Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Today, Joachim Löw, manager of the German national football team, dropped Borussia Dortmund midfielder Marco Reus from the UEFA Euro 2016 squad. Marco Reus, who turned 27 years old today, is suffering from a groin injury. He also missed the 2014 FIFA World Cup with an ankle injury.

Löw said their medical staff wasn’t sure Reus could meet the demands of the forthcoming games. He added, “Marco has serious fitness problems; he can only run in a straight line at the moment.” ^{((de))German language: ?Marco hat massive gesundheitliche Probleme, im Moment kann er nur geradeaus laufen.}

Löw also did not include other Bundesliga players Karim Bellarabi, Julian Brandt, and Sebastian Rudy from the provisional squad in the final selection. Thanking the four German internationals for their performance in training, he said, “It’s not a decision against those four players, but rather one in favour of the other 23.” ^{((de))German language: ?Es ist keine Entscheidung gegen vier Spieler, sondern eine Entscheidung für 23 Spieler.}

Germany are due to play their final friendly match before the start of Euro 2016 on June 4 against Hungary. On June 12, Germany will open their account in Euro 2016 when they face Ukraine in Lille, France.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Gunmen today opened fire in a Mexico City restaurant, killing a top police official in charge of monitoring the country’s illegal drug trade, as well as one of his bodyguards, Mexican officials said. The attack is the latest waged against authorities attempting to fight Mexico’s powerful drug cartels.

Security officials in Mexico City say the attack occurred as Igor Labastida Calderón, commander of the federal police‘s Traffic and Contraband division, was eating lunch with one of his bodyguards, Jose Maria Ochoa. According to Minerva Amado, spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, two unknown subjects got out of a black vehicle, entered the restaurant, and opened fire on Labastida Calderón.

Reports differ on who else was injured in the attack. Amado said two other bodyguards were injured and hospitalized, while Mexico City newspaper El Universal reports that three civilians were injured.

The motive for the attack remains unclear. No arrests have been made so far, as police continue to search for the assailants. Federal police have refused to comment.

President Felipe Calderón has sent over 20,000 troops throughout Mexico in an attempt to take back areas controlled by the country’s drug cartels. Since Calderón took office in December 2006, more than 4,000 people have been killed by these drug cartels, allegedly including federal police chief Édgar Millán Gómez, whose May death was attributed to the Sinaloa Cartel.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Environmentalists in Brazil are urging the country’s residents to urinate in the shower while washing themselves, to help conserve water and save the rainforest. Television ads being aired in the country claim that by doing so, the nation could save over 1,000 gallons of water per household each year.

SOS Mata Atlantica ran the ad campaign in an attempt to use comedy to get people to reduce the amount of water they use. “[The ad is] a way to be playful about a serious subject,” said Adriana Kfouri, a spokesperson for Atlantica.

The animated ad narrated by children shows people, including a trapeze artist, an alien and dancers, all taking a shower while at the same time, urinating in it. The ending of the ad then states, “Pee in the shower! Save the Atlantic rainforest!”

Ken Livingstone, former mayor of London, England, proposed a similar campaign in 2006. He said urine should be classified as a “green waste” and that “there is no earthly reason that you need to flush the loo if you have merely urinated. That’s a huge saving of water.”

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Ali Akbar Salehi, chief of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, announced Friday that Iran is scheduled to launch its first nuclear power plant in Bushehr. Russia said that it will start loading fuel into the reactor on August 21, 2010.

Russia has assisted Iran in the construction of this reactor since the mid-1990s. The proposal to build this reactor was put forth 35 years ago by Mohammad Rez? Sh?h Pahlavi, the former emperor of Iran.

Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, the current president of Russia, said that Iran and Russia are in active trade partnership. Medvedev called on Iran last month to explain its nuclear program.

The official launch is scheduled for August 21, 2010. Russia has promised to run the plant by supplying fuel and taking away fuel waste.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

What you are about to read is an American life as lived by renowned author Edmund White. His life has been a crossroads, the fulcrum of high-brow Classicism and low-brow Brett Easton Ellisism. It is not for the faint. He has been the toast of the literary elite in New York, London and Paris, befriending artistic luminaries such as Salman Rushdie and Sir Ian McKellen while writing about a family where he was jealous his sister was having sex with his father as he fought off his mother’s amorous pursuit.

The fact is, Edmund White exists. His life exists. To the casual reader, they may find it disquieting that someone like his father existed in 1950’s America and that White’s work is the progeny of his intimate effort to understand his own experience.

Wikinews reporter David Shankbone understood that an interview with Edmund White, who is professor of creative writing at Princeton University, who wrote the seminal biography of Jean Genet, and who no longer can keep track of how many sex partners he has encountered, meant nothing would be off limits. Nothing was. Late in the interview they were joined by his partner Michael Caroll, who discussed White’s enduring feud with influential writer and activist Larry Kramer.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Newsweek magazine apologized to the victims of last week’s deadly protests in Afghanistan, which were sparked when a Newsweek report stated that U.S. officials defiled the Koran.

But Islamic parties in Pakistan say the Newsweek apology is a transparent attempt to defuse Muslim anger. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the head of an Islamic party alliance told the BBC on Monday that Newsweek’s clarification held no weight. “There have been reports by the prisoners who have been released from Guantanamo Bay of desecration of the holy Koran, and different atrocities perpetrated on them.”

On Tuesday Mr.Ahmad said,”Whatever (Newsweek) magazine has done now is under pressure (from the U.S. government),” he said. “It has not denied what it has reported and many people freed from Guantanamo Bay have narrated the same thing.”

The Tuesday edition of the Pakistani daily newspaper the News quoted Hafiz Ehsan Saeed, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, as saying that the Koran was routinely desecrated at Guantanamo.

Reuters reported that Muslims said they suspected that pressure from Washington was behind the magazine’s backing off. On Monday, presidential spokesman ScottMcClellan had criticized Newsweek’s initial response to the incident, saying it was “puzzling.” Later in the day, Newsweek retracted the story which the White House said was a “good first step”.

Newsweek defended its reporting and said its investigation is continuing into allegations that the Koran had been desecrated by U.S. personnel.

“Unfortunately relations are so bad at this point that the perception will linger;” said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Many people won’t believe it. They’ll believe the magazine was pressured into doing a retraction.” Hooper said.

“We will not be deceived by this,” Sadullah Abu Aman, an Islamic cleric, told Reuters in Afghanistan.

The magazine said it had made a mistake in its May 9th report regarding the accusations, which led to violent anti-American protests in Afghanistan. Over 16 were killed, and more than 100 were injured. While many officials supporting the protests vowed for non-violence, some in the streets threatened to start a religious war against the United States.

Newsweek’s Editor, Mark Whitaker, said the magazine’s error was reporting confirmation by U.S. military investigators that Guantanamo personnel flushed the Koran down a toilet. The source initially said he had read of the event in a military investigative report, but the source later told the magazine he might have seen the account of the Koran incident in other investigative documents or drafts.

Mr Whitaker told Reuters, “As to whether anything like this happened, we just don’t know. We’re not saying it absolutely happened but we can’t say that it absolutely didn’t happen either.”

The Newsweek report was not the first public allegation alleging Quran desecration at Guantanamo Bay. News stories came out in August and October 2004, reporting that British citizens who had been released from Guantanamo claimed U.S. guards threw their Qurans into the toilet. Also, in January, 2005, Kristine Huskey, a lawyer representing Guantanamo detainees, said a detainee witnessed a guard tossing a Quran into a toilet.

Saturday, June 4, 2005

On Friday, the U.S. military released the results of their investigation and confirmed that in 5 separate incidents, American guards at the Guantánamo Bay prison “mishandled” the Islamic holy book. However, they stress that guards were usually “respectful” of the Qur’an.

One incident involved splashing a Qur’an with urine by urinating near an air vent while others involved kicking, stepping on and writing in Qur’ans.

Brigadier-General Jay Hood, the commander of the jail, said that these incidents are the exception to the rule. In a statement issued late Friday, he said: “The inquiry … revealed a consistent, documented policy of respectful handling of the Qur’an dating back almost two-and-a-half years.”

Gen. Hood looked into the allegations, published and then retracted by Newsweek, that American personnel flushed a Qur’an down a toilet. He said that the inquiry did not find any evidence supporting this particular allegation. “The inquiry found no credible evidence that a member of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed a Qur’an down a toilet. This matter is considered closed.”

The incidents reported are:

• a guard kicking a prisoner’s Qur’an;
• Qur’ans wetted by water balloons thrown by guards;
• a “two-word obscenity” written, in English, inside the cover of a Qur’an. Military officials state that it is equally possible that a guard wrote this in the prisoner’s Qur’an or that the prisoner wrote this in his own Qur’an;
• a guard who urinated too close to an air vent, spraying a Qur’an with urine;
• an interrogator who stepped on a Qur’an during an interrogation.

The investigation also revealed 15 alleged cases of Qur’an mistreatment by detainees themselves. Detainees used Qur’ans as pillows, urinated on them, and, several times, tore pages out of copies of the books, according to the report. For example, the report states that a guard observed a “detainee place two Qur’ans in his toilet and state he no longer cared about the Qur’an or his religion,” on February 23, 2004. It is believed that such behavior is intended to cause disruption and problems for the guards.

Tuesday, December 25, 2018

On Saturday, a tsunami struck Indonesia’s Sunda Strait coastline at around 21:30 local time (1430 UTC). Indonesian officals suggested it was caused by an undersea landslide that followed the recent eruptions of Anak Krakatoa, later receiving support from geological experts.

The BBC reported on Sunday 222 dead and 843 injured, with Indonesian government officials saying the numbers were likely to rise further. NPR reported at least 281 killed; more recently The Guardian gave a minimum death toll of 373. Early reports indicated the wave was about 3–7 feet (1–2 meters) high. No earthquake accompanied it; victims had no warning before the surge arrived.

On Sunday a tsunami warning siren went off accidentally, causing panic because of the false alarm. The affected area incorporates Java and Sumatra, the nation’s most populous islands. The Sunda Strait forms a link between the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean.

The International Federation of the Red Cross said on Sunday it was on the scene working to support survivors and locate the deceased. President Joko Widodo spoke of his sadness at the disaster.

Three months ago a tsunami hit Sulawesi, causing thousands of deaths. A 2004 tsunami that hit thirteen nations killed over 220,000 with Indonesia the worst affected. The island nation is in an area of high tectonic activity known as the Ring of Fire, making earthquakes and tsunamis relatively common.