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Friday, November 25, 2011

U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidate Darcy Richardson of Florida took some time to answer a few questions from Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn.

Richardson, 55, is a political activist that helped form the New Democrats in 1989 and founded the progressive Battleground Blog earlier this year. He is also a political historian, and has authored six books covering third parties and presidential elections, including A Nation Divided: The 1968 Presidential Campaign (2002). His current work, The Spirit of ’76: Eugene McCarthy’s Struggle for Open Politics, chronicles the late Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy’s 1976 presidential campaign for which he volunteered. Richardson admires McCarthy, and served as manager for his 1988 presidential run. Recently, Richardson advised Brian Moore’s Socialist Party USA presidential campaign in 2008.

In addition, Richardson himself has sought political office, albeit unsuccessfully. In 1980, he ran for Pennsylvania Auditor General, and in 1988, vied for one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seats as a member of the Consumer Party. Last year, he ran for Lieutenant Governor of Florida as the running mate of gubernatorial candidate Farid Khavari.

Richardson has criticized President Barack Obama’s policies for being too similar to those of former President George W. Bush. He hoped to convince several prominent progressives to challenge Obama in the Democratic primaries, but none were available to do so. Last month, Richardson decided to begin a campaign himself and announced through his Battleground Blog that he would challenge Obama in the Democratic Party primaries as a progressive candidate. So far, he has qualified for the New Hampshire primary in January and the Missouri primary in February. In an interview with the Independent Political Report, Richardson proclaimed his campaign slogan as “no fourth term for George W. Bush.”

A compilation of brief news reports for Wednesday, August 18, 2010.

An unemployed, single mother from South Carolina has confessed to suffocating her two toddler children with her bare hands. After suffocating her one year-old and two year-old sons, 29 year-old Shaquan Duley drove her car into a river. Police have identified the suffocated children as Ja’van T. Duley and Devean C. Duley. She faces two murder charges and is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.

Duley had apparently argued with her mother the night before the murder. Orangeburg County Sheriff Larry Williams has stated that “We believe this is a direct response [to the argument] from Ms. Duley. I believe she was just fed up with her mother telling her she couldn’t take care of the children and she wasn’t taking care of her children and she just wanted to be free.” Williams also said that Shaquan’s mother “was a very, I guess, firm individual. … She often talked with her daughter about, I guess, maybe being more of a mother or being more reliable.”

Sources

• Lisa Flam. “SC Sheriff: Mother Has Confessed in Toddler Deaths” — AOL News, August 17, 2010
• “Sheriff: Woman suffocated sons before submerging bodies in car” — CNN, August 17, 2010

US officials said Monday that an American, Aijalon Mahli Gomes, sentenced to hard labor in North Korea was visited by a US consular official and two American doctors.

“We requested permission to visit Mr. Gomes. That permission from the North Korean government was granted,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley. Crowley also said that “We requested permission to bring Mr. Gomes home. Unfortunately, he remains in North Korea.”

North Korea said that Gomes was hospitalized after attempting suicide. Gomes was arrested by North Korean authorities and sentenced to eight years of hard labor in January after the 31 year-old man alledgedly attempted to cross the border with China.

Sources

• Brian Walker. “U.S. officials visit American held in North Korea” — CNN, August 17, 2010
• Agence France-Presse. “US medical team visited American held in N.Korea: official” — Google News, August 16, 2010

Related news

• “US prisoner in North Korea ‘attempts suicide’” — Wikinews, July 10, 2010

American car company General Motors (GM) said Tuesday that it will recall 243,000 crossover vehicles due to faulty seat belts. The crossovers recalled include the Saturn Outlook, Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia and Chevrolet Traverse. The damage to the seat belts could happen after the second row seats in the car-based SUVs are returned to a upright position after being folded. The damage causes the seat belt to feel correctly latched when it is possibly not.

Sources

• “GM recalls 243,000 crossover vehicles” — United Press International, August 17, 2010
• Nick Bunkley. “G.M. Recalls 243,000 Crossover Vehicles for Seat Belt Problem” — The New York Times, August 17, 2010

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Cardiff, Wales —Labour, Plaid Cymru, and No2EU candidates for the Wales seats in the European Parliament met at Cardiff‘s Sandringham Hotel last night for the second of two pre-election hustings debates hosted by Cardiff Trades Union Congress. Cardiff TUC president Katrine Williams moderated as Derek Vaughan of the Labour Party, Jill Evans MEP of Plaid Cymru, and Rob Griffiths of the No2EU coalition, the tops of their respective lists, took questions from an audience of 22 composed largely of socialist activists and trade union members.

Candidates from the Tories, Liberal Democrats, and Green Party were not invited to the evening debate, although the Liberal Democrats did take part in the TUC’s debate earlier in the day. Ms Williams explained that the Liberal Democrats and Tories had been excluded because “we wanted to have candidates more representative of trade unions” but that not inviting the Greens had been “an oversight” due to the less prominent tradition of green politics in Wales. The BNP, UKIP and some minor parties also did not take part.

In opening statements, the three candidates discussed their records and their goals for the European Parliament. Mr Vaughan, leader of Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, asserted the pro-organised labour credentials of the Labour Party, which has been under fire for several years from the left, and noted that Labour, which currently controls two of Wales’s four seats in the EU Parliament, has brought £1.5 billion to Wales, with a comparable amount to come in the future. Calling the BNP “Nazis” and comparing the British political situation to that in Germany in the 1930s, Vaughan called for the parties of the left to rally behind Labour in order to ensure that the BNP did not obtain any seats in Wales; but he expressed resignation to the likelihood that the BNP would earn a seat in North West England.

Ms Evans, meanwhile, who has been an MEP for ten years, announced her opposition to the pro-privatisation current in the EU and pledged that Plaid would support a new program of public investment and pro-organised labour revisions of EU directives, particularly the Posted Workers Directive.

Mr Griffiths, meanwhile, who is General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain, took a position urging radical reform of the European Union. The Lisbon Treaty, which he characterised as a re-branding of the European Constitution, would, he argued, enshrine neo-liberal policies in Europe and impose them on its member states in a way that was irreversible — “at least by any constitutional means”. Calling for a “social Europe” as opposed to a “United States of Europe“, Griffiths suggested that the creation of a European Defence Agency and the actions of the European Court of Justice were being used to turn the European Union into a capitalist “empire” akin to the United States.

Discussion of the ongoing UK parliamentary expenses scandal and its implications for MEPs, who draw salaries and expenses considerably higher than Westminster MPs do, dominated the early discussion. The Labour candidate expressed the position that the problems in accountability leading to the scandal had been fixed; his opponents noted that of the parties currently representing Britain in Brussels, only Labour has not yet disclosed their expenses (although Mr Vaughan states that the party will begin to do so soon) and Mr Griffiths furthermore declared that the scandal was part of a wider problem: the corruption of the political system by big business.

On the subject of a common European defence policy the three candidates supported widely differing views. The No2EU candidate stated plainly that he considers Europe not to be threatened, and said that a European defence force would be used for foreign adventures in Afghanistan, Africa, and elsewhere in the developing world while at the same time building up the armaments industry in Europe. Ms Evans, meanwhile, argued that the proper role of a common EU force would be as a “civil force” supporting conflict prevention and conflict resolution operations, and also called for the abolition of NATO. Mr Vaughan finished the second round of questioning arguing that a common European armed force should be an alternative to the “US-dominated” NATO, but also stated the importance of bilateral alliances in building up a common European defence force, citing the Franco-German Brigade of the Eurocorps as an example.

Debate ended on the contentious question of MEP salaries, with one member of the audience challenging the three candidates to pledge to accept a wage, if they won, equal to the average wage of their constituents. Ms Evans agreed that the set wage, currently £63,000 rising to £73,000 in 2010, was “too high”, but would not commit to a so-called “worker’s wage”, under heavy criticism from the audience. Mr Vaughan, following, called it “not fair” to ask MEPs to take such a pledge but asserted “I have never been motivated by money” and finished his part in the debate with a call to elect more left-wing socialist MEPs. Mr Griffiths, whose No2EU coalition has made a worker’s wage for MEPs part of their election manifesto, readily pledged to hold to a living wage, albeit not necessarily one equal to the average wage of his constituents, and described some of the difficulties associated with refusing an EU salary, noting that initially No2EU had proposed that its MEPs should draw no salary and claim no expenses from Europe but the coalition’s legal advisors had said that to do so would endanger the status of any of its members as MEPs.

Voting for the European Parliament elections in the United Kingdom takes place June 4.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Astronomers have discovered an asteroid that is approximately 160 feet long, that may be on a collision course for Mars and may hit the planet sometime in early 2008.

Since the discovery of asteroid 2007 WD5 on November 20, 2007, scientists at NASA’s Near-Earth object Office have been tracking it, and say that the asteroid could come within 48,000 kilometers of the planet around January 30, 2008.

“Right now asteroid 2007 WD5 is about half-way between Earth and Mars and closing the distance at a speed of about 27,900 miles per hour. Over the next five weeks, we hope to gather more information from observatories so we can further refine the asteroid’s trajectory,” said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near Earth Object Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

It may also hit near the area where the Opportunity Rover is currently exploring, but scientists say that the rover is outside of the zone of possible impact.

The current odds of the asteroid hitting the planet are 1 in a 75 chance that it will make its impact on or around that date.

“These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track…threatening asteroids. We know that it’s going to fly by Mars and most likely going to miss, but there’s a possibility of an impact,” said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Office.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The official death toll from the devastating Japanese earthquake that hit on Friday is now nearing 1,900, while police officials say that it is all but certain the final toll will be at least 10,000 people dead.

Bodies are still being recovered—2,000 thus far in the Miyagi Prefecture alone. The official count of those missing has now reached 2,300, though in one town alone, an estimated half of the 17,000 person population is still unaccounted for. Approximately 350,000 people have been left without homes; shelters are providing housing for the moment.

Due to infrastructure damage, survivors in the hard-hit northeast coast of Japan are coping with limited resources, including food, water and electricity. In the Iwate Prefecture, a government official stated that the incoming goods from relief efforts are only about ten percent of what is necessary.

At the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, a second explosion occurred on Monday at the building housing Reactor 3, following an explosion Saturday at the Reactor 1 building. Reactor 2 was also reported to have difficulties with its cooling system.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

69-year-old grandfather John Walsh stands accused of murdering three victims in the small New South Wales town of Cowra. All victims were killed in different ways.

Media organisations have reported that the 69-year-old man killed his five year old grand daughter by drowning; her seven year old brother was killed by a blunt force trauma to the back of the head, and his wife was killed by multiple axe wounds to her body – including her head.

New South Wales Police could not confirm the post-mortem examination, saying that the results of the post-mortem examination are not expected to be finalised for a couple of days and may not be immediately made public.

The 69-year-old man, who went before Deniliquin Local Court on July 1, 2008, was refused bail and charged with three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. He is currently in a special holding cell on 24-hour watch at the Junee Correctional Centre. A further appearance is due in Wagga Wagga Local Court via an audio-visual link on July 7, 2008.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

The Interacademy Panel on International Issues (IAP), a global network of the world’s science academies, has released a statement urging parents and teachers to provide children with ‘the facts about the origin and evolution of life on Earth’. The statement is signed by 67 of the 92 member academies of the organisation, and notes that in some schools around the world, “testable theories” about evolution are being “concealed, denied or confused by theories not testable by science”.

The statement presents four “evidence-based facts” that no scientific evidence has ever contradicted. These include the Earth being approximately 4.5 billion years old, life on Earth being at least 2.5 billion years old, and commonalities in all living organisms indicating a common primordial origin based on the process of photosynthetic organisms.

The news follows developments, mainly in the United States, where there is a concerted effort to include the teaching of ‘intelligent design‘ (ID), a theory which claims that complex biological features indicate that the presence of an intelligent ‘designer’ in schools. Opponents of this movement argue that it doesn’t qualify as a scientific theory, and is simply a disguise for creationist beliefs. In the US, where the separation of church and state is mandated by constitutional law, efforts to include ID in school syllabi were quashed by the courts, as the teaching of religion in schools is against the Establishment clause of the constitution of the United States. Despite this, George Bush has in the past remarked that he believes intelligent design should be taught in schools. The President has not shown any sign of plans to personally intervene in the legal debate however.

In December 2005, following legal case between the parents and the school district of Dover (Pennsylvania, USA), the judge decided that intelligent design was a religious view, and that it was unlawful to teach it as an alternative to evolution within the classroom. The IAP statement suggests that the science academies believe that ID is still being taught within some schools, however.

A Gallup poll conducted in May concluded that 46 percent of Americans believe that God created man in his present form sometime in the past 10,000 years, with 13 percent believing mankind evolved with no divine intervention and 36 percent saying that mankind developed over millions of years from lesser life forms, but with God guiding the process.

The IAP statement acknowledges limitations in current understanding, but argues that the process of science allows it to be open-ended and subject to correction and expansion as new understanding emerges.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Two cars have been involved in a road traffic accident in the Scottish Lothian and Borders region, causing three fatalities and sending three to hospital. The incident occurred on the A68 road approximately 1.5 miles south of the Midlothian village of Pathhead when a Škoda Octavia and a Nissan Note travelling in opposite directions collided at approximately 0730 UTC today.

The Nissan, which was carrying five occupants, overturned and came to rest on its roof. Three male Buddhist monks who sat in the back of the car died at the site of the crash. The female driver of the vehicle managed to get out of the vehicle herself but another male passenger in the front of the car had to be cut free by fire service members. The two front-seat passengers as well as the male driver of the Škoda were hospitalised at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, although none of their injuries are considered likely to be fatal.

“This is a tragic incident,” Inspector Simon Bradshaw of Lothian and Borders Police said, “and we are currently in the process of carrying out inquiries in order to establish the full circumstances of the collision.” The A68 road close to the location of the accident was temporarily closed to allow police to investigate the incident, with traffic redirected to the B6370 road via the town of Gorebridge. The road has since reopened.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Space transport services company SpaceX launched their fifth Dragon resupply vehicle to the International Space Station yesterday. The spacecraft — containing more than 2,200kg (5,000 pounds) of food, experiments, and spare parts — successfully decoupled from the launch rocket and should reach the station early tomorrow.

The launch was postponed from Tuesday because of a technical issue on the second stage of the rocket. The shipment includes replacements for cargo aboard the spaceship Cygnus, destroyed during a failed launch in October. Cygnus belonged to the rival Orbital Sciences Corporation.

SpaceX tried unsuccessfully to land the Falcon 9 delivery rocket for reuse. The rocket reached an unmanned barge in the Atlantic, but landed too hard. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the landing “bodes well for the future, though”. The attempted salvage of the rocket was experimental, using new retractable fins. Next time they will add extra hydraulic fluid, Musk said.

The ship’s support equipment was damaged but, according to Musk, the barge is intact. Last year saw two successful SpaceX splashdowns but landing on such a small target as a ship is unique.