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Monday, October 17, 2005

American helicopters and warplanes bombed 2 villages near Ramadi, Iraq on Sunday. The U.S. military said nearly 70 suspected insurgents were killed, while local witnesses said that at least 39 civilians, including 18 children, were also lost to the attack.

A Ramadi resident, Ahmed Fouad, said that just after 7 p.m. Sunday, U.S. warplanes killed 18 children, including Fouad’s son and 8-year-old daughter. “She was killed with her brother. Her mother had a stroke out of shock.” Fouad said.

Family members of victims gathered at a Ramadi General Hospital where refrigeration space for the dead bodies had been exhausted. In the garden the bodies of a woman and three children lay as relatives sifted through remains.

“[They] were not terrorists…they were only a bunch of civilians whose curiosity prompted them to gather around a destroyed Humvee,” said Dr. Dhiya Fahdawi in reference to the dead and wounded.

The U.S. military neither confirmed nor denied that civilians were killed and issued a statement saying; “All the attacks were timed and executed in a manner to reduce the possibility of collateral damage.”

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

A Scottish woman who set out before Christmas to purchase a turkey finally made it home on Monday, after being cut off by snow for a month. Kay Ure left the Lighthouse Keeper’s cottage on Cape Wrath, at the very northwest tip of Great Britain, in December. She was heading to Inverness on a shopping trip.

However on her return journey heavy snow and ice prevented her husband, John, from travelling the last 11 miles to pick her up. She was forced to wait a month in a friend’s caravan, before the weather improved and the couple could finally be reunited.

They were separated not just for Christmas and New Year, but also for Mr Ure’s 58th birthday. With no fresh supplies, he was reduced to celebrating with a tin of baked beans. He also ran out of coal, and had to feed the couple’s six springer spaniels on emergency army rations.

“It’s the first time we’ve been separated”, said Mr Ure in December. “We’ve been snowed in here for three weeks before, so we are well used to it and it’s quite nice to get a bit of peace and quiet.”

Friday, May 16, 2008

State run television in Myanmar has reported that the death toll from the recent cyclone has increased dramatically to 77,738. In addition to this, 55,917 people are still officially missing.

In what are admittedly rough estimates, the United Nations (UN) estimates that more than 100,000 have died, while the International Red Cross projects 128,000 deaths. At least 10,000 people died just in Bogale Township in the Pyapon District of the country.

The United Nations has reported that 2.5 million people are homeless, or in need of help in the Irrawaddy Delta.

The military junta that governs the country says that it can handle relief operations and that they are going well. It is still turning down international offers to transport aid directly to the affected areas. According to state television, Prime Minister Thein Sein said, “We have already finished our first phase of emergency relief. We are going onto the second phase, the rebuilding stage.”

“Time is life,” said Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development & Humanitarian Aid to reporters at Bangkok International Airport in Thailand. “No government in the world can tackle such a problem alone. This is a major catastrophe.”

Michel was returning from a trip to Yangon where he was unsuccessful at urging the junta to allow direct aid despite its pride and paranoia about the outside world.

Aid groups, including UN agencies, say only a fraction of the required relief is getting through and, unless the situation improves, thousands more lives are at risk.

According to The New York Times, the United States and some European allies had considered a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for “humanitarian intervention” in Myanmar, which would give authorization for a relief mission without approval of the military authorities in Myanmar. The idea was dismissed after it became clear that China would veto any such resolution.

The US has a assembled number of ships, helicopters, transport airplanes and marines in the region, ready to assist in cyclone relief if given approval by the government of Myanmar. US officials say that helicopters can bring in assistance to areas inland from the coast and further help distribute supplies across the country. Myanmar has approved fewer than 20 cargo planes to bring supplies to the capital, Yangon.

At the United Nations Headquarters, a row occurred when Myanmar’s ambassador to the UN, Kyaw Tint Swe, interrupted the French ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert during a speech to the General Assembly. He accused France of sending a warship to Myanmar.

“It’s not true,” Ripert said. While the ship is operated by the French Navy, it is not a warship but a ship carrying 1500 tonnes of food and medicine, Ripert insisted. It also has small boats to reach the flooded Irrawaddy Delta. The ship will reach the coast of Myanmar on Saturday, awaiting approval to deliver aid.

Meanwhile, the UN is sending John Holmes, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, to make contact with Myanmar’s reclusive military leaders to improve UN access to the hardest-hit areas.

According to UN spokesperson, Michèle Montas, Holmes will arrive in Myanmar on Sunday. He will be carrying a letter from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to Senior General Than Shwe, who has twice previously refused to converse with Ban.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

The name Robert Cailliau may not ring a bell to the general public, but his invention is the reason why you are reading this: Dr. Cailliau together with his colleague Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, making the internet accessible so it could grow from an academic tool to a mass communication medium. Last January Dr. Cailliau retired from CERN, the European particle physics lab where the WWW emerged.

Wikinews offered the engineer a virtual beer from his native country Belgium, and conducted an e-mail interview with him (which started about three weeks ago) about the history and the future of the web and his life and work.

Wikinews: At the start of this interview, we would like to offer you a fresh pint on a terrace, but since this is an e-mail interview, we will limit ourselves to a virtual beer, which you can enjoy here.

Robert Cailliau: Yes, I myself once (at the 2nd international WWW Conference, Chicago) said that there is no such thing as a virtual beer: people will still want to sit together. Anyway, here we go.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Tuesday was a tumultuous day in the Khadr household as they desperately awaited to hear whether Abdullah, the Canadian family’s oldest son, would be released on bail after nearly four years of detention awaiting trial in the United States for helping Afghan militants procure weapons.

“We couldn’t help but be a little hopeful,” his older sister Zaynab remarked, though Khadr himself remained more optimistic and encouraged his family to use their second weekly visit to Toronto West Detention Centre later that day, as a sign of faith that the courts would soon reunite the fractured family. But when the family returned home from their second visit, there was a crushing message from his lawyers, “Abdullah didn’t make bail”.

The family feels frustrated and says that the court’s ruling that Khadr still represents a serious flight risk is unfair. “None of us have every tried to leave the country”, Zaynab sighs, pointing to Abdullah’s co-operation with Canadian authorities since the very beginning.

Although his lawyers proposed a “stringent supervision plan” that would have seen the Ottawa-born Khadr living with his grandparents and fitted with an electronic ankle-bracelet to track his whereabouts, the ruling released late Tuesday confirmed that Mr. Justice Gary Trotter was not convinced that Khadr would remain in Canada if released back into the community.

The ruling echoes a similar finding made in 2005, when Khadr first applied to be released pending the outcome of his extradition hearing to the United States, where he faces federal conspiracy charges.

Khadr’s lawyers appeared successful in allaying earlier concerns about the insufficient ankle bracelet that would have tracked Khadr’s movements in 2005, bringing the owner of Trace Canada, Len Beagley, to testify that “tremendous developments” had been made since the courts last heard Khadr’s plea for bail in 2005. However, Trotter seemed unconvinced that ankle-bracelets were an “accepted way of monitoring individuals”, and agreed with Crown arguments that such devices required “co-operation from the subject”.

Fatmah and Mohammad Elsamnah again offered their $300,000 Toronto home as surety for Khadr’s behaviour if released on bail. However, they were judged unacceptable guardians for their grandson, in part due to Mohammad’s stuttered and confused responses to questions from the Crown, and his advanced memory loss.

Khadr’s lawyers chose to focus on the recent community support shown at Salaheddin Islamic Centre, where his family prays. In addition to adding $50,000 in collected donations as assurance that the community would keep a close eye on Khadr, the Board of Directors agreed to pay the costs associated with the most advanced system of monitoring ankle-bracelet for Khadr. The manager of the Islamic Centre also offered to employ the 27-year old Khadr, driving him to and from work each day. Crown lawyers Matthew Sullivan and Howard Piafsky challenged the mosque’s credibility however, asking RCMP officer Tarek Mokdad to describe the number of worshippers who were later accused of militant action.

Trotter dismissed claims that the mosque was tied to terrorism, but said the donations from worshippers were unacceptable since they gave the money without expecting to see it returned to them, regardless of Khadr’s behaviour.

The last to find out about his fate, Abdullah wasn’t told the outcome of the hearing until he phoned his family Wednesday evening.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

The 30A network has said that it wants to create a carnival atmosphere while protesting at the Forbes Global CEO conference. The protest, which starts on August 30, is expected to attract up to 2,000 protesters. Similar events in the past often had instances of violent confrontations between police and some of the activists. The 30A network is a loose affiliation of groups and individuals co-ordinating the protest.

30A spokesman Bruce Knobloch, of the International Socialist Organisation, made the call for a peaceful protest in a press release last week.

“We want a safe community action showing that people in Sydney oppose Howard¹s plan for a US-style wages system, the war in Iraq and his kow-towing to global corporate chiefs. We pose no threat to the Opera House or the millionaire delegates, or to other users of east Circular Quay,” Mr Knobloch said.

The conference will be held at the Sydney Opera House. The Forbes website says that at the event “senior figures from the world’s leading companies and institutions will discuss the best ways to nurture and capitalize on innovation and reveal the latest global trends.” It was recently announced that George Bush Sr will be attending the conference, along with former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Prime Minister John Howard, and former NSW Premier Bob Carr.

Mr Knobloch described the attendees as “a few hundred neo-conservative corporate chiefs”.

The protesters have been denied access to the Opera House forecourt for the duration of the conference. Mr Knobloch believes that this decision is unjustified. He also accused the police of deliberately creating the conditions for confrontation.

“The police seem intent on creating chaos and confrontation, which is the last thing we need. We’ve urged police to build a barrier in front of the Opera House proper and to allow us to use the public space in the forecourt. By pushing us out into the CBD the police are going to create problems for commuters and business owners,” he said.

30A protestors this week organised a media conference outside Surry Hills Police Station, requesting a meeting to negotiate an agreement. According to an article on Sydney Indymedia, police at the station were unable to discuss the issue, but told 30a representatives that they would be contacted to organise a meeting.

“Minimising the protesters right to peacefully rally dramatically increases police powers and strikes at the heart of protesters’ democratic right to peaceful assembly,” the article said.

ASIO has assessed the conference to be “medium risk”, and this has been used by the police and government to justify the increased security.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007File:Nadine Strossen 5 by David Shankbone.jpg

There are few organizations in the United States that elicit a stronger emotional response than the American Civil Liberties Union, whose stated goal is “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States”. Those people include gays, Nazis, women seeking abortion, gun owners, SPAM mailers and drug users. People who are often not popular with various segments of the public. The ACLU’s philosophy is not that it agrees or disagrees with any of these people and the choices that they make, but that they have personal liberties that must not be trampled upon.

In Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s interview with the President of the ACLU, Nadine Strossen, he wanted to cover some basic ground on the ACLU’s beliefs. Perhaps the area where they are most misunderstood or have their beliefs most misrepresented is their feelings about religion in the public sphere. The ACLU categorically does not want to see religion disappear from schools or in the public forum; but they do not want to see government advocacy of any particular religion. Thus, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s placement of a ten ton monument to the Ten Commandments outside the courthouse is strenuously opposed; but “Lone Ranger of the Manger” Rita Warren’s placement of nativity scenes in public parks is vigorously defended. In the interview, Strossen talks about how certain politicians and televangelists purposefully misstate the law and the ACLU’s work in order to raise funds for their campaigns.

David Shankbone’s discussion with Strossen touches upon many of the ACLU’s hot button issues: religion, Second Amendment rights, drug liberalization, “partial-birth abortion” and whether or not George W. Bush should be impeached. It may surprise the reader that many ideas people have about the most visible of America’s civil libertarian organizations are not factually correct and that the ACLU often works closely with many of the organizations people think despise its existence.