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Canadian Everest victim warned

أضف تعليق19:34

Canadian Everest victim warned 

Tour company will attempt to recover Shriya Shah-Klorifine's body


Play VideoMore details emerge about the death of a Canadian woman who was climbing Mount Everest
A Toronto woman who died on Mount Everest did not heed warnings for her to turn back, according to the Nepalese tour company who organized her expedition.
Ganesh Thakuri, a guide with Utmost Adventure Trekking, said Shriya Shah-Klorifine, who died on Everest this past Saturday, encountered increased traffic on the mountain, where between 250 and 300 climbers were attempting to reach the summit.
Due to poor weather conditions in the week before the climb, sherpas had only been able to secure one safety rope on the mountain.
"There was only one rope, so there was lots of traffic," said Thakuri. "Sometimes there was lots of traffic, we had to wait 2½ hours for the traffic to pass the route."
Thakuri said he encouraged Shah-Klorifine to turn back and try again for the summit another time but the Canadian climber was too determined to fulfill her dream.
"Myself, I asked her to go back and try next year or some other year," he said. "But she didn’t listen."
Torontonian Shriya Shah-Klorfine, 33, died on her descent from Mount Everest on May 19.

Her decision to push on would prove fatal. On her descent, Shriya Shah-Klorifine, 33, ran out of oxygen bottles and died.



Overcrowding, inexperience a common Everest problem

Sam Wyatt and Steve Curtis, two Vancouver-based climbers who successfully made the summit trek on May 19, were climbing on the north side of Everest and saw the clog of climbers, which included Shah-Klorifine, venturing up the south side.
Even though the north side was less crowded, Juan Polodied, a Spanish climber on Curtis and Wyatt’s expedition, died while trying to reach the summit.
"When someone shows up on the mountain and doesn't have their gear together and doesn't know if their crampons fits their boots, they shouldn't be on Everest," said Curtis. "That was the case with Juan when he showed up."
Reports say sherpas working with Utmost Adventure Trekking will attempt to recover Shah-Klorifine’s body from the mountain later this week but poor weather conditions could make recovery difficult.
Canadian climber Sandra Leduc, who was forced to turn back on May 19 but plans to make another attempt at the summit this weekend

People gather at the start of a protest to mark the 100th day of a students strike in Montrea

أضف تعليق19:32


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People gather at the start of a protest to mark the 100th day of a students strike in Montreal

Mark is hosting live from downtown Montreal tonight where he's covering the student tuition strike. Joining him is student protest organizer Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and Quebec's Immigration and Cultural Communities Minister to explain just what has changed since the strike began, and where it will go from here.
And, today marks one year since the deadly twister devastated the city of Joplin, Missouri. Mark reconnects with one search volunteer who was on the streets immediately after the tornado hit.
Tune in at 8 p.m. ET on CBC News Network.

Two women show their inked fingers after casting their votes in Cairo

أضف تعليق19:32


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Two women show their inked fingers after casting their votes in Cairo. Photo by Fredrik Persson/AP

In one of the deadliest weekends ever on Mount Everest four climbers were killed due to overcrowding. But even after this there are hundreds more lining up to scale the rocky peaks. Tonight Mark asks one climber why he risked everything to make it to the top five times. 

And, one year after Egyptians overthrew the government, they're heading to the polls in the first free presidential elections in the country's history. After fighting for so long for the freedom to elect their leader, will democracy live up to their expectations? We check in with one Egyptian-Canadian in Cairo about how he views the future of Egypt. 

Plus, it's day 101 of the student protests in Montreal and there's no signs of letting up. Thousands of protesters clogged the downtown core last night and by the time the sun rose 100 were arrested in the demonstrations. Politicians say they want to talk with student leaders, but are they ignoring a bigger message being sent from the streets? 

Shareholders sue Facebook

أضف تعليق19:31

Shareholders sue Facebook over botched IPO



Facebook is facing a lawsuit from angry shareholders and multiple probes from regulators over the disappointing handling of its initial public offering last week.
In a suit filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan late Tuesday, a group of Facebook shareholders are suing the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company, claiming insiders were selectively given secret information about the company's true financial projections from underwriters, while retail investors and other investment houses were left in the dark.
"The revised figures were only passed along to some investors who were therefore able to make profits by selling their IPO shares Friday while shares were on the rise," New York law firm Levi & Korsinsky alleges in the suit.
Facebook executives are shown ringing the bell to open Nasdaq trading on Friday. The shares have sunk since opening to the public last week.
Facebook executives are shown ringing the bell to open Nasdaq trading on Friday. The shares have sunk since opening to the public last week. (Reuters)
Morgan Stanley, the investment bank that shepherded the company through its highly publicized initial stock offering last week, is also facing a regulatory probe from the self-policing Financial Industry Regulatory Authority over whether or not the bank selectively withheld information about a negative analyst report ahead of the IPO.
FINRA head Rick Ketchum said the question is "a matter of regulatory concern" for his organization and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Similarly, the top securities regulator for Massachusetts, William Galvin, said his office will subpoena the company to pursue its own investigation of whether Morgan Stanley divulged to only some clients that one of its analysts had cut his revenue estimates for the social media giant.
The bank said late Tuesday that it "followed the same procedures for the Facebook offering that it follows for all IPOs," referring to initial public offerings of stock. It said that its procedures complied with regulations.
The questions about the role played by Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter for the deal, add to the confusion surrounding Facebook's IPO. In the most hotly anticipated stock debut in years, the offering raised $16 billion for the social networking company, valuing it at $104 billion.
"Who would have thought that Morgan Stanley's greatest coup could be their downfall," David Kaufman of Westcourt Capital Corp. in Toronto told CBC News. "One of the fascinating stories in all this is what effect this will have on other Nasdaq-listed tech companies, or other IPOs in the pipeline."
Shares in the Nasdaq itself have dropped more than $2, or 10 per cent, from where they were before Facebook's IPO on Friday, as negative fallout from the underwhelming debut — and a lengthy trading delay on Friday while the exchange struggled to process an order backlog — is dragging on shares.
Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld told shareholders of the exchange's parent company that "clearly we had mistakes within the Facebook listing."
After briefly trading above $42, the IPO plummeted through the trading day on Friday, closing at the IPO price of $38 after a furious defence of the level by lead underwriter Morgan Stanley. Trading Monday and Tuesday saw the shares fall below the $31 level before a slight rebound Wednesday had the stock trading just north of $32.
Some brokerages were still sorting out the aftermath of the trading delay on Tuesday.
"Unfortunately, our clients continue to feel the effects of this in some cases," said Stephen Austin, a spokesman for Fidelity Investments, one of the country's largest brokerages. Fidelity was still waiting for some Facebook stock orders that it placed on Friday to be executed. Fidelity's systems had performed normally, Austin said.
Reuters reported Tuesday that a Morgan Stanley analyst, Scott Devitt, cut his estimate for Facebook's revenue this year to $4.85 billion from more than $5 billion earlier. The news agency reported it was unclear whether Morgan Stanley had told only select clients about the reduced estimate.
Reuters reported that the analyst cut his figures for Facebook while the company's executives, including founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, were shopping the stock to potential investors in the weeks ahead of the IPO, a process known in investing as a road show.

Filing said shift to mobile might limit revenue growth

Morgan Stanley, in its statement, did not specifically address which clients might have been told about a reduced estimate from one of its analysts. It said that "a significant number" of analysts, including those from other firms underwriting the stock issue, had reduced their estimates for Facebook to reflect publicly available information about the company.
That was a reference to a May 9 regulatory filing in which Facebook said a shift by many Facebook users toward mobile devices might limit its revenue growth. Social media companies have struggled to make as much money as they would like from mobile advertising. Advertising accounts for more than 80 per cent of Facebook's overall revenue.
Morgan Stanley also said that revised analyst views were taken into account in setting the stock offering price at $38 per share. Facebook, working with Morgan Stanley, first set a range of $28 to $35 for the offering price, then raised the range to $34 to $38 before setting it at $38 on the night before the IPO.
Reports suggest Facebook's chief financial officer, David Ebersman, along with Morgan Stanley decided to increase the size of the offering by 25 per cent early last week. Selling too many shares at too high a price has the appearance or trying to let insiders cash out at the public's expense. That perception is what has led to the heightened regulatory scrutiny.
"A little understanding of who sold their own shares should have been the signal that something wasn't right," Kaufman said.
When the stock started trading Friday, it jumped several dollars, but quickly fell back toward $38. It never crossed below that level on its first day, and outside analysts said that was probably because Morgan Stanley, eager to avoid the embarrassment of a first-day decline in the stock price, had rushed in with thousands of buy orders at $38.
A spokesman for Facebook Inc., which is based in Menlo Park, Calif., said late Tuesday that the company had no comment.
The SEC had already said on Friday that it was looking into problems surrounding the IPO. On Tuesday, the agency's chairman, Mary Schapiro, said: "I think there is a lot of reason to have confidence in our markets and in the integrity of how they operate, but there are issues that we need to look at specifically with respect to Facebook."

Canadian Pacific

أضف تعليق19:29

Canadian Pacific Railway strike leads to 2,000 layoffs

Federal labour minister gives notice of legislation in case talks don't work out


Canadian Pacific Railway workers went on strike Wednesday just after midnight. Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt says she's got back-to-work legislation ready to go to Parliament if the workers and management can't reach a deal.
Canadian Pacific Railway workers went on strike Wednesday just after midnight. Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt says she's got back-to-work legislation ready to go to Parliament if the workers and management can't reach a deal.

clean-up begins as Japanese tsunami debris bombards Alaskan

أضف تعليق08:19

MONTAGUE ISLAND, Alaska –  An "unprecedented" surge in debris from last year's Japanese tsunami is washing up on Alaska's coastline, environmentalists said Tuesday as they embarked on a major cleanup operation.

Floating material including buoys and Styrofoam has washed up on Montague Island, about 120 miles southeast of Anchorage, in volumes that clearly suggest a wave of debris from the 2011 disaster, AFP reported.

The March 11, 2011, tsunami killed more than 15,000 people and washed parts of cities out to sea.

"The debris found on initial surveys of the island showed an absolutely unprecedented amount of buoys, Styrofoam and other high floating debris," said Patrick Chandler of the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies.

He said debris from Asia has been washing up on Alaska shores for years, but "we have never seen the amount we see now. In the past we would find a few dozen large black buoys, used in Japanese aquaculture, on an outside beach cleanup. Now we see hundreds."
The large-scale clean-up will begin Thursday and take 12 days.

Millions of tonnes of debris are expected to wash up in the coming months and years from the Japanese quake. Researchers in Hawaii have developed computer models to forecast where and when it could come ashore.

A large black float with Japanese lettering, believed to be from the tsunami, was found in January on a beach in Northern California's Humboldt County, The Wall Street Journal reported, with that discovery followed by similar finds by beachgoers in Washington and Oregon.

So far, officials have confirmed tsunami debris in only a few instances. In April, a soccer ball that washed up in Alaska and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle that came ashore in its storage container in British Columbia were both confirmed as having come from the tsunami.

On April 5, an unoccupied fishing trawler that U.S. officials said was cast adrift by the tsunami was sunk by a Coast Guard vessel after it entered Alaskan waters and posed a potential navigation hazard.


21-year-old man to suspected murder of California girl Sierra LaMar say

أضف تعليق08:18


Authorities said Tuesday they have DNA evidence linking a 21-year-old man to the suspected kidnapping and murder of a California girl in what officials called a "purely random" crime.
Police arrested and charged Antolin Garcia-Torres late Monday in the disappearance of 15-year-old Sierra LaMar, who was last seen March 16 leaving her home in Morgan Hill. 
Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said at a Tuesday news conference that Garcia-Torres' DNA was found inside a bag belonging to LaMar. The bag was discovered by investigators within a two-mile radius of the girl's home not long after she disappeared.
Smith said authorities have strong evidence to indicate LaMar was murdered, though her body has not been recovered. She declined to elaborate on the kind of DNA evidence that was found inside the bag. 
"It’s my belief this was purely random," Smith said. "We believe that this is the worst kind of crime -- a stranger abduction of a young girl."
Garcia-Torres, who also lives in Morgan Hill, was arrested Monday at a nearby Safeway store where he is an employee, Fox affiliate KTVU reported. He was booked into Santa Clara County Jail on one count of murder and one count of kidnapping in connection with LaMar's disappearance. 
Garcia-Torres is the owner of the red Jetta that authorities seized last month in their investigation. Smith said Tuesday that authorities also have "physical evidence linking Sierra to his vehicle." 
Smith also said that Garcia-Torres had been under 24-hour surveillance at both his home and the Safeway store since March. He was questioned by police Monday for more than two hours, according to KTVU. 
Smith also revealed that Garcia-Torres is a suspect in three other assaults on women in the Morgan Hill area. Forensic evidence links Garcia-Torres to at least one of them, Smith said. The alleged assaults occurred about three years ago.  
But the family of Garcia-Torres thinks police have the wrong man. His mother, Laura Torres, told the Associated Press that he asked him before his arrest if he had anything to do with LaMar's disappearance, and he said he had not seen or had contact with her.
LaMar, a sophomore at Sobrato High School, has not been seen or heard from since she left her home on the morning of March 16. Authorities believe she was abducted while walking to a school bus stop.
The girl's cellphone was recovered shortly after her disappearance about three-quarters of a mile from her home after police tracked its electronic ping. Police said the last text LaMar sent out was shortly before 7 a.m. the day she disappeared, and it was not a distress text.
The teen's bag also was discovered a couple of miles from her home. A pair of her pants and shirt were found neatly folded inside the Juicy brand bag.
"It was that clothing that was really instrumental in identifying the suspect," Smith said. 
The girl's mother, meanwhile, said Tuesday that she is not giving up hope that her daughter will be found alive. 
"We continue to pray until she is found," Marlene LaMar said at Tuesday's news conference. "Our search is not going to end. As a mother I'm hopeful. Her body has not been found and that gives me hope."

Click for more from KTVU.com



Photoshop fail shows Chinese officials lack

أضف تعليق08:10

Photoshop fail shows Chinese officials lack hover craft


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    Officials from this Chinese province aren't actually inspecting the road. (Yuhan Government Website)
They floated like butterflies, now they are being stung -- for a second year running.
Eleven months after officials in China were ridiculed for some of the worst Photoshop efforts on record, they are at it again.
The Zhejiang Hangzhou Yuhang local government was the butt of jokes around the internet Wednesday, after publishing pictures on their website of officials "floating" over a new landscaping project.
The terrible quality of the work includes one man's legs blending into bushes -- so it looks like he is partly buried in the ground -- and another man hovering above a brick pathway.
It suggests Photoshop skills in China have not developed at all over the past year. In June 2011, pictures on the Huili County website showed officials inspecting a newly completed highway.
Those pictures included a trio of officials hovering over the road and made the local government a laughing stock when the photos went viral.
The cut-and-paste quality of the pictures was made worse by the fact the officials did actually inspect the road but the website decided to use the badly Photoshopped pictures instead.
The Huili County government apologized for the photos and later took them down, but it was all too late.
The picture inspired countless parodies, including mock-ups showing the men on the moon, at the final of 2006 soccer World Cup and surrounded by dinosaurs.

Woman claims she was fired

أضف تعليق08:08

Woman claims she was fired for being 'too hot'







Hot 100 Named: So who is 2012's ?

أضف تعليق08:06

Maxim's Hot 100 Named: So who is 2012's lucky winner?


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    Brooklyn Decker, JWoww and Bar Refaeli all made the Top 100. (Reuters)
Maxim's Hot 100 list was revealed on Tuesday, and among the list of the country's sexiest gals are a few surprises!
A cartoon character comes in at #85. Lois Griffin from 'Family Guy" beat out 15 flesh and blood ladies
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Pippa Middleton was the only royal on the list, but couldn't crack the Top 80.
Miley Cyrus (#68) beat Sophia Vergara (#71) by three slots. (Really?)
Stephen Colbert crashed the all-female party, landing at #69. (Thank you, write-in vote.)
#38 Kelly Kelly has the same first and last names. (Just sayin'.)
Jennifer Love Hewitt made the Top 20 again, but just by the skin of her, well...
And finally ... not a single Victoria's Secret model made Maxim's Top 10 this year. (Law of diminishing returns?)
Check out the gals who round out the Top 10, and see who sits alone atop Maxim Mountain.

US Headed for 'Fiscal Cliff,' Analysts Warn Congress

أضف تعليق08:05



CBO says US likely to fall off 'fiscal cliff' if Bush-era tax cuts allowed to expire


WASHINGTON –  A new government study released Tuesday says that allowing Bush-era tax cuts to expire and a scheduled round of automatic spending cuts to take effect would probably throw the economy into a recession.
The Congressional Budget Office report says that the economy would shrink by 1.3 percent in the first half of next year if the government is allowed to fall off this so-called "fiscal cliff" on Jan. 1 -- and that the higher tax rates and more than $100 billion in automatic cuts to the Pentagon and domestic agencies are kept in place.
There's common agreement that lawmakers will act either late this year or early next year to head off the dramatic shift in the government's financial situation. But if they were left in place, CBO says it would wring hundreds of billions of dollars from the budget deficit that would "represent an additional drag on the weak economic expansion."
CBO projected that the economy would contract by 1.3 percent in the first half of 2013, which would meet the traditional definition of a recession, which is when the economy shrinks for two consecutive quarters.
"Such a contraction in output in the first half of 2013 would probably be judged to be a recession," CBO said.
The economy would rebound at a 2.3 percent growth rate in the second half of the year, however, under CBO projections.
At issue is the full expiration of two rounds of major tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration and automatic spending cuts on the Pentagon and domestic programs that are scheduled to take effect as punishment for the failure of last year's deficit "supercommittee" to produce a deficit-cutting agreement last year.
Last summer's debt and budget agreement imposed almost $1 trillion in cuts to agency budgets over the coming decade and required automatic cuts -- dubbed a sequester in Washington-speak -- of another $1 trillion or so over the coming decade.
The CBO study came as Capitol Hill is hopelessly gridlocked over spending and taxes in advance of the fall elections. The White House and top Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada say they will refuse to act on the expiring tax cuts and automatic spending cuts unless Republicans show greater flexibility on raising taxes.
"If Republicans want to walk away from the bipartisan spending cuts agreed to last August, they will have to work with Democrats to replace them with a balanced deficit reduction package that asks millionaires to pay their fair share," Reid said in a statement.
Republicans are pressing to deal with the problem now. But they're not showing any more flexibility on tax increases.
"You can call this a fiscal cliff. You can call it Taxmageddon as others have done," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "Whatever you call it, it will be a disaster for the middle class. And it will be a disaster for the small businesses that will be the engine of our economic recovery."
The results of the elections will have a lot to do with the ultimate solution, but several top lawmakers predict the current Congress will punt the issue into 2013 for the newly-elected Congress and whoever occupies the White House to deal with.
"CBO observes that simply extending all of our current tax and spending policies will produce unsustainable deficits and debt, which will also send the economy into decline," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the top Democrat on the Budget Committee. "We need to act and we must do so in a balanced way."
CBO is the respected nonpartisan agency of Congress that produces economic analysis and estimates of the cost of legislation.


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Pakistani doctor who helped US in bin Laden

أضف تعليق07:22




PESHAWAR, Pakistan –  A Pakistani doctor who helped the U.S. track down Usama bin Laden was sentenced to 33 years in prison on Wednesday for conspiring against the state, officials said, a verdict that is likely to further strain the country's relationship with Washington.


Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden's presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad where U.S. commandos killed the Al Qaeda chief last May in a unilateral raid. The operation outraged Pakistani officials, who portrayed it as an act of treachery by a supposed ally.


Senior U.S. officials have called for Afridi to be released, saying his work served Pakistani and American interests. But many Pakistani officials, especially those working for the country's powerful spy agency, do not see it that way.


"He was working for a foreign spy agency. We are looking after our national interests," said a Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with the agency's policy.


Afridi's conviction comes at a sensitive time because the U.S. is already frustrated by Pakistan's refusal to reopen NATO supply routes to Afghanistan. The supply routes were closed six months ago in retaliation for American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Afridi was detained sometime after the May 2, 2011, raid, but the start of his trial was never publicized.


He was tried under the Frontier Crimes Regulations, or FCR, the set of laws that govern Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal region. Human rights organizations have criticized the FCR for not providing suspects due process of law. There is no right to legal representation, to present material evidence or cross-examine witnesses.


The verdict was handed down by a Khyber government official in consultation with a council of elders, according to Nasir Khan, a government official in the Khyber tribal area, where the doctor was arrested and tried.


As well as the prison term, Afridi was ordered to pay a fine of about $3,500 and will spend an additional three and half years in prison if he does not, Khan said.
Afridi can appeal the verdict to the FCR commissioner within a period of two months, said Iqbal Khan, another Khyber government official.


The U.S. operation that killed bin Laden severely strained ties with Pakistan. The Pakistani government kicked out U.S. military trainers and limited counterterrorism cooperation with the CIA.


The relationship got even worse in November when the U.S. killed the 24 Pakistani soldiers at two posts along the Afghan border, an attack that Washington said was an accident but the Pakistani army insisted was deliberate.


Pakistan immediately retaliated by closing the NATO supply routes and kicking the U.S. out of a base used by American drones. Before the attack, the U.S and other NATO countries fighting in Afghanistan shipped about 30 percent of their nonlethal supplies through Pakistan. Since then, the coalition has used far more expensive routes through Russia and Central Asia.

The U.S. has pressed Pakistan to reopen the supply line, but negotiations have been hampered by Washington's refusal to apologize for the attack and stop drone strikes in the country as demanded by Pakistan's parliament. Many observers view the latter demand with skepticism because elements within Pakistan's government and military have supported the attacks in the past.


The latest drone strike took place Wednesday, when two missiles hit a compound in Datta Khel Kalai village in the North Waziristan tribal area, killing four suspected militants, said Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.


The U.S. does not discuss the cover CIA drone program in Pakistan in detail.

The Obama administration has expressed regret for the attack on Pakistan's troops, but is not willing to tender an apology out of concern that it could open the president up to attacks by Republicans angry at Pakistan's lack of cooperation on the Afghan war.
Despite its disagreements with the U.S., Pakistan appeared close to reopening the supply routes last week, prompting NATO to invite President Asif Ali Zardari to a major summit earlier this week in Chicago. But negotiations have faltered on Pakistan's demand for much higher transit fees, and the U.S. made its frustration clear at the summit.
President Barack Obama refused to meet one-on-one with Zardari and did not mention Pakistan in the list of countries he thanked in his speech Monday for helping get war supplies into Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, a Senate panel approved a foreign aid budget for next year that slashes U.S. assistance to Pakistan by more than half and threatens further reductions if it fails to open the NATO supply routes.
American lawmakers are also frustrated by suspicions that Pakistan is aiding militants who use its territory to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan -- allegations Islamabad has rejected. There is also lingering resentment over the fact that bin Laden was found hiding deep inside Pakistan.
But the U.S. cannot afford to turn its back on Pakistan entirely.
Pakistan is seen as vital to negotiating a peace deal with the Afghan Taliban and their allies given the country's historical ties with the militants.
The Pakistani government is also keen to repair relations with the U.S., partly to receive over a billion dollars in American aid it needs to fill out its budget as it looks ahead to national elections scheduled for 2013. But patching up ties is politically sensitive in a country where anti-American sentiment is rampant.