead out of 80 cases identified by our services on the ground,” said Sakoba Keita, the ministry’s chief disease prevention officer.
“We are overwhelmed in the field, we are fighting against this epidemic with all the means we have at our disposal with the help of our partners but it is difficult. But we will get there,” he told AFP.
No vaccine
To date, no treatment or vaccine is available for Ebola, which kills between 25 and 90 percent of those who fall sick, depending on the strain of the virus, according to the World Health Organization.
The disease is transmitted by direct contact with blood, feces or sweat, or by sexual contact or unprotected handling of contaminated corpses.
Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said in a statement it would strengthen its team of 24 doctors, nurses, logisticians and experts in hygiene and sanitation already in Guinea.
The organization has set up isolation units for suspected cases in the southern region of Nzerekore and is looking for people who may have had contact with the infected.
‘Highly contagious’
“These structures are essential to prevent the spread of the disease, which is highly contagious,” said MSF tropical medicine adviser Esther Sterk said.
“Specialized staff are providing care to patients showing signs of infection.”
MSF said it was sending around 33 tons of medicines and isolation, sanitation and protective equipment in two planes leaving from Belgium and France.
Ebola, one of the world’s most virulent diseases, was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1976 and the country has had eight outbreaks.
Geo Fish 