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Monday, May 16, 2005

In France, workers by the millions stayed at home during the Whit Monday holiday despite the government’s cancellation of the traditional Pentecost public holiday. Some acted in defiance of the government’s decision, while some took leave or were put on forced leave by their employers due to uncertainties of public transportation.

Following the 2003 heat wave, which caused the deaths of an estimated 13,000 elderly people in France, the administration of prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has proposed the suppression of one day of public holiday in order to use the supplemental generated tax for a fund for the caring of the elderly.

Whit Monday was selected because, in normal years, France has several public holidays in May. Furthermore, attendance of religious celebrations is low, so holidays of a religious origin are nowadays generally mere family reunions.

However, the reception of this new working day was mixed. The administration says it promotes solidarity with the elderly. Trade unions and opposition groups argue that the measure is an ill-conceived stunt aimed at hiding the government’s bad handling of the problems of the elderly.

For instance, many remember that in 1956, the government created a tax (the vignette) on motor vehicles, allegedly for funding measures for the elderly. But in 1973, the products of this tax came, as any other tax, into the government’s general fund.

With this measure, the French government intends to raise 2 billion € to be donated to a new public establishment, the “national fund for solidarity for autonomy.” The new fund would be chartered to deal with losses of self-sufficiency of elderly or handicapped people. 1.2 billion € are earmarked for elderly people, 0.8 for the handicapped.

Trade unions had called for strikes in urban public transportation and paralyzed traffic in 27 cities, including Clermont-Ferrand, Lille, Montpellier ou Strasbourg. However, SNCF (the national railway operator) did not strike and RATP (the Paris transportation authority) suffered only minor disturbances, though both are normally known for their frequent and disturbing strikes.

SNCF considered the day as a holiday for payroll purposes and instead increased the work day by 1’52”, a measure that majority leader Nicolas Sarkozy considered shocking and contrary to the objectives of the government.

The protests are also widely considered to be motivated by the unpopularity of the administration of president Jacques Chirac and prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. Recent statistics show a five year-high for unemployment at 10.2%.

This discontent may result in a majority of “no” in the vote for the ratification of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Last night HBO premiered I Am An Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA. Since its inception, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has made headlines and raised eyebrows. They are almost single-handedly responsible for the movement against animal testing and their efforts have raised the suffering animals experience in a broad spectrum of consumer goods production and food processing into a cause célèbre.

PETA first made headlines in the Silver Spring monkeys case, when Alex Pacheco, then a student at George Washington University, volunteered at a lab run by Edward Taub, who was testing neuroplasticity on live monkeys. Taub had cut sensory ganglia that supplied nerves to the monkeys’ fingers, hands, arms, legs; with some of the monkeys, he had severed the entire spinal column. He then tried to force the monkeys to use their limbs by exposing them to persistent electric shock, prolonged physical restraint of an intact arm or leg, and by withholding food. With footage obtained by Pacheco, Taub was convicted of six counts of animal cruelty—largely as a result of the monkeys’ reported living conditions—making them “the most famous lab animals in history,” according to psychiatrist Norman Doidge. Taub’s conviction was later overturned on appeal and the monkeys were eventually euthanized.

PETA was born.

In the subsequent decades they ran the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty against Europe’s largest animal-testing facility (footage showed staff punching beagle puppies in the face, shouting at them, and simulating sex acts while taking blood samples); against Covance, the United State’s largest importer of primates for laboratory research (evidence was found that they were dissecting monkeys at its Vienna, Virginia laboratory while the animals were still alive); against General Motors for using live animals in crash tests; against L’Oreal for testing cosmetics on animals; against the use of fur for fashion and fur farms; against Smithfield Foods for torturing Butterball turkeys; and against fast food chains, most recently against KFC through the launch of their website kentuckyfriedcruelty.com.

They have launched campaigns and engaged in stunts that are designed for media attention. In 1996, PETA activists famously threw a dead raccoon onto the table of Anna Wintour, the fur supporting editor-in-chief of Vogue, while she was dining at the Four Seasons in New York, and left bloody paw prints and the words “Fur Hag” on the steps of her home. They ran a campaign entitled Holocaust on your Plate that consisted of eight 60-square-foot panels, each juxtaposing images of the Holocaust with images of factory farming. Photographs of concentration camp inmates in wooden bunks were shown next to photographs of caged chickens, and piled bodies of Holocaust victims next to a pile of pig carcasses. In 2003 in Jerusalem, after a donkey was loaded with explosives and blown up in a terrorist attack, Newkirk sent a letter to then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat to keep animals out of the conflict. As the film shows, they also took over Jean-Paul Gaultier‘s Paris boutique and smeared blood on the windows to protest his use of fur in his clothing.

The group’s tactics have been criticized. Co-founder Pacheco, who is no longer with PETA, called them “stupid human tricks.” Some feminists criticize their campaigns featuring the Lettuce Ladies and “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” ads as objectifying women. Of their Holocaust on a Plate campaign, Anti-Defamation League Chairman Abraham Foxman said “The effort by PETA to compare the deliberate systematic murder of millions of Jews to the issue of animal rights is abhorrent.” (Newkirk later issued an apology for any hurt it caused). Perhaps most controversial amongst politicians, the public and even other animal rights organizations is PETA’s refusal to condemn the actions of the Animal Liberation Front, which in January 2005 was named as a terrorist threat by the United States Department of Homeland Security.

David Shankbone attended the pre-release screening of I Am An Animal at HBO’s offices in New York City on November 12, and the following day he sat down with Ingrid Newkirk to discuss her perspectives on PETA, animal rights, her responses to criticism lodged against her and to discuss her on-going life’s work to raise human awareness of animal suffering. Below is her interview.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

The upcoming 2006 Brampton municipal election, to be held November 13, features an array of candidates looking to represent their wards in city council or the council of the Peel Region.

Wikinews contributor Nick Moreau contacted many of the candidates, including Innocent Watat, asking them to answer common questions sent in an email. This ward’s incumbent is Bob Callahan; Balbir Babra, Manny Bianchi-Morfino, Dolly Khokhar, Maria Peart, Tim Turcott, and Sheila White.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Portions of a DC-10 jet registered to the Miami, Florida-based Arrow Cargo company fell from the sky over a residential area in the city of Manaus, Brazil on Thursday.

Parts of one of the turbines of the aircraft caused some damage to a car and a few houses, but no injuries were reported. The airplane was traveling to its destination of Bogota, Colombia. According to the Brazilian Defense Ministry, the parts that detached are the rear exhaust diffuser and a section of the exhaust. The involved plane, registered N526MD, was built in 1978.

“I opened the window after I heard this huge boom and I see this thing up in flames, right in front of my doorway,” said Aparecida Silva, a local resident, to Globo TV. “I had no idea what it was, I thought it was some weird, ugly thing or a UFO or something.” ^{((Translated from Portuguese))Portuguese language: ?Estava no melhor do sono, ouvi uma pancada, abri a janela e vi algo pegando fogo. Aí eu não sabia o que era e disse: é um bicho feio, um extraterrestre ou algo assim.}

Rai Marinho, a representative for the Arrow Cargo in Manaus, said that the jet, which was carrying an engineer and three crew members, had engine difficulties soon after taking off. It was able to keep flying, but was obliged to divert to Medellin due to inclement weather, where it landed without incident. The representative added that his company would pay residents for the damage.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Haiti was hit by a heavy earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 on Tuesday, killing an unknown number of people, and destroying up to ten percent of buildings in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

No official death toll has been released as of yet, although the United Nations says that up to fifty thousand people may potentially have been killed. An estimated 300,000 more were left without homes.

In a special photo report, Wikinews looks at the extensive damage caused by the disaster.

To find more information about a certain image or to enlarge it, click it. For an in-depth textual report on the same subject, please see Haiti relief efforts: in depth.

• A map indicating the strength of the earthquake, with redder areas being harder hit. The star indicates the epicentre.

• Another graphical representation of the earthquake’s epicentre. As can be seen, it is very close to the capital, which is home to over an estimated 2.5 million people.

• Downtown Port-au-Prince from a bird’s-eye perspective. Only a few buildings remain completely intact, most have been either damaged or completely leveled. Image: UNDP.

• Another aerial image of downtown. Rubble lines the city streets. Image: UNDP.

• Makeshift tents set up in a city square. Image: UNDP.

• A man exits a restaurant after looking for his belongings. Image: UNDP.

• The national palace, housing Haitian president Rene Preval, sustained serious damage. Both the president and his wife, however, survived the earthquake. Image: UNDP.

• Another shot of the presidential palace. Image: UNDP.

• Makeshift tents are set up at a soccer field, one of the few areas free from debris

• A poor neighbourhood in the capital. Again, most buildings have collapsed or sustained significant damage. Image: UNDP.

• The Hotel Montana, once five storeys tall, now lies in a collapsed heap in Port-au-Prince. Image: UNDP.

• Port-au-Prince harbour after the deadly earthquake. The port was too damaged to receive cargo from aid ships sent to the country.

• A shipping container floating in the waters near the seaport.

• More damage caused to the seaport

• Two US Coast Guard 270-foot cutters sit offshore of Haiti, ready to provide humanitarian aid to the earthquake-ravaged country. However, they had no place to dock since the port was inoperable

• An aerial view of the seaport. Note the cargo containers floating out at sea and lopsided cranes.

• The UN’s Haitian headquarters were heavily damaged by the earthquake; many UN officials are feared trapped under the rubble.

• View of the UN headquarters, from a different angle

• The US Coast Guard evacuating US personnel from Haiti by a Hercules C-130 airplane.

• Haitian civilians receiving assistance in a makeshift camp set up by the Brazilian Army in Port-au-Prince Image: Agencia Brasil.

• Brazilian soldiers in the camp giving medical aid to victims Image: Agencia Brasil.

• Another shot of the impromptu camp Image: Agencia Brasil.

• Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim and Commander of the Army Enzo Peri board a Brazilian Air Force plane headed to Haiti, to join relief efforts Image: Agencia Brasil.

• United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) peacekeepers trying to find survivors in the wreckage of a building Image: UNDP.

• MINUSTAH members loading an injured person aboard a lorry

• US Coast Guard delivering medical supplies by boat

• A US Coast Guard member giving a small child a bottle of water in Port-au-Prince

• US Army Lieutenant Colonel Hector Paz carrying an injured girl to receive medical treatment after being evacuated from Port-au-Prince

• A small boy receiving medical treatment by MINUSTAH members at their logistics base Image: UNDP.

• A body pulled out from the rubble of a school that collapsed after the earthquake Image: UNDP.

• Another body being pulled out of the school Image: UNDP.

• US president Barack Obama in the White House Situation Room, discussing response to the disaster

A compilation of brief news reports for Sunday, August 9, 2009.

File:NoordinTop-FBI.jpg

Indonesia is to carry out DNA tests on the body of a man killed in the Temanggung district of Central Java. The body is believed to be that of Noordin Mohammed Top. Born in Malaysia, Top is believed to have been behind a string of terrorist attacks in Indonesia since 2002, including the 2002 Bali bombings and the bombing of the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels this July.

After a 16-hour siege, Indonesia’s elite Detachment 88 stormed a building in Beji village that police intelligence officers believe was occupied by Top and his group.

In an unrelated police raid two would-be suicide bombers were also killed; the target of their truck bomb was believed to be a residence owned by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Sources

• Suherdjoko & Dicky Christanto. “Terror suspects in shoot-out” — The Jakarta Post, August 8, 2009
• Xiong Tong. “Indonesian police to conduct DNA test on terrorist leader Top” — Xinhua News Agency, August 8, 2009
• Blomfield, Adrian. “Police foil plot to kill Indonesian president after raid on top terror suspect” — The Telegraph, August 8, 2009

Following a mass trial on August 1, at which critics of the Ahmadinejad regime were tried for sedition, Iran has on Saturday initiated a second mass trial of those it accuses of attempting to destabilise the Iranian state. Amongst the dozen accused are staff members of the British and French embassies and a French national. Both France and Britain have protested, with British officials calling the situation “completely unacceptable” and the French saying that the Iranian allegations were “absolutely baseless”.

In what have been described as show trials, opposition leaders have confessed to crimes against the state.

Sources

• “Iran holds 2nd protest-related court session” — CBC News, August 8, 2009
• “Embassy workers on trial in Iran” — BBC Online, August 8, 2009
• “French national on trial in Iran over post-election unrest” — Deutsche Welle, August 8, 2009

Great train robber Ronnie Biggs has been released from prison custody on compassionate grounds by British Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw. Biggs, aged 80, is suffering from pneumonia and is said to have just days to live.

His release comes on the day of his birthday and the 46th anniversary of the crime that made him infamous.

Sources

• “Freed Train Robber Ronnie Biggs Turns 80” — Sky News, August 8, 2009
• Burns, John F. “Britain’s Great Train Robber Freed” — The New York Times, August 8, 2009

Samantha Orobator, a British 20-year-old from Peckham, London has been returned to the United Kingdom to serve out the remainder of a life sentence for drug smuggling. Convicted in Laos of attempting to smuggle 680g of heroin, Orobator initially faced execution by firing squad, which she escaped only when she became pregnant.

The circumstances of her trial and the circumstances of how she came to be pregnant has led to human rights organisation Reprieve to call for the quashing of her conviction. However the British government has indicated that it will honour its prisoner repatriation agreement with Laos.

Sources

• Vorakhoun, Phonekeo. “Pregnant British prisoner returns home from Laos” — AsiaOne, August 8, 2009
• “Pregnant prisoner returns to UK” — BBC News Online, August 7, 2009
• Addley, Esther. “Ministers condemned for imprisoning pregnant woman after ‘sham trial’ in Laos” — The Guardian, August 7, 2009

In a move championed by its chief executive officer, Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation announced it will charge for online content across all its titles by the end of the year. News Corporation owns the publications The Times and The Wall Street Journal amongst other media interests.

The move comes after a collapse in advertising revenues and US$3.4 billion of losses in the fiscal year just ended. Murdoch explained “…quality journalism is not cheap” and said his plan will “save journalism”. He says he is confident that competitors will follow his lead.

Sources

• “News Corp tests charge-for-content policy at Sunday Times: report” — Agence France-Presse, August 7, 2009
• Golson, Jordan. “News Corp. Mogul Cries ‘Charge!’ for Online News” — Business Week, August 6, 2009

Buoyed by better then expected unemployment figures for July, President Barack Obama claimed on Friday that the United States economy is “pointed in the right’ direction and that “we’ve rescued our economy from catastrophe”.

His speech comes in the wake of Bureau of Labor Statistics figures indicating that 200,000 fewer jobs were lost in July then in June.

Sources

• Brandon, Katherine. “The President On July Unemployment Figures” — Executive Office of the President of the United States, August 7, 2009
• Collinson, Stephen. “Obama says US economy saved from ‘catastrophe'” — Agence France-Presse, August 7, 2009

Five of Hong Kong’s six Disciplined Services continue to press the territory’s government for pay parity with the Hong Kong Police Force. Although industrial action is for the time being unlikely unions representing officers from correctional services, customs and excise, fire services, immigration and government flying services will hold a mass meeting later this month to put pressure on the government.

Similar rank and grade structures are used through out the six services, however despite the claim that customs and police officers having similar duties and workloads, a police officer will receive up to HK$7,900 more than a custom officer of the same rank.

Sources

• Wong, Adele. “Summer of strikes looks less likely” — The Standard, August 7, 2009
• Lee, Diana. “Customs officers seek pay parity with police” — The Standard, August 5, 2009
• “Customs officers demand pay parity” — RTHK, August 4, 2009

Social networking site Twitter is the unlikely victim of the ongoing hostility between Russia and Georgia. However, on the anniversary of the South Ossetian war, Russian hackers launched a mass denial-of-service attack aimed at silencing Cyxymu, a Georgian economics professor critical of Russia. In addition to Twitter other sites at which Cyxymu posted were also attacked, however being a smaller operation the attacks caused a complete outage of Twitter while the other sites were merely slowed.

Sources

• Bradley, Tony. “Twitter Continues to Battle DDoS Attack” — PC World, August 08, 2009
• “Pro-Georgian Blogger Target of Mass Cyber Attacks” — Voice of America, August 08, 2009

Pakistani intelligence service sources state that Hakimullah Mehsud leader of Fedayeen al-Islam has been killed in a fight for the leadership of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) an al-Qaeda ally.

The statement comes a day after public speculation of the death of TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud in a drone attack on the 5th of August. Baitullah and Hakimullah are cousins with Hakimullah serving as a deputy to Baitullah. The TTP is a coalition of disparate groups and without the charisma and leadership of Baitullah, appears to have fallen victim to internal feuding. According to sources Hakimullah Mehsud met with rival Taliban leader Waliur Rehman to determine the succession, word at the shura became heated and led to a gunfight that resulted in the death of Hakimullah and the serious wounding of Rehman.

Hakimullah had earlier issued statements denying Baitullah’s death.

‘Sources

• “TTP leader dead in succession fight?” — Dawn (newspaper), August 9, 2009
• Burke, Jason. “Taliban commander denies the death of Baitullah Mehsud” — The Guardian, August 9, 2009
• “Report: Taliban torn by feud after death” — UPI, August 8, 2009

Hurricane Felicia has weakened to a tropical storm, but residents of Hawaii are continuing to monitor the storm’s progress as it approaches the islands.

Tropical storm watches were posted for portions of the state, and some beaches have been closed in anticipation of high surf. Meanwhile, emergency supplies were selling rapidly at local stores: “Things are just flying out”, said Vicki Lebowitz, manager of The City Mill in Oahu.

The storm, once a Category 4 major hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, is expected to further weaken before making landfall on Hawaii.

Sources

• “Felicia weakens to tropical storm near Hawaii” — Yahoo! News, August 9, 2009
• Associated Press. “Hawaii to close beaches as Hurricane Felicia nears” — The Los Angeles Times, August 9, 2009

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Honourable Gail Shea, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, opened the Canadian seal hunt amid protests by animal rights groups, at a time when bans on seal product imports are becoming more prevalent internationally.

Seal hunters along the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence are allowed to catch a maximum of 270,000 Harp Seal pups from a total estimated population of 5.5 million. 8,200 is the allowable catch of Hooded seals from an estimated population of 600,000, and seal hunters may catch 50,000 grey seals from an approximate population of 300,000.

The Harp seal pups may be killed as soon as they have molted their white pelts, which occurs 10 to 21 days after birth.

It is reported that Russia has shut down the seal hunt on its shores. The United States, Netherlands, and Belgium ban the import of seal products. The European Parliament committee has endorsed a ban on seal product imports by the 27 European Union (EU) member states, in the form of a proposed bill that would still allow the Canadian Inuit to trade in seal products for first nation cultural purposes. All members of the EU must approve the bill for it to become law.

“While we are extremely disappointed that the European Parliament has called for a ban of the trade of seal products, our position remains that any ban on a humanely conducted hunt, such as Canada’s, is completely without merit. We will continue to explore all legal and diplomatic options and we will exercise our rights to their fullest extent under international trade laws if and when it becomes necessary and appropriate.”

“Sealing is a significant source of income in many small, isolated coastal communities throughout Atlantic Canada, Quebec and the North, and creates critical employment opportunities for processing plants, as well as fuel, food and equipment suppliers in coastal communities,” said Minister Shea.

“Our government will continue to defend the rights of Canadian sealers to provide a livelihood for their families through our humane, responsible and sustainable hunt,” she said. “It represents as much as 35 per cent of a sealer’s annual income and is important for thousands of families at a time of year when other fishing options are limited at best.”

The first area to open up to the seal hunt was the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where 30 percent of the catch is allowed.

Sixteen observer permits have been issued. “The majority of the observers are people who protest against the seal hunt, but there are journalists and other observers as well. We try to make sure there’s an even proportion of sealing activity and observer activity,” Mr. Jenkins, Department of Fisheries and Oceans spokesman said. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is going to observe and record the commercial seal hunt.

“It’s devastating to be here, to know the commercial seal hunt has started again. It’s clear that a change is on the horizon with the European Parliament voting on a proposal to ban seal-product trade in the EU and many people in the Canadian sealing industry believe that could spell the beginning of the end of the commercial seal hunt,” commented Rebecca Aldworth, director of the Canadian chapter of Humane Society International.