UK government urged to consider relaxing drug rules

JUST say yes to considering relaxed drug controls, urged a panel of UK parliamentarians this week - but Prime Minister David Cameron has rejected the calls.

Many countries have loosened their penalties for drug use, including the Czech Republic and Portugal, which introduced a "de-penalisation" strategy in 2000. Citizens caught in possession avoid criminal records but must attend drug advice sessions. Last month, the US states of Colorado and Washington voted to legalise the recreational use of cannabis.

The UK report calls for the effects of these legal moves to be monitored. "Drugs policy ought to be evidence-based as much as possible," it concludes. "We recommend that the government fund a detailed research project to monitor the effects of each legalisation system."

The report notes that 21 countries have now introduced some form of decriminalisation. But the government's response has been lukewarm. "I don't support decriminalisation," said Cameron. "We have a policy which actually is working in Britain. Drugs use is coming down."

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S'pore strongly urges N.Korea to work with international community

SINGAPORE: Singapore has strongly urged the North Korean government to refrain from further actions that would escalate tensions, and work with the international community to preserve peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula.

A statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said North Korea's rocket launch on Wednesday is a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

It added that Singapore deeply regrets this defiance of the concerns of the international community. The launch also does not serve the best interests of the North Korean people.

- CNA/ck

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Woman Tasered after trying to buy too many iPhones

Resisting arrest?

(Credit:
WMUR-TV Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Normally, when you hear screams outside an Apple store, it's because, oh, the doors have opened and there's a new gizmo for the insatiable.

However, at the Apple store in the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, N.H. on Tuesday, the screams were those of a 44-year-old Chinese woman being Tasered by police.

As WMUR-TV reports, Xiaojie Li, of Newton, N.H. says -- through her 12-year-old daughter's translation -- that she isn't proficient in English.

"She's certainly capable of coming up here and purchasing these things from the Apple store here. Whether her language inhibited that, I really don't know." Those were the words of Captain Bruce Hansen of the Nashua Police Department.

What seems clearer is that she tried to buy more iPhones than was the store's maximum of two. Li told WMUR-TV that they were for family members in China.

On Friday, she had bought two -- which would suggest her English had been good enough to make the purchases. On Tuesday, she came back to buy more.

Her daughter says that the Apple store asked her to leave, but her mother didn't understand.

The store called the police, who claim that she resisted arrest.

WCVB-TV offers a more nuanced take. It says that last Friday Li filmed other people in the Apple store who were allegedly buying more than two iPhones.

According to Hansen, she was asked to leave then too and allegedly complied.

Her daughter told WCVB-TV about the arrest: "So then the police took my mom's phone and tried to take my mom's bag. And my mom tried to ask them why, and they just threw her to the ground."

More Technically Incorrect

Her fiance, John Hugo, told WCVB-TV that Li has been "brutalized by the police."

"Is this proper procedure, beating her up?" he added.

The police offered to WVCB-TV that Apple had a problem with people trying to buy multiple iPhones and then selling them overseas at inflated prices. Which some might deem capitalism.

They also claimed that Li had $16,000 in cash, at the time of her being subdued.

I have contacted Apple to see if the company might like to comment on this peculiar turn of events. I will update, should the company offer its opinion.

Li is due to appear in court in January. It will be interesting to hear then what evidence both sides present to support their versions of events.

It does seem odd, however, that such force was needed to detain a 44-year-old woman.

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Hubble Discovers Oldest Known Galaxy

The Hubble space telescope has discovered seven primitive galaxies formed in the earliest days of the cosmos, including one believed to be the oldest ever detected.

The discovery, announced Wednesday, is part of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field campaign to determine how and when galaxies first assembled following the Big Bang.

"This 'cosmic dawn' was not a single, dramatic event," said astrophysicist Richard Ellis with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Rather, galaxies appear to have been formed over hundreds of millions of years.

Ellis led a team that used Hubble to look at one small section of the sky for a hundred hours. The grainy images of faint galaxies include one researchers determined to be from a period 380 million years after the onset of the universe—the closest in time to the Big Bang ever observed.

The cosmos is about 13.7 billion years old, so the newly discovered galaxy was present when the universe was 4 percent of its current age. The other six galaxies were sending out light from between 380 million and 600 million years after the Big Bang. (See pictures of "Hubble's Top Ten Discoveries.")

Baby Pictures

The images are "like the first ultrasounds of [an] infant," said Abraham Loeb, a specialist in the early cosmos at Harvard University. "These are the building blocks of the galaxies we now have."

These early galaxies were a thousand times denser than galaxies are now and were much closer together as well, Ellis said. But they were also less luminous than later galaxies.

The team used a set of four filters to analyze the near infrared wavelengths captured by Hubble Wide Field Camera 3, and estimated the galaxies' distances from Earth by studying their colors. At a NASA teleconference, team members said they had pushed Hubble's detection capabilities about as far as they could go and would most likely not be able to identify galaxies from further back in time until the James Webb Space Telescope launches toward the end of the decade. (Learn about the Hubble telescope.)

"Although we may have reached back as far as Hubble will see, Hubble has set the stage for Webb," said team member Anton Koekemoer of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "Our work indicates there is a rich field of even earlier galaxies that Webb will be able to study."

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McAfee Lands in Miami: I'm Free

Software mogul John McAfee has been released from detention in Guatemala City and has landed in Miami.

Immediately upon landing, according to passengers on the plane, McAfee's name was called and he was whisked off the aircraft. Federal officials escorted the 67-year-old Internet antivirus pioneer through customs spirit him out a side door, out of the view of reporters, according to Miami International Airport's communication director, Greg Chin.

It was not clear whether officials intended to help McAfee avoid the inevitable media circus or wanted to question him. However, he has not been charged with committing a crime in Guatemala or Belize, where the authorities have sought to question him about the murder of his neighbor.

McAfee's departure from Guatemala came earlier today.

"They took me out of my cell and put me on a freaking airplane," he told ABC News. "I had no choice in the matter."

McAfee said, however, that Guatemalan authorities had been "nice" and that his exit from the Central American country was "not at all" unpleasant.

"It was the most gracious expulsion I've ever experienced," he said. "Compared to my past two wives that expelled me this isn't a terrible trip."

McAfee said he would not be accompanied by his 20-year-old Belizean girlfriend, but is seeking a visa for her. He also said he had retained a lawyer in the U.S.

Guatemala's National Police/AP Photo

John McAfee Arrested in Guatemala Overnight Watch Video

Software Founder Breaks Silence: McAfee Speaks on Murder Allegations Watch Video

When he was released earlier today, McAfee told the Associated Press, "I'm free. ... I'm going to America."

McAfee, who had been living in a beachfront house in Belize, went on the run after the Nov. 10 murder of his neighbor, fellow American expatriate Greg Faull. Belize police said they wanted to question McAfee about the murder, but McAfee said he feared for his life in Belizean custody.

He entered Guatemala last week seeking asylum, but was arrested and taken to an immigration detention center. He was taken to the hospital after suffering a nervous collapse and then returned to the detention center. The U.S. State Department has visited McAfee, who is a dual U.S.-British citizen, several times during his stay in Guatemala.

During his three-week journey, said McAfee, he disguised himself as handicapped, dyed his hair seven times and hid in many different places during his three-week journey.

He dismissed accounts of erratic behavior and reports that he had been using the synthetic drug bath salts. He said he had never used the drug, and said statements that he had were part of an elaborate prank.

Investigators in Belize said that McAfee was not a suspect in the death of Faull, a former developer who was found shot in the head in his house.

McAfee told ABC News that the poisoning death of his dogs and the murder just hours later of Faull, who had complained about his dogs, was a coincidence.

Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.

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Today on New Scientist: 11 December 2012

Out-of-season's greetings from the Arctic frost flowers

Season's regards from an icy meadow in the Arctic, but it's no winter wonderland and please don't dash out into it

How hacking a mosquito's heart could eradicate malaria

Watch how a double-pronged trick helps mosquitoes remain healthy while carrying disease, a process that could be exploited to eliminate malaria

New drug lifts hard-to-treat depression in hours

A new class of drugs that changes the way neurons interact in the brain can rapidly lift people out of depression

E. O. Wilson and poet laureate on altruism and mystery

Leading evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson and former US poet laureate Robert Hass discuss free will, wilderness and the mysterious origin of the arts

Souped-up immune cells force leukaemia into remission

Genetically engineered white blood cells have been shown to have a strong impact on leukaemia after just three months

War of words: The language paradox explained

If language evolved for communication, how come most people can't understand what most other people are saying?

AC/DC's Highway to Hell sent via a drone's laser beam

A dose of rock music proves that a drone's reconnaisance data can be sent via reflected laser beam instead of radio

'Biology is a manufacturing capability'

Soon we'll be able to engineer living things with mechanical precision, says Tom Knight, father of synthetic biology

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Britain 'deplores' N.Korea rocket launch

LONDON: Britain said it "deplored" North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket on Wednesday and vowed to summon the Asian country's UK ambassador to the Foreign Office.

"I strongly condemn the DPRK's satellite launch today," Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement.

"I deplore the fact that the DPRK has chosen to prioritise this launch over improving the livelihood of its people. We will be summoning the DPRK Ambassador to the UK to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office," he added.

North Korea launched the rocket in defiance of UN sanctions threats over what Pyongyang's critics insist is a disguised ballistic missile test.

"It (the rocket) has been launched," a South Korean defence ministry spokesman told AFP without elaborating further.

The Yonhap news agency, citing a government source, said the rocket had taken off from the Sohae satellite launch centre at 9:51 am (0051 GMT) and was immediately detected by navy vessels deployed by Seoul in the Yellow Sea.

Hague said the launch violated UN Security Council Resolutions 1718 and 1874 as it involved the testing of ballistic missile technology and warned it would increase tensions in the region.

Britain will consult its partners in the UN in order to formulate a response, he said.

"It is essential that the DPRK refrain from further provocative action and take constructive steps towards denuclearisation and lasting peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula," added the minister.

- AFP/ck

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BlackBerry 10 to feature deep integration of Evernote

It appears that BlackBerry 10 -- Research in Motion's next operating system -- will support deep integration of the online notes service Evernote.

Now that RIM has released BlackBerry 10's SDK and APIs for software-makers to start coding in earnest, one of the apps in the new operating system generating buzz is a personal information manager (PIM) called "Remember." RIM hasn't publicly demonstrated the app, but RIM's developer documentation offers a hint at what's in store.

In addition to organizing functions such as e-mail, contacts, and calendars, the app also features something it calls "Notebooks" and describes as a "folder-like object that contains notebook entries:"

Notebooks are used to organize actionable and non-actionable items called notebook entries into separate folders or topics. For example, you can create a "grocery list" notebook that contains items you need to purchase, each of which can be marked as completed as it is added to your cart. Notebooks can also contain non-actionable notebook entries, such as photos taken on a trip.

The API allows for the creation of four types of Notebooks, including one described as an Evernote type, "in which each contained NotebookEntry is synchronized with an Evernote entry." The integration will allow Evernote users to sync entries made on a BlackBerry device with their Evernote account, as well as giving the device access to data stored in the Evernote account.

Evernote, which has 45 million users, lets people store and edit documents with a wide range of media types -- audio, Web pages, photos, and of course text -- and synchronize it with the cloud, personal computers, and mobile devices.

Meanwhile, RIM continues to lose market share but hopes to reinvigorate its brand through its BlackBerry 10 smartphones, which are expected to unveiled January 30 in a multi-city debut.

(Via 89Apps)

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Best Space Pictures of 2012: Editor's Picks

Photograph courtesy Tunç Tezel, APOY/Royal Observatory

This image of the Milky Way's vast star fields hanging over a valley of human-made light was recognized in the 2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition run by the U.K.’s Royal Observatory Greenwich.

To get the shot, photographer Tunç Tezel trekked to Uludag National Park near his hometown of Bursa, Turkey. He intended to watch the moon and evening planets, then take in the Perseids meteor shower.

"We live in a spiral arm of the Milky Way, so when we gaze through the thickness of our galaxy, we see it as a band of dense star fields encircling the sky," said Marek Kukula, the Royal Observatory's public astronomer and a contest judge.

Full story>>

Why We Love It

"I like the way this view of the Milky Way also shows us a compelling foreground landscape. It also hints at the astronomy problems caused by light pollution."—Chris Combs, news photo editor

Published December 11, 2012

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Shooter Kills Self After Oregon Mall Rampage

A masked gunman opened fire today at Clackamas Town Center, a mall in suburban Portland, Ore., killing two people, injuring one, and then killing himself.

"I can confirm the shooter is dead of an apparent self inflicted gunshot wound," Lt. James Rhodes of the Clackamas County, Ore., Sheriff's Department said today. "By all accounts there were no rounds fired by law enforcement today in the mall."

Police have not released the names of the deceased. Rhodes said authorities are in the process of notifying victims' families. The injured victim has been transported to a local hospital.

Rhodes described the shooter as an adult male.

Witnesses from the shooting rampage said that a young man in a white hockey mask and bulletproof vest tore through the Macy's, food court, and mall hallways firing rounds at shoppers beginning around 3:30 p.m. PT today.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the busy mall full of holiday shoppers after the shooting began.

The gunman entered the mall through a Macy's store, ran through the upper level of Macy's and opened fire near the mall food court, firing multiple shots, one right after another, with what is believed to be a black, semiautomatic rifle, according to witness reports.

911 Calls From New Jersey Supermarket Shooting Watch Video

Katie Tate said she was in the parking lot of the mall when she saw the shooter run by, wearing a mask and carrying a machine gun, headed for the Macy's.

"He looked like a teenager wearing a gun, like a bullet-proof vest and he had a machine, like an assault rifle and a white mask and he looked at me," she said.

Witnesses described the shooter as being on a mission and determined, looking straight ahead. He then seemed to walk through the mall toward the other end of the building, shooting along the way, according to witness reports.

Those interviewed said that Macy's shoppers and store employees huddled in a dressing room to avoid being found.

"I was helping a customer in the middle of the store, her and her granddaughter and while we were looking at sweatshirts we heard five to seven shots from a machine gun fire just outside my store," Jacob Rogers, a store clerk, told ABC affiliate KATU-TV in Portland.

"We moved everyone into the back room where there's no access to outside but where there's a camera so we can monitor what's going on out front," Rogers said.

Evan Walters, an employee at a store in the mall, told ABC News Radio that he was locked in a store for his safety and he saw two people shot and heard multiple gunshots.

"It was over 20, and it was kind of surreal because we hear pops and loud noises," he said. "We're next to the food court here and we hear pops and loud noises all the time, but we don't -- nothing like that. It was very definite gunshots."

Police are tracing the weapon used in the shooting.

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