Business

According to St. Johns County Sheriff's Office in Julington Creek, Florida ten homes had to be temporarily evacuated after a suspicious package was left on a doorstep of a home on West Pleasant Place in the city and featured a photo of the skyline of New York City and the former World Trade Center towers. "We have a Sept. 11 scene - a scene of New York City prior to Sept. 11. After that fact, we're not going to too many specifics about the device itself, certainly we'll let ATF and our investigators look at that," said Chuck Mulligan, St. John

In February of 2006, the Savarino Services Construction Corp. proposed the construction of a seven million dollar hotel on Elmwood and Forest Avenues in Buffalo, New York. In order for the hotel to be built, at least five properties containing businesses and residents would have to be destroyed. It was not certain whether the properties were owned by Savarino or by the landlord Hans Mobius. The hotel was designed by Karl Frizlen of the Frizlen Group, and is planned to be a franchise of the Wyndham Hotels group. Elmwood Avenue is known by the c

Valence Media, the parent company behind popular BitTorrent index site TorrentSpy, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), alleging that the organization hired a hacker to break into TorrentSpy's servers and steal private information. The lawsuit, which Valence Media and various employees filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, charges the MPAA with conspiracy, unlawful business practices, misappropriation of trade secrets and violations of the California I

A jury in Houston found Former Enron Corp. CEOs Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling guilty of 6 kinds of white-collar crime on May 25. Lay was convicted of all ten counts against him, while Skilling was convicted of only nineteen of the charged twenty-eight counts. The variety of charges on which both men were convicted was astonishing; conspiracy, wire fraud, false statements to banks and auditors, and others. Both men now face many years in prison. Outside the courtroom, Skilling continued to proclaim his innocence. "Obviously, I'm disapp

On Tuesday Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer (Division of Mayo, Liberal) told parliament that the government has received fresh reports of violence in East Timor. Mr. Downer told the Australian House of Representatives that he has received fresh reports of violence erupting in parts of the East Timorese capital, Dili, as well as other parts of the nation. According to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), there were shootouts near Becora and Fatuahi on Tuesday involving the East Timorese milita

When Australian Prime Minister John Howard speaks to Ireland's Dail (lower house) later today Irish Time up to six members will not be in attendance to protest Australia's involvement in the invasion of Iraq. Joe Higgins, one of the members who will dissent from parliament for Mr Howard's speech called him a xenophobe and warmonger. "I would describe him as xenophobic, as a warmonger, as an anti-trade union representative of Australian and indeed world big business," he said. Mr Howard said that the boycott plans were an example of democracy

Israeli troops have captured Ibrahim Hamad, the leader of the military wing of the Islamic Group Hamas in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Israel accuses the 41-year-old Hamad (who has headed the Izzedine al- Qasam brigades in the West Bank since 2003) of masterminding a string of suicide bombings including attacks on cafes and universities in Jerusalem. Hamas, which has launched some of the biggest attacks against Israel, declared an informal truce 15 months ago. Since then, Hamas also won the palestinian parliamentary elections in January of t

The Australian Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, has praised supermarket shoppers and operators for cutting three billion plastic bags from circulation during the past two years. He said a report compiled by the Australian National Retailers Association, representing major supermarkets, showed that by the end of last year supermarkets had reduced their annual use of lightweight, single-use bags by 45 per cent compared with 2002. "This is an enormous achievement by shoppers and supermarket management and a clear d

The Bombay Stock Exchange Senstitive Index (Sensex) crashed 826 points and the National Stock Exchange's index (Nifty) 246 in what was the largest ever intra-day drop in the their histories. At the end of day's trade, the Sensex closed at 11,391 and the Nifty at 3,388. The market breadth is also negative - 2081 shares have declined, with only 336 stocks advancing. Analysts speculated that the reason for this drop was that the U.S. CPI number, which was released yesterday, was above expectations. This, coupled with weaknesses observed in the Lo

Update: He has just been offered $4000. This was done through the New Zealand radio station, ZM which gave him $20,000 of advertising after he spoke on their station, Friday. Original Story -- Nelson man Shane Torrance is trying to sell his leg that got amputated because of diabeties for $3000 (NZD) to help his daughter, who also has diabetes. He posted it on TradeMe (http://www.trademe.co.nz) but it was removed within a couple of hours of it first appearing online. It is against TradeMe's terms and conditions to buy and sell body parts on th

Michael Ryan, a messenger at the office of the prime minister, has been identified as the mole who leaked confidential papers to Telecom. The leaked papers were detailing the plan for the government to unbundle the local loop. It was to be released on Thursday with the 2006 budget, but since Telecom, a publicly traded company, found out they decided to release it early. Michael Ryan, May 2, was told to shred a document, but instead of doing that he took it and gave it to Telecom's Group Financial Controller Peter Garty, a close friend. He ga

PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital, Portuguese for First Command of the Capital City) criminals have been backing several attacks against security forces in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Since Friday, there have been 81 deaths: 22 military and 6 civil policemen, 8 prison personnel, 3 city guards and 4 civilians have been targeted. 180 attacks against personnel, police departments, busses and banks have been recorded. In the meantime, there have been 53 prison riots across São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul and Paraná, with hostages. There is no c