Friday, June 4, 2010

Funerals and prayers for nine activists, who died in Israel’s Gaza flotilla raid, were held in Istanbul on Thursday.

Tens of thousands attended the funeral of the nine Turkish nationals, including one teen of dual U.S.-Turkish citizenship. The coffins were draped in Turkish and Palestinian flags. There was widespread anger from those attending. Released activists arrived to their home countries yesterday and today.

The Turkish President Abdullah Gül said that Turkey would act calmly and said;

The youngest of the nine activists killed, a 19-year-old high school student Furkan Dogan, was shot in the head and chest. He was born in Troy New York, but moved to Turkey when he was two. He will be buried in his family’s hometown of Kayseri in central Turkey on Friday. A United States State Department spokesman said it would probe the death of the Turkish-American killed, but said the FBI were not involved “at this point.”

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that soldiers were acting in self-defence. He said the activists were not peace activists but “violent supporters of terrorism”. Israel has stated that of the 7 soldiers wounded during the assault, 2 were shot with weapons wrestled from Israeli forces. But Swedish activist Mattias Gardell scoffed at such statements, replying, “the Israelis started shooting first. We had no weapons, the Israelis had weapons”.

Abdullah Gül said Israel committed “one of the biggest mistakes ever in its history,” and the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an called Israel’s actions “a historic mistake.” The leader of the Islamic charity IHH spoke to the crowd, saying, “The whole world supports us. We will shake the foundations of Zionism”.

The activists had attempted to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The Irish ship MV Rachel Corrie arriving some time this weekend, will be the next ship to challenge the blockade.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Since last Tuesday, following violent confrontations with Pakistan’s army, up to 1800 clerics and students are still holed up in Islamabad’s Red Mosque. Clashes began last week following mounting antagonism between the mosques hard-line leaders and the government lead by President Pervez Musharraf.

The mosque has been accused of enforcing its own Islamic law in the capital, notably the illegal detention of Chinese foreign nationals working in massage parlors.

20 people have been reported killed over the past six days, which have seen multiple gun battles and demolition of the mosques exterior walls. Currently, there seems little chance of a negotiated resolution. A delegation of Islamic leaders were refused access, and the mosques leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi has declared suicide a favourable option to surrender.

The mosques leaders follow the Hanafi school of thought, believing that the Koran is the authority by which justice should be metered. Historically the mosque has had close links with the Pakistan leadership, and members of the current administration have resisted calls for a crackdown on the mosques provocative behaviour.

The stand-off represents a decisive ideological challenge to the president who is walking a fine-line between Islamic extremists at home and foreign pressure to crack-down on militancy in the lawless tribal regions.

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.

Sunday, April 10, 2022

On Friday, leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Proud Boys organization Charles Donohoe pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to obstruct the United States Congress and assault of an officer of the law, both felonies, on January 6, 2021.

Donohoe’s plea was part of a bargain in which he also agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors’ investigations of the Proud Boys and its leadership. Other alleged leaders, including national chairman Enrique Tarrio, have entered not guilty pleas on charges of seditious conspiracy. According to prosecutors, they were members of an elite group of leaders called the “Ministry of Self Defense” and hand-picked by Tarrio.

Prosecutors’ filings also said Donohoe supplied the Proud Boys with radio transmitters, so they could communicate before and during the 2021 attack on the Capitol. Tarrio was arrested two days before the riot. Immediately after Tarrio’s arrest, Donohoe deleted the group’s messages on the Telegram communication platform and messaged that plans might be compromised. “Well at least they won’t get our boots on the ground plan because we are one step ahead of them,” he wrote in a follow-up.

Donohoe reportedly never entered the Capitol, even though he was in the first wave of people descending upon the building, as he was overcome by pepper spray. Nevertheless, his assault charges stemmed from throwing two water bottles at Capitol Police officers. He allegedly also sent messages stating: “We stormed the capitol unarmed … we took it over.”

The assault on the Capitol took place while Congress was certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden. The Proud Boys were in favor of a second term for former president Donald Trump.

Monday, November 9, 2009

The Walt Disney Company has today announced the inclusion of a Christmas special in its animated comedy series Phineas and Ferb. The special, entitled “Phineas and Ferb’s Christmas Vacation,” will follow the series’ protagonists, stepbrothers Phineas and Ferb, trying to spread Christmas cheer across their city after the mad scientist Dr. Doofenshmirtz uses a machine to cancel the holiday.

Disney has high expectations for the special. On November 27, the company will stream one of the seven musical numbers that will be showcased in the special on its public radio network Radio Disney. The official special is set to air accordingly the following month on December 6, 2009, on the company’s cable network Disney XD. Soon after, it will air on fellow Disney networks Disney Channel and ABC Family.

The crew of the series too have high hopes for the Christmas special. Zac Moncrief, who directed the special, announced that he believes it will “go down in history as a cartoon classic.” When asked about the special, co-creator Jeff “Swampy” Marsh explained, “It’s kind of intimidating. You sit down and think, ‘This is something that’s going to live at Christmas for a long, long time.'” Dan Povenmire, the other co-founder, said of his excitement over the featured musical numbers, “[H]opefully they’ll be songs that this generation of kids will think of as Christmas songs the same way that kids think of ‘Dahoo dore’ (from ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas‘) or ‘Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.'”

Sunday, September 5, 2021

Since June 2019, the people of South Gippsland Shire, located at the southernmost tip of Australia, have been without a local council, after a state government inquiry found “high levels of tension” within the council. Administrators were appointed by the Victorian state government in July 2019, who have governed the shire since then. However, South Gippsland’s council is scheduled to be restored with an election to be held via post from October 5-22, 2021.

Wikinews interviewed one of the candidates standing in this election, Mat Morgan. He is running as a candidate in the Coastal-Promontory Ward, and is endorsed by the Australian Greens. The Coastal-Promontory ward covers towns such as Venus Bay, Waratah Bay, Yanakie, Foster, Port Welshpool, and Toora, and elects three councillors to the South Gippsland Shire Council.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a review Friday into the design and manufacture of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, following five incidents in five days involving the aircraft and two Japanese airlines.

On Monday, an electrical fire broke out aboard a Japan Airlines 787 at Boston’s Logan International Airport, when a battery pack which powers the auxiliary power unit, for when the plane is on the ground, caught fire. The fire was discovered by maintenance workers after passengers and crew disembarked following their flight from Tokyo’s Narita Airport.

The next day, a separate Japan Airlines 787, also at Logan International Airport, heading to Tokyo, suffered a fuel leak that spilled around 40 gallons, which was spotted by the crew of the aircraft taxiing behind them. “That Japan Air may know it, but they’ve got fuel or something spilling out the outboard left wing. Quite a bit,” said the pilot of aircraft behind them on local air traffic control frequencies.

Wednesday, in Japan, an All Nippon Airways 787, the launch customer for the aircraft, cancelled a flight after a brake problem was reported.

Earlier Friday, two All Nippon Airways suffered separate incidents in Japan. An oil leak was noticed in the engine after one aircraft had landed in Miyazaki, coming from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Another flight, flying between Haneda Airport and Matsuyama said the pilot’s side window in the cockpit suffered a crack.

The FAA in a statement said “In light of a series of recent events, the FAA will conduct a comprehensive review of the Boeing 787 critical systems, including the design, manufacture and assembly.” Further adding, “The purpose of the review is to validate the work conducted during the certification process and further ensure that the aircraft meets the FAA’s high level of safety.”

According to the statement, “The review will also examine how the electrical and mechanical systems interact with each other.” The Boeing 787 relies more on electrical, as opposed to mechanical, systems than past aircraft from the manufacturer including having electronics operate hydraulic pumps and using electric brakes. Large portions of the plane’s structure use lightweight carbon fiber composite instead of more traditional metal airframe.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, “The safety of the traveling public is our top priority […] This review will help us look at the root causes and do everything we can to safeguard against similar events in the future.”

“We are confident that the aircraft is safe. But we need to have a complete understanding of what is happening,” said newly sworn-in FAA Administrator Michael P. Huerta. “We are conducting the review to further ensure that the aircraft meets our high safety standards.”

Boeing released a statement saying, “[The company] is confident in the design and performance of the 787. It is a safe and efficient airplane. The airplane has logged 50,000 hours of flight and there are more than 150 flights occurring daily.”