Thursday, September 20, 2007

It was an awkward birthday gathering; as the family and supporters of Omar Khadr gathered in Toronto to try and explain why the Canadian youth was still being held at Guantanamo Bay.

Khadr, who turned 21 on Wednesday, has become a rallying point for groups who say the Canadian government isn’t doing enough to ensure he receives a fair trial. “Neither Liberals nor Conservatives have done anything,” railed Khadr’s defence attorney Dennis Edney, who is flying down to meet with his client on Monday.

“Comparatively, Canada is behind the curve,” chastised Human Rights Watch spokesmen Nehal Bhuta, pointing out that Khadr has received “almost no support from his government” and therefore remains the only Western citizen still held in the detainment camp after nearly six years. HRW colleague and attorney Jennifer Daskal repeated the condemnation, calling on Canada to “step up, put pressure on the United States government.”

“He is a victim of circumstance, not ‘the worst of the worst'” explained Daskal, who was echoed by U.S. military counsel Lt. Cmdr. Bill Kuebler “in other circumstances, we would have called him a child soldier.”

Alleged to have thrown a grenade that killed an American soldier, Khadr was only 15 years old at the time of the firefight that left him with three bulletholes in his chest. His sister Zaynab pressed Kuebler for answers, demanding to know if “the right to defend onself [is] exclusive to the US Army, because by all reports, that what Omar was doing”.

Perhaps International Law professor Darryl Robinson phrased the conundrum most succinctly; “When we shoot at you, that’s just war. When you shoot at us, it’s a crime.”

Quoting Richard Baxter of the Harvard Law School, Robinson challenged the Bush administration‘s claims of operating outside of international law, stating that “the first step in sidestepping humanitarian law, is denying its applicability.” He further amused listeners by expanding on the catch-22 “you don’t fall under the Third Geneva Convention because you’re not a combatant, you’re a criminal – and you don’t fall under the Fourth Geneva Convention because you’re not a criminal, you’re a combatant…so I guess there are no rules”.

Referencing the fact that even a legal acquittal could still leave Khadr in Guantanamo indefinitely, Bhuta summarised his continued detention as “sadly, something of an icon of everything that’s gone wrong in the U.S. War on Terror.”

Monday, September 11, 2006

According to an official news release on the Tongan Royal Palace website, His Majesty King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV passed away peacefully at 11.34pm local time (2334 UTC), on Sunday, 10th September at Mercy Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand aged 88.

King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV was the ruler of Tonga following the death of his mother, Queen S?lote Tupou III, in 1965. His wife was Queen Halaevalu Mata?aho ?Ahome?e, born in 1926. The couple had four children.

“The sun has set in the Kingdom of Tonga,” said an official government statement from the royal palace.

His death ends 41 years of his reign.

The capital, Nukua’alofa, was draped in black and purple, the official colours of mourning.

His state funeral is expected to be held on September 19. An official month of mourning was declared.

His body will be flown home on Wednesday, September 13.

The Kingdom of Tonga was stricken into mourning earlier this year, when in July, Prince Tu’ipelehake and his wife Princess Kaimana, along with their driver Vinisia Hefa, were killed when their vehicle was stuck by a speeding car on a San Francisco, California, USA highway.

King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV was once known as being the World’s heaviest monarch (his weight exceeded 200 kg then), as well as later being the victim of a number of money-making schemes.

Crown Prince Taufa’ahau Tupou V, the King’s eldest son, was sworn in on Monday, September 11 as the next king but his formal coronation is likely to be next year . He and his sister, Princess Pilolevu have represented the monarch during his lengthy absences due to failing health.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

On Thursday, Pakistan’s parliament announced a bill has been passed against the practice of honour killing. Per the legislation, those convicted of honour killing would be imprisoned for 25 years to life.

In the practice of honour killing, men had the right to kill a female relative deemed to have brought dishonour to the family. Thus, murderers could avoid death-for-death Qisas ^{((ar))Arabic: ?retribution in kind} by paying blood money according to Diyya ^{((ar))Arabic: ?blood money} in Shari’a law.

The legislation, which was jointly approved by upper and lower parliament, allows the perpetrator to avoid the death penalty if the victim’s family forgives him, but the convict still faces imprisonment.

Last year, more than 1000 honour killing cases were reported in Pakistan. The legislation was presented as eliminating loopholes from past legislation against honour-killing. Pakistani human rights activist Farzana Bari noted the judge has unrestricted power to choose whether the murder qualifies as honour killing.

Asserting in parliament that 17,000 females in Pakistan have eloped since 2014, Conservative senator Hafiz Hamdulla later told the Associated Press, “They are trying to impose Western culture over here. We will not allow […] We will impose the law that our holy Quran and Sunnah say”.

The parliament also passed an anti-rape law mandating a DNA test. According to Shari’a law, proof of rape calls for multiple eyewitnesses. According to the legislation, the rapist of a minor or disabled person would face life imprisonment or a death sentence.

After the bill against honour killing was passed, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said, “Women are the most essential part of our society and I believe in their empowerment, protection and emancipation.”

Wikinews accredited reporter Killing Vector traveled to the G-20 2009 summit protests in London with a group of protesters. This is his personal account.

Friday, April 3, 2009

London — “Protest”, says Ross Saunders, “is basically theatre”.

It’s seven a.m. and I’m on a mini-bus heading east on the M4 motorway from Cardiff toward London. I’m riding with seventeen members of the Cardiff Socialist Party, of which Saunders is branch secretary for the Cardiff West branch; they’re going to participate in a march that’s part of the protests against the G-20 meeting.

Before we boarded the minibus Saunders made a speech outlining the reasons for the march. He said they were “fighting for jobs for young people, fighting for free education, fighting for our share of the wealth, which we create.” His anger is directed at the government’s response to the economic downturn: “Now that the recession is underway, they’ve been trying to shoulder more of the burden onto the people, and onto the young people…they’re expecting us to pay for it.” He compared the protest to the Jarrow March and to the miners’ strikes which were hugely influential in the history of the British labour movement. The people assembled, though, aren’t miners or industrial workers — they’re university students or recent graduates, and the march they’re going to participate in is the Youth Fight For Jobs.

The Socialist Party was formerly part of the Labour Party, which has ruled the United Kingdom since 1997 and remains a member of the Socialist International. On the bus, Saunders and some of his cohorts — they occasionally, especially the older members, address each other as “comrade” — explains their view on how the split with Labour came about. As the Third Way became the dominant voice in the Labour Party, culminating with the replacement of Neil Kinnock with Tony Blair as party leader, the Socialist cadre became increasingly disaffected. “There used to be democratic structures, political meetings” within the party, they say. The branch meetings still exist but “now, they passed a resolution calling for renationalisation of the railways, and they [the party leadership] just ignored it.” They claim that the disaffection with New Labour has caused the party to lose “half its membership” and that people are seeking alternatives. Since the economic crisis began, Cardiff West’s membership has doubled, to 25 members, and the RMT has organized itself as a political movement running candidates in the 2009 EU Parliament election. The right-wing British National Party or BNP is making gains as well, though.

Talk on the bus is mostly political and the news of yesterday’s violence at the G-20 demonstrations, where a bank was stormed by protesters and 87 were arrested, is thick in the air. One member comments on the invasion of a RBS building in which phone lines were cut and furniture was destroyed: “It’s not very constructive but it does make you smile.” Another, reading about developments at the conference which have set France and Germany opposing the UK and the United States, says sardonically, “we’re going to stop all the squabbles — they’re going to unite against us. That’s what happens.” She recounts how, in her native Sweden during the Second World War, a national unity government was formed among all major parties, and Swedish communists were interned in camps, while Nazi-leaning parties were left unmolested.

In London around 11am the march assembles on Camberwell Green. About 250 people are here, from many parts of Britain; I meet marchers from Newcastle, Manchester, Leicester, and especially organized-labor stronghold Sheffield. The sky is grey but the atmosphere is convivial; five members of London’s Metropolitan Police are present, and they’re all smiling. Most marchers are young, some as young as high school age, but a few are older; some teachers, including members of the Lewisham and Sheffield chapters of the National Union of Teachers, are carrying banners in support of their students.

Stewards hand out sheets of paper with the words to call-and-response chants on them. Some are youth-oriented and education-oriented, like the jaunty “Gordon Brown‘s a Tory/He wears a Tory hat/And when he saw our uni fees/He said ‘I’ll double that!'” (sung to the tune of the Lonnie Donegan song “My Old Man’s a Dustman“); but many are standbys of organized labour, including the infamous “workers of the world, unite!“. It also outlines the goals of the protest, as “demands”: “The right to a decent job for all, with a living wage of at least £8 and hour. No to cheap labour apprenticeships! for all apprenticeships to pay at least the minimum wage, with a job guaranteed at the end. No to university fees. support the campaign to defeat fees.” Another steward with a megaphone and a bright red t-shirt talks the assembled protesters through the basics of call-and-response chanting.

Finally the march gets underway, traveling through the London boroughs of Camberwell and Southwark. Along the route of the march more police follow along, escorting and guiding the march and watching it carefully, while a police van with flashing lights clears the route in front of it. On the surface the atmosphere is enthusiastic, but everyone freezes for a second as a siren is heard behind them; it turns out to be a passing ambulance.

Crossing Southwark Bridge, the march enters the City of London, the comparably small but dense area containing London’s financial and economic heart. Although one recipient of the protesters’ anger is the Bank of England, the march does not stop in the City, only passing through the streets by the London Exchange. Tourists on buses and businessmen in pinstripe suits record snippets of the march on their mobile phones as it passes them; as it goes past a branch of HSBC the employees gather at the glass store front and watch nervously. The time in the City is brief; rather than continue into the very centre of London the march turns east and, passing the Tower of London, proceeds into the poor, largely immigrant neighbourhoods of the Tower Hamlets.

The sun has come out, and the spirits of the protesters have remained high. But few people, only occasional faces at windows in the blocks of apartments, are here to see the march and it is in Wapping High Street that I hear my first complaint from the marchers. Peter, a steward, complains that the police have taken the march off its original route and onto back streets where “there’s nobody to protest to”. I ask how he feels about the possibility of violence, noting the incidents the day before, and he replies that it was “justified aggression”. “We don’t condone it but people have only got certain limitations.”

A policeman I ask is very polite but noncommittal about the change in route. “The students are getting the message out”, he says, so there’s no problem. “Everyone’s very well behaved” in his assessment and the atmosphere is “very positive”. Another protestor, a sign-carrying university student from Sheffield, half-heartedly returns the compliment: today, she says, “the police have been surprisingly unridiculous.”

The march pauses just before it enters Cable Street. Here, in 1936, was the site of the Battle of Cable Street, and the march leader, addressing the protesters through her megaphone, marks the moment. She draws a parallel between the British Union of Fascists of the 1930s and the much smaller BNP today, and as the protesters follow the East London street their chant becomes “The BNP tell racist lies/We fight back and organise!”

In Victoria Park — “The People’s Park” as it was sometimes known — the march stops for lunch. The trade unions of East London have organized and paid for a lunch of hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries and tea, and, picnic-style, the marchers enjoy their meals as organized labor veterans give brief speeches about industrial actions from a small raised platform.

During the rally I have the opportunity to speak with Neil Cafferky, a Galway-born Londoner and the London organizer of the Youth Fight For Jobs march. I ask him first about why, despite being surrounded by red banners and quotes from Karl Marx, I haven’t once heard the word “communism” used all day. He explains that, while he considers himself a Marxist and a Trotskyist, the word communism has negative connotations that would “act as a barrier” to getting people involved: the Socialist Party wants to avoid the discussion of its position on the USSR and disassociate itself from Stalinism. What the Socialists favor, he says, is “democratic planned production” with “the working class, the youths brought into the heart of decision making.”

On the subject of the police’s re-routing of the march, he says the new route is actually the synthesis of two proposals. Originally the march was to have gone from Camberwell Green to the Houses of Parliament, then across the sites of the 2012 Olympics and finally to the ExCel Centre. The police, meanwhile, wanted there to be no march at all.

The Metropolitan Police had argued that, with only 650 trained traffic officers on the force and most of those providing security at the ExCel Centre itself, there simply wasn’t the manpower available to close main streets, so a route along back streets was necessary if the march was to go ahead at all. Cafferky is sceptical of the police explanation. “It’s all very well having concern for health and safety,” he responds. “Our concern is using planning to block protest.”

He accuses the police and the government of having used legal, bureaucratic and even violent means to block protests. Talking about marches having to defend themselves, he says “if the police set out with the intention of assaulting marches then violence is unavoidable.” He says the police have been known to insert “provocateurs” into marches, which have to be isolated. He also asserts the right of marches to defend themselves when attacked, although this “must be done in a disciplined manner”.

He says he wasn’t present at yesterday’s demonstrations and so can’t comment on the accusations of violence against police. But, he says, there is often provocative behavior on both sides. Rather than reject violence outright, Cafferky argues that there needs to be “clear political understanding of the role of violence” and calls it “counter-productive”.

Demonstration overall, though, he says, is always a useful tool, although “a demonstration is always a means to an end” rather than an end in itself. He mentions other ongoing industrial actions such as the occupation of the Visteon plant in Enfield; 200 fired workers at the factory have been occupying the plant since April 1, and states the solidarity between the youth marchers and the industrial workers.

I also speak briefly with members of the International Bolshevik Tendency, a small group of left-wing activists who have brought some signs to the rally. The Bolsheviks say that, like the Socialists, they’re Trotskyists, but have differences with them on the idea of organization; the International Bolshevik Tendency believes that control of the party representing the working class should be less democratic and instead be in the hands of a team of experts in history and politics. Relations between the two groups are “chilly”, says one.

At 2:30 the march resumes. Rather than proceeding to the ExCel Centre itself, though, it makes its way to a station of London’s Docklands Light Railway; on the way, several of East London’s school-aged youths join the march, and on reaching Canning Town the group is some 300 strong. Proceeding on foot through the borough, the Youth Fight For Jobs reaches the protest site outside the G-20 meeting.

It’s impossible to legally get too close to the conference itself. Police are guarding every approach, and have formed a double cordon between the protest area and the route that motorcades take into and out of the conference venue. Most are un-armed, in the tradition of London police; only a few even carry truncheons. Closer to the building, though, a few machine gun-armed riot police are present, standing out sharply in their black uniforms against the high-visibility yellow vests of the Metropolitan Police. The G-20 conference itself, which started a few hours before the march began, is already winding down, and about a thousand protesters are present.

I see three large groups: the Youth Fight For Jobs avoids going into the center of the protest area, instead staying in their own group at the admonition of the stewards and listening to a series of guest speakers who tell them about current industrial actions and the organization of the Youth Fight’s upcoming rally at UCL. A second group carries the Ogaden National Liberation Front‘s flag and is campaigning for recognition of an autonomous homeland in eastern Ethiopia. Others protesting the Ethiopian government make up the third group; waving old Ethiopian flags, including the Lion of Judah standard of emperor Haile Selassie, they demand that foreign aid to Ethiopia be tied to democratization in that country: “No recovery without democracy”.

A set of abandoned signs tied to bollards indicate that the CND has been here, but has already gone home; they were demanding the abandonment of nuclear weapons. But apart from a handful of individuals with handmade, cardboard signs I see no groups addressing the G-20 meeting itself, other than the Youth Fight For Jobs’ slogans concerning the bailout. But when a motorcade passes, catcalls and jeers are heard.

It’s now 5pm and, after four hours of driving, five hours marching and one hour at the G-20, Cardiff’s Socialists are returning home. I board the bus with them and, navigating slowly through the snarled London traffic, we listen to BBC Radio 4. The news is reporting on the closure of the G-20 conference; while they take time out to mention that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper delayed the traditional group photograph of the G-20’s world leaders because “he was on the loo“, no mention is made of today’s protests. Those listening in the bus are disappointed by the lack of coverage.

Most people on the return trip are tired. Many sleep. Others read the latest issue of The Socialist, the Socialist Party’s newspaper. Mia quietly sings “The Internationale” in Swedish.

Due to the traffic, the journey back to Cardiff will be even longer than the journey to London. Over the objections of a few of its members, the South Welsh participants in the Youth Fight For Jobs stop at a McDonald’s before returning to the M4 and home.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

A lahar at New Zealand’s Mount Ruapehu is all but over, without causing anywhere the level of havoc for which authorities were prepared.

The event was first confirmed by a 3 News helicopter, and then the Department of Conservation.

The Department of Conservation had said that a “moderate lahar” was moving down the side of Mount Ruapehu.

The lahar travelled down the Whangaehu Valley, past the Tongariro catchment; and then continued on to the Tangiwai Bridge, the site of the 1953 Tangiwai disaster, which was itself caused by a lahar.

The crater lake is currently being reported by a free phone number as at a warning level of 3a. The crater lake is also being reported at a level between 5.7-6.7 metres up the Crater Lake tephra dam.

The lahar emergency plan was activated by Civil Defence. The district mayor of Ruapehu, Sue Morris, and conservation minister, Chris Carter, said that the authorities had been very quick to respond to the emergency. All three electronic surveillance technologies had their alarms activated. Mr Carter said, “The lahar travelled down the path as predicted, and the early warning response system that this government provided worked exactly as planned.”

Highways near Mount Ruapehu were closed by the Ohakune police, including the Desert Road. The roads have now been re-opened.

A lahar has been expected for a long time now, and scientists say the lahar could have been caused by, among other things, the bad weather New Zealand has been having lately.

Since 1996 the water level in the crater lake at the top of Mount Ruapehu has been rising, which created a risk of a lahar last year.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

File:Bathurst location map in New South Wales.PNG

Police searching for the remains of missing Bathurst woman Janine Vaughan have discovered bones which they claim may belong to the missing woman. Ms Vaughan disappeared after being seen getting into a red car with a male after being a Bathurst pub on December 7, 2001.

On Sunday, police began a fresh search for the missing woman’s remains after they received new information. On Monday at approximately 3:00 p.m. AEST police discovered bones during a ground sweep of an area off Montavella Road, Gormans Hill adjacent to the Macquarie River. Forensic services police were bought in several hours later, but initial tests proved inconclusive.

Police were guarding the site overnight and forensic officers are expected to conduct further tests today.

Police also search bushland near a creek at Yetholme, 15 km East of Bathurst on Monday using two specialist cadaver dogs on loan from Queensland Police.

Police have revealed that the search has prompted several members of the local community to call the police’s Crime Stoppers hotline with information. Chief Superintendent Mark Holahan said “It’s a cross-section of information. Some of it will probably lead us to some new lines of inquiry, and some of it will help us to reaffirm some of those things we already know.”

The detective who led the initial investigation into Ms Vaughan’s disappearance for several days continues to be a person of interest to police in the case. The detective, Brad Hosemans, is also a former deputy mayor of the city. Mr Hosemans, who has since left the police force, has denied any involvement.

Chief Supt. Holahan said the former detective was only one of a number of persons of interest in the case.

The Police Integrity Commission has investigated the initial handling of the case but is yet to hand down a finding.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Wayne Simmons is running for the Freedom Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Don Valley East riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Wayne did not answer “Of the decisions made by Ontario’s 38th Legislative Assembly, which was the most beneficial to your this electoral district? To the province as a whole? Which was least beneficial, or even harmful, to your this riding? To the province as a whole?”

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.