Sunday, September 27, 2009

Two powerful suicide attacks struck different areas of northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, apparently targeting the country’s security forces. In the first attack, a bomber killed at least six people and wounded more than 60 others outside a police station in Bannu.

Shortly thereafter, in Peshawar’s commercial district, another attacker blew himself up outside a bank affiliated with the Pakistani army, killing ten people and wounding more than 70 others.

Authorities in Bannu said the suicide bomber exploded a small truck full of explosives, destroying the police station and surrounding buildings.

District Police Officer Iqbal Marwat said nearby civilians were wounded, but most of the casualties were police officers. He said the attacker tried to ram the vehicle through the main gate, but then detonated the bomb after police opened fire.

Local media are quoted a representative for the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan as taking responsibility for the bombing.

In a telephone call, Taliban spokesman Qari Hussain Mehsud warned civilians to keep away from security checkpoints and other police installations, saying that “we have broken the silence as the government did not understand the pause in attacks, and from now there will be an increase in the number of suicide bombings.”

This is the first time the alliance of more than a dozen militant groups with links to al-Qaida has claimed responsibility since its former leader Baitullah Mehsud was reportedly killed in a U.S. missile strike. Analysts had suggested the group was in disarray following Mehsud’s death.

Hours later in Peshawar, officials say an attacker in a parked car threw a grenade at a crowd of people outside the Askari Bank before detonating a bomb in his car.

“Ten people have been killed and 71 wounded, five of them critically,” said the chief government administrator of Peshawar, Sahibzada Anis, to the Reuters news agency.

“It was terrible. My children are very frightened. All the windows of my house are broken. It was very frightening,” said Beenish Asad, a witness to the event, who lives near where the explosion took place.

No one has claimed responsibility for that particular attack. Senior police official Ghafoor Afridi told Voice of America that the bomber had managed to bypass multiple security checkpoints. “There was checking all around. But somehow, it is not possible to check all vehicles, so they might have slipped a vehicle inside and exploded it,” said Afridi.

North West Frontier Province’s information minister, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, said that the recent violence would not discourage government forces from fighting the rebels. “It is not only our duty […] to fight this menace of terrorism, it is a responsibility of the whole world. We are on the front line today, that’s why our blood is being shed.”

Hussain also said “we are not scared of these people and we have to extend our operations wherever these terrorists are operating,” adding that forty suspected would-be suicide bombers had been apprehended within the past several months.

The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan released a statement in which it condemned the bombings. “[The attacks] highlight the vicious and inhuman nature of this enemy whose true target is the democratically elected government of Pakistan and the security of all Pakistanis,” the embassy said.

Saturday’s attacks come as the Pakistani military works to expand its offensive against the Taliban from in and around Swat Valley to the north to South Waziristan.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Former United States vice president Al Gore will not be facing assault charges due to allegations made by a masseuse in 2006, according to the Portland, Oregon district attorney’s office.

Molly Hagerty, 54, claimed Gore “sexually assault[ed] me in his [hotel] room.” Hagerty was called to Gore’s Portland hotel room to give him a massage. Hagerty said Gore pinned her down and “he kept trying to have sex with [her].”

Prosecutors closed the case, but after tabloid National Inquirer interviewed Hagerty they reopened the case. Hagerty refused to take a polygraph test.

Deputy DA Don Rees said there is “contradictory evidence, conflicting witness statements, credibility issues, lack of forensic evidence, and denials by Mr. Gore.”

Rees continued saying Hagerty and her attorneys were uncooperative in the investigation.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

A man identified as Aaron Richard Snyder showed up on Monday around 2:25 p.m. outside the Colorado Capitol offices of Governor Bill Ritter. He was carrying a 357-caliber 7 shot Smith and Wesson revolver with 20 extra rounds of ammunition and started screaming “I am the emperor” and “I am here to take over the state”.

When he was confronted by a Colorado State trooper, Snyder opened his jacket showing that he was carrying a gun. The trooper ordered Snyder to drop the gun, but instead he moved “menancingly” in the direction of the trooper who then shot him once in the head and twice in the chest.

Snyder died from the multiple gunshot wounds on the floor of the Capitol office building. The Capitol went on a full lockdown with employees, tour groups and visitors in the building at the time ordered to stay where they were.

Governor Ritter was interviewing a judge candidate in his office at the time of the shooting. He held a press conference on the Capitol step two hours later.

Mr. Snyder was under doctors care for delusional behavior. The Northglenn, Colorado police issued a BOL “Be On the Lookout” to all law enforcement agencies in Colorado for Snyder and his car, a 2004 black Kia, around 25 minutes before the shooting occurred.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Kristen Monster is running for the Family Coalition Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Willowdale riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed her regarding her values, her experience, and her campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is now at the centre of controversy when, on Thursday, a live microphone caught him describing a voter he had talked to as being a “bigoted woman”.

The incident occurred after Brown, encouraged by his advisors to interact with ordinary people more often before next week’s parliamentary elections, went for a walkabout in the town of Rochdale, located near Manchester. There, he spoke with Gillian Duffy, aged 65, who challenged him on topics such as health and education, before asking about immigration: “All those Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?” she asked him.

Brown responded by saying that “[a] million people come from Europe, but a million people, British people, have gone into Europe.” The prime minister, upon finishing the discussion, said it was “very nice to meet you” and returned to his car.

Unbeknownst to him, however, the Sky News microphone attached to his lapel was still turned on and picked up the conversation that followed inside the vehicle: “That was a disaster … they should never have put me with that woman,” Brown said. “Whose idea was that? It’s just ridiculous.” When an aide asked what Duffy had said, Brown responded: “Everything, she was just a bigoted woman that said she used to be Labour […] I don’t know why Sue [an aide] brought her up towards me.”

The PM, upon being informed what had happened, returned to Duffy’s home to personally apologise. “Sometimes you do make mistakes and you use wrong words, and once you’ve used that word and you’ve made a mistake, you should withdraw it and say profound apologies, and that’s what I’ve done,” he said. During an interview with the BBC, Brown is seen with his head in hands as the comments were replayed.

Duffy, speaking to reporters immediately after having talked with the PM, described Brown as being “very nice”, but later said she was “very upset” when informed what Brown had said off-camera. “Why has he come out with words like that? He’s supposed to be leading the country and he’s calling an ordinary woman who’s come up and asked questions that most people would ask him,” she said in an interview with the BBC.

“[…] It’s going to be tax, tax, tax for another twenty years to get out of this national debt, and he’s calling me a bigot,” later adding: “I want to know why – them [sic] comments I made there – why I was called a bigot.”

A spokesman for Brown said: “Mr Brown has apologised to Mrs Duffy personally by phone. He does not think that she is bigoted. He was letting off steam in the car after a difficult conversation. But this is exactly the sort of conversation that is important in an election campaign and which he will continue to have with voters.”

Some political analysts have said the gaffe may hurt Labour’s chances in the upcoming elections; the party had managed to narrow the Conservatives’ lead in recent opinion polls.

The Conservatives responded to the incident — dubbed by some media outlets as “Bigotgate” — with Shadow chancellor George Osborne saying that “general elections […] do reveal the truth about people.”

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, meanwhile said: “You should always try to answer the questions as best you can. He has been recorded saying what he has said and will have to answer for that.”

Andrew Russell, a politics lecturer for Manchester University, commented on the situation. “A politician in a stronger position could recover from this. What we know is that Gordon Brown is not in that position.”

Thursday, December 25, 2008

The US Food and Drug Administration has written a warning letter to The Coca-Cola Company that Diet Coke Plus violates the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act‘s guidelines. The December 10 letter, signed by Roberta Wagner, director of the office of compliance at the Center of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, says Coca-Cola should “take prompt action to correct these violations.”

The product’s label describes the drink as “Diet Coke with Vitamins and Minerals.” FDA said the soft drink does not have enough nutrients to justify the use of the word “plus” in its trade name. According to statute, foods must contain at least 10 per cent more of the Reference Daily Intake (RDI) or Daily Reference Value (DRV) for a given nutrient “than an appropriate reference food” in order to be called “plus” legally.

The FDA also advised “it is inappropriate to add extra nutrients to snack foods such as carbonated beverages.” The FDA warns Coca-Cola and asks it to revise the drink’s labeling and inform the agency of its reply regarding how it plans to fix the violation, within 15 days of receiving the warning. Coca-Cola says it will submit a reply to the FDA in early January, but currently has no plans to alter the label.

The US Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA, FDCA, or FD&C), is a set of laws passed by Congress in 1938 giving authority to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to oversee the safety of food, drugs, and cosmetics. A principal author of this law was Royal S. Copeland, a three-term U.S. Senator from New York, whose concerns about drug safety stemmed from the fact that he was also a homeopathic physician. The act has been amended many times, most recently to add requirements about bioterrorism preparations.

The Coca-Cola Company issued a statement saying, “This does not involve any health or safety issues, and we believe the label on Diet Coke Plus complies with FDA’s policies and regulations.”

The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s largest beverage company, largest manufacturer, distributor and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups in the world, and one of the largest corporations in the United States. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in 1886. Diet Coke Plus (also known as Coca Cola Light Plus) was released in the United Kingdom in October 2007.

Forbes has reported that “Coca-Cola has been on a crusade to revamp its image from a purveyor of highly sweetened, fattening products to a more family-friendly image of low-calorie, nutritional drinks. Its violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act could mean hefty fines and a seizure of product from the pop king, but often these sorts of issues are resolved without incident.”

Friday, April 11, 2008

Wikinews held an exclusive interview with Jeremy Hanke, editor of MicroFilmmaker Magazine. The magazine, which is free to read online, was started as a resource for the low budget moviemaker and features book, independent film, equipment and software reviews as well as articles on film distribution, special effects and lighting.

He says that one of the goals of the magazine is to “connect low-budget filmmakers via a feeling of community, as many…..often compete so viciously against one another in film festivals for coveted “shots” with Hollywood, that they can quickly forget their similarities.”

When asked if films made on a shoestring budget can really compete with those made for millions of dollars, he replied, “no…yes…and absolutely. Allow me to explain.” And so he does in the interview below.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

The United States Senate has approved a hard-fought measure to overhaul the health care system. The vote will be followed by the difficult process of reconciling the Senate-passed bill with one approved by the House of Representatives, in order to get a final measure to President Barack Obama.

“The yeas are 60, the nays are 39. H.R. 3590 as amended, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is passed,” Vice President Joe Biden announced. Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky did not show up for the vote leading to the 39 nays. Mike Reynard, a spokesman for Bunning, said in an e-mail that “The senator had family commitments.”

The vice president presided over the Senate at the time of the vote in his role as President of the United States Senate.

As expected, Republicans voted against the bill while all Democrats and two Independents, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, voted for it.

At an estimated $87 billion, the measure would expand health insurance coverage to about 30 million more Americans currently without it, and create new private insurance marketplaces, or exchanges, to expand choice.

And, like the slightly more expensive measure passed by the House of Representatives, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, it would end a practice by private insurance companies of denying coverage to individuals with existing health problems.

Both the Senate and House measures would require nearly all Americans to purchase some form of insurance, while lower-income Americans would receive help from federal government subsidies.

In remarks before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat from Nevada, said opponents had done everything they could to prevent the vote from taking place.

Speaking to reporters, Reid and others hailed the vote as a victory and a major step toward providing millions more Americans with access to health care. “This is a victory because we have affirmed that the ability to live a healthy life in our great country is a right and not merely a privilege for the select few,” Reid said.

Reid and others including Robert Byrd, the 92-year-old Democrat from West Virginia, paid tribute to Senator Edward Kennedy, who died this past August after spending decades of his career in the Senate pursuing health care reform.

When casting his vote Byrd said, “Mr. President, this is for my friend Ted Kennedy. Aye.”

Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of Senator Kennedy, watched the proceedings from the Senate visitor’s gallery, as did Representative John Dingell, Democrat from Michigan, who has been a long time advocate of health care reform and who sponsored and introduced the House version of the health care reform bill.

In the final hours of debate on the Senate bill, Republicans asserted it would be ineffective and add sharply to the U.S. budget deficit.

Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican from Alabama said of the bill, “This legislation may have a great vision, it may have a great idea about trying to make the system work better. But it does not. These are huge costs [and] it’s not financially sound.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to defeat the bill when the Senate reconvenes in January saying, “This fight is not over. This fight is long from over. My colleagues and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law.”

Senator Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican from Maine who helped approved the Senate Finance Committee’s version of health care reform, the America’s Healthy Future Act, earlier in the year and who remarked she may not vote on the final bill, said, “I was extremely disappointed,” noting that when the Democrats reached their needed 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, “there was zero opportunity to amend the bill or modify it, and Democrats had no incentive to reach across the aisle.”

Ahead are difficult negotiations with the House of Representatives to craft a final bill President Obama would sign into law. These talks, which will formally get under way early in the new year, will take place amid anger among many liberal House Democrats the Senate bill failed to contain a government-run public health insurance option.

Members of the House Progressive Caucus have vowed to fight to keep this public option in any final legislation that emerges, along with other provisions they say are needed to protect lower and middle-income Americans and hold insurance companies accountable.

In a statement, the Democratic chairmen of three key House committees said while there are clear differences between House and Senate bills, both will bring fundamental health care coverage to millions who are currently uninsured.

Obama administration officials have been quoted as saying they anticipate negotiations on a final bill would not be complete until after the President’s State of the Union Address in January, and could slip even later into the new year.

President Obama issued a statement to the press in the State Dining Room in the White House saying that the vote is “legislation that brings us toward the end of a nearly century-long struggle to reform America’s health care system.”

He also pointed out the bill’s strengths, noting, “The reform bill that passed the Senate this morning, like the House bill, includes the toughest measures ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable. Insurance companies will no longer be able to deny you coverage on the basis of a preexisting condition. They will no longer be able to drop your coverage when you get sick. No longer will you have to pay unlimited amounts out of your own pocket for the treatments you need. And you’ll be able to appeal unfair decisions by insurance companies to an independent party.”

He also noted how historic the bill is, saying, “If passed, this will be the most important piece of social policy since the Social Security Act in the 1930s, and the most important reform of our health care system since Medicare passed in the 1960s.”

Obama noted the potential social impact, saying, “It’s the impact reform will have on Americans who no longer have to go without a checkup or prescriptions that they need because they can’t afford them; on families who no longer have to worry that a single illness will send them into financial ruin; and on businesses that will no longer face exorbitant insurance rates that hamper their competitiveness.”

Obama afterwards made phone calls to various Senators and other people, including Victoria Kennedy and David Turner of Little Rock, Arkansas. Mr. Turner had his health insurance rescinded in January of last year, after his insurance company went back into his record and alleged that he failed to disclose his full medical record at the time he applied for coverage. Turner was First Lady Michelle Obama’s guest during her husband’s speech to a joint session of Congress on health care reform back in September.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

A car bomb that exploded at about 20:00 MDT Thursday (01:00 Friday UTC) in a violent area of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico killed several people and injured more.

Police spokesman Jacinto Seguro said Friday that Mexican federal police received a call that an officer was dead. Seguro went on to say, “When they went to check the car, there was a dead body in there, dressed up like a police officer, but it wasn’t one of ours. They put him in a civilian car but dressed him up in a municipal police uniform. That’s when the bomb went off. It’s like an act of terrorism.”

Federal police spokesman Ramon Salinas said the blast killed two officers, a paramedic, and one civilian, although Mayor Jose Reyes said that only three died. At least six others were injured, although reports have said the total injured may be as high as sixteen. Four remain in the hospital, including three paramedics and one civilian.

Mexican authorities say it was a car bomb, but counter-terrorism experts are still unsure as to what caused the vehicle to explode. Intelligence expert Fred Burton said, “For this to be an improvised grenade attack, in some capacity, it doesn’t surprise me.”

The Juarez cartel, one of the two drug-traffickers in the area, claimed responsibility for the bombing in a graffiti message. “We have more car bombs,” the graffiti said.

Ciudad Juárez has a history for trafficking drugs to the United States, especially into Texas.

Before the explosion, the police arrested a suspected leader of the Juarez cartel, Jesus Armando Acosta Guerrero.

This year more than 7,000 people have died as a result of drug-related violence in Mexico since this year began. Attorney General Arturo Chavez on Friday said nearly 25,000 people have died in the last three and a half year period.