Author: Admin

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

A British man, Ronald West, has been convicted of animal neglect after authorities received complaints about his five-year-old dog being severely overweight. Authorities discovered the case of neglect in December 2008 after a neighbor complained that West’s Border Collie Taz appeared to be too fat.

When authorities arrived at West’s residence, they found Taz’s feces scattered around the house and in every room. Authorities made several more visits to West’s home until March 2009, at which point they determined that there had been no improvements in living conditions, and so they seized the dog. Taz weighed 88lbs (40kg) when authorities seized him.

West had said that he had been ill with the flu and was unable to clean up after Taz or take him for walks. He admits that he and his friends overfed Taz which led to his obesity, but West says it was not intentional.

“I’ll put my hands up and say I’m guilty of [Taz] being overweight, but it wasn’t deliberate. You can be cruel with kindness,” said West in March, according to the police report.

West’s sentencing has been postponed because he failed to appear at today’s hearing. When sentenced, West could face a fine of up to £5,000 (US$7,581), six months in prison, and may be forbidden from owning any pets.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

The Internet group Anonymous today held further protests critical of the Church of Scientology.

The global protests started in Australia where several hundred protesters gathered at different locations for peaceful protests.

In a global speech, the Internet protest movement said Scientology “betrayed the trust of its members, [had] taken their money, their rights, and at times their very lives.” The protesters welcomed the public interest their protests have led to, and claimed they witnessed “an unprecedented flood of Scientologists [joining] us across the world to testify about these abuses.” The group said it would continue with monthly actions.

In a press statement from its European headquarters, Scientology accused the anonymous protesters of “hate speech and hate crimes”, alleging that security measures were necessary because of death threats and bomb threats. This also makes the Church want to “identify members” of the group it brands as “cyber-terrorists”.

Wikinews had correspondents in a number of protest locations to report on the events.

Anonymous states that the next protest is scheduled to take place on April 18, which happens to be the birthday of Suri, the daughter of Tom and Katie Cruise.

Friday, April 23, 2010

The oil rig Deepwater Horizon sank yesterday after an explosion Tuesday night that left eleven people missing.

According to an officer from the US Coast Guard, the rig sank sometime in the morning. The rig had caught fire after an explosion of unknown origin occurred two days ago. 115 of the 126 workers on board the time of the explosion have been rescued after evacuating in lifeboats, either by the Coast Guard or from other ships in the area.

The remaining eleven have not been located, although Coast Guard officials have expressed optimism that they are still alive.

The environmental impacts of the explosion and subsequent sinking of the rig are unclear. While up to 13,000 gallons of crude oil per hour has been released from the rig, until now, the effects have been considered minimal, as it had been burned off in the fire. That does have the potential to change, though, according to David Rainey, vice president of the lessor of the rig, BP. The rig, built in 2001 by Hyundai Heavy Industries was owned and operated by Transocean.

The rig was located roughly 50 miles southeast of the coast of Louisiana, and was under lease to BP since 2007. It was completing the construction of a new oil well, and was constructing a layer of cement in the well to reinforce it. This is considered dangerous, as it has the potential to produce an uncontrolled release of case, called a blowout. While the cause of the explosion has yet to be determined, a blowout is considered a possibility.

One survivor of the explosion, who declined to give his name, told the The New York Times that he was lying in bed when the explosion happened. “It caught me by surprise. I’ve been in offshore 25 years, and I’ve never seen anything like that,” he recalled.

Stanley Murray, the father of another survivor named Chad, an electrician, said: “My son had just walked off the drill floor.” However, Murray said that a neighbor did not make it in time, adding that his son told him that the missing eleven workers could not have made it out alive. “The eleven that’s [sic] missing, they won’t find them,” Murray said.

Tuesday, January 3, 2006

Two activists convicted for painting the words “NO WAR” in five-metre-high red letters on the highest sail of Sydney Opera House in March 2003, are facing court action again to prevent them from auctioning the equipment used to paint the controversial sign.

Dr Will Saunders and David Burgess were sentenced to nine months periodic detention and ordered to pay the Opera House Trust $151,000 for malicious damage to the building on March 18, 2003.

The pair spent six months in jail for painting the slogan on one of the sails of the Opera House on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. The protesters say they wish to auction the equipment for humanitarian causes in Iraq.

Police confiscated the paint can and two brushes used in the incident and have now applied for a court order to have the can and brushes destroyed. They are saying such an auction would contravene proceeds of crime laws.

Saunders said they wanted to auction the can and send the proceeds to humanitarian causes in Iraq. According to The Australian newspaper, Mr Saunders said the auction could be conducted by a registered charity to raise money for the Mother and Child Hospital in Basra.

He said the can should also be preserved as an important piece of Sydney history.

“We want to give the surplus money that we’ve raised, and anything extra we can make from an auction – not only the paint pot … I think we can raise many many thousands of dollars,” he said. “We’d be happy to come to any reasonable arrangement with the police about how this auction takes place … it’s just mean beyond belief, petty-minded just to destroy it.”

The matter will go before a Sydney court on January 16.

Meanwhile, the world-famous Sydney Opera House is one of 21 international landmarks short-listed to become the new Seven Wonders of the World. The list includes modern landmarks such as Paris’ Eiffel Tower and older candidates like the Colosseum in Rome and China’s Great Wall.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

A transgender woman attacked in Harlem, New York last week died on Thursday after being declared brain dead and taken off life support. Police are treating the death of Islan Nettles, 21, as a hate crime.

Nettles was walking with transgender friends early on August 17 when they met a group of men opposite a local police building. Police say a fight ensued after the men discovered the group was transgender and local man Paris Wilson, 20, was arrested at the scene.

Wilson was charged by prosecutors in Manhattan with assault and harassment. Prosecutors say more serious charges could be brought after police received allegations homophobic language was used, with a hate crimes team now investigating. The death has been ruled a homicide and a spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner’s office said Nettles was killed by “blunt impact head injuries”.

The criminal complaint Wilson presently faces says a police officer found Nettles “unconscious on the ground with a swollen shut eye and blood on her face”. Wilson is accused of punching Nettles to the ground and then repeatedly hitting her while she lay there.

Nettles was interested in a fashion career, working as an intern for local fashion firm Ay’Medici. “Fashion became a definite decision for my life after my first show with my hand designed garments in highschool”, she wrote on LinkedIn, where she described herself as “anti-violence”. She has previously instructed fashion at Harlem Children’s Zone, undertaking studies at New York College of Technology and the Bread and Roses Integrated Arts High School.

Her mother, Dolores Nettles, told press Nettles and her friends were subject to transphobic insults. “They were called faggots, they were called he-shes, she-males, things of that nature,” she said.

Daniel L. Squadron of the New York State Senate said yesterday in a statement “Islan was 21 years old — 21 years old. And her life and future were stolen from her. Let’s be clear: intolerance, discrimination and hate have no place in New York or anywhere.” He called for the passage of a related bill he supports, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act.

Wilson is presently free on bail, with a court hearing scheduled for October 4.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

According to the Japanese Defense Ministry, North Korea has fired a short-range missile today into the Sea of Japan. Officials believed it to be part of a regular exercise.

“North Korea fired a short-range missile in what appeared to be part of a military drill,” a Japanese Defense Ministry official was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.

A South Korean defense spokesman said such tests are routine.

“We don’t deny that North Korea fired a missile,” South Korean Army Colonel Ha Doo-chul, told Yonhap. “If it did, we regard it as a routine exercise.”

The test comes at the time when North Korea is inviting inspectors in to discuss its nuclear programs.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Australian federal member of Calare, Peter Andren died on Saturday after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. He was aged 61.

Mr Andren who had held the seat since being elected in 1996 had previously announced his intention to run for the senate after his electorate was changed for the 2007 federal election. After Mr Andren was diagnosed with cancer in July, he announced that he would be retiring from politics at the election.

Mr Andren’s 1996 campaign platform was based upon retaining services in regional Australia, particularly banking, health and telecommunications. Over the next 11 years, Mr Andren’s primary vote grew and at the 2001 and 2004 elections was elected without preferences, achieving a majority primary vote.

In 2001, Mr Andren disagreed with his electorate on refugees. The electorate supported the government’s tough stance but Mr Andren could not support the government’s border protection measures. Following this, a vicious letter-box campaign rose up saying “you might like Peter Andren … but you won’t like what he’s got to say about keeping our borders safe”.

Fellow NSW independent member, Tony Windsor said Mr Andren’s stance on asylum seekers was just one sign of his compassion and strong belief in human rights.

Mr Windsor described Mr Andren as the “conscience” of parliament. “Peter Andren was a true representative of the people of the Calare electorate, a man of the highest integrity and the conscience of the Parliament,” he said.

“He was subjected to vitriol from time to time within the Parliament over issues, but if he believed in something he stuck to it. He didn’t compromise and I think that’s a lasting legacy that Peter will leave.”

Prime Minister John Howard said despite having a difference of opinion with Mr Andren on many issues, he had a lot of respect for him.

“I respected his skills as a local member,” he said.

“Mr Andren and I frequently disagreed on major issues and he made no bones about that and I made no bones about it either but that didn’t stop me respecting him and acknowledging the tremendous work he did for his electorate.”

Labor leader Kevin Rudd described Mr Andren as a true independent.

“Peter Andren will be a great loss to the Australian parliament,” he said.

“He was a man of principle, a man of commitment, a man who was an absolute independent.”

Leader of the Greens, Bob Brown said Mr Andren was an example of how a politician should be.

“He was an exemplar of representative politics for his electorate and the people of Calare kept returning him with a bigger and bigger majority,” he said.

“[If] anybody ever asks me how a politician should be, I am going to say, ‘Look at the record of Peter Andren'”

“He was a great Australian representative and he is a great loss to this country.”

During his political career, Mr Andren fought the sale of Telstra, introduced a bill to allow MPs to opt-out of their generous superannuation schemes, opposed the Iraq war and campaigned on environmental issues.

Mr Andren was born at Gulargambone, near Dubbo in Western NSW in 1946. Before he entered politics Mr Andren worked as a teacher before moving into journalism. Mr Andren worked as a news producer in Sydney for the Seven and Nine networks, before moving back to regional NSW where he worked as the news editor for both Radio 2GZ and Prime Television.

Mr Andren is survived by his partner and two sons.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

The South African government has set a six-month deadline for some white farmers to agree on sale prices for their farms. The government will be requiring them to sell the farms as part of its land redistribution programme.

Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana said that if no agreement in reached in 6 months, the government could expropriate farmlands. Stating that negotiations have been too slow, in some cases taking many years, Xingwana said that some farm owners were seeking “unrealistic prices”. Land owners claim they are not offered market value for their property.

The government has identified about 350 farms for which, if no deal is reached, the government will force a mandatory sale at current market prices identified by the government.

Officials said that expropriation is only a measure of last-resort and that farmers can appeal the decision in court.

The land reform programme aims to hand back land or give financial compensation to black South Africans who were forcibly removed from their ancestral homes and lands under apartheid rule. The programme was a key promise made by the African National Congress (ANC) as it came to power in 1994 and remains an emotive and politically charged issue.

Currently, about 4% of South Africa’s farm land is owned by blacks, who number 42 million out of the nation’s 47 million population. President Thabo Mbeki‘s government has set a target of transferring 30% of land to blacks by 2014. About 89% of the nearly 80,000 claims have been settled so far, and the government has spent some R2.5bn ($368m) purchasing farms from white owners. The National Land Claims Commission is entrusted with carrying out the transfers.

The reform programme had so far followed a “willing-buyer willing-seller” principle. The process had to contend with land owners challenging the validity of some claims, negotiating sale prices with current owners, and settling competing claims over the same piece of land—sometimes by tracing family trees of claimants when other documents supporting the claim did not exist.

Xingwana called on established farmers to form partnerships with new landowners and to transfer skills to new farmers, to ensure productive use of transferred lands. One criticism of the programme is that some of the transferred farms have fallen in production due to the inexperience and lack of capital among the new owners.

The government has rejected comparisons of the programme with that initiated in Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe.

Saturday, April 16, 2005

A Paris fire in a hotel killed 22 people, 10 of whom were children, while injuring 53 — 11 seriously. The hotel was an overcrowded, budget accommodation type of housing. Most of the inhabitants were African, many housed by social services, according to an Associated Press report.

The 32 room, six-story Paris Opera hotel, was made to house 61 guests, but 90 were staying at the time of the fire, with 84 of them placed by city or state social services.

The fire is thought to have started in the breakfast room at 2:20 am Friday, local time.

Along with the Africans, who were mostly refugees, others wounded included French, Senegalese, Portuguese, Americans, Ukrainians, and Tunisians, according to a report from Turkish Zaman.com. The hotel is situated near to La Galerie Lafayette, Printemps shopping center, and Paris Opera.

It took nearly 250 fire-fighters to control the fire, and the number of casualties was high because of the single exit.

“It’s hard in that kind of situation to tell people to calm down. They jumped. People on the first floor threw their children out the windows,” Alfred Millot, head of the fire service at the nearby upmarket Galeries Lafayette department store, told Agence France-Presse.

“With our own equipment, we started fighting the fire from the ground floor. I came running and people were already jumping through the windows,” said Millot.

His store warehouse was used as a temporary morgue. Families were counselled and assisted in re-uniting by the Red Cross.