Occupy movement costs Corporation of London nearly £500,000

The Occupy London movement has cost the City of London Corporation nearly £500,000 since it took root in the Square Mile six weeks ago.
The corporation, which is taking legal action to remove the Occupy camp from the area around St Paul's Cathedral, has spent £450,000 on policing, £15,000 on cleaning and has budgeted £200,000 for legal fees. The money is coming out of the corporation's public purse.
The activists, who are campaigning for economic and social justice, have three bases, one of which is on corporation land. Of the others, Finsbury Square is on land owned by Islington council while the third is non-residential and operates from a vacant bank building near Liverpool Street.
On Wednesday the corporation served the St Paul's camp with an enforcement notice as part of its efforts to remove the hundreds of tents pitched since 16 October. It appears to have caught Occupy London by surprise, as many of its members were taking part in the national protests against public sector pension reform.
The enforcement notice says the camp is not "an appropriate use of land".
"It adversely affects the setting of the cathedral and other listed buildings and does not preserve or enhance the character and appearance of the St Paul's conservation area. It has a significant adverse affect on the general amenity of the area. It adversely impacts other uses in the locality including worshippers and businesses."
Protesters will have 48 hours to comply with the notice, which takes effect on 30 December unless an appeal is made beforehand.
The eviction hearing will takes place at the high court on 19 December.

by Riazat Butt taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/01/occupy-movement-costs-corporation-london

Bank courier van spills money on roadway

Thousands of dollars went missing this afternoon after the doors of a bank courier van opened, causing bags of money to spill out onto the road and people to gather in a frenzy.
Upper St. Clair police Lt. James Englert said people had pulled alongside the road and were trying to collect money when police arrived on Route 19 near Boyce Road to help a driver from Fidelity Courier Services in Sharon, Pa., collect the cash at about 1 p.m.
The courier driver stopped after another driver flagged him down and told him cash was flying out of his car. Police suspect all of the cash, which came in various denominations, was lost in that intersection.
Police recovered about $400, but Lt. Englert said several bags containing "well into six figures" remained missing Wednesday night.
"This is not a free-for-all situation," he said. "Obviously, this money is...bank property."
Lt. Englert said police intend to give people a reasonable amount of time to "come to their senses" and return any money they might have taken. After that, he said, they could charge people with theft.

By Liz Navratil taken from  http://www.postgazette.com/pg/11334/1193698-100.stm

How animals predict earthquakes

Animals may sense chemical changes in groundwater that occur when an earthquake is about to strike.

This, scientists say, could be the cause of bizarre earthquake-associated animal behaviour.
Researchers began to investigate these chemical effects after seeing a colony of toads abandon its pond in L'Aquila, Italy, in 2009 - days before a quake.
They suggest that animal behaviour could be incorporated into earthquake forecasting.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

When you think of all of the many things that are happening to these rocks, it would be weird if the animals weren't affected in some way”

End Quote Rachel Grant The Open University

The team's findings are published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. In this paper, they describe a mechanism whereby stressed rocks in the Earth's crust release charged particles that react with the groundwater.

Animals that live in or near groundwater are highly sensitive to any changes in its chemistry, so they might sense this days before the rocks finally "slip" and cause a quake.
The team, led by Friedemann Freund from Nasa and Rachel Grant from the UK's Open University hope their hypothesis will inspire biologists and geologists to work together, to find out exactly how animals might help us recognise some of the elusive signs of an imminent earthquake.
Strange behaviour The L'Aquila toads are not the first example of strange animal behaviour before a major seismic event. There have been reports throughout history of reptiles, amphibians and fish behaving in unusual ways just before an earthquake struck.

Continue reading the main story

STRANGE OR NOT

• In July 2009, just hours after a large earthquake in San Diego, local residents discovered dozens of Humboldt squid washed up on beaches. These deep sea squid are usually found at depths of between 200 and 600m
• At 5.58am on 28 June 1992 the ground began to shake in the Mojave Desert, California, right in the middle of a scientific study on desert harvester ants. Measurements revealed the ants did not change their behaviour at all during the earthquake, the largest to strike the US in four decades.

In 1975, in Haicheng, China, for example, many people spotted snakes emerging from their burrows a month before the city was hit by a large earthquake.

This was particularly odd, because it occurred during the winter. The snakes were in the middle of their annual hibernation, and with temperatures well below freezing, venturing outside was suicide for the cold-blooded reptiles.
But each of these cases - of waking reptiles, fleeing amphibians or deep-sea fish rising to the surface - has been an individual anecdote. And major earthquakes are so rare that the events surrounding them are almost impossible to study in detail.
This is where the case of the L'Aquila toads was different.
Toad exodus Ms Grant, a biologist from the Open University, was monitoring the toad colony as part of her PhD project.
"It was very dramatic," she recalled. "It went from 96 toads to almost zero over three days."

Ms Grant published her observations in the Journal of Zoology.
"After that, I was contacted by Nasa," she told BBC Nature.
Scientists at the US space agency had been studying the chemical changes that occur when rocks are under extreme stress. They wondered if these changes were linked to the mass exodus of the toads.
Their laboratory-based tests have now revealed, not only that these changes could be connected, but that the Earth's crust could directly affect the chemistry of the pond that the toads were living and breeding in at the time.

All of the toads left the breeding colony days before the 2009 earthquake

Nasa geophysicist Friedemann Freund showed that, when rocks were under very high levels of stress - for example by the "gargantuan tectonic forces" just before an earthquake, they release charged particles.
These charged particles can flow out into the surrounding rocks, explained Dr Freund. And when they arrive at the Earth's surface they react with the air - converting air molecules into charged particles known as ions.
"Positive airborne ions are known in the medical community to cause headaches and nausea in humans and to increase the level of serotonin, a stress hormone, in the blood of animals," said Dr Freund. They can also react with water, turning it into hydrogen peroxide.
This chemical chain of events could affect the organic material dissolved in the pond water - turning harmless organic material into substances that are toxic to aquatic animals.
It's a complicated mechanism and the scientists stress that it needs to be tested thoroughly.
But, Dr Grant says this is the first convincing possible mechanism for a "pre-earthquake cue" that aquatic, semi-aquatic and burrowing animals might be able to sense and respond to.
"When you think of all of the many things that are happening to these rocks, it would be weird if the animals weren't affected in some way," she said.
Dr Freund said that the behaviour of animals could be one of a number of connected events that might forecast an earthquake.
"Once we understand how all of these signals are connected," he told BBC Nature, "if we see four of five signals all pointing in [the same] direction, we can say, 'ok, something is about to happen'."


By Victoria Gill taken from http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15945014

GCHQ challenges codebreakers via social networks

UK intelligence agency GCHQ has launched a code-cracking competition to help attract new talent.

The organisation has invited potential applicants to solve a visual code posted at an unbranded standalone website.
The challenge has also been "seeded" to social media sites, blogs and forums.
A spokesman said the campaign aimed to raise the profile of GCHQ to an audience that would otherwise be difficult to reach.
"The target audience for this particular campaign is one that may not typically be attracted to traditional advertising methods and may be unaware that GCHQ is recruiting for these kinds of roles," the spokesman said.
"Their skills may be ideally suited to our work and yet they may not understand how they could apply them to a working environment, particularly one where they have the opportunity to contribute so much."
The competition began in secret on 3 November and will continue until 12 December.
GCHQ said that once the code was cracked individuals would be presented with a keyword to enter into a form field. They would then be redirected to the agency's recruitment website.
The organisation said it was not worried that the problem's answer might be spread around the internet.
It said it would still benefit because the resulting discussion would "generate future recruitment enquiries".
However, it added that anyone who had previously hacked illegally would be ineligible. The agency's website also states that applicants must be British citizens.
Concerns The move was hinted at two months ago when Prime Minister David Cameron presented his government's response to the Intelligence and Security Committee's annual report.
The document noted the committee had concerns about GCHQ's "inability to retain a suitable cadre of internet specialists" to respond to cyber threats.
It said that the Cabinet Office supported "initiatives such as the Cyber Security Challenge, which promotes careers in cyber security via annual competitions and events".

Anyone who breaks the code will be invited to apply for a job

Following this the government announced last week that it would set up a specialist department within GCHQ.
The Joint Cyber Unit will concentrate on tackling the growing threat of cyber attacks from organised criminals, terrorists, hostile states and hacktivists.
Innovative GCHQ claimed that this was the first time this sort of challenge had ever been conducted by an organisation to target these sorts of skills.
However, the agency has used unusual recruitment methods in the past.
In 2009, it placed video content, themes and downloadable pictures on the Xbox Live network which appeared during Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed and other video games.
Two years earlier, it targeted gamers by placing digital posters in online titles including Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas and Splinter Cell Double Agent.

taken from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15968878

Occupy Protesters Mobilize for Obama’s Visit

More than 100 Occupy Wall Street protesters marched to a Midtown hotel on Wednesday night to protest a fund-raising event for President Obama.
Escorted by police vehicles as they helped snarl traffic across the Times Square area, beginning at Bryant Park, the group settled in front of barricades on the southwest corner of 53rd Street and Seventh Avenue, in view of the Sheraton hotel at which Mr. Obama was expected to appear by 9 p.m.
Demonstrators held signs that leveled some of the Occupy protest’s most pointed criticism to date of the president. “Obama is a corporate puppet,” one said. “War crimes must be stopped, no matter who does them,” read another, beside head shots of President George W. Bush and President Obama.
One man, wearing a mask of the president’s face and holding a cigar, carried a sign that read, “I sold out!”
Ben Campbell, 28, one of the march’s organizers, said he hoped to prove to skeptics of the protests that the demonstrators were political critics of equal opportunity.
“President Obama is coming to town solely to raise money from the richest of the rich,” Mr. Campbell said.
The 45-minute march from Bryant Park forced shoppers and theatergoers into retreat on what most likely would have been a difficult night to find sidewalk space anyway. At one point, two pedestrians tried to move through the crowd head-on but quickly reconsidered, breaking into a jog in the other direction. “You better not go that way,” one protester told them moments earlier. “You’re going to hit democracy.”
Officers, on foot and on motorcycles, followed the protesters with each step, trying — with occasional success — to keep marchers off the road. Many protesters chafed at the sight of barricaded pens near the hotel, but a majority decided to stay, given how close they were to their destination. Shortly before 9 p.m., as the police cut off traffic and began making final preparations for the president’s arrival, officers informed demonstrators that the area had been designated a “frozen zone” until the president’s departure: They were not allowed to leave their enclosure, bound by three lines of barricades and a Chase bank. Some protesters tried to break through, but were swiftly rebuffed by officers, who shoved them back to their initial perches.
Before the trek began around 6:45 p.m., one officer appeared to foretell a difficult evening. “This is going to be fun,” he said to a colleague, dropping his head. “I already tore my A.C.L. on this job.”


By MATT FLEGENHEIMER taken from http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/occupy-protesters-mobilize-for-obamas-visit/

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

On November 23, 2011, at approximately 6:15 PM, Yavapai County Sheriff's Office deputies responded to a reported robbery at the Chevron Station in the 2700 block of Highway 69, Dewey-Humboldt. The Chevron employee stated that a female entered the mini-mart with her right hand concealed under her sweater, claiming she had a bomb, and demanding cash from the register. ...
Just after 7:15 PM, deputies located (Andri) Jeffers at her home in the 2900 block of North Kings Highway West, Castle Canyon Mesa. Jeffers was confirmed as the suspect initially by the surveillance photo and also identified by the clerk. Jeffers admitted to her participation in the robbery. Deputies learned the item she held under her shirt was a toy penguin. She was arrested and booked at the Camp Verde Detention Center for one count of Attempted Robbery.

taken from http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/30/9119759-give-me-all-your-money-or-my-penguin-will-explode

South Africa UFO Convention Theory: ETs Raid Earth For Gold

If humanity wants to understand the greed in a man or woman's heart, he might want to look to the stars . . . and the little green men who might be living on them.
Aliens -- much like humans -- have been plundering the planet for gold for thousands of years, according to the organizer of South Africa's first UFO Science and Consciousness Conference, held in Johannesburg last week.
"There's a battle for Earth by some interesting dark forces," conference organizer Michael Tellinger told News 24. "All the governments in the world are puppets and instruments to implement the will of a small group of individuals. The royal political bloodline goes back thousand of years."
Tellinger insists that extraterrestrials visited our planet in search of gold about 300,000 years ago, cloned their genetic make-up and gave rise to mankind. Ever since, they've been in contact with world leaders.
"They came to Earth looking for gold. We are all still obsessed with gold," Tellinger said, according to News 24.
And thanks to its diamonds and gold deposits, South Africa is "at the heart of this," Tellinger reportedly said.
"South Africa has been dubbed as the cradle of humankind and the place where all life form began, thus the reason [South Africa] was selected as the host for the UFO Science and Consciousness Conference," he told The Citizen. "We have scientific evidence that there was physical life before humans which were African knowledge keepers and custodians of secret knowledge."

Tellinger's statements about gold-hunting aliens were widely reported by the South African press, while comparisons between the gold-digging alien theory and the plot of the film "Cowboys & Aliens" were noted by the sci-fi blog io9.
But those claims about ETs weren't the only shocking ideas introduced at the forum.
Laura Eisenhower, who describes herself as the great-granddaughter of president Dwight Eisenhower, claims world leaders have experienced close contact with aliens, signing treaties with them every decade.
"Extra-terrestrials have been working with governments for a while," she told News 24.
Bigfoot expert Lloyd Pye told the crowd about an oddly shaped skull that he believes belonged to an alien while hypnotist Jennifer Welch discussed crystal skulls, The New Age reports.
The three-day event brought 13 speakers from around the world to South Africa -- a country recently outed as the setting of a UFO hoax.

taken from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/30/south-africa-ufo_n_1119400.html