Tuesday, August 23, 2011

A former Marsh & McLennan Cos. executive has hit former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer with a $60 million defamation lawsuit over an online magazine article regarding an insurance bid-rigging scandal.

William Gilman, a former Marsh managing director, filed a complaint last Friday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, over allegations Mr. Spitzer defamed him in a Slate article published a year ago. A copy of the complaint was made public on Monday.

Gilman, who had a final insurance fraud charge dismissed in January, said Spitzer acted with “actual malice” by suggesting that he was guilty of crimes of which he was never accused.

Although he wasn’t named in the article, Mr. Gilman complained that Spitzer defamed him by writing that “Marsh’s behavior was a blatant abuse of law and market power: price-fixing, bid-rigging and kickbacks all designed to harm their customers and the market while Marsh and its employees pocketed the increased fees and kickbacks.”

“While Mr. Spitzer’s statements do not refer to Mr. Gilman by name, Mr. Gilman is readily identifiable as the subject of the defamatory comments,” said the complaint. “Mr. Spitzer was well aware of his own allegations as attorney general and the resolution of those allegations in favor of Mr. Gilman and yet, recklessly disregarded these facts.”

In 2004 Mr. Spizter, then the state’s Attorney General, announced an investigation into the practices at Marsh & McLennan, particularly fees paid by insures to brokers who place business with them. Gilman, who worked for the company at the time, was charged in 2005 with 37 counts of insurance fraud. Gilman’s final charge was dropped last January.

“I haven’t seen the lawsuit and so will not comment on it,” said Spitzer. “The illegalities rampant at Marsh & McLennan leading to their fine of $850 million and the multiple judicial findings of illegality are clear from the public record.”

Mr. Gilman is now seeking at least $10 million in compensatory damages; $20 million in general damages, including damage to his reputation; and $30 million in punitive damages.

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

One of the flight data recorders from the downed China Eastern Airlines flight 5735 has been found, aviation officials announced Wednesday.

MU5735 crashed Monday in Guangxi, China, while carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members.

Mao Yanfeng of the Civil Aviation Authority of China said it yet to be determined if the damaged device is the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder. Authorities are still searching for the second recorder. There is no information on the data’s integrity.

The aircraft, a Boeing 737-800, had a clean maintenance record. Air traffic controllers had standard communications with the plane until it went into a dive. Rescue workers have not found any survivors of the crash, which took place in a mountainous region near Wuzhou.

The United States National Transportation Safety Board has appointed a senior investigator to assist the Chinese-led investigation, as is customary in accidents involving US-built aircraft. Technical advisors from the US Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing and CFM International will also take part.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

With the hopes of funding the creation of a statue in northern India that would end up dwarfing the Statue of Liberty, an unprecedented collection of Buddhist artifacts continue crisscrossing American, Europe, and Asia in three different, but related collections.

The Maitreya Project, the brainchild of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, seeks to build a monument and development dedicated to Buddhism at Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh in northern India. The centerpiece of this massive development will be a 152m (500 ft) bronze statue of the Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha of the future.

Buddhist belief says that there have been Buddhas in the distant past and there will be Buddhas in the distant future. The historical Buddha, the one who was born in India about 2500 years ago, is known as Shakyamuni Buddha. Buddhist belief says that sometime in the distant future the teachings that Shakyamuni Buddha brought to Earth will fade away. At that point the Maitreya Buddha will be born and gain enlightenment in order to refresh and renew Buddhist teachings.

Along with the statue, the development is also planned to include temples, exhibition halls, parks, a museum, library, and a theater as well as a hospital and educational center.

In order to move forward with this project the Maitreya Project has created collections of artifacts that are touring the world. Once the statue is built these artifacts will be housed in it for viewing.

Buddhist artifacts are usually associated with the body of the person involved. While they can be such things as bone and teeth, usually they are pearl-like objects that are found and collected after the enlightened person is creamated. These pearl-like objects are called ringsel.

There are three collections of artifacts currently touring American, Europe, and East Asia. They include relics from the immediate past Buddha, called Kasyapa, the historical Buddha, five of his original disciples, several Tibetan and Zen masters, and the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.

Wikinews reporter Richard Kinne spent three days with the relics when the North American tour came to Ithaca, NY a few weeks ago. The relics travel with two caretakers, one of whom is always in close proximity to the relics. Setup for the relics display can take about four hours depending on the venue. Taking it down takes a bit under two hours.

Each morning of the tour the relics are taken out of their padded case and placed in clear plexiglass display cases. The relics are displayed individually in small containers called stupas. Some containers appear very full, while others contian just one very small object. Each evening the process is reversed and the padded case stays with the relic caretakers.

Between the morning and the evening people from all walks of life come to see the relics – believers, people who are curious, academics, Buddhist monks and nuns, both older folks and small children. While the Heart Relic Tour just does deals with displaying the relics, the sponsoring venue can add to the display in various ways such as lectures, meditation classes and demonstrations, or various other rituals.

The tour in North America reaches Jacksonville, FL during the first weekend of December. From there it will go to Miami between the 9th to the 11th, and then to Phoenix, AZ between the 15th to the 17th. In Asia the tour spends time in Malaysia in the first part of December.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced Tuesday that they had seized approximately 160 kilograms of cocaine discovered in buckets of frozen mango puree imported from Mexico.

Investigations led the police to a shipping container destined for the Port of Montréal, in the Canadian province of Québec. A CBSA officer at the Container Examination Centre in Montréal identified the suspect container. The drug was found in brick-shaped plastic wrapping of about 4 kilograms in weight each. There were 1,200 buckets of frozen mango puree in the shipment, not all with cocaine inside.

RCMP Sgt. André Potvin told reporters that the value of the shipment was significant and was the largest maritime port drug haul in the force’s history. At CA$20 per half-gram, “that’s in the vicinity of $38 million,” said Potvin.

The investigation by the RCMP Drug Section, CBSA Intelligence officers, the Marine Security Enforcement Team and the Port of Montréal Security Group, determined that an import company, named Quality Mexport, was allegedly a front for the drug-smuggling operation.

Five Mexicans, holding visitor status in Canada, were arrested in the matter. They are:

• Juan Manuel Huerta Canela, 31;
• Jose Gerardo Bernal Vasquez, 52;
• Jose Luis Navarro Ochoa, 33;
• Jesus Manuel Villa Quiroz, 32; and
• Alfonso Strag Estrada, age 50.

The suspects have been charged with importing and possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking. The charges are allegations at this point in time.

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Horia Teodorescu, a student in 10th grade at Costache Negruzzi College in Ia?i, northeastern Romania, won the annual worldwide NASA Space Settlement Design Contest. The contest is sponsored by the Fundamental Space Biology Program of the United States‘ space agency, NASA. The task of the contest is for students to develop designs for a permanent orbital space colony. For his design, Teodorescu was awarded a visit to a NASA base in the USA.

Concerning the contest, Teodorescu said, “I designed a space colony which is called ‘Temis’, a personification of the Greek goddess of wisdom. The project is made up of four parts.” He said that the development of the space colony in his design has two phases – “Firstly, there is the construction period, in which the Moon is used as a base for extracting and processing materials. This would last about one year. After that, there would be a period of 4-5 years, in which the population of the colony would reach 10,000.” In 15 years, Teodorescu projects in his design that the population would reach 100,000, and reach the stage where the colony would be able to sustain itself and to start developing its own economic, social and educational systems.

During the design’s conception, Teodorescu was aided by his teachers, Adrian Koriloff, Margareta Constantinescu, Nicolae Hirtan and Lucia Miron, as well as his father Horia Neculai Teodorescu, who is a professor at the Ia?i University. Teodorescu also participated in the same contest in 2004, where he received second place. The first prize was also obtained by Romanians, more precisely a group of students from Constan?a.

The Costache Negruzzi College, founded in 1895, is, with over 1500 students, the largest secondary education facility in Ia?i, a city of 320,000 people.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

NASA has stated that the Mars Phoenix lander is having trouble analyzing soil samples that its robotic arm is collecting. According to NASA, the soil appears to be too clodded to pass through screens on the way to Phoenix’s Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA).

Images taken by the lander’s camera shows that the robotic arm has dumped a large portion of soil over the TEGA, but it failed to register any soil which might have passed through the screens leading into the analyzer. The screen is designed to let through particles up to one-millimeter (0.04 inch) across while keeping out larger particles, in order to prevent clogging a funnel pathway to a tiny oven inside. An infrared beam crossing the pathway checks whether particles are entering the instrument and breaking the beam. It is now believed that the particles are either too large to pass through the screen, or the soil is too clumpy.

“I think it’s the cloddiness of the soil and not having enough fine granular material. In the future, we may prepare the soil by pushing down on the surface with the arm before scooping up the material to break it up, then sprinkle a smaller amount over the door,” said Ray Arvidson of Washington University located in St. Louis, Missouri. Arvidson is the Phoenix team’s science lead researcher for Saturday and digging czar for Phoenix’s mission.

NASA also plans to use a shaker inside the TEGA to shake any material or samples longer than previously planned in an attempt to break up the larger particles and clumps. Phoenix already utilized this method on Friday June 6, shaking the soil for five minutes before dumping it onto the screen. NASA plans to tell Phoenix to shake the material a little longer in order for the soil to be tested.

While scientists ponder ways to fix the issue, TEGA will not be analyzing any samples. Instead Phoenix is expected to have completed tasks today such as horizontally extending a trench where the lander dug two practice scoops earlier this week, and taking additional images of a small pile of soil that was scooped up and dropped onto the surface during the second of those practice digs.