About

GLEN  - (Host)

A busy day today chasing down details of the reported tsunami following the large earthquake off Samoa.
Great work from the breakfast team staying up to date with a changing situation. Very glad to hear it didn’t turn out as badly as it could have - something you don’t know while broadcasting and so you have to treat it with the gravity it deserves. Better safe than sorry, as the recent Black Saturday bushfires showed. By the way, listen for an interesting chat about Australian disasters on the show tomorrow that suggests many Australian disasters have been much worse than they needed to be and that could partly be our fault.

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Further to my previous warnings about online viruses and the like:

Microsoft today released free software that people can use to protect computers against viruses, spyware and other malicious codes in arsenals of cyber criminals.

Microsoft Security Essentials is available for download at microsoft.com/security_essentials and is built on technology that the global software giant uses in computer security programs it designs for businesses.

Computer security specialty firm Symantec downplayed the Microsoft offering, saying it is lightweight and isn’t tuned for new forms of attack being used by hackers.

But they would say that about their competition I suppose.

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In the ‘ It’s a strange world department’ - from the wires:

Travellers on the metro in the US capital risk coming facing to face with Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, smiling and wearing an “I Love Guantanamo” T-shirt.

The irreverent billboard image of America’s number one enemy, just a short distance from the White House, is part of an activist campaign aimed at highlighting that Al-Qaeda uses the US detention centre as a recruiting tool

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Meanwhile ….

Murder charges against a US Marine accused of slaying an unarmed Iraqi prisoner in Fallujah in 2004 have been dismissed.

Jermaine Nelson admitted one count of dereliction of duty. Sentencing is to be decided later.

Nelson was the last of three Marines to face charges in connection with the case, which related to the death of Iraqi detainees during fierce fighting in Fallujah five years ago.

Another Marine was cleared at a court martial earlier this year, while a former soldier was tried and acquitted of manslaughter by a civilian court in 2008.

Looks like no one killed that prisoner….

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DEBBIE - (Sport)

Random sports relationship trivia uncovered this morning while doing legitimate research on the career of the Swedish tennis player Joachim Johannson:

“Pim Pim” as he’s apparently known, dated Lleyton Hewitt’s sister Jaslyn between 2000 and 2005. (That much I already knew.)

His next girlfriend was the Swedish Olympic hurdler, Jenny Kallur whose twin sister, Susanna Kallur is a former European Champion in the 100 metres hurdles. Their dad, Andres Kallur, was a top ice hockey player who won four Stanley Cups with the New York Islanders.

But, wait there’s more sport crossover to come.

Johansson is now engaged and expecting a child with Johanna Westerberg - a Swedish professional golfer who won her first tournament earlier this year, the Ladies Open of Portugal. As a caddy for his fiancee this year, Johansson earned the “Rookie Caddie of the Year” award.

Honestly, I wasn’t looking for any of this when I started googling Johansson. It’s just that he beat Lleyton Hewitt overnight in Malaysia and I wanted to know what had happened to him in recent years to cause his ranking to drop so dramatically to 446 in the world. He was ranked as high as nine back in early 2005.

He also held the record at one stage for the most aces in a match. He used his 6 foot 6 frame to full advantage in sending 51 aces sizzling past Andre Agassi in the fourth round of the Australian Open in 2005. Despite that effort, he lost the match.

Anyway, eventually I got to the story I was after. Johannson quit the tour early last year because of ongoing shoulder problems. He played a little at the end of last year and then a few tournaments early this year before switching to caddying for his girlfriend. His short term plans are to contest the Stockholm Open in a few weeks and then, if the shoulder holds up, he might make a full comeback to the tour in 2010.

Got to love the internet. After 20 minutes of websurfing I felt like I’d been briefed by Bruce McAvaney and read a Swedish women’s magazine.