Sunday, October 21, 2007

Torture proliferates American headlines today: whether its use is defensible in certain contexts and the morality of the practice. Wikinews reporter David Shankbone was curious about torture in American popular culture. This is the first of a two part series examining the BDSM business. This interview focuses on the owners of a dungeon, what they charge, what the clients are like and how they handle their needs.

When Shankbone rings the bell of “HC & Co.” he has no idea what to expect. A BDSM (Bondage Discipline Sadism Masochism) dungeon is a legal enterprise in New York City, and there are more than a few businesses that cater to a clientèle that wants an enema, a spanking, to be dressed like a baby or to wear women’s clothing. Shankbone went to find out what these businesses are like, who runs them, who works at them, and who frequents them. He spent three hours one night in what is considered one of the more upscale establishments in Manhattan, Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber, where according to The Village Voice, “you can take your girlfriend or wife, and have them treated with respect—unless they hope to be treated with something other than respect!”

When Shankbone arrived on the sixth floor of a midtown office building, the elevator opened up to a hallway where a smiling Rebecca greeted him. She is a beautiful forty-ish Long Island mother of three who is dressed in smart black pants and a black turtleneck that reaches up to her blond-streaked hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail. “Are you David Shankbone? We’re so excited to meet you!” she says, and leads him down the hall to a living room area with a sofa, a television playing an action-thriller, an open supply cabinet stocked with enema kits, and her husband Bill sitting at the computer trying to find where the re-release of Blade Runner is playing at the local theater. “I don’t like that movie,” says Rebecca.

Perhaps the most poignant moment came at the end of the night when Shankbone was waiting to be escorted out (to avoid running into a client). Rebecca came into the room and sat on the sofa. “You know, a lot of people out there would like to see me burn for what I do,” she says. Rebecca is a woman who has faced challenges in her life, and dealt with them the best she could given her circumstances. She sees herself as providing a service to people who have needs, no matter how debauched the outside world deems them. They sat talking mutual challenges they have faced and politics (she’s supporting Hillary); Rebecca reflected upon the irony that many of the people who supported the torture at Abu Ghraib would want her closed down. It was in this conversation that Shankbone saw that humanity can be found anywhere, including in places that appear on the surface to cater to the inhumanity some people in our society feel towards themselves, or others.

“The best way to describe it,” says Bill, “is if you had a kink, and you had a wife and you had two kids, and every time you had sex with your wife it just didn’t hit the nail on the head. What would you do about it? How would you handle it? You might go through life feeling unfulfilled. Or you might say, ‘No, my kink is I really need to dress in women’s clothing.’ We’re that outlet. We’re not the evil devil out here, plucking people off the street, keeping them chained up for days on end.”

Below is David Shankbone’s interview with Bill & Rebecca, owners of Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber, a BDSM dungeon.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005NRMA, one of Australia’s largest insurers, has come under scrutiny following the release of a scathing report into its online smash repairs system.

The report by the New South Wales Government’s Staysafe committee found that NRMA’s online repair tendering system was “unsafe”. NRMA has said it has no intention of suspending the system despite the findings.

The report, which was released yesterday found that “[The] system of allocating damaged motor vehicles to smash repairers without the repairers physically inspecting the damaged vehicle before quoting for work … is an unsafe system in its current form”. According to committee member and Port Stephens MP John Bartlett the vehicles were “being repaired to the standard of a brick and the crumple zones at the front and rear no longer worked and all the impact was being felt in the cabin”.

According to the report “the system would lead to cost cutting and unsafe repair practices, with the quality of repairs lowered by encouraging smash repairers to take short cuts”.

According to NRMA, only minor “cosmetic” repairs are put through the system – however often there can be further damage which is only evident after a complete inspection. The NRMA system simply places photographs of the vehicles on its website where approved smash repairers bid to carry out repairs.

David Brown, head of claims and assessments at NRMA, said this of the report: “[W]e totally reject the findings of the report, in fact we find the report’s fundamentally flawed with no evidence of safety issues, and [it] has been prepared without seeing the system first-hand”. He further added that the system would not be scrapped.

Thursday, December 7, 2006

The New Zealand Government has tabled the Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill, despite unprecedented political opposition.

In 2003 the Hon Annette King signed a Treaty with Australia agreeing to hand control of the natural health products sector over to an Australian regulatory body, however she needs to pass enabling legislation in New Zealand. “This will be a world-class joint scheme designed to regulate the safety, quality, effectiveness and promotion of therapeutic products in both New Zealand and Australia. That includes the regulation of complementary and alternative medicines, over-the-counter and prescription medicines, medical devices, blood and blood products and tissues and cellular therapies,” Ms King said.

Twice the Bill has been thrown out by select committees, but the Government is determined to ram it through Parliament, according to the New Zealand Health Trust.

“Late tonight the Bill was finally tabled, with no announcement from the Minister,” said Amy Adams, spokesperson for the Trust, “Clearly the Minister is keen to sneak it into Parliament under cover of the silly season, in the hope that she can keep it under the public’s radar.”

“I welcome the support of a majority of the House who want to see the Bill go to Select Committee where New Zealanders can have their say,” Ms King said.

The NZ Health Trust conducted research earlier this year which showed 62% of New Zealanders used natural health products. “This Bill represents a massive and irreparable change to the way we make rules for New Zealand dietary supplements,” Mrs Adams said.

“Under the proposed regime, well over a million New Zealand consumers would find the choice of products adversely affected, and experience cost increases. So you can see why the Government is trying to sneak this into the House without any fuss – they don’t want the public to know.”

All the political parties except Labour have pledged their opposition the proposal, despite some intense lobbying by Australian and New Zealand officials.

“It is a very serious thing to hand sovereignty over your country over to another nation,” Mrs Adams said. “And all the other political parties see the sense in making sure the sector is regulated from New Zealand – not as a minor state of Australia.”

Ms King said: “The Bill… ensures that New Zealand will have an equal say in the setting up and running of the new Authority and joint scheme.” The new authority will be like a crown-owned entity and will have to provide an anuual report and a statement of intent to parliament each year.

Friday, February 1, 2008

While the involuntary harvesting of human kidneys may have been relegated to urban legend in the Western world, a raid in India has shown the practice is real and has triggered an international manhunt.

On January 24, police raided a clinic in Gurgaon, a satellite city of Delhi with two million inhabitants, and found that poor laborers were having kidneys removed, sometimes coerced at gunpoint. The kidneys were for transplantation to wealthy clients, both at home and abroad.

In 1995, the Parliament of India made it illegal to donate organs except to close relatives. However, not all states have ratified the bill.

Mohammed Salim is a day laborer who had a kidney removed at the clinic. “I was approached by a stranger for a job. When I accepted, I was taken to a room with gunmen,” he told NDTV, a local television channel. “They tested my blood, gave me an injection and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I had pain in my lower abdomen and I was told that my kidney had been removed.”

Mohinder Lal, the police commissioner in Gurgaon who is heading the investigation, has a suspect thought to be the ringleader. The man, whose true identity is not known, but most recently he went by Amit Kumar, has been called the main doctor in the ring that harvested kidneys. The Indian press has dubbed him “Dr. Horror.”

Commissioner Lal says the scale of this ring is unprecedented. He says four doctors, five nurses, twenty paramedics, three private hospitals, ten pathology clinics and five diagnostic centers were involved. “We suspect around 400 or 500 kidney transplants were done by these doctors over the last nine years,” he said.

As for Amit Kumar, Lal told CanWest News Service, “we know that earlier he was staying in Canada [but] right now, we are not sure if he is in Canada.” Lal further said: “We are trying to get more information through Interpol today.”

The Times of India quoted an investigator with the Moradabad police, Manjul Saini: “We are certain his family is based in Canada and he visited them a fortnight ago.”

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) says it has limited information on the investigation. “We can, however, say that Interpol-Ottawa has been in communication with Interpol-New Delhi about this case,” said Sergeant Sylvie Tremblay.

Two British citizens, who are alleged to have travelled to India to obtain kidney transplants, have had their passports confiscated by police. Their identities have not been announced and the British High Commissioner says it has not been informed.

Speaking to The Guardian, deputy commissioner of Gurgaon, Rakesh Arya said that “two British people have not been let out of the country.”

“We are holding their passports. They are helping with our investigation… [There] are allegations that they are part [of the buying ring],” Arya continued. “We are cross checking certain things. They have been apprehended but not yet charged.”

A report by the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) has identified Amit Kumar as an alias of Santosh Rameshwar Raut, once a prominent nephrologist, citing police sources. IANS tracked an arrest record dating back to 1993 for the man who is said to be in his fifties.

The IANS estimates that Amit Kumar has amassed a fortune of billions of Indian rupees from the racket. He has also been disowned by his father, Rameshwar Raut, who said, “I had a misunderstanding with him and we have parted ways. Everyone in my village knows about my integrity. I am a freedom fighter and everybody knows this. He has made a mistake and put me to shame. One should never lie come what may. He was a big liar.”

It is alleged that Amit Kumar’s brothers, Jeewan and Ganesh, were instrumental in procuring “donors” and that the organization was very secretive, yet involved an extensive network of doctors at prestigious hospitals, travel agents, and taxicab drivers.

The January 24 raid of the clinic was done after Vidya Prakash Jatav, another laborer, filed a complaint with authorities.

“This problem comes from the economic disparity between the western hemisphere and the poor here. Western patients can simply buy organs and in this country we have no national health service,” Sandeep Guleria, professor of medicine at Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences told The Guardian. “Only 20% in the country can access any kind of medical care. We need a much bigger deterrence in terms of jail sentences.”