Fun_People Archive
5 Jun
WhiteBoardness - 6/4/97

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Thu,  5 Jun 97 01:37:33 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: WhiteBoardness - 6/4/97

Excerpted-from: WhiteBoard News for Wednesday, June 04, 1997

London, England:

Fourteen pupils in a tiny Welsh village have stunned officials at the Mensa
organization for brainy people by passing tests that only a fraction of the
population can manage, the Guardian reported Tuesday.

Nearly one quarter of the Brynmawr village school's pupils managed to pass
the stringent tests aimed at selecting those with an IQ higher than 148 for
membership of the prestigious organization.

Normally, it is estimated that just two percent of the population succeed
at the tests.

Brynmawr, with a population of 5,455, is one of the poorest villages in
Wales. Unemployment is nearly double the national average, at 13 percent.

The Guardian cited Mensa officials as stating that they planned to launch
similar tests in schools across the country for free to discover if there
were other pockets of brilliance.
==========

Moscow, Russia:

The head of Russian intelligence has made a public offer to Russians spying
for foreign powers -- call the special hotline and become a double agent.

In a sign the old KGB is adapting to the new market economy, the deal from
Moscow's chief spycatcher is simple -- own up and you can go on taking money
from your foreign paymasters, keep quiet and we will get you in the end.

"We will find them all otherwise, sooner or later," General Nikolai
Kovalyov, head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the
Soviet KGB, said in an interview on Moscow television channel MTK late on
Tuesday.

The Moscow telephone number he gave -- 224-3500 -- was constantly busy on
Wednesday morning. "That means a lot of people are calling," an FSB
spokesman said.

The Cold War may be over but foreign intelligence services are still active
in Russia. And economic hardship has tempted many Russians to sell secrets.
==========

New Haven, Connecticut:

A fugitive is outlasting the current government of Hong Kong and in the
process is remaining a free man in Connecticut.

John Cheung, who was awaiting extradition to the British Crown Colony went
free Tuesday after being jailed in New Haven since the day after Christmas.

A federal magistrate ordered Cheung's release after the U.S. government
conceded that his extradition will not be completed before Hong Kong's
transition to the People's Republic of China at midnight June 30.

At that moment, all residents of Hong Kong, which was wrested away from
China during the first Anglo-Chinese Opium War of 1840-42, will come under
the province of the Communist government.

"The clock ran out," said Richard A. Reeve, the federal public defender who
delayed Cheung's extradition with several legal maneuvers.

Cheung, 46, emigrated to the United States after leaving Hong Kong in August
1994, deeply in debt to creditors of his chain of A-1 Electronics stores.
Hong Kong authorities soon charged him with financial fraud.

Cheung settled in Greenwich, and his family either bought or established
the Jem Lee Cleaners and Chinese Hand Laundry in Darien, where deputy U.S.
marshals arrested him Dec. 26.

Because exhausting his appeals would take more than a month, Cheung's
extradition under the current U.S.  treaty with Hong Kong is not possible,
and the practical deadline for a new treaty with China passed Friday.
==========

Fort Belvoir, Virginia:

The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.  But police say one
man went too far when he tried to deposit part of the loot into the bank he
is accused of robbing.

Army Pvt. Daniel Christian Bowden, 20, was arrested at the Fort Belvoir
Federal Credit Union Monday after a teller thought she recognized him as
the man who robbed her May 21, according to an affidavit filed Tuesday.
The robber did not wear a mask.

Bowden told the teller he wanted to wire $2,900 to Texas and pushed a pile
of cash across the counter to be deposited in his account, according to the
affidavit.

The bills' serial numbers matched a list of the $4,759 taken in the robbery,
so the teller called military police.

Bowden is a military police officer who had undergone training on handling
bank robberies, law enforcement officials said. He is also a suspect in the
May 12 robbery of another northern Virginia bank.

© 1997 Peter Langston