Monday, December 3, 2007

At Thanksgiving dinner David Shankbone told his white middle class family that he was to interview Reverend Al Sharpton that Saturday. The announcement caused an impassioned discussion about the civil rights leader’s work, the problems facing the black community and whether Sharpton helps or hurts his cause. Opinion was divided. “He’s an opportunist.” “He only stirs things up.” “Why do I always see his face when there’s a problem?”

Shankbone went to the National Action Network’s headquarters in Harlem with this Thanksgiving discussion to inform the conversation. Below is his interview with Al Sharpton on everything from Tawana Brawley, his purported feud with Barack Obama, criticism by influential African Americans such as Clarence Page, his experience running for President, to how he never expected he would see fifty (he is now 53). “People would say to me, ‘Now that I hear you, even if I disagree with you I don’t think you’re as bad as I thought,'” said Sharpton. “I would say, ‘Let me ask you a question: what was “bad as you thought”?’ And they couldn’t say. They don’t know why they think you’re bad, they just know you’re supposed to be bad because the right wing tells them you’re bad.”

A compilation of brief news reports for Saturday, December 20, 2008.

The United States government has announced that it will give US$17.4 billion in loans to help three of the nation’s automobile makers – Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford – avoid bankruptcy.

The money will be taken from the $700 billion bailout package originally intended to rescue US banks. General Motors will get $9.4 billion and Chrysler $4 billion before next year. Ford stated that it wants to get by without government aid.

President George Bush said that it would not be “a responsible course of action” to allow the companies to collapse.

Sources

• “Bush unveils $17.4bn car bail-out” — BBC News, December 19, 2008
• “U.S. Throws Lifeline to Detroit” — WSJ.com, December 20, 2008

Telephone and Internet communications between Asia and Europe have been disrupted after some submarine cables were severed.

The cables FLAG FEA, SMW4 and SMW3 near Alexandria, Egypt, were damaged, and the GO cable 130 kilometres off the coast of Sicily has also been reported as broken. France Telecom will repair the damage, and the company announced that it was dispatching a ship to repair the line between Egypt and Italy.

Experts warn that it could be several days before the problems are fixed.

Sources

• “Severed cable disrupts web access” — BBC News, December 19, 2008
• “New undersea cable cuts lead to Internet outages” — ars technica, December 20, 2008

Yann Elies, a French yachtsman participating in the Vendee Globe round-the-world solo yacht race, was rescued on Saturday by the Australian navy after the former was paralysed by a wave that struck his boat in the Southern Ocean.

Elies broke his left thighbone and perhaps several ribs after the wave slammed into his boat 200 kilometres southwest of Perth.

The Australian frigate dispatched the HMAS Arunta to rescue Elies. The ship left Fremantle early on Friday morning and reached Elies by evening.

Sources

• “Injured yachtsman rescued by navy” — BBC News, December 20, 2008
• “Navy reaches stricken solo sailor Yann Elies” — news.com.au, December 20, 2008

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

According to the governor of Darfur, Swedish Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs Carin Jämtin is not welcome in the region due to Sweden‘s involvement in the Mohammed Cartoons controversy. Her planned visit has now been cancelled for security reasons. Jämtin’s press secretary, John Zanchi, believes that the true motivation is that Darfur’s governor wants as little foreign involvement as possible in the local conflict. Sweden has been actively working to send UN peacekeepers to the region.

Jämtin had earlier stated a desire to visit Darfur after receiving worrying reports of the humanitarian situation there. Her visit had been cleared by the government in Khartoum. The Foreign Minister will continue her trip to other parts of Sudan, including a visit to the Vice President.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

A small plane and a tourist helicopter have collided in mid-air over the Hudson River above Hoboken, New Jersey. At least six people were on the helicopter, and three people were on the plane. The collision occurred near Pier 40 in New York City at 11:53 a.m. (EDT), just before both crafts crashed into the water.

Earlier, authorities had reported that at least one survivor had been rescued from the river. Reports now say that all passengers on the plane and helicopter have been killed.

“This is not going to have a happy ending. This has changed from a rescue to a recovery mission,” said the Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg. He added that the crash was “not survivable.”

The helicopter was a Eurocopter AS 350 and was owned by Liberty Tours. It was carrying five tourists from Italy and one pilot.

LCA Partnerships operated the plane which was carrying three people, including a child. Reports say it took off from New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport after traveling from Pennsylvania. The plane was a Piper PA-32 single engine, fixed wing aircraft with the tail number of N71MC.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, but witnesses on the ground say the plane struck the helicopter from behind. The Associated Press says that a helicopter pilot on the ground, saw the plane on a collision course with the helicopter and tried to radio the two aircraft in an attempt to warn them.

The collision occurs just seven months after a US Airways, Airbus A320 carrying 155 people, crashed into the Hudson following a bird strike. All people on board the plane survived.

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.

Monday, March 5, 2007

Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) co-chief executive and chairman, Jim Balsillie, has resigned voluntarily as chairman after an internal review revealed irregularities with how the company accounted for stock options.

The review was carried out over the past 7 months and indicates that, Canadian BlackBerry maker, RIM, will have to restate earnings for all of 2004, 2005, and 2006, and for the first quarter of 2007. The company will have to lower previously reported earnings by approximately US$250 million.

The review committee indicated that RIM “failed to maintain adequate internal and accounting controls with respect to the issuance of options in compliance with the Company’s stock option plan, both in terms of how options were granted and documented, and the measurement date used to account for certain option grants”.

Although the review finds that there was no deliberate misconduct, both Balsillie and co-chief executive, Michael Lazaridis, have agreed to pay, voluntarily, up to $5 million each to compensate the company for the costs of the review and restatement.

All RIM directors and C-level officers will have to pay back any monies received incorrectly as a result of the option irregularities.

Balsillie will retain his positions as co-chief executive and director. In a press release, the company stated that “consistent with current best practices in corporate governance, the roles of chairman and CEO are being separated”. Current RIM chief financial officer, Dennis Kavelman, will move to the position of chief operating officer.

RIM is a designer, manufacturer and marketer of wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market and is listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market and the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Pro Hart, the self-taught, internationally-acclaimed Australian artist, died at home in Broken Hill on March 28 after family members decided to cease his medication. The 77-year-old had been ill with motor neurone disease. Family members described his passing as peaceful. Hart is a household name in Australia.

Hart’s son, John Hart, says a State funeral is being organised for his father. He says his father lost the ability to paint about six months ago. Pro Hart’s son David today said the funeral for the “brushman of the bush” will be held in the far-western New South Wales mining city of Broken Hill next Tuesday. “It will be held next Tuesday”, he said, “probably in the town’s civic centre.”

Born Kevin Charles Hart in Broken Hill on May 30, 1928, his mining mates nicknamed him ‘Professor’ due to his passion for invention. He started painting “cheeky” pictures on the wooden beams of the mines he worked in. Hart went to few art classes and started painting full-time in 1958.

Since then, he has exhibited all over the world, including London, New York, Paris and Tokyo. He also illustrated several books. Hart’s preoccupation with art began as a teenager on his family’s sheep station near Menindee.

His work hangs in collections all over the world. Agent Amanda Phillips says Hart was one of Australia’s most renowned artists yet his paintings are not in the National Gallery of Australia. “He’s a great Australian, I mean he’s been given an MBE for his services to art, he’s been honoured all around the world, his work hangs in major collections around the world, why isn’t he displayed here in Australia? A spokeswoman for the National Gallery confirmed they had a “very limited collection” of Pro Hart’s works although no paintings.

Friday, November 24, 2006

According to a report released by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) for United Nation’s Development Plan, the per capita GNP in Eastern Turkey, an area predominantly inhabited by Kurdish people, is as low as seven percent of that of the European Union on average. The report analyzed a region of 21 cities in Eastern Turkey*. One of the cities included in the report, ??rnak, was reported to be as poor as Botswana, Southern Africa.

Other points highlighted in the report included:

• 60% of the population in the region was under the poverty line. If this situation persists, people may start to migrate to Northern Iraq.
• If 1% of the national income is spent on Eastern Turkey’s infrastructure and social investment for 7 years, the region will be enabled to finance itself. If the economic and social conditions in the region are fixed, the fragile relationship between the Turkish government and the Kurdish people of the region may improve.
• Access to health services is a primary human right. Without access to health services, one cannot expect that people of this region can live in confidence. Health institutions should employ nurses who speak Kurdish so the patients can communicate with the health services staff.
• The use of the private sector is not reliable as a solution. The government should act to remedy the lack of infrastructure in the region.