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Bahamas Police Chief Opposes Cops In Public Schools, and Legalizing Gaming For Locals
Related to country: Bahamas

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Top Cop rejects placing police in schools:
By CANDIA DAMES, NG News Editor -
Nassau, Bahamas:


Acting Commissioner of Police Reginald Ferguson expressed opposition to placing police officers in schools, and was against legalizing gaming for Bahamians, when he appeared before the House Select Committee on Crime this week, but he voiced support for capital punishment.

"I really don't agree with policemen in the schools," said Ferguson during the committee hearing at the British Colonial Hilton. "I think if we get to the point where we have to put policemen in the schools, if we determine that's our only salvation, I think it is an indictment on us."

The acting commissioner suggested that placing policemen in schools would give the impression that a police camp or police state exists.

What is needed, he said, is better collaboration between parents and teachers, and he added that administrators ought to have autonomy to deal with disciplinary matters.

Ferguson said the police are currently working with school officials to address security concerns, although officers are not stationed on school campuses.

Committee Chairman Dr. Bernard Nottage, who is the leader of Opposition Business in the House of Assembly, asked Ferguson how a police presence would threaten the autonomy of teachers.

The acting commissioner said, "I think the presence of police on a campus almost automatically interferes in an adverse way." He said police officers are authority figures, more so than teachers.

"And so, it provides that kind of conflict," Ferguson added.

The issue of police officers on school campuses had been a controversial one in the months before and after last year's general election, with former Prime Minister Perry Christie repeatedly touting the benefits of having officers stationed on campuses, and Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham voicing objections to it.

While Christie once brought a large assortment of weapons confiscated from students to the House of Assembly to support his case, Ingraham has said police officers are not baby-sitters and should not be in schools. With a change in government came a change in the policy of school policing, which was abandoned.

Ferguson said Wednesday that there is school policing in the United States, but he said The Bahamas shouldn't put police in schools just because other people do it.

On the issue of legalizing gambling for Bahamians, Ferguson said he is against it. He was responding to a question asked by Kennedy MP Kenyatta Gibson, who is a former chairman of the Gaming Board. Gibson, the only independent member of Parliament, has repeatedly stated his support for a national lottery. He repeated it during Wednesday's hearing when he questioned the acting commissioner.

"There's a school of thought to legalize," Ferguson acknowledged. "I don't agree that we should." He said he could not comprehend how anyone would want to gamble their hard earned money.

"I do not believe that we as a people, as a nation, ought to be [gambling]," Ferguson added, saying that was his personal view.

He insisted that the police do conduct regular raids of numbers houses, but told the committee, "We seem to be the villain whenever we take such action."

The prime minister said in Parliament several months ago, that he had expressed a view to the police commissioner that perhaps gambling should be legalized for Bahamians. His statements in this regard had re-ignited a long-running debate. On the issue of capital punishment, the acting commissioner said while he did not know whether it was a deterrent, he knows it is punishment for murderers.

"From that perspective," he said, "I think we need to carry out capital punishment."

The last hanging in The Bahamas took place in January 2000, when David Mitchell met his fate at the gallows.

September 7, 2008 | 9:54 PM Comments  0 comments



Geomagnetic field: when will compass fail?
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MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kislyakov) - The recent trouble with the ISS, caused by simple computer virus capable of stealing logins and passwords for computer games only, was minor compared to possible environmental changes that could make space flights impossible. This could also cripple aviation and television, and even put terrestrial life at risk.

It's about the Earth's geomagnetic field, changing rapidly and frequently. Scientists from the Institute for Geomagnetism at the Russian Academy of Sciences say the Earth's magnet poles are gradually drifting towards the Equator, with the field intensity falling slowly, but steadily. The latter was considered to reach zero point in about 2,000 years, which would be a disaster for living organisms. The rate of changes happening to the planet's liquid core (movement of the liquid and the solid parts of the Earth's core generate an electric potential, making the planet a sort of an electric generator - A.K.), however, could mean that the polarity shift is going to happen much sooner.

If a hundred years ago somebody said that the South and the North could switch places, he would be definitely taken to a mental hospital. Nevertheless, as early as 1906, it was revealed that in the past magnetisation of some rocks was opposite to that of the present day, making it clear that some time ago it was different from the modern time.

In 2001, an international polar expedition revealed that in the recent seven years the North magnetic pole shifted around 300 km (186.4 miles). Currently, it is drifting 40 km (24.85 miles) a year from the Canadian Arctic shelf towards Russia's Severnaya Zemlya islands. Scientists predict the North Pole could eventually be found in South Atlantic. An extensive anomaly area with the magnetic field intensity at around 60% of the predicted value shows the forecast is likely to score.

In the recent 20 years, the planet's magnetic field intensity has decreased by 1.7%, and in South Atlantic by 10%. In the last two hundred years, the Earth's magnetic field has seen a 10% decrease in intensity.

What is the danger, after all? Russian scientists say changes in the magnetic field would lead to the anti-radiation protection falling, with space flights becoming impossible and energy-dependent systems, including mobile phones and satellites, failing. Then, solar and space radiation would affect the genome of the organisms inhabiting the Earth, causing some of them to become extinct, and others to have a much larger per cent of mutations. Taking into account the solar flares, accompanied by extremely powerful electrojet currents, life is likely to become impossible on Earth before the full magnetic field collapses.

Sounds terrible. But may be there's no need to dramatise and we will not face giant blood-thirsty killer ants from Hollywood horror movies? May be. Recent reports say that in the last 90 million years, the magnetic poles changed around every 500,000 years, with no total extinction of mass genetical mutations of living organisms taking place and the atmosphere remaining a reliable guarantor of security of the Earth's biosphere.

Equipment, created by the human genius and becoming his incorruptible prison ward, would have it harder.

The above mentioned processes are especially hazardous for computer systems, which are vital for the modern economy. Even today, magnetic storms caused by solar activity inflict huge losses to mankind. A decrease in the Earth's magnetic field intensity would boost the power of magnetic storms and therefore cripple flight connection, with avionics failing.

Besides that, any flight by plane would be dangerous to man. Today, in the low-pressure upper atmosphere, the effect of radiation is becoming more marked. In 2000, a Euro Commission directive relegated pilots and flight attendants to high risk jobs. The geomagnetic field keeps protecting us during flights so far, but what lies ahead?

On the other hand, scientists haven't established so far, if the changes happening to the geomagnetic field are reversible. Nobody has ever found out why the Earth's history has seen times when the magnet poles remained unshifted as long as 50 million years. May be, things will turn out well anyway?


rian.ru

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

16:50 | 05/ 09/ 2008