vipshophandbag.com

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Researchers say that new, ten million-year-old fossils found in Ethiopia, prove that the theory that humans may have evolved from a species of great apes eight million years ago, may not be true, but that humans may have split from apes as long as 10.5 million years ago.

At least nine fossilized teeth, one canine tooth and eight molars, of a previously unknown species of apes found in Africa were discovered by a team of researchers from Ethiopia and Japan who then compared the 3-D make up of the teeth to other fossils that date back as far as 8 million years and found that the fossils are likely a “direct ancestor” of apes currently living in Africa and that the new ape fossils were that of a species of gorilla who ate mostly plants high in fiber.

Current fossils and research say that the evolutionary split from apes to humans occurred at least eight million years ago. The new fossils say that the split may have happened as long as 10.5 million years ago.

“Based on this fossil, that means the split is much earlier than has been anticipated by the molecular evidence. That means everything has to be put back,” said researcher at the Rift Valley Research Service in Ethiopia and a co-author of the study, Berhane Asfaw.

Despite the finds, other researchers are not convinced that the findings are correct.

“It is stretching the evidence to base a time scale for the evolution of the great apes on this new fossil. These structures appear on at least three independent lineages of apes, including gorillas, and they could relate to a dietary shift rather than indicating a new genetic trait,” said a Professor at the London Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom, Peter Andrews who also added, “but the fossil evidence for the evolution of our closest living relatives, the great apes, is almost non-existent.

Researchers have named the newly discovered species Cororapithecus abyssinicus whose remains were found in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, the same place where the remains of Lucy were discovered in 1974.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014With the English-language Wikinews continuing to increase the amount of original content published, we take a look back at some of the eighty-plus original reports from our contributors during 2014.

Monday, April 23, 2018

March 20, Mark Meechan of Scotland was found guilty of “being grossly offensive” in violation of the Communications Act of 2003. Meechan, who goes by “Count Dankula” on YouTube, posted a video on the social media site in which he trained a pug, a small companion dog, to respond to spoken words such as “Sieg Heil” and “Gas the Jews”. Sentencing for Meechan has been scheduled for <L>April 23</L>.

In April of 2016, Meechan uploaded a video titled “M8 Yer Dugs A Nazi” to YouTube in which he trained the dog to respond to certain spoken commands. The dog, which belongs to his girlfriend Suzanne Kelly, learned to raise its front paw when the “Sieg Hitler” command was given, and jumped for joy when the words “Gas the Jews” were spoken. The video was viewed three million times before it was put on ‘restricted mode’ on YouTube. In the video, which runs 2m:23s, Meechan states that he is not a racist. The prosecution called the video “an odious criminal act that was dressed up to look like a joke.”

Meechan’s defense, led by attorney Ross Brown, centered around the video being a joke. Meechan wanted to annoy his girlfriend because he didn’t really like the dog. Brown further argued that Meechan expected the video to be viewed only by Kelly and a few other friends and didn’t expect it to go viral. Kelly testified to Meechan never expressing any antisemitic views.

Director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities Ephraim Borowski, testified for the prosecution. “In many ways, the bit I found most offensive was the repetition of ‘gas the Jews’ rather than the dog itself,” said Borowski. “Material of this kind goes to normalize the antisemitic views that frankly we thought we had seen the last of… The Holocaust is not a subject for jocular content.”

The sheriff court with Derek O’Carroll presiding in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire found that Meechan was guilty because the video was “anti-Semitic and racist in nature”. O’Carroll elaborated: “This court has taken the freedom of expression into consideration, but the right to freedom of expression also comes with responsibility.”

O’Carroll further said, “The accused is quite obviously an intelligent and articulate man. The accused knew that the material was offensive and knew why it was offensive. Despite that the accused made a video containing anti-Semitic content and he would have known it was grossly offensive to many Jewish people.”

After the conviction, some British comedians voiced their support for Meechan. Ricky Gervais tweeted: “If you don’t believe in a person’s right to say things that you might find “grossly offensive”, then you don’t believe in Freedom of Speech.” David Baddiel also tweeted, saying “an actual Nazi would not be teaching his *pug* to Hitler salute.”

[edit]

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Ian Narev, the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, this morning “unreservedly” apologised to clients who lost money in a scandal involving the bank’s financial planning services arm.

Last week, a Senate enquiry found financial advisers from the Commonwealth Bank had made high-risk investments of clients’ money without the clients’ permission, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars lost. The Senate enquiry called for a Royal Commission into the bank, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Mr Narev stated the bank’s performance in providing financial advice was “unacceptable”, and the bank was launching a scheme to compensate clients who lost money due to the planners’ actions.

In a statement Mr Narev said, “Poor advice provided by some of our advisers between 2003 and 2012 caused financial loss and distress and I am truly sorry for that. […] There have been changes in management, structure and culture. We have also invested in new systems, implemented new processes, enhanced adviser supervision and improved training.”

An investigation by Fairfax Media instigated the Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning division and ASIC.

Whistleblower Jeff Morris, who reported the misconduct of the bank to ASIC six years ago, said in an article for The Sydney Morning Herald that neither the bank nor ASIC should be in control of the compensation program.

Saturday, April 2, 2005

Ted Koppel announced he plans to quit as host of the ‘Nightline’ television program after his contract runs out December 4, 2005.

Executives at ABC are considering canceling the Nightline program after his departure or possibly changing the show to a live, hour-long format.

Nightline has fallen behind in rankings compared with programs such as “Meet the Press” and “Face the Nation”. Network news in general is losing ground in recent years to cable news, talk shows and the Internet. Television anchormen who have left in the past several months include Tom Brokaw of NBC and Dan Rather of CBS. The only other major television anchorman of the past few decades who remains in his chair is Peter Jennings, who has been on ABC’s “World News Tonight” since 1982.

Koppel began working for ABC in 1963, serving as a foreign correspondent for the network. He started working for the Nightline program in March 1980. The program, started in 1979, was created to provide nightly news updates on the Iran hostage crisis.

Koppel is 65 years old and has a daughter named Andrea Koppel, who is the CNN correspondent to the Department of State. He says he has no plans to retire, but he is looking into other projects. Koppel received numerous awards for journalism, including 41 Emmy awards.