We Are Awake

The RCMP officer who Tasered Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport more than seven years ago has been found guilty of perjury. B.C. Supreme Court Justice William Ehrcke concluded Friday that Const. Kwesi Millington lied under oath during his testimony at a public inquiry into the October 2007 death of the 40-year-old Polish immigrant. In a lengthy ruling read out in court, the judge said Millington's testimony about his explanation for using a Taser on Dziekanski was "patently false" and "preposterous." "I can say right now I am the happiest person all over the world," Zofia Cisowski, Dziekanski's mom, said outside court. "I am very pleased." Ehrcke said Millington's testimony was false, he knew it was false and he gave it with intent to mislead. The Crown presented in court 10 particulars of the alleged perjury, only one of which prosecutors needed to prove to find Millington guilty of the charge. The judge c...

A group of approximately thirty operatives spear-heading the first Arabic language group dedicated to stealing vital intelligence information using malware and other methods, has been discovered by researchers from Kaspersky Lab. Based primarily out of the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Turkey, the advanced persistent group, or "APT", dubbed Desert Falcons, develop original malware software used to carry out and conceal their efforts, which are aimed at sensitive information on traditional and mobile operating systems and whose owners are then subjected to extortion attempts and blackmail.  “More than 1 million files were stolen from victims,” the anti-malware firm reported. It is not yet clear if the hackers are sponsored by any one state, group or even have an ideological motive.  While the targets of these efforts included civilian bodies such as educational, economic and financial institutions as well as media groups and private individuals, military and governm...

It's ironic that Australia - where the federal government   is working hard to strip incentives for renewable energy - is the site for the world's first commercial wave project and potentially  the world's largest solar plant. Wave energy is sending power to the grid  in Australia in the world's first commercial project to come online. Carnegie Wave Energy's Perth Wave Energy Project consists of three, 240 kilowatt pumps that are tethered to the seabed. They send pressurized water to an onshore hydroelectric plant and - in another first - it also sends water to a desalination plant, supplying both energy and fresh water. Australia's Department of Defense is buying the energy and fresh water for its largest naval base. Funding came from government grants and the Australian Renewable Energy Association.

US and British intelligence agencies hacked into a major manufacturer of Sim cards in order to steal codes that facilitate eavesdropping on mobiles, a US news website says. The Intercept says the revelations came from US intelligence contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden. The Dutch company allegedly targeted - Gemalto - says it is taking the allegations "very seriously". It operates in 85 countries and has more than 40 manufacturing facilities. The Intercept says  that "the great Sim heist" gave US and British surveillance agencies "the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world's cellular communications, including both voice and data". It says that among the clients of the Netherlands-based company are AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and "some 450 wireless network providers around the world". Full investigation The Intercept alleges that the hack organised by Britain's GCHQ and the US Natio...

Q: I feel without any love. I feel like a stone and always just full of anger and hate and aggression. I don’t love anyone. A: So it is perfectly good! I’m not asking you to love me. There is no problem in it. If I ask you to love me and you don’t, then there is a problem. I am not creating any problem for you. This is the way you are! Accept it; what else can you do? Just relax into it. You are a stone, so you are a stone. Stones are also very precious. Yes, precious stones are cold, even diamonds are cold. But what can you do? The stone cannot suddenly take a jump and become a flower; the stone will remain a stone. You can enjoy being a stone or you can be miserable being a stone, but the stone will remain a stone. And I don’t see that there are any problems: a few stones are needed. The world has variety. All are not needed to be the same; this is how it is rich. And you are a beautiful stone, so there is nothing to worry about. If energies change on their own some d...

On Thursday, Walmart announced that it will raise all of its full-time and part-time employees’ pay to at least $9 an hour starting in April. The lowest wage will rise to $10 an hour by February of next year. In a press release, it said it is also raising pay for the compensation range for each position, and all told says that about 500,000 employees will see a raise from the changes. It also says the raises will mean its average hourly wage for full-time workers will increase from $12.85 to $13 an hour and the average for part-time workers will increase from $9.48 to $10 an hour. It also promised that workers “will have more control over their schedules.” The wage increases will cost more than $1 billion this fiscal year. In announcing the changes, CEO Doug McMillion acknowledged   some of the criticism   that the company has sacrificed customer loyalty because of its pay practices. “We have work to do to grow the business. We know what customers want from a s...

A SCARE over the nation’s AAA credit rating has weakened the Australian dollar, amid new ­government warnings about the scale of future budget deficits and the need for urgent fiscal repair. Joe Hockey predicted yesterday that people would “fall off their chairs” when they saw some of the charts in a long-awaited report­ on the country’s financial future, which is due to be issued within weeks. The report will outline the natio­n’­s­ economic health through to 2055 and will be used by the federal government to make the case for spending cuts or tax increases in the May budget. Australians needed to accept sacrifices today in order to live up to a “compact between generations” and avoid putting a bigger burden on the young, the Treasurer said yesterday. Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s forecast that tax revenue would be downgraded in the budget and said both major parties needed to keep up their commitments to achieving surpluses. An initial report of S...