£62,500 payout for gay airport guard after woman colleague wobbled her breasts at him

A gay man who claimed his feelings had been hurt after a colleague wobbled her breasts at him has been awarded more than £62,500 compensation.

Allwyn Rondeau, 47, received the payout after an employment tribunal ruled that he had suffered discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. The panel heard how in early 2006 colleague Lucy Chilton, then 42, placed the Heathrow security guard’s hand on her breast, then told him he ‘wouldn’t know what to do with a woman anyway’.

The tribunal was also told that she repeated the sentiment to him on a second occasion, this time pressing her body against his and shaking her breasts. He did not initially report the incidents but Miss Chilton reacted to his rejection of her advances by falsely accusing him of inappropriate sexual behaviour. He was ‘frogmarched’ from work, stripped of his pass and suspended.

This claim was rejected after an investigation but when he decided to complain about Miss Chilton’s harassment she was not suspended from security firm G4S. Mr Rondeau successfully sued Miss Chilton and company boss Brian Johnson for discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation for the initial harassment and the different ways in which the two complaints were handled.

Learning of his compensation settlement yesterday Mr Rondeau said: ‘I’m pleased about it but it wasn’t the money that was important.

‘It was justice that I wanted, against her and the management, for what I have been through every day for the past two years.

‘I’m happy but I’m still angry because I know she has not been touched.’ From being a sociable figure who organised evenings out for colleagues, Mr Rondeau has been diagnosed with depression, is on medication and barely leaves his bedroom.

His partner Bernard Shearman, a former London Underground train driver, was medically retired from his job with stress. He is Mr Rondeau’s registered carer at their home in Paignton, Devon, where they moved to sever links with the Heathrow area. The tribunal in Reading in January and February last year heard how Mr Rondeau was also called a ‘batty boy’ at his work at Terminals 1 and 4. Tribunal Judge Richard Byrne said on the subject of how G4S conducted its investigations: ‘Mr Johnson was aware that the claimant was homosexual prior to Lucy Chilton raising a grievance.’

Dr Neil Brener, a consultant psychiatrist at the Priory Hospital, North London, wrote of the effect of events on the claimant: ‘Clearly Mr Rondeau has been through a very traumatic experience.

‘He feels he has been treated like a criminal, even though he has been exonerated.’ He added: ‘This lady’s attitude severely distressed Mr Rondeau and left him quite traumatised.’ A spokesman for G4S Aviation Service said: ‘We can now confirm that the employment tribunal hearing concerning Mr Allwyn Rondeau has been concluded and Mr Rondeau will be receiving compensation. ‘G4S Aviation Service operates to the highest industry standards and will continue to ensure that these high standards are maintained.

‘I can also confirm that Lucy Chilton is the same rank she was at the time of the allegation.’ – dailymail

The company boss, it seems, did not consider that some women make up very spiteful lies when they are rejected. It’s all about respect and it goes both ways.

Texas Financial Firm Accused of Fraud

In Texas, Robert Allen Stanford was just another wealthy financier.

But in the breezy money haven of Antigua, he was lord of an influential financial fief, decorated with a knighthood, courted by government officials and basking in the spotlight of sports and charity events on which he generously showered his fortune.

On Tuesday, his reign was thrown into turmoil as a caravan of cars and trucks carrying federal authorities pulled up to the headquarters of his company, the Stanford Group, to shut down what the regulators described as a “massive ongoing fraud” stretching from the Caribbean to Texas, and around the world.

Unknown is the status of investments in as much as $8 billion in high-yielding certificates of deposit held in the firm’s bank in Antigua, which the Securities and Exchange Commission, in a civil suit, said Mr. Stanford and two colleagues fraudulently peddled to scores of investors.

Also unknown Tuesday were the whereabouts of Mr. Stanford — or Sir Allen, as he became known after the Antiguan prime minister knighted him — whose financial activities on the tiny island had raised eyebrows among American authorities as far back as a decade ago.

Like Bernard L. Madoff, who is accused of operating a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, Mr. Stanford offered investment opportunities that sounded almost too good

to be true: promises of lucrative returns on relatively safe certificates of deposit that were often more than twice the going rate offered by mainstream good to be true: promises of lucrative returns on relatively safe certificates of deposit that were often more than twice the going rate offered by mainstream banks.

…

Stanford Group said it could pay higher rates on the C.D.’s because of the consistently high returns it made on investor assets. And it claimed to be safe, thanks to monitoring by a team of more than 20 analysts and yearly audits of the investments by regulators in Antigua.

None of that was true, according to the S.E.C.’s complaint. …

The current S.E.C. charges stem from an inquiry opened in October 2006 after a routine exam of Stanford Group, according to Stephen J. Korotash, an associate regional director of enforcement with the agency’s Fort Worth office.

He said the S.E.C. “stood down” on its investigation at the time at the request of another federal agency, which he declined to name, but resumed the inquiry in December 2008.

via Texas Financial Firm Accused of Fraud – NYTimes.com.

Here is a list of federal agencies. Was it the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration? The Marine Mammal Commission? Hmm.

What would you do with a billion dollars if you had to spend it on something selfish? Buy an island? Travel to space? Find someone? Build something?

French city panics after nuclear alert siren malfunction

Residents of the French city Strasbourg panicked Tuesday after sirens used to warn of impending nuclear attack or natural catastrophe malfunctioned and wailed for 90 minutes.

The eastern city’s fire and rescue service switchboard was flooded with about 600 calls during that time, 10 times more than normal, officials and France Telecom said, adding that the sirens went off due to a technical hitch.

France’s nationwide emergency warning network is the legacy of the air-raid siren network developed for World War II. It has 4,500 sirens placed around the country which are tested at midday on the first Wednesday of every month.

France Telecom, which runs the system, offered residents of Strasbourg “its apologies for the inconvenience they may have suffered” during Tuesday’s malfunction which affected several districts of the city.

via French city panics after nuclear alert siren malfunction – Expatica.

Synchrotron X-rays unlock secrets of fossils

High-powered X-rays from particle accelerators are helping researchers unlock the mysteries of dinosaurs and ancient documents in three dimensions, say scientists.

Gone are the days when researchers had to dig objects up and crack them open, reported experts this week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) annual meeting in Chicago, USA.

The X-rays show detail non-invasively, which is important for looking at artifacts that are too fragile to excavate, explained Jen Hiller, a speaker at the conference and a scientist at Diamond Light Source, a research company on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, England.

Massive improvement

Synchrotrons were developed for high-energy physics research, but are now allowing scientists to look at the two- and three-dimensional (3-D) structure of fossils, old documents, and works of art.

“These X-rays work a thousand times better than what you could do with a commercial X-ray machine – only a synchrotron can do this,” said Uwe Bergmann, a scientist at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource of Stanford University in California, USA.

Synchrotron X-rays are different from regular X-rays in that they are generated from high-speed electrons as they race around the ring of a particle accelerator, which makes them more powerful and concentrates them into a hair-thin beam.

When used to scan a fossil or other artifact, the rays can even illuminate some of the chemical elements they are made up of, such as calcium or phosphorous.

With the technique, experts can now see chemical elements from the original organism still present in fossils – a remarkable breakthrough. …

via Synchrotron X-rays unlock secrets of fossils | COSMOS magazine.

Gas saver? Pot makes gas gauge read half full

A stash of grass can take the place of a lot of gas, but it won’t do anything for mileage.

A Utah man took his newly acquired used SUV to a mechanic to find out why the gas gauge always read half-full.

The mechanic in Sandy looked inside the gas tank and found about 35 pounds of marijuana in plastic-wrap packages that filled about half of the tank’s volume.

Police estimate the pot is worth about $35,000.

The Nissan Armada has had several different owners and was once a rental car.

Sandy police are trying to figure out who stashed the pot but say the current owner is not a suspect.

Investigators in the town south of Salt Lake City say the drug packs could have been in the tank for months.

via News from The Associated Press.

Confessions of a Guantanamo guard

Detention. Humiliation. Torture. The world can only guess atthe horrors of Camp X-Ray. But now Brandon Neely, a former guard, wants to tell the shocking story of what happened there – and why it shames America. Interview by Almerindo OjedaWe did not receive any kind of special training for working at Guantanamo. Nor did we receive any kind of real training on what would happen once we got there and the detainees starting arriving. No one from the top down in the company knew what was really going on or what to expect. We went out on a trial-and-error basis. As far as the Geneva Conventions, we touched very shortly on that in training. Most of what people knew about them was from their own readings.

The only thing I can recall being told about the detainees that would arrive was that they were captured fighting the Americans in Afghanistan. And that they were known terrorists. And that many of them helped in the planning of the 9/11 attacks. We would be coming face-to-face with the worst people the world had to offer. Our mission would be to guard these terrorists so the United States could get more info on attacks and, possibly, stop more terrorist attacks.

As to us, we talked a lot about the detainees before they arrived. About them and what they had probably been involved in. A lot of us, including myself, were pissed off, and many people were out to get revenge for the havoc the United States had been through in recent months by these people.

But, as the months went on, one or two of us would question what was going on here, the way the detainees were being treated, and if they were actually terrorists or not, but being no ones, and young, and dumb, we never questioned anything further; just did our time until we went home. …

via Confessions of a Guantanamo guard – Americas, World – The Independent.

Arthur C. Clarke’s Monolith Appears in the Forest

If you want to get away from it all and you really don’t want anyone to find you, then the newest concept hotel designed by Swedish firm Tham & Videgard Hansson is for you. You’ll enjoy a wonderful 360 degree view of a beautiful forest just like this one, but no one will be able to see you. That’s right: all you have to do is climb into the invisible tree house hotel and disappear from the world.

How have the architects created this sophisticated game of hide-and-seek, you ask? The answer is in the clever use of mirrors placed on the outside of the aluminum tree house structure. The mirrors reflect the surrounding landscape, camouflaging itself (and you) and tricking probing eyes into thinking that it’s not there. …

To ensure the safety of birds that might unwarily fly into the invisible box, stickers only visible to our avian friends are placed on the mirrored glass walls.

via Arthur C. Clarke’s Monolith Appears in the Forest.

This is where Bin Laden is really hiding out. 

Where’s bin Laden? Science may hold the answer

Fugitive terrorist Osama bin Laden is most likely hiding out in a walled compound in a Pakistani border town, according to a satellite-aided geographic analysis released today.

A research team led by geographer Thomas Gillespie of the University of California-Los Angeles used geographic analytical tools that have been successful in locating urban criminals and endangered species.

Basing their conclusion on nighttime satellite images and other techniques, the scientists suggest bin Laden may well be in one of three compounds in Parachinar, a town 12 miles from the Pakistan border. The research incorporates public reports of bin Laden’s habits and whereabouts since his flight from the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in 2001.

The results, reported in the MIT International Review, are being greeted with polite but skeptical interest among people involved in the hunt for bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader behind 9/11. Bin Laden’s whereabouts are considered “one of the most important political questions of our time,” the study notes.

“I’ve never really believed the sitting-in-a-cave theory. That’s the last place you would want to be bottled up,” Gillespie says. The study’s real value, he says, is in combining satellite records of geographic locations, patterns of nighttime electricity use and population-detection methods to produce a technique for locating fugitives. …

Essentially, the study generates hiding-place location probabilities. It starts with “distance decay theory,” which holds that the odds are greater that the person will be found close to where he or she was last seen.

Then the researchers add the “island biographic theory,” which maintains that locales with more resources — palm trees for tropical birds and electricity for wealthy fugitives — are likelier to draw creatures of interest.

“Island biographic theory suggests bin Laden would end up in the biggest and least isolated city of the region,” Gillespie says, one among about 26 towns within a 20-mile distance of Tora Bora.

“To really improve the model, you would need to include intelligence data from 2001 to 2006,” Gillespie says. “It has been eight years. Honestly, I think it is time to be more open. This is a very important issue for the public.”

The study also makes assumptions that bin Laden might need:

• Medical treatment, requiring electricity in an urban setting.

• Security combining few bodyguards and isolation that requires a walled compound.

• Tree cover to shield outdoor activities from aircraft.

“Of course, it all depends on the accuracy of the information on most recent whereabouts,” Gillespie says. “I assume that the military has more recent information that would change the hiding place probabilities.” … – usatoday