Thursday, March 16, 2006

Anti-war demonstrators in Sydney, Australia on Thursday dubbed U.S. Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice a “war criminal” and “murderer.” Two protesters were evicted and five people were arrested during protests against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Dr Rice, on a three-day trip to Australia, said she understood why people found it hard to be positive about Iraq when all they saw on their television screens was violence.

Soon after Rice began her speech at the University of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music, two protesters shouted from the rear of the auditorium, “Condoleezza Rice, you are a war criminal,” and “Iraqi blood is on your hands and you cannot wash that blood away.” Standing with their palms towards her, the young man and woman repeated their accusation until security intervened to remove them from the hall.

About 15 minutes into Rice’s address, a third protester appeared at a balcony door, interrupting her speech as she referred to freedom. “What kind of freedom are you talking about? You are a murderer,” said the demonstrator before he was quietly escorted from the hall. “I’m very glad to see that democracy is well and alive here at the university,” she said.

In her speech, Rice sought to justify the U.S. occupation of Iraq, describing Iraqis as now more free. One student asked about abuses committed by U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. She said the abuses had made her “sick to her stomach.” However, she defended Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where human rights groups say detainees are held in inhumane conditions and in detention flouting international laws.

Before Rice began her speech, about 50 protesters were gathered at the front gates of the Conservatorium. The group were confronted by police on horseback and by police dogs. Police used the horses to charge into the group of activists and push them back, as a police helicopter hovered.

A police spokeswoman said the group was blocking pedestrian access to the building and that police had spent more than 20 minutes warning them to move. The police then moved in and pushed the crowd back 20 metres. Police say five people have been charged with “hindering police in the execution of their duties.”

The “Stop the War Coalition” says Rice is a “war criminal” and is not welcome in Australia. The group’s spokeswoman, Anna Samson, says the protest is one of many planned in the lead-up to the third anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq on March 20.

Paddy Gibson, from the University of Sydney’s Student’s Council, says the protest is in opposition to the Iraq war, and to the use of the University of Sydney’s campus to host Rice, “the most powerful woman in the world,” who they say is a war criminal. “They’re saying, ‘… you’ve got Sydney Uni’s support to stand up and peddle your murderous hate speeches,’ which is what we see it,” he said.

“You’ve got 180,000 people killed, as we said, for no other reason than strategic control of the region’s oil resources. And the anti-Muslim racism that’s been whipped up to justify this war is being felt by Sydney University students,” said Mr Gibson.

Friday, November 3, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Don Valley West (Ward 26). Four candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Muhammad Alam, Bahar Aminvaziri, Orhan Aybars, Michele Carroll-Smith, Mohamed Dhanani, Abdul Ingar, Geoff Kettel, Debbie Lechter, Natalie Maniates, John Masterson, John Parker, David Thomas, Csaba Vegh, and Fred Williams.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Dell Inc. announced on Tuesday that it will partner up with the Microsoft-Nortel Innovative communications alliance (ICA) team to sell Unified Communications and VoIP products.

The announcement on Tuesday the 16th of October 2007 includes Dell selling VoIP, data and wireless networking products from Nortel and the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and other unified communications products.

The partnership with both manufacturers should allow Dell to provide a pre-integrated solution.

In March 2007, competitors IBM and Cisco announced they would join in the competition for developing unified communications applications and the development of open technologies around the unified communications and collaboration (UC2) client platform an application programming interfaces (APIs) offered by IBM as a subset of Lotus Sametime.

“We want to make it simple for our customers to deploy unified communications so their end users can get access to all their messages in one place – whether its e-mail, phone or mobile device. This will pave the way for more business-ready productivity tools,” said vice president of solutions, Dell Product Group, Rick Becker.

• Customers have four options:
  • Core Office Communication Server 2007 – provides instant messaging and on-premise Microsoft Live Meeting.
  • Office Communication Server: Telephony – enables call routing tracking and management, VoIP gateway and public branch exchange (PBX) integration.
  • Audio and Video Conferencing – allows point-to-point conference, video conference and VoIP audio conference.
  • Exchange Unified Messaging – provides voicemail, e-mail and fax in Microsoft Outlook, and anywhere access of Microsoft Outlook Inbox and Calendar.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Scientists at NASA say that new satellite images of Saturn‘s moon Enceladus taken in 2005, has shown that the moon has begun to spew geysers which contain liquid water, and that the internal heat produced by the moon’s core may be able to host life below the icy surface, but scientists also stress that life has not yet been found on the moon.

Scientists say that the heat source producing the geysers is “organic” and that the material used to spew them is caused by the decaying of radioactive material from inside the moon.

“Deep inside Enceladus, our model indicates we’ve got an organic brew, a heat source and liquid water, all key ingredients for life. And while no one is claiming that we have found life by any means, we probably have evidence for a place that might be hospitable to life,” said Dennis Matson, a scientist for the Cassini project.

In a new model created by NASA scientists, data shows that Enceladus might have been created by aluminum and iron isotopes which have begun to decay causing large amounts of heat to build up in the moon and over billions of years later, the icy mass has began to melt near the moon’s core, causing the water to spew into outer space.

“Enceladus is a very small body, and it’s made almost entirely of ice and rock. The puzzle is how the moon developed a warm core. The only way to achieve such high temperatures at Enceladus is through the very rapid decay of some radioactive species,” said Dr. Julie Castillo, the lead scientist developing the new model at the Jet Propulsion laboratory or JPL.

“The decomposition of those isotopes – over a period of about 7 million years – would produce enormous amounts of heat. This would result in the consolidation of rocky material at the core surrounded by a shell of ice. According to the theory, the remaining, more slowly decaying radioactivity in the core could continue to warm and melt the moon’s interior for billions of years, along with tidal forces from Saturn’s gravitational tug,” said a statement on NASA”s website.

Data from Cassini’s ion and neutral mass spectrometer further shows that the natural building blocks of life are also present within Enceladus. The results show that carbon dioxide, acetylene, methane, propane and nitrogen, the basic building blocks for life, are all present within the moon.

“The team concludes that so far, all the findings and the hot start model indicate that a warm, organic-rich mixture was produced below the surface of Enceladus and might still be present today, making the moon a promising kitchen for the cooking of primordial soup,” added the statement.

Cassini will make a flyby on Enceladus in march of 2008. The mission will “measure the gas emanating from the plume,” ended the statement.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Pakistani officials have stated that a missile strike — suspected to have been launched from an American unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) — killed at least ten militants in North Waziristan, a tribal area near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan on Tuesday.

The attack targeted a Taliban-operated compound in the village of Dargamandi. It was the second attack in the vicinity within 24 hours. On Monday, five people were killed following a similar attack targeting a Islamic school in the Machikhel village.

Unmanned aircraft operated by the US are believed to have launched over forty missiles into northwestern Pakistan, a stronghold of the Taliban in the past few months.

The strikes were initiated after a suicide bomber killed at least 21 people at a border checkpoint last week.

Sunday, December 4, 2016

A fire broke out at a record release party in Oakland, California late on Friday night. Nine were confirmed dead the following morning with the death toll rising to 24 the next day.

The warehouse, known as Ghost Ship, was hosting a party for the release of the newest album by Joel “Golden Donna” Shanahan. It is in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, a mix of commercial and residential buildings nestled together. The structure is one block away from Fire Station No. 13 and at least 55 firefighters spent four hours containing and stopping the fire which began at approximately 11:30 p.m.

Firefighters and police cordoned off the block to spectators. The two-story, mixed-use structure also housed the artist collective Satya Yuga who hosted the show and is being searched by firefighters. Out of approximately 50 attendees, at least 25 were declared missing. Shanahan was among the survivors.

Efforts to rescue partygoers were compounded by the roof caving in during the inferno as well as the stacks of furniture, art pieces, and supplies which turned into obstacles for first responders.

Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf:

The structure is owned by Chor N. Ng, who is also the proprietor of several other buildings in the East Bay. On November 13 Ng was cited by the city for having stacks of garbage in and around the warehouse. Most fatalities were reported to have occurred in the upstairs portion of the building where escape was hampered by unstable stairs and miscellaneous art pieces lying in the way. The building lacked any smoke detectors and sprinklers; fire extinguishers were found outside of the premises.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Officials say that a French military helicopter with 10 French soldiers, including four crew members and six Special Forces paratroopers, has crashed off the coast of Gabon in west central Africa.

The Eurocopter AS 532 Cougar ditched shortly into the Atlantic Ocean after leaving a French naval ship, about 50 kilometres off the coast. Seven French soldiers were killed, two were rescued, and one is still missing, according to a statement issued by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office.

“Today, the wreckage of the helicopter was located at a depth of 35 metres and searched. Unfortunately, we must report the deaths of five other soldiers. A final soldier remains missing. Searches are continuing,” the statement explained.

According to Libreville Lieutenant Colonel Pascal Carpentier, the ill-fated helicopter crashed Saturday night at 8:08 p.m. (1908 GMT) into Atlantic waters off Nyonie, a small town located between Gabon’s capital Libreville and the town of Port-Gentil. It was taking off from the amphibious assault ship La Foudre’s naval landing craft transporter cruising 50 kilometers (30 miles) off the Gabonese coast, during a joint training exercise, said Lieutenant Colonel Francois-Marie Gougeon, spokesman for the general staff.

The ship “set off the alert and arrived at the crash site with rescuers who picked up the injured crew within half an hour. The sea was calm and the wind low at the time of the crash but the night was very dark,” Lieutenant Gougeon explained, adding that “search operations will naturally continue all night.” La Foudre, two helicopters and oil giant Total S.A.’s three vessels, including its sonar and underwater robot joined the rescue effort of the salvage team.

“Divers were deployed to locate the wreckage,” said Captain Christophe Prazuck, spokesman for the army general staff. “At daybreak we will deploy all our means, planes, helicopters, boats… to take part in the search,” said Gabon’s Interior Minister André Mba Obame.

Meanwhile French President Nicolas Sarkozy directed Defence Minister Hervé Morin to travel to the crash site. Sarkozy had “asked that all available means in the area be immediately deployed to find the soldiers who were aboard.”Morin later announced there would be two probes, a judicial one and another by the French defence ministry, with the assistance of French gendarmes and an air accident expert.

Minister Morin arrived in Libreville on Sunday and met with President Omar Bongo to discuss rescue efforts for the missing body of one of the seven soldiers. “The cause of this tragedy remains unknown. It may be natural or human, or a combination of both.” Morin said. “Divers were inspecting the Cougar, which was in water 35 meters (about 115 feet) deep. We will do everything we can to find the last person missing,” he added.

Morin viewed rescue efforts on La Foudre, and visited friends and relatives of the missing at Camp DeGaulle. The French soldiers were “permanent personnel in Gabon who knew the region well,” said General Claude Reglat, Gabon commander of French forces. “The six others were commandos who had arrived from the French army’s elite 13th Regiment of Dragon Paratroopers. We have expressed our compassion and solidarity to the families,” he added.“This type of helicopter does not have a black box. So the flight was not recorded, nor were the voices in the cockpit. So some elements will remain unknown,” Claude Reglat also noted.

The January 17-21 bilateral manoeuvres called ‘Operation N’Gari’ involved 600 French soldiers and 120 Gabonese troops maneuvering in the military drill known as Baptise Ngeri. The soldiers were backed by Cougar and Fennec helicopters to coordinate maritime safety operations with UN peacekeepers at Bouna airport, in the Ivory Coast. In the joint exercise soldiers were to be parachuted onto predetermined targets including Nyonie.

Gabon, a former French colony, hosts one of four permanent French bases in Africa. Gabon is a country in west central Africa sharing borders with the Gulf of Guinea to the west, Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, and Cameroon to the north, with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. According the FFG which has around 1,000 troops in Gabon, the French Forces in Gabon (FFG)’s role is “to assure the safety of the 12,000 French residents in the country in case of threat, and carry out aid missions.”