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E-Mail Scams on the Rise Local Priest Subject of Hoax Asking for Money
Si tratta di :Bufale e Hoax
Aug. 2–NEWBURYPORT — An e-mail sent to hundreds of locals asking for financial help for a Newburyport priest is a hoax, but such scams are becoming increasingly common, and many people are falling for them.
The Rev. Paul Berube of the Immaculate Conception Parish was quite confused earlier this week when he started receiving calls and e-mails asking if he were OK and where money could be sent.
In the world of cyberspace and frequent scams, it didn’t take the senior priest in residence long to figure out he had fallen victim.
“Apparently some hacker got into my Hotmail account and got ahold of the 450 names in my address book,” he said. “They sent out a letter saying I was in London and I needed funds to get back home.”
Though it is the first time Newburyport police have seen anything specifically targeting Berube, the scams are all too common, said Inspector Brian Brunault, who targets computer crime.
“This type of scam is very common, in the sense that someone is in need of help, they need money to assist them, and they wish to have the money transferred by Western Union,” Brunault said. “These types of e-mails especially prey on the elderly who have access to computers, but with limited knowledge.”
Berube’s e-mail, sent from his account, says he is currently traveling in Europe as part of a program called “Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS and Lack of Education Program.”
The letter went on to say he would be traveling through three major countries in Europe and had misplaced his wallet containing all his money and valuables.
The hacker then asked for a “soft loan,” so Berube could get home and provided a London address where money could be wired to via Western Union.
“I have been getting so many calls,” Berube said. “Most people are caught between the head and the heart; the heart wants to help but the head knows I’m not doing anything in London.”
These scams often work.
“It’s awful,” Newburyport Lt. Richard Siemasko said. “People that you don’t think would fall for them do.”
As soon as Berube realized the scam, he contacted local authorities.
“I have been on the phone with Hotmail for four days,” Berube said. “The problem is you never talk to human beings so it’s taken me that long to straighten things out.”
Last night, e-mails went out from the real Berube explaining the situation and assuring his friends and parishioners he is all right.
“It’s amazing really how many people were caught between heart and head,” Berube said. “I got an e-mail from a man whose wedding I celebrated more than 10 years ago who was in London on business. He asked for my hotel address so he could come pay my bill.”
Berube said the next few days will be spent finding a new server for his e-mail, but he is glad people are aware of the scam and hopes no one else is a victim.
“I am sorry to all these people that this happened,” Berube said. “I even left a message on my answering machine. I appreciate everyone’s concern.”
Brunault said people should be wary of such e-mails, even if they appear to be asking for help for someone they know.
“Everything on the Internet should be suspect unless you know the person you are dealing with, possibly through phone calls, in person or through mutual friends and family,” he said. “If you didn’t ask for it, you don’t need it — delete it.”
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Source: The Daily News of Newburyport
Somalia/ Unicef lancia l’allarme sulle condizioni dei bambini
Somalia/ Unicef lancia l’allarme sulle condizioni dei bambini
Uccisi 7 minori in una settimana; spesso arruolati nel conflitto
“L’attuale contesto di conflitto, spostamento e insicurezza nel sud e nel centro della Somalia ha un impatto enormemente negativo sul benessere psico-sociale e sullo sviluppo di bambini e ragazzi”, ha dichiarato il rappresentante Unicef in Somalia, Christian Balslev-Olesen. Il Fondo Onu denuncia anche il reclutamento dei bambini e la loro partecipazione al conflitto. Insieme ad altre agenzie, l’Unicef ha lanciato una campagna contro l’arruolamento dei minori e ha iniziato a lavorare nelle comunità locali, attraverso reti di protezione dei bambini, per monitorare e denunciare eventuali violazioni contro i minori. “Tuttavia, il funzionamento di queste reti è ostacolato dal peggioramento delle condizioni di sicurezza nella regione e dagli attacchi subiti dagli operatori umanitari, che stanno impedendo il necessario accesso umanitario”, ha aggiunto Balslev-Olesen.
L’Unicef ha lanciato un nuovo appello a tutte le parti coinvolte perchè si rispetti la legge internazionale, tutelando i diritti dei bambini e garantendo l’accesso agli aiuti umanitari. L’Agenzia Onu ha annunciato la scorsa settimana di aver intensificato le operazioni di assistenza per garantire aiuti alimentari a oltre 50.000 minori con meno di cinque anni. Una recente ricerca condotta dall’Unità di analisi per la sicurezza alimentare in Somalia ha evidenziato un incremento dell’11% del tasso di malnutrizione negli ultimi sei mesi. “Fino ad oggi siamo stati fortunati perchè siamo stati fortemente sostenuti dai nostri donatori – ha detto Balslev-Olesen – tuttavia, a causa del recente incremento dei tassi di malnutrizione e della necessità di garantire assistenza umanitaria in tempi rapidi, ci servono più fondi per continuare e ampliare i nostri programmi in maniera efficace”.
Hoax call delays response to old people’s flats fire
Si tratta di :News
Bexhill’s full-time fire crew had turned out to an abandoned call which had claimed there was a fire in Old Town when the genuine call was received.
Retained firefighters downed-tools at their day-time jobs and responded as did a full-time crew from Bohemia Road, St Leonards.
They found that food left on a stove in a flat at Glovers Court, Glovers Lane, Sidley, had overheated, filling the flat with smoke.
Four firefighters had to don breathing apparatus to get into the flat and deal with last Thursday lunch-time’s fire.
Two terriers rescued from the smoke-filled flat were successfully revived using oxygen from the firefighters’ breathing apparatus supply.
By the time Bexhill full-time crew arrived from the hoax call colleagues were beginning to clear the smoke from the flat with a positive-pressure ventilator.
East Sussex Fire and Rescue warns that hoax calls are no laughing matter and can cost lives.
Source: http://www.bexhillobserver.net/news/Hoax-call-delays-response-to.4349496.jp
Bexhill Observer – News 10:54 1-Aug-08
il mistero di Montauk
Uno scherzo ben orchestrato o un mostro venuto da chissà dove? Le foto di una mostruosa creatura trovata morta, e per metà in decomposizione, su una spiaggia di New York, fanno impazzire il web. È un cane? Una tartaruga senza guscio? Un esperimento andato male? O solo una campagna di marketing virale? Certo è che la creatura ha già un nome: mostro di Montauk. In questo momento, decine di migliaia di navigatori americani stanno navigando compulsivamente su Google per trovare qualche informazione sul fenomeno web del momento. Una vera mania scatenata da un paio di immagini che pubblichiamo e che inquadrano una creatura con quattro zampe, corpo possente da bestia, denti acuminati.
da: http://unionesarda.ilsole24ore.com/mondo/?contentId=35710
Le foto di una strana “creatura” trovata su una spiaggia di New York hanno scatenato in rete una ridda di ipotesi: cane, tartaruga senza guscio, esperimento genetico o più semplicemente scherzo fatto con Photoshop?
le foto di una “creatura” trovata su una spiaggia di new york scatenano ipotesi fantasiose
Il mostro di Montauk fa impazzire il web
È un cane? Una tartaruga senza guscio? Un esperimento andato male? O solo una campagna di marketing virale?
«Montauk monster»: ecco quello che decine di migliaia di navigatori americani digitano compulsivamente in Google per trovare qualche informazione sul fenomeno web del momento. Una vera mania scatenata da un paio di immagini che inquadrano una “creatura” misteriosa ritrovata sulla spiaggia di Montauk, a Long Island (New York).
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MARKETING – Un essere dall’aspetto vagamente demoniaco, un po’ cane e un po’ rapace, sul quale si sono buttati a pesce i teorici della cospirazione, che su Internet vanno a nozze. Il blogger che per primo ha pubblicato la foto ha subito sottolineato che il “mostro” è stato trovato non lontano dalla “Plum Island Animal Research Facilities”, struttura del governo americano che si occupa di malattie animali. In breve il caso sembrava chiuso con l’ipotesi più ragionevole, quella di uno scherzo legato a una campagna di marketing virale per una nuova serie animata di Cartoon Network. Ma la tv ha negato decisamente, chiudendo la pista.
URBAN LEGEND – D’altronde l’origine stessa delle immagini è tipica delle leggende metropolitane. «Ero a una festa questo fine settimana e ho incontrato una coppia che era disorientata da questa foto». I soliti non meglio precisati “amici” che alimentano tutte le “urban legend” (una tv locale ha poi intervistato tre amiche che sostengono di aver scattato le immagini in questione). Diverse ipotesi restano in pista al momento, ma nessuna sembra essere del tutto convincente: un cane, una tartaruga senza guscio, un procione, una nutria. Oltre a quelle più fantasiose (un esperimento su animali andato male, un gargoyle, un alieno) e al suggerimento più sensato (la “photoshoppata”), che resta in cima alla lista. La caccia alla verità resta aperta.
Paolo Ottolina
01 agosto 2008
fonte corriere della sera
AGGIORNAMENTO QUI
Man Is Accused of an Internet Hoax
Si tratta di :News
A New York City man who claimed in an apparent Internet video hoax that he had poisoned millions of bottles of baby food because he wanted to kill black and Hispanic children was arrested on Thursday, the authorities said.
The man, Anton Dunn, caused a video to be posted on YouTube on April 20, Manhattan prosecutors said. In it, he said that he had poisoned bottles of Gerber baby food and that he could not be caught, the authorities said.
Gerber and the Food and Drug Administration found no evidence of tampering. Prosecutors said Gerber received complaints expressing alarm about the safety of its products after people saw the video.
Mr. Dunn is charged with sending threats in interstate commerce and falsely claiming to have tampered with a consumer product.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/nyregion/01hoax.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin
Debate in Italy over euthanasia issue
Si tratta di :News
The issue of euthanasia has sparked strong debate in the Italian parliament as an Italian court on 7 July granted a man’s request to disconnect the feeding tube of his daughter, who had been in a vegetative state for 16 years.
Eluana Englaro was 20 years old when she went into a vegetative state following a car accident in 1992.
Two years later doctors called her condition irreversible.
She had been kept in a hospital and fed artificially in the northern city of Lecco.
Her father sought for more than 10 years to have her feeding tube removed, insisting that was her wish.
At the beginning of July, an appeals court in Milan granted his appeal, on the grounds that the vegetative state was irreversible and that her father was trying to conform to her will.
He said that coincidentally his daughter had visited a friend who was in a similar condition shortly before her accident.
On that occasion, she expressed the will to refuse treatment, should she find herself in similar condition.
Italy does not allow euthanasia, but patients have a right to refuse treatment.
State prosecutors could appeal Milan court’s ruling to Italy’s highest court within 60 days, but a previous verdict, which in 2007 gave legal guardians the chance to decide on treatment refusal, makes any appeal very unlikely.
While the judiciary case is still open, the Italian Senate is debating Englaro’s case.
Government parties and several Catholic senators are collecting signatures from parliament members against the Milan court decision.
The Senate could shortly vote to ask the Constitutional Court to rule on a potential conflict among Italian Parliament and the highest court.
The Milan ruling immediately drew criticism from the Vatican, which is opposed to euthanasia and says life must be defended from conception to natural death.
Domenico delle Foglie, spokesman of “Science and Life,” an anti euthanasia association close to the Catholic position, told AP Television that “the most serious match that it is being played in this context has to do with the euthanasia issue. In Europe all the countries that approved laws on living will, then opened the path to euthanasia. It deals with the matter if in Italy, either in a legislative prospective or in a cultural prospective, people want to approve euthanasia.”
The issue has come to the forefront of the Italian debate in recent years, after the case of a paralyzed man, Piergiorgio Welby, who had publicly sought to die and got his wish in December 2006 when a doctor disconnected his respirator.
The case split the nation – anti-euthanasia campaigners and some conservative politicians described the death of Welby as murder.
Supporters of the right-to-die campaign welcomed what they said was a suspension of an insistent medical treatment that conformed to the patient’s will.
The Catholic Church denied Welby a religious funeral.
“In Eluana Englaro’s case, unplugging the artificial feeling device doesn’t mean euthanasia,” said Mina Welby, wife of Piergiorgio and a right-to-die activist.
“It is just a renouncement to a treatment that has became useless. She personally asked not to stay in this vegetative life condition.”
In Italy, patients who are in vegetative state are usually treated at home.
One hospital treating such patients is the San Giovanni Battista Hospital.
This centre, run by the Catholic organisation of the Order of Malta, treats patients with special physiotherapy procedure and neurological stimulation.
According to Fabio Viselli, chief physician of neurological rehabilitation ward of San Giovanni battista hospital, it is very difficult to decide when a vegetative state is irreversible, but in accordance with the Catholic approach of his hospital he wouldn’t stop Eluana’s feeding.
According to Viselli, in Italy are estimated “an average number of cases (vegetative state suffers) on the entire national territory between 1500 and 2500 people, but it is very difficult to assess the gravity of each case and chances of recovery”.
As the debate on euthanasia is dividing public opinion and parliament, Paolo Ravasin, a muscular dystrophy sclerosis suffer and right-to-die activist for Luca Coscioni association declared on camera his living will.
“As soon as I will not be able to eat and drink through my mouth anymore,” said Ravasin, “I refuse any artificial feeding system.”
The issue has also divided opinion in the United States, in the case of Terry Schiavo, an American woman who was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state after her heart stopped in 1990.
Schiavo’s husband wanted her feeding tube removed against the wishes of her parents.
She died in 2005 amid protests outside her hospice after her husband prevailed in the polarising dispute that reached the US Congress, President George W Bush and the US Supreme Court.
Fonte http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080059629
