Wednesday, August 31, 2005

More On Mathieu Forand

Here's the Google News rundown on Forand, and my previous post.

Just a point of interest:

From the Vancouver Sun report: Aug 29, 2005
Friends said Forand was reportedly caught with one to five kilograms of cocaine.
From the Taipei Times report: Aug 27, 2005
The coast guards found 600g of cocaine, some marijuana and hundreds of ecstasy pills on site.
Why would the Sun quote buddies of Forand rather than the Taiwanese authorities? The Taipei Times article came out 2 days earlier, and actually low balled the quantity.... So the Sun took a high estimate of an extraordinary number (5 kgs) from a shoddy source days after a credible figure was found. Lazy.
-----------------------

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure i understand. The sun's estimate of 5 kg is actually lower than the Taipei times estimate of 600 g (the equivalent of 6 kg).

Shamrocks! said...

5Kg is equal to 5000g.

600g is equal to 0.6Kg.

Anonymous said...

I have the article and it says 600kg. That's a lot more than 600g.

Shamrocks! said...

Look again. The Taipei Times reports:

"The coast guards found 600g of cocaine, some marijuana and hundreds of ecstasy pills on site."

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/08/28/2003269438

And just for future reference:
Kilo=thousand.

g=gram.

A "Kilogram" is a thousand grams.

friend gram said...

I'm a journalist in Taipei and can attest that The Taipei Times originally printed 600kg of cocaine - approximately the weight of an automobile. It was a totally ridiculous figure, one their news desk got from watching cable news reports and transcribing them incorrectly. You'll notice the article has no byline, just "staff reporter," which is shorthand for "cribbed from the Chinese media." Later, the Taipei Times went back and fixed the error on their website, but made no record of the change. I'm not sure how long it was before they switched from "kg" to "g".

Shamrocks! said...

Interesting gaffe.

I guess that's why there was such an outcry calling for Forand's head in Taiwan.

Anonymous said...

Hi All,
I just heard today about Mathieu's arrest. I knew his father back when he was a teenager, hence my interest.
Sounds to me like this guy is screwed.
I would love to hear your opinion, and more details if you have them.