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Monday, December 2, 2013

Police in the West Midlands in England today said nearly 200 kilograms worth of drugs with value possibly as great as £30 million (about US$49 million or €36 million) has been seized from a unit in the town of Brownhills. In what an officer described as “one of the largest [seizures] in the force’s 39 year history”, West Midlands Police reported recovering six big cellophane-wrapped cardboard boxes containing cannabis, cocaine, and MDMA (“ecstasy”) in a police raid operation on the Maybrook Industrial Estate in the town on Wednesday.

The seized boxes, which had been loaded onto five freight pallets, contained 120 one-kilogram bags of cannabis, 50 one-kilogram bags of MDMA, and five one-kilogram bricks of cocaine. In a press release, West Midlands Police described what happened after officers found the drugs as they were being unloaded in the operation. “When officers opened the boxes they discovered a deep layer of protective foam chips beneath which the drugs were carefully layered”, the force said. “All the drugs were wrapped in thick plastic bags taped closed with the cannabis vacuum packed to prevent its distinctive pungent aroma from drawing unwanted attention.” Police moved the drugs via forklift truck to a flatbed lorry to remove them.

Detective Sergeant Carl Russell of West Midlands Police’s Force CID said the seizure was the largest he had ever made in the 24 years he has been in West Midlands Police and one of the biggest seizures the force has made since its formation in 1974. “The impact this seizure will have on drug dealing in the region and the UK as a whole cannot be underestimated”, he said. “The drugs had almost certainly been packed to order ready for shipping within Britain but possibly even further afield. Our operation will have a national effect and we are working closely with a range of law enforcement agencies to identify those involved in this crime at whatever level.”

Expert testing on the drugs is ongoing. Estimates described as “conservative” suggest the value of the drugs amounts to £10 million (about US$16.4 million or €12 million), although they could be worth as much as £30 million, subject to purity tests, police said.

Police arrested three men at the unit on suspicion of supplying a controlled drug. The men, a 50-year-old from Brownhills, a 51-year-old from the Norton area of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, and one aged 53 from Brownhills, have been released on bail as police investigations to “hunt those responsible” continue. West Midlands Police told Wikinews no person has yet been charged in connection with the seizure. Supplying a controlled drug is an imprisonable offence in England, although length of jail sentences vary according to the class and quantity of drugs and the significance of offenders’ roles in committing the crime.

Thursday, May 25, 2017

On Tuesday, British actor Roger Moore, best known for portraying Simon Templar of the 1960s series The Saint and the spy character James Bond, died in Switzerland at the age of 89.

Before his death, Moore fought recently diagnosed cancer. His family confirmed his death on Twitter saying, “It is the heaviest of hearts, we must share the awful news that our father, Sir Roger Moore, passed away today. We are all devastated.”

Other stars paid tribute to Roger Moore via Twitter, including Russell Crowe, Michael Ball, Mia Farrow, Boy George, and Duran Duran, who sang the eponymous theme song for Bond film A View to a Kill featuring Moore as Bond.

Moore was born in Stockwell, South London an only child to his working-class parents on October 14, 1927. During World War II, he and his mother mostly stayed in Amersham, 25 miles from London. Moore left grammar school in 1943 to work.

Moore’s father, a detective sergeant, came to the home of film director Brian Desmond Hurst that had been robbed. Moore was introduced by his father to Hurst and then started his acting career in summer 1944 as an extra in the film Caesar and Cleopatra. Impressed, Hurst helped Moore gain extra parts in two other films and then paid for Moore’s acting studies at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Moore was assigned to the National Service in 1945 and then, after training, was ranked captain. Afterwards, he appeared in modeling engagements, like appearance in Women’s Own magazine.

Moore arrived in the United States in 1953 and then signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) for mainly supporting roles. He portrayed the male lead in 1956 film Diane. He first appeared on television as the titular character of the late-1950s ITV series Ivanhoe. He later appeared in some western series, like Maverick from 1960 to 1961, replacing James Garner as the lead of the series.

Moore then portrayed Simon Templar, stealing from rich antagonists, in the ITV series The Saint. The series ran 118 episodes from 1962 to 1969. Due to his contract for The Saint, Moore was prevented from being cast as James Bond for the 1962 film Dr. No, which stars Sean Connery, the first actor to portray Bond.

Moore eventually became the third actor to portray Bond, and his first Bond film was the 1973 film Live and Let Die. He would appear again as Bond in six more films: The Man with the Golden Gun, 1974; The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977; Moonraker, 1979; For Your Eyes Only, 1981; Octopussy, 1983; and A View to a Kill, 1985.

In 1991 Moore became a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. His UNICEF work earned him Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the late 1990s. He was knighted in 2003 for that.

Throughout 2000s, Moore performed voiceovers in mostly animated films and made appearances in some other live-action films, like the 2002 film Boat Trip, portraying a gay man resembling Bond. Then he wrote his 2008 autobiography My Word Is My Bond and other books, including memoir One Lucky Bastard and Bond on Bond.

Moore married four times, to four different women. He was survived by his fourth wife, Danish-Swedish multimillionaire Kristina “Kiki” Tholstrup, and his three children.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have sided with Wikileaks.org and will defend them against a lawsuit which took the site off line in the United States. Wikileaks is a website dedicated to hosting leaked documents that are “anonymous, untraceable, uncensorable.”

On February 18, 2008, a permanent court injunction issued in the California Northern District Court in San Francisco by judge Jeffrey White, California to Bank Julius Baer (BJB), a Swiss Bank, took the domain name offline. However the site remained online via its IP address and alternative domain names. Wikileaks previously published hundreds of documents obtained from a whistleblower of the Swiss Bank, “purportedly showing offshore tax evasion and money laundering by extremely wealthy and in some cases, politically sensitive, clients from the US, Europe, China and Peru.”

“Blocking access to the entire site in response to a few documents posted there completely disregards the public’s right to know,” said Ann Brick a lawyer for the ACLU. At least 18 other organizations have signed documents in defense of Wikileaks. Those documents have been forged into a ‘joint Amici Curiae (“friends of the Court”) brief; which will be submitted to the court and used as defense evidence in a hearing scheduled for Friday February 29.

Despite the attempts by the ACLU and others, Bank Julius Baer says that their lawsuit has nothing to do with the rights of free speech.

“This action has been brought solely to prevent the unlawful dissemination of stolen bank records and personal account information of its customers. Many of those documents have also been altered and forged,” said the Bank.

Recently the Bank has made allegations that they have been “unable to negotiate with Wikileaks” at all before or during legal proceedings. Wikileaks, in a press release denies the allegations.

“Wikileaks at all times responded with grace and dignity to BJBs highly irregular demands and left communication open,” said Wikileaks which also adds that the correspondence with the Bank is available on its website on servers in Denmark. “BJB did not submit the correspondence tothe court, although it must be absolutely central to the issues held there. We wonder why?”

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

English actress Rachel Weisz thinks that Botox injections should be banned for all actors.

The 39-year-old actress, best known for her roles in the Mummy movie franchise and for her Academy Award-winning portrayal in The Constant Gardener, feels facial Botox injections leave actors less able to convey emotion and that it harms the acting industry as much as steroids harm athletes.

In an interview with UK’s Harper’s Bazaar, coming out next month, Weisz says, “It should be banned for actors, as steroids are for sportsmen,” she claims. “Acting is all about expression; why would you want to iron out a frown?”

Currently living in New York, she also mentions that English women are much less worried about their physical appearance than in the United States. “I love the way girls in London dress,” she claimed. “It’s so different to the American ‘blow-dry and immaculate grooming’ thing.”

Tuesday, October 30, 2007File:Nadine Strossen 5 by David Shankbone.jpg

There are few organizations in the United States that elicit a stronger emotional response than the American Civil Liberties Union, whose stated goal is “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States”. Those people include gays, Nazis, women seeking abortion, gun owners, SPAM mailers and drug users. People who are often not popular with various segments of the public. The ACLU’s philosophy is not that it agrees or disagrees with any of these people and the choices that they make, but that they have personal liberties that must not be trampled upon.

In Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s interview with the President of the ACLU, Nadine Strossen, he wanted to cover some basic ground on the ACLU’s beliefs. Perhaps the area where they are most misunderstood or have their beliefs most misrepresented is their feelings about religion in the public sphere. The ACLU categorically does not want to see religion disappear from schools or in the public forum; but they do not want to see government advocacy of any particular religion. Thus, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s placement of a ten ton monument to the Ten Commandments outside the courthouse is strenuously opposed; but “Lone Ranger of the Manger” Rita Warren’s placement of nativity scenes in public parks is vigorously defended. In the interview, Strossen talks about how certain politicians and televangelists purposefully misstate the law and the ACLU’s work in order to raise funds for their campaigns.

David Shankbone’s discussion with Strossen touches upon many of the ACLU’s hot button issues: religion, Second Amendment rights, drug liberalization, “partial-birth abortion” and whether or not George W. Bush should be impeached. It may surprise the reader that many ideas people have about the most visible of America’s civil libertarian organizations are not factually correct and that the ACLU often works closely with many of the organizations people think despise its existence.

Monday, October 30, 2006

The upcoming 2006 Brampton municipal election, to be held November 13, features an array of candidates looking to represent their wards in city council or the council of the Peel Region.

Wikinews contributor Nick Moreau contacted many of the candidates, including Bill Bousfield, asking them to answer common questions sent in an email. This ward’s incumbent is Elaine Moore; also challenging Moore is Janet Hamilton and Tejinder Lamba.

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

In Copenhagen, Denmark on Monday, the first day in the new year, scaffolding at the corner of Randersgade and Koldinggade collapsed at about 13:00 local time (1200 UTC). Strong winds were reported.

Police cordoned off the area, noting it could collapse even more and cables for the street lightning were broken.

No personal injuries were reported, but some cars were damaged, according to the Copenhagen Police.

Arbejdstilsynet, the Danish workplace safety authority, was investigating the cause of the collapse and the police planned to question the company who set up the scaffolding.