Read LessThe United States said Tuesday it was "deeply disappointed and concerned" over the decision by Malaysia's highest court to send opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to jail for five years on a politically charged sodomy conviction.
"The United States is deeply disappointed and concerned by the rejection of Anwar Ibrahim’s final appeal and his conviction," the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur said in a statement.
Stesen penyiaran berita Britain, Sky News memohon maaf selepas seorang wartawannya menyelongkar beg penumpang pesawat penerbangan MH17 di lokasi nahas semasa siaran langsung pada Ahad.
Dalam satu siaran berita, wartawan Colin Brazier dilihat membelek-belek barangan peribadi dalam sebuah beg yang terbuka. Dia kemudian memungut sejambak kunci sebelum kemudiannya berkata: "Kita tidak sepatutnya berbuat macam ini".
Visual itu membangkitkan kemarahan banyak orang di jaringan media sosial. Ada yang malah menggesa agar Brazier dipecat.
Sky News kemudian mengeluarkan satu kenyataan memohon maaf termasuk bagi pihak Brazier.
Beberapa pihak sebelum ini menggesa kumpulan pemisah yang menguasai lokasi nahas supaya menghormati mayat 298 penumpang dan anak kapal.
Gesaan itu dibuat ketika ada laporan bahawa lokasi kejadian itu dicerobohi oleh pihak yang tidak berkenaan yang mencuri barangan milik mangsa serta mengganggu siasatan.
Once investigators find the chemical signature of the device, they will be able to tell with great certainty what kind of explosive caused the damage — and very likely where that charge was manufactured and by whom.
With the crash of another Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, this one in eastern Ukraine, aviation accident investigators are again asking the same big questions as in any disaster: What happened and why did it happen? In the case of the disappearance of MH370 this spring, the answer at this point on both counts is that no one knows. This will not be the case with MH17. We already know a lot about what happened — if not why.
To start with the obvious, we already know where the airplane is. Searchers, many of them local residents, began finding wreckage the bodies of the victims almost immediately after the crash.
The location of the wreckage holds easy clues to what happened. It might also hold some elusive ones.
The operating theory is that a ground to air missile took out MH17 while it was in cruise flight at its assigned altitude, now being reported as 33,000 feet. The evidence we already have corroborates that theory. When an airplane crashes into the ground under power or as the pilots are trying to regain control, the scattering of the wreckage is always very contained, usually within an acre or so.
In this case, large parts have already started turning up miles away from each other, and that can only mean one thing: that the airplane broke apart at altitude and its parts descended on the currents of the wind until they impacted the earth. The higher the airplane was when it came apart, the more widely scattered the wreckage will be. We can conclude that MH17 came apart at a very high altitude. And it came apart very violently. I have seen a photograph of the floor structure of the airplane, torn apart at the metal structural ties, capable of withstanding many tens of thousands of pounds of force, resting in a field in rural Ukraine. The section in question weighs likely around 10,000 pounds. It’s not the kid of component that breaks off and flutters away. It was blown apart from the rest of the structure.
It is possible for aircraft structures to fail during an explosive depressurization, and that indeed did happen in the early days of jet aviation, most notably with the British built de Havilland Comet jet, which suffered a series of fatal pressure vessel failures due to metal fatigue. The Boeing 777, however, is a modern and exceptionally strong plane, one that is based on modern computer aided design calculations that take just such events into consideration, making it nearly impossible for one failure to lead the next until the airplane comes apart. That is not what happened here.
The only explanations that make any sense given the widely scattered wreckage and the degree to which the airplane came apart are that it was hit by a missile — the working theory among authorities now — or that a bomb went off inside the airplane.
The difference between those two events will be immediately apparent to investigators once they see the wreckage. An explosion leaves an unmistakable fingerprint, telling forensics specialists where the explosive went off and whether that blast originated from inside or outside the aircraft.
Then, once they find the chemical signature of the device, they will be able to tell with great certainty what kind of explosive caused the damage and very likely where that charge was manufactured and by whom.
The traces of such an explosion will be unmistakable. Investigators will be able to test quickly for certain classes of explosives, but even before that they will likely be able to see the characteristic high-speed pitting of surfaces exposed to the explosive forces. When TWA Flight 800 crashed over Long Island Sound in 1996, investigators were able to determine that the explosion was the result of a fuel explosion and not an explosive device planted in the plane or a missile fired from below.
Investigators looking into what happened to Flight MH17 will be able to make the exact same types of determinations as well. Because the wreckage is in plain sight — and not sunken in a body of water — they will be able to make those determinations very quickly and turn the investigation over to others who are more interested in who did it and tracking them down.
Few days ago, a young woman made headlines when a video of her bashing a helpless senior citizen’s car was caught on camera and released to the interwebs. As uploaded by Facebook user Jessica Qi, the woman is seen diarrhoea-vomiting insults and hurling racists remarks at an old man following what looks like a small car accident. Despite the old man repeatedly pleading that he hadn’t intended to hit her car on purpose, the woman continued to yell at him, and even “deployed” her steering wheel lock at his car.
If you haven’t seen the video, that has since gone viral and re-uploaded on various channels (Facebook, YouTube, etc.), here:
And in less than 24 hours, many news outlets have posted up versions of the story while netizens worked hard at leaving less-than-happy comments on the video. Some called her a disgrace to her race while others chided her for giving women drivers and Malaysians a bad name. The #CDM25 (and not #CCM25) hashtag trended on Twitter the whole of last night both locally and worldwide. The #CDM25 activities are still ongoing, as we speak.
The son of the poor senior citizen also took to Facebook to defend his father and give his “two cents” on the matter. He shared Jessica Qi’s video and commented:
Not only has the video garnered thousands of negative response, netizens have also switched on their investigative journalism instincts to find out who this owner of the white Peugeot with the number plate CDM 25 is. Of course, with the power of social media, it didn’t take netizens long to narrow it all down to a Facebook page as well as an Instagram account.
Just to give you an idea of how fast netizens linked it all together and made sense of everything:
With those discoveries, it took netizens almost no time to leave nasty comments all over Kiki Kamaruddin’s social media platforms, leaving none unturned.
Like so:
Two hours ago, a member of the local interwebs have also taken the liberty to start up a spoofFacebook page “dedicated” to Kiki Kamaruddin, with funny posts and status updates. Or at least we think it’s a spoof account because of the cover photo of choice.
Needless to say, Kiki Kamaruddin is Malaysia’s latest “public enemy #1″, for obvious reasons. But that doesn’t mean that some Malaysians can’t find humour in the entire situation judging from the amount of #CDM25 and Kiki Kamaruddin memes that have since mushroomed all over. With most of them poking fun at her steering wheel lock and the RM2,000 that she repeatedly demanded from the senior citizen:
The #CDM25 driver has yet to make a public apology though but what do you guys think? Did she deserve to be named and shamed in such a manner?
Californians Brandon Strohbehn and Nicole Nepomuceno share a passion for skydiving, so when it came time for the Orange County firefighter to pop the question to his girlfriend of 18 months he knew it had to happen while free-falling from 12,500 feet.
The couple was just a few seconds into a tandem jump over San Diego on May 18 when Stohbehn pulled out a ring box — open so the engagement ring was in view — and told Nepomuceno how he loved her more than anything. But, then Stohbehn fumbled the box. A now-viral video of the proposal shows the shocked girlfriend’s reaction as the box plummets to earth.
Brandon produced a ring while they dangled mid-air.
But disaster struck when he dropped it and it plummeted through the air.
What seemed to be a heart-wrenching catastrophe was actually a clever prank. The lost ring was a $9 prop and the actual ring was waiting for the couple, along with friends and family, when they landed.
Now on solid ground, Strohbehn got down on one knee and continued the proposal, which Nepomuceno enthusiastically accepted.
The real engagement ring, which the bride-to-be displayed proudly on Facebook, features a round diamond solitaire and a diamond-encrusted band fabricated in white metal.
When asked about the airborne prank, Nepomuceno told 10news.com,
“Every single time I glanced at it, I was like, ‘How is that strapped to him?’ I was shocked to see it drop, and then he was ignoring me.”
That’s when she knew something was amiss.
“I couldn’t stop smiling,” Strohbehn added. “I was like, that was so awesome. It went perfect.”
On Facebook, Nepomuceno wrote,
Brandon Strohbehn, I love you more than everything. Your proposal was beyond perfection and everything about that day is an awesome portrayal of the weirdos that we are – Who proposes with a fake ring and drops it?!…
It’s… definitely a day that will remain close to my heart as one of the best days of my life.
Strohbehn and Nepomuceno, who have logged 224 jumps between them, are planning to marry in July 2015. Will they be taking their wedding vows at 12,500 feet? We wouldn’t bet against it.
As Israel intensified its bombardment Thursday of the Gaza Strip in an offensive against the Hamas militant group, with more than 900 targets attacked so far, it said it was doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties in the crowded urban landscape. The risk of more civilian deaths will remain high, especially if Israel moves in with ground forces.
More than 85 people have been killed, including dozens of civilians, and over 300 wounded since the offensive began Tuesday, Palestinian medical officials said.
Undeterred, Hamas militants have fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, including salvos Thursday at the country's two largest cities, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, that were intercepted by the rocket-defense system known as the Iron Dome.
President Barack Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and lent his support to Israel's efforts to defend itself from the rocket fire, but he also urged both Israel and the Palestinians to protect civilians and restore calm. The White House said the U.S. was willing to "facilitate a cessation of hostilities," potentially along the lines of a 2012 cease-fire that Egypt and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton helped broker.
At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep concern about the threats to civilians in Israel and Gaza, and urged an immediate cease-fire.
"It is unacceptable for citizens on both sides to permanently live in fear of the next aerial attack," Ban said. "My paramount concern is the safety and well-being of all civilians, no matter where they are."
He condemned the "indiscriminate" rocket fire at Israel. "But I am also concerned at the many Palestinian deaths and injuries as a result of Israeli operations," he said. "Once again, Palestinian civilians are caught between Hamas' irresponsibility and Israel's tough response."
Israel's U.N. ambassador, Ron Prosor, pulled out a cellphone during the meeting and played a recording of an air-raid siren as he described the difficult circumstances of people living within rocket range. His Palestinian counterpart, Riyad Mansour, decried the Israeli "barrage of death, destruction and terror."
Ban has been a key player in diplomatic efforts to halt the hostilities. Egypt, historically a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, has said it is in touch with both sides.
Neither side has shown much interest in halting the fighting. With rockets continuing to fly, Israel has been massing forces along the Gaza border in preparation for a possible ground invasion.
"So far the campaign is going as planned," Netanyahu said in a statement broadcast on national television. "But we are expecting more stages later. So far we have severely hit Hamas and other terrorists and we will deepen the strike against them as long as the campaign continues."
He said Israel was making "every effort" to avoid harming civilians and accused Hamas of endangering the Palestinian public by "hiding behind Palestinian civilians."
Residents in the crowded Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza were at a loss to explain why the Al Haj family home was targeted in the attack just before 2 a.m. Thursday. The blast killed Mahmoud Al Haj, his wife, Basmah, and six of their children.
Yasser Al Haj, who was not at home in the refugee camp, was the only relative to survive.
"I want to see my family," he wailed. "Where is the house? Where is my family?"
Neighbor Iyad Hamad decried the deaths of "children, women and old people."
"There can't be more oppression than this in the world," he said. "Can't they see what is happening to the people here?"
It was not clear who was the target of the airstrike, or whether the family had been warned.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said the incident was under investigation.
Israel has been taking precautions to protect civilians. He said when Israel identifies a home used by Hamas as a "command and control center," it calls the inhabitants and orders them to leave. It then fires a "non-explosive munition" at the roof as a warning and looks for people to leave. Only then does it destroy the structure.
But he said if a militant is actively using a house to carry out attacks, he becomes a legitimate target. "If you use civilian premises to perpetrate attacks, you are putting yourself and the people around you in a state of danger," Lerner said.
Israel says Hamas intentionally uses civilian areas, including homes, mosques and schools, for cover during fighting. "Hamas ... intentionally embeds itself in civilian populations," Lerner said.
A number of the nearly 30 women and children to die in the offensive are believed to have been killed along with relatives who were targeted by Israel.
Israel uses electronic surveillance, a network of informants and other techniques to keep tabs on wanted militants in Gaza. It has a long history of killing senior militants in airstrikes. But mistakes can happen.
Robbie Sabel, a former legal adviser for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said international laws of war prohibit deliberate targeting of civilians, but take into account that civilians may be hit in attacks on military targets as long as the response is "proportionate." Beyond the legal issues, however, is the matter of public perception.
"The moment you see a picture in The New York Times of an injured child, it's horrific. And there's no way you can come up with a legal explanation that will help us," he said.
The number of civilian casualties is sure to rise if Israel decides to launch a ground invasion. During a ground incursion in early 2009, hundreds of civilians were killed. Israel accused Hamas of putting people in harm's way, but the heavy death toll drew war crimes accusations against Israel in a U.N. report.
The report also accused Hamas of committing war crimes by firing indiscriminately at Israeli population centers. The current wave of rocket fire has placed an estimated 5 million Israelis in range, disrupting life across the country.
The Iron Dome defense system has intercepted more than 100 of the projectiles destined for major cities. The system is designed to shoot down rockets headed toward populated areas, while allowing others to fall where they can do no harm.
In southern Israel, the area hit hardest by the rockets, people have been ordered to stay within close range of shelter. Summer camps have been canceled, motorists have been forced to jump out of their cars, and high school students took their final exams in bomb shelters. Many people are using a smartphone application that alerts them to incoming rockets when they can't hear air-raid sirens.
Lian Assayag had planned a big wedding in the southern city of Ashkelon. But her special day was dashed due to the rocket fire. She decided instead to get married Thursday night inside a bomb shelter at a synagogue in nearby Ashdod.
"I have mixed feelings. Everything got messed up," she told Channel 10 TV. "It'll be OK."
The world would be a much better place if everyone treated each other like these kids do in the video below.
After being absent for a week from school with a stomach virus, Tyler returned to class to get the most amazing reception from his fellow classmates. After Tyler walks into the classroom, the kids all join in shouting, “Tyler! Tyler!” and one adorable little girl even rushes up to him and gives him the biggest hug.
(Sorry, Americans. A Netflix representative said that the company does not have any plans currently to hire additional taggers in the U.S.)
Netflix reportedly employs dozens of taggers in multiple countries. The system emerged after Netflix noticed that some users were not rating shows, which is what the service initially relied on to generate recommendations.
"The things is for some people it is a bit of a nice challenge to give things a star rating but for a lot of our users they considered that work," Netflix's Vice President of Product Innovation Todd Yellin told Tech Radar. "The core stuff for us now is paying attention to what users watch. That can tell us how many categories they like so the tagging effort started heading in that direction."
This “tagging process” is the first stage of the Netflix recommendation system and works in concert with advanced algorithms that generate highly personalized suggestions for every one of Netflix’s nearly 50 million members, offering them an individualized set of titles matching their tastes.
But don't think the paid position just involves watching movies in bed. The tagging process apparently requires a bit of experience and a fair amount of note-taking.
The listing continues:
The role will offer flexible hours working from home and would suit those with a passion for films and TV programmes, as evidenced by a degree in film or film history and/or experience directing, screening writing or filmmaking. Applicants with analysis experience (e.g. as a critic or work in development) would also be well suited.
In 2012, Canada.com writer Russ Martin interviewed Toronto-based filmmaker Jordan Canning, who gets paid to watch and describe about five Netflix programs per week. As she watches, Canning keeps meticulously documents details of each program in an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
"It covers everything from big picture stuff like storyline, scene and tone, to details of whether there is a lot of smoking in the movie," Canning said of the requirements.
The post has been updated to include comment from Netflix. Source - HuffNews
This video of a Turkish F-16 flying dangerously low above onlookers at an air show will "literally separate your head from your shoulders." See what we did there? You should put that in your Facebook status, your friends will think it's hilarious. We won't tell them we came up with it. It's OK!
Also, watch this video, shot at the Waddington Royal Air Force base in England andposted to YouTube on Sunday. It's terrifying.
A California man is accused of sexually assaulting a woman while wearing a pink Barbie costume, authorities say.
Gregory Schwartz, 40, was arrested Sunday afternoon in conjunction with the alleged assault, which took place Friday afternoon in the bathroom of a San Diego Big Lots store.
"I was looking and I saw two feet slowly planting on the floor and they were a man's bare feet. He went underneath the stall really quickly and then he came into my stall and the door was still locked. I didn't even have time to act," she told KGTV-TV. "He grabbed my neck and he pushed me all the way against the wall and he started squeezing my neck and I start yelling from the top of my lungs and then he covered my mouth."
She noticed the suspect was wearing a Barbie outfit and suspects he stole it from the store.
He was not wearing the Barbie costume at the time of his arrest, according to a police spokesman who declined to comment on if the outfit has been recovered.
As of Monday morning, the suspect had not been arraigned.
The San Diego Police Department's Sex Crimes division is investigating the incident. Anyone with information is asked to call 619-531-2210.
Two young women have been charged with an apparently racist assault upon an elderly and vision-impaired man in a broad-daylight attack that was captured on camera and circulated on social media.
Lana Janet Watmough, 21, and Layni Gloria Cameron, 17, handed themselves into police after footage of the incident on a Gold Coast bus in Queensland, Australia, was widely publicised.
Yesterday both were charged with serious assault and public nuisance – Ms Watmough was granted bail, while Ms Cameron remains held without an application for bail.
The pair were filmed by a 13-year-old girl on Tuesday, allegedly kicking and spitting at 77-year-old Paul Buttigieg, who was sitting at the front of the bus.
Mr Buttigieg is believed to have been racially vilified by at least one of the young women.
The young women have both appeared in court (Picture: Nine News)
The case sparked a massive public backlash, leading to a petition and Facebook group set up to try to get the duo convicted.
Ms Watmough and Ms Cameron began expletive-ridden tirade after boarding the bus, before allegedly verbally abusing a mother with a pram saying: ‘Look at yourself, you fat f****** mole.’
‘They were swearing down the back and they finished up down near me, and they were swearing, and I just said “would you mind stop swearing” – bang and they hit me,’ Mr Buttigieg told Nine News.
It has since also been revealed that Ms Watmough is the cousin of Australian rugby league footballer Anthony Watmough.
The pair’s defence lawyer said that the backlash had gone too far and that the young women had received death threats.
No matter how hard you try to hide, sometimes your body betrays you. A funny take on what women think versus what men are thinking when they cross paths in public.
Oh my god, she is so sexy. Oh that guy is checking me out.
I hope he isn't trying to hit on me. She's coming my way. I am gonna lick my lips a little quick to get them all sexy.
Eww. Did he just lick his lips? Damn, I've got a cramp. Okay, let's just stretch it out a little bit. Yes, she likes the guns. I know a little extra baby oil was a good idea. Look at her. Trying to front like she got a cramp.
How is that run going? Oh no, here we go. Just smile and be nice.
It's going. How are yours? Oh my god. She smiled at me. She wants my dick.
Great. Tim. Nice to meet you. Danny, nice to meet you. Hell yeah. She's looking at me right into my eyes. Trying to make me fall in love. Oh I'm right there with you baby. Is that unibrow? Source - Drifting Heart
