Tuesday, March 1, 2005

A suicide car bombing in al Hilla, south of Baghdad, has killed 125 people, mostly Iraqi applicants for police and army waiting for medical exams becoming the worst single event since the initial invasion. At nearly the same time another car bomb exploded in Musayyib, 30km north of Hilla.

The attack occurred about 8:30 a.m. local time Monday, in a crowd of mostly Shi’a recruits applying for positions with the country’s security forces, and as citizens were arriving at the nearby outdoor market.

The recruits were waiting for required medical exams at a clinic across from the mayor’s home and the market. Shoppers in the market, men, women and children, were among the dead from the blast.

There are conflicting reports regarding the Musayyib explosion, with some reports indicating only the bomber died and others suggesting a police officer also dying from the blast.

Babil province police released a statement regarding the blast, reporting several arrests were made after but not elaborating further.

Attacks by the insurgency forces appear to have increased in deadliness. Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said Monday at a news conference in Baghdad “the number of casualties is much more than before.”

al Hilla was the scene of a major battle in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with several hundred Iraqi forces reported to have been killed in fierce fighting. The city is now included in the Polish military zone under the occupation of Iraq.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Researchers from Australia’s University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the United Kingdom’s University of York and University of Aberdeen have measured face matching aptitude of 49 Australian passport-issuing officers and compared it against a control group of 38 students from UNSW. In the test given to both groups, both had a roughly 20% error rate. The study “Passport Officers’ Errors in Face Matching” was published in PLOS ONE this Monday.

Previous psychological research has shown difficulty of deciding if two photographs are of the same stranger or of two different unfamiliar people. As coauthoring psychologist Dr David White says, “Despite this, photo-ID is still widely used in security settings. Whenever we cross a border, apply for a passport or access secure premises, our appearance is checked against a photograph”.

In the person-to-photo test, 30 officers —with mean age 48.0, 21 of them female— in Sydney Passport Office, during a normal working day, had to compare photograph (presented for up to ten seconds) to the person present. 34 students, 17 of each gender, were recruited as ‘applicants’ for the identification task. The person-to-photo test could not be given to a control group because it was not possible to bring back the ‘applicants’ to repeat the test.

ID cards were generated, genuine and ‘fraudulent’, for each ‘applicant’. Photographs of the ‘applicants’ were just a few days old. Each applicant’s ‘fraudulent’ photo was subjectively chosen for greatest similarity to their genuine photo.

The ‘applicant’ did not know whether the ID they presented was genuine or ‘fraudulent’, to avoid giving any cues to the passport officers. The passport offers rejected 6% of the genuine photos and accepted 14% of the ‘fraudulent’ ones, for 10% wrong decisions overall.

As coauthor Rob Jenkins, a psychologist at the University of York, said: “This level of human error in Australian passport office staff really is quite striking, and it would be reasonable to expect a similar level of performance at UK passport control. […] At Heathrow Airport alone, millions of people attempt to enter the UK every year. At this scale, an error rate of 15 per cent would correspond to the admittance of several thousand travellers bearing fake passports”.

One week later, 30 officers in Sydney Passport Office took the short version of Glasgow Face Matching Test (GFMT); 28 were participants from the person-to-photo test, and two were replacements for officers from the earlier test who were absent from work the day of the second test. GFMT performance predicted performance on the person-to-photo test for mismatches, but not for matches. The researchers suggested this could be explained by an upper limit on how accurate person-to-photo match trials can be.

The face matching accuracy was found to be independent of experience and training. As Dr David White says, “passport officers did not perform better, despite their experience and training. They made a large number of errors, just like the untrained university students we tested”.

Two years later, the photo-to-photo test was conducted, with images supplied by 21 ‘applicants’ from the person-to-photo test. 27 passport officers —mean age 45.5, 10 of them participants from the person-to-photo test, 22 of them female— as well as 38 volunteers —mean age 18.9, 26 of them female— compared photos taken recently to photos either from two years earlier or from official identification documents. All variations on the trials taken together produced 84 trials, ordered randomly. The testing was again done at the Sydney Passport Office, without time restriction, to encourage accurate response.

A possible solution of the problem is recruitment of staff with high face-matching accuracy, as Dr David White notes: “But we observed very large individual differences. Some passport officers were 100 per cent accurate. This suggests security could be significantly improved by using aptitude tests to select staff for jobs involving photo-ID checks. Because of this study, the Australian Passport Office now sets face-matching tests when recruiting staff and when selecting facial comparison experts”.

Match accuracy tested lower with official identification photos than with two-year-old photos taken by researchers; average error was 29.1%, with volunteers especially inaccurate on the official identification matches. Mismatch average error was 10.6%. Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has stated passport photo specifications comply fully with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards.

Another solution Dr David White mentioned is using multiple photographs: “One of the more recent papers we’ve released shows that if you have multiple images — not just a single snapshot — there are quite large gains in performance”.

As coauthor Professor Mike Burton of the University of Aberdeen says: “There is a great emphasis on a passport image to fit all purposes but people often comment on the fact that their passport photo looks nothing like them […] It seems strange that we expect a single passport shot to encompass a person and allow us to consistently recognise them. Could there in fact be an argument for our passports to contain a multitude of images, taken at different angles, in different lighting and formats?”

The research is supported by the Australian Passport Office within Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and also funded by the Australian Research Council.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

On Sunday, Disney’s Zootopia won the Oscars award for the Best Animated Feature Film at the 89th Academy Awards ceremony held at Los Angeles. Pixar’s animated short Piper won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film and Disney’s The Jungle Book won for Visual Effects.

Others competing with Zootopia in the category were Kubo and the Two Strings, My Life as a Zucchini, The Red Turtle, and Disney’s Moana. This was the first Oscar for directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore who were previously nominated for, respectively, Bolt and Wreck-It Ralph.

In the acceptance speech, director Byron Howard said, “About five years ago, almost six now, […] we got this crazy idea of talking about humanity with talking animals in the hopes that, when the film came out, it would make the world just a slightly better place.” The Disney movie addresses several social problems such as racism, sexism, prejudice, stereotyping, and fear. The New York Times said the parental guidance (PG) rated movie was “Funny, smart, thought-provoking — and musical, too.”

Before announcing the award, Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal said, “As a Mexican, as a Latin-American, as a migrant worker, as a human being, I’m against any form of wall that wants to separate us.” The movie was released in March, during the 2016 US presidential race.

In an interview with Variety, the directors of Zootopia said movies about bias and discrimination haven’t been Disney’s main focus, but during its production, “Things were not great in the world. […] It was more like we had our finger on something important right now and we really need to do our best to portray this as honestly as we can. Then with the election and the campaign, the real move towards governing by fear […] I don’t think we could have predicted it any closer with this film.”

With this win, the Walt Disney Company has won nine out of ten Best Animated Feature Film Oscars in the last decade, with Pixar Animation Studio winning six out of them. Zootopia also won Best Animated Film at the Annie Awards and the Golden Globe Awards.

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

In February 2017, the Iranian Chess Federation announced two teenage chess players, Dorsa Derakhshani and her younger brother Borna Derakhshani, were banned from representing the national team. The federation announced their decision although Dorsa Derakhshani had previously decided and informed the chess federation she did not wish to play for Iran.

Dorsa Derakhshani is currently 21 years old and holds the International Master (IM) as well as Woman Grand Master (WGM) titles. Her brother, Borna, plays for the English Federation and holds the FIDE Master title.

Dorsa Derakhshani was banned since she did not wear a hijab, an Islamic headscarf, while competing at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival in January 2017. Under the laws of Islamic Republic of Iran, hijab is a mandatory dress code. Her brother Borna Deraskhsani was banned for playing against Israeli Grand Master (GM) Alexander Huzman at the same tournament. Iran does not recognise the existence of Israel, and previously, Irani athletes have avoided playing against Israeli athletes.

Mehrdad Pahlavanzadeh, the president of the country’s chess federation, explained the decision to ban the players saying, “As a first step, these two will be denied entry to all tournaments taking place in Iran and in the name of Iran, they will no longer be allowed the opportunity to be present on the national team.” ^{((fa))Farsi language: ?????? ????? ?? ??? ??? ?? ??? ????? ?? ?? ???? ???????? ?? ?? ????? ? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ??????? ????? ??????? ? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? ?? ??????? ????.} He further stated, “Unfortunately, something that should not have happened has happened and our national interest is paramount and we have reported this position to the Ministry of Sports.” ^{((fa))Farsi language: ????????? ?????? ?? ????? ????????? ?????? ??? ? ????? ??? ?? ?? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ? ?? ??? ???? ?? ?? ????? ???? ?? ????? ?????.}

IM Dorsa Derakhshani, who currently studies at Saint Louis University in the United States and plays for the United States Chess Federation, discussed her chess career, time in Iran and the 2017 controversy, and her life in Saint Louis with a Wikinews correspondent.

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

The roof of Notre Dame cathedral in French capital Paris caught fire yesterday. The spire and at least part of the roof, and at least part of the wooden frame, collapsed. According to officials, the two bell towers were saved.

The fire reportedly started at about 19:00 local time (1700 UTC). Reportedly over 400 firefighters participated in extinguishing the blaze and were still working as of midnight. Not only did they put out the fire but they continued to cool the structure after the fire was gone to reduce the possibility of further damage.

Officials cleared the area around the cathedral.

The French Civil Security service said water bombing by aircraft was disallowed as it might have caused additional damage to the monument.

As of late yesterday, the fire’s cause had not been officially stated. President Emmanuel Macron cancelled an address he was to have given during the evening and instead went to the scene.

Renovation work was ongoing in the building before the fire began. The world-famous cathedral, completed in the 13th century, is one of the most well-known monuments in France.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Wikinews held an exclusive interview with Jeremy Hanke, editor of MicroFilmmaker Magazine. The magazine, which is free to read online, was started as a resource for the low budget moviemaker and features book, independent film, equipment and software reviews as well as articles on film distribution, special effects and lighting.

He says that one of the goals of the magazine is to “connect low-budget filmmakers via a feeling of community, as many…..often compete so viciously against one another in film festivals for coveted “shots” with Hollywood, that they can quickly forget their similarities.”

When asked if films made on a shoestring budget can really compete with those made for millions of dollars, he replied, “no…yes…and absolutely. Allow me to explain.” And so he does in the interview below.

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.