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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

A new law that proposes no spitting, swearing, or urinating in public passed its second reading in Calgary.

Calgary City Council is expected to pass it into law later this year.

Fines would range from $50 for carrying a visible knife or standing on public benches and $300 for urinating or defecating in public. People who spit would face a $100 fine and those who fight in city streets would pay a $250 ticket.

“You have to set the groundwork of expectations — mutual expectations — in order to be able to work well together, live well together,” said Ald. Madeline King, a councilor who represents part of Calgary’s inner city. “This is the right thing to do — this is a social contract between Calgarians that calls for a minimum amount of respect,” he said.

“Unless you have rules, things don’t work so well in terms of living together harmoniously,” said Ald. Madeleine King. “It’s not targeting the homeless, it’s targeting anyone who behaves in this way.”

It will come back to council for final approval next week.

City lawyers have concerns about enforcing some parts of the legislation.

Sunday, May 27, 2018

In the official result of Friday’s Irish referendum over the legality of abortion, referendum officer Barry Ryan announced yesterday 66.4% of voters favoured overturning the eighth amendment of the constitution. Introduced in 1983, the eighth amendment made abortion constitutionally illegal. Irish Taoiseach — Prime Minister — Leo Varadkar said supporting legislation, to be framed following the result of this referendum, is to be “enacted before the end of this year”.

More than 2.1 million people voted on the referendum on Friday. With a 64.1% turnout, 1,429,981 voted in favour of eliminating the abortion ban while 723,632 voted to keep it. The results were announced at Dublin Castle. About 6000 voters spoiled their votes. Calling it “an historic day”, Prime Minister Varadkar said it was “a great act of democracy.” Ministers said they would form laws allowing medical termination of pregnancy in the first trimester, twelve weeks, of pregnancy, and under special cases until the 24th week. The legislation is to be formed after discussion with medical experts.

Since the amendment, Article 40.3.3 of the Irish constitution, in 1983, which gave an unborn child equal rights to life as the mother, hundreds of thousands of women traveled to different countries for the medical termination of pregnancy, while some used medical drugs illegal in Ireland to terminate the pregnancy.

“Savita Matters, Women Matter” was one of the slogans used by the supporters who wanted to repeal the amendment. In October 2012, a 31-year-old dentist of Indian origin, Savita Halappanavar, died from sepsis at a Galway hospital after she was denied abortion for a protracted miscarriage. She was told by a midwife that termination of pregnancy would not be possible since Ireland was a “Catholic country”. Halappanavar’s photo was used for posters by supporters who wanted the 35-year-old amendment repealed. In 2016, the current Roman Catholic Pope, Pope Francis, described abortion as a “very grave sin” and a “horrendous crime”.

Halappanavar’s father Andanappa Yalagi told Hindustan Times, “We’ve got justice for Savita. What happened to her will not happen to any other family. I have no words to express my gratitude to the people of Ireland at this historic moment.” 39 of 40 Irish constituencies voted in favour of repealing the law, while voters in only one constituency, Donegal, voted against — 51.87% opting to keep the anti-abortion laws. After the result was announced, the crowd were chanting Savita’s name in front of Dublin Castle.

Cora Sherlock, an anti-abortion activist, said, “what we voted on today is the ending of human life.” “I will accept the will of the Irish people, at the same time I will make it very clear what I feel of the campaign that has taken place. We will now regroup and find out what our next move is”, she added. Another activist, David Quinn, said, “The result today is basically a reversal of the 1983 result. On that occasion the defeated side did not simply slip away.”

“The people have said that we want a modern constitution for a modern country”, Prime Minister Varadkar said. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later congratulated Varadkar on Twitter, saying: “What a moment for democracy and women’s rights.”

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777, was shot down by a surface-to-air missile on Thursday according to US officials, over disputed eastern Ukraine by an unidentified party.

The flight, which departed Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in The Netherlands at 10:15 UTC en route to Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, disappeared from radar at 13:15 UTC near Hrabove, a village in the Donetsk Oblast of Ukraine. 283 passengers and 15 crew were aboard the aircraft, all 298 in total perished. The area the plane was flying over is a conflict zone currently between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatist forces.

United States officials confirmed the aircraft has been shot down, according to data from a surveillance satellite which showed the last trajectory and impact of the missile. The missile is believed to be a Buk M1 surface-to-air missile which are believed to be in the hands of rebels according to reports from the area.

So far no party has claimed responsibility for the attack. Ukrainian officials denied the missile which shot down the airliner belonged to Ukraine. Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said to The Guardian, “We are absolutely sure and we checked yesterday that no missiles have been taken from the Ukrainian army”. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) published on YouTube an alleged wiretap of separatist commanders and Russian intelligence officers discussing the shoot-down and acknowledging the aircraft shot down was civilian.

Meanwhile, Russia’s defense ministry has denied involvement, posting a statement on their website which read, “In view of various types of speculation concerning operations of the Russian armed forces in the areas bordering Ukraine, we affirm that the anti-aircraft means of the Russian armed forces did not operate in that region July 17”.

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said, “This was not an ‘incident’, this was not a ‘catastrophe’, this was a terrorist act”. Malyasian prime minister Najib Razak, said, “If it transpires that the flight was shot down, we insist that the perpetrators must swiftly be brought to justice.”

All civilian aircraft have been barred from flying over eastern Ukraine. The US’s Federal Aviation Adminstration issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) prohibiting flight operations by United States carriers over eastern Ukraine. However, questions remain as to why the aircraft was flying over the contested area. Eurocontrol noted airspace was closed up to 32,000 feet. Flight 17 was flying at 33,000 feet just above the restricted airspace. Malaysia Airlines issued a statement saying “The usual flight route was earlier declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). [The] International Air Transportation Association (IATA) has stated that the airspace the aircraft was traversing was not subject to restrictions.”

Saturday, March 14, 2015

This weekend saw the opening of two new exhibitions at Edinburgh’s National Gallery of Modern Art. Wikinews attended Thursday’s press preview for the event where a full contingent of the capital’s press turned out to see the striking collection of paintings, photographs, and other works. Presented below are a selection of images captured at the preview.

REFLECTIONS: A Series of Changing Displays of Contemporary Art, billed as a showcase of a “diverse range of internationally-renowned contemporary and modern artists” is to display major works from the Gallery’s permanent collection, alongside important loans. Alongside this broad range of works, a three-room display of pieces on-loan from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation — with a dramatic painted steel relief, ‘borrowed’ from the Tate in London — runs from March 14 through to January 10 next year.

Admission to both exhibitions is free; being located in Dean, to the north-west of Edinburgh’s city centre, a free Gallery bus service is available.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Mr Alexander Litvinenko, reputed to have been an Ex-Russian spy who had defected to Britain, died last night in mysterious circumstances. He had alleged many associations between people in high places and organised international crime, implying that President Putin and Romano Prodi among others had been involved personally. He had sought political asylum in UK in 2000 and became a naturalised citizen in October this year, just weeks before his death.

Mr Litvinenko was said to have been investigating the shooting of Russian journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, a well-known critic of Russian activities in Chechnya, in her apartment in Moscow October 7, 2006. It is reported that he had met two Russians in a hotel room, one said to be former member of the KGB in connection with the affair and he went on to meet Mario Scaramella at a sushi bar in Piccadilly where some papers were exchanged. Some hours after this he was taken ill.

Mr Litvinenko was admitted to Barnet General Hospital, north London on November 1, 2006 complaining of feeling sick. By November 11, he was said to be suffering from serious poisoning. A week later he was transferred to University College Hospital in central London. A week later he was said to have been poisoned by ingesting thallium, once used in rat poison, but, in the opinion of some doctors, there were signs of radioactive poisoning, including loss of weight and shedding of hair. Various explanations of his condition were offered. Last night he suffered a heart attack, after having left a message blaming President Putin for having him killed.

The radioactive isotope polonium-210 was found in his blood and urine as reported by the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency. The post-mortem was cancelled. Subsequently the Agency examined conditions in the hospitals in which Mr Litvinenko has been treated. Police visited the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, his home in Muswell Hill and the Millennium Hotel, Grosvenor Square where the meeting on November 1 had been held. Traces of radiocactivity were found in all three places. It is speculated that the polonium was probably eaten by Litvinenko as a substance that could be combined with a salt-like substance, such as polonium nitrate.

It was reported that a meeting had been held in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (COBRA) used for high level emergency planning and control, to consider the implications of these events. The Foreign Office asked Moscow for a response to the accusation of Russian involvement and President Putin himself dismissed the allegations saying (before the cause of death had been established) that there was no proof of an unnatural death and that the case was being used as a “political provocation”.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Firefighters have confirmed that the large James Bond sound stage at Pinewood Studios has been destroyed by fire. It is thought eight fire engines were called to the scene near Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire on Sunday morning, where filming for Casino Royale, the latest Bond movie, has been completed.

Jen McVean witnessed the event, and she said the stage was “completely on fire”. The set had been transformed into a replica of the Italian city of Venice, but Mrs McVean, who owns a firm at the studios, said: “Nothing is salvageable and there are many, many fire engines there.” One spokesman said around 40 to 50 firefighters were at the scene.

It is reported that fire damage caused the building’s roof to fall in and firefighters were damping the flames down with specialist equipment. “We do not know the extent of the damage to the 007 stage, although it is believed to be significant,” a spokesman for Pinewood Studios said. “Filming was not taking place. A production had completed filming and its film sets were in the process of being removed,” he added.

No one was reported injured in the incident.

Pinewood, which was created in 1935, was the filming ground for Dr No, the first ever James Bond movie in 1962. It merged with Shepperton Studios in 2001, and high-budget movies like Harry Potter and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory have since been filmed there.

In 1984, a sound stage caught fire, but it reopened in January 1985 and was named the Albert Brocolli sound stage in honour of the man who produced many Bond films. In 1997, Pinewood was hit by fire again after flames broke out in the roof of a sound building where The Avengers was being recorded.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Gay Talese wants to go to Iraq. “It so happens there is someone that’s working on such a thing right now for me,” the 75-year-old legendary journalist and author told David Shankbone. “Even if I was on Al-Jazeera with a gun to my head, I wouldn’t be pleading with those bastards! I’d say, ‘Go ahead. Make my day.'”

Few reporters will ever reach the stature of Talese. His 1966 profile of Frank Sinatra, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, was not only cited by The Economist as the greatest profile of Sinatra ever written, but is considered the greatest of any celebrity profile ever written. In the 70th anniversary issue of Esquire in October 2003, the editors declared the piece the “Best Story Esquire Ever Published.”

Talese helped create and define a new style of literary reporting called New Journalism. Talese himself told National Public Radio he rejects this label (“The term new journalism became very fashionable on college campuses in the 1970s and some of its practitioners tended to be a little loose with the facts. And that’s where I wanted to part company.”)

He is not bothered by the Bancrofts selling The Wall Street Journal—”It’s not like we should lament the passing of some noble dynasty!”—to Rupert Murdoch, but he is bothered by how the press supported and sold the Iraq War to the American people. “The press in Washington got us into this war as much as the people that are controlling it,” said Talese. “They took information that was second-hand information, and they went along with it.” He wants to see the Washington press corp disbanded and sent around the country to get back in touch with the people it covers; that the press should not be so focused on–and in bed with–the federal government.

Augusten Burroughs once said that writers are experience junkies, and Talese fits the bill. Talese–who has been married to Nan Talese (she edited James Frey‘s Million Little Piece) for fifty years–can be found at baseball games in Cuba or the gay bars of Beijing, wanting to see humanity in all its experience.

Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s interview with Gay Talese.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

George Lucas has announced that there will be one last Star Wars movie to end the saga, but it won’t have any actors visible.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, an animated film is scheduled to be released into theaters on August 15 of this year.

“I felt there were a lot more ‘Star Wars’ stories left to tell. I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the art of animation forward,” said Lucas in a statement to the media.

Lucas says that although the film is animated, people can expect the same kind of galactic space battles and action that all the other Star Wars films have. The approximate running time of the film is 100 minutes.

The film is produced by Warner Brothers and Lucasfilm LTD. The new movie is also set to continue as an animated, 30 minute “mini-movie” series this autumn. The show can be seen on the Cartoon Network.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

There are two things one can expect on a trip to see Michael Musto at the offices of the Village Voice: a 20-minute round-trip wait for the elevator and rapid fire answers from one of the most recognizable gossip columnists in the United States. Musto, in addition to his appearances on Countdown with Keith Olbermann and the E! network, has been writing his column for the Voice since 1984. He has recently compiled the best of them in a book released this year titled, La Dolce Musto: Writings by the World’s Most Outrageous Columnist. He was Carrie Bradshaw, replete with a prodigious use of puns, before Sex in the City was a thought. His column is a romp through his life, spats and opinions on socio-political issues. As David Thigpen of the Chicago Tribune wrote, Musto is “a funny and caustic satirist who masquerades as a gossip and nightlife columnist.”

Musto, a Columbia University graduate, is a rarity in today’s celebrity world: he is accessible. He often corresponds with his readers and his public functions are a mix of parties, nightclubs, academic lectures, university panels and film premieres.

He is friendly and frank, and he welcomes people to join him in his world (“I just got a message that Michael Lucas died!” he says staring wide-eyed at his phone; the message turned out to be false). Wikinews reporter David Shankbone spoke with Musto about his life and his relationship to the world of celebrity journalism. And he did not hold back.