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Friday, November 6, 2009

After two days of debate, the United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly endorsed a report from the Human Rights Council calling for domestic investigations into alleged war crimes committed by both Israel’s military and Palestinian armed forces during the Gaza conflict that began last December.

The controversial report concluded that Israel used disproportionate force in the war, deliberately targeted Gaza civilians, used them as human shields, and destroyed civilian infrastructure. One of the 31 chapters of the report discussed crimes by Hamas for firing rockets into Israeli towns.

The final vote was 114 in favor, 18 against and 44 abstentions. Strong support came from the Arab and non-aligned countries, many of whom co-sponsored the draft resolution.

Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour welcomed the vote, saying the implementation of Justice Richard Goldstone’s report will now begin in stages.

Ali Treki, the General Assembly president, called the vote “an important declaration against impunity. It is a call for justice and accountability”. Without justice, there can be no progress towards peace. A human being should be treated as a human being, regardless of his or her religion, race or nationality,” he said.

“In three months we will come back to General Assembly to consider the report of the Secretary-General for further action, including in all parts of the United Nations, including in the Security Council,” said Riyad Mansour, a Palestinian-American diplomat.

The non-binding resolution requests the secretary-general report to the General Assembly within three months on the implementation of the resolution, with a view to considering further action, if necessary.

Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Daniel Cameron said that the resolution, “endorses and legitimizes a deeply flawed, one-sided and prejudiced report of the discredited Human Rights Council and its politicised work that bends both fact and law”.

Of the countries abstaining or voting no, several said that although they agreed with the essence of the resolution – that the parties should conduct their own independent, credible investigations into alleged violations as called for in the Goldstone report – they could not vote in favor because they had difficulty with two specific items in the resolution.

Another point of some contention is that the resolution leaves the door open for future action in the UN Security Council. The Palestinians have made clear they plan to pursue that option, but most of the council’s five permanent members opposed the idea, saying the right forum for the Goldstone report is in the Human Rights Council in Geneva, where it started.

The United States was the only permanent Security Council member to vote against the resolution. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said that although it opposed the resolution, the US strongly supported accountability for human rights and humanitarian law violations relating to the Gaza conflict.

“We believe that the Goldstone report is deeply flawed-including its unbalanced focus on Israel, its sweeping conclusions of law, the excessively negative inferences it draws about Israel’s intentions and actions, its failure to deal adequately with the asymmetrical nature of the Gaza conflict, its failure to assign appropriate responsibility to Hamas for its decision to base itself and its operations in heavily civilian-populated urban areas, and its many overreaching recommendations,” said Alejandro Wolff.

Israel, which did not cooperate with the Goldstone commission, voted against the resolution, saying that it legitimised a “deeply flawed, one-sided” report, and disregarded Israel’s right to defend its citizens.

“The results of the vote and the large number of member states who voted against or abstained, demonstrate clearly that the resolution does not have the support of the ‘moral majority’ of UN members,” read a statement on the website of Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs. “Israel rejects the resolution of the UN General Assembly, which is completely detached from realities on the ground.”

During the three-week-long Israeli military incursion into the Gaza Strip, at least 1,400 Palestinians died according to Palestinians and human rights groups, although Israel says 1,166, and 13 Israelis also died. The Goldstone Commission criticized both sides for violations of international humanitarian law.

Monday, October 7, 2019

Yesterday morning, English drummer Ginger Baker died in a hospital at the age of 80. The news came from the Twitter account in his name and was independently confirmed by Associated Press with his daughter Nettie Baker. On September 25, it was reported Baker was hospitalized in critical condition. Baker was widely known as the drummer and co-founder of the rock band Cream, an early supergroup.

Baker, a life-long smoker and former heroin addict, suffered from health problems for years. The list of ailments included hearing loss, osteoarthritis, emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as well as heart problems for which he had surgery in 2016. Although known to have lived his latter years in South Africa, his daughter said he died in Britain without elaborating.

Ginger Baker was born Peter Edward Baker in Lewisham, London, in 1939. His father was killed in combat in 1943 during World War II. Baker — who was reportedly nicknamed Ginger due to his red hair — began playing drums in his teens. In a story he sometimes told, he had a habit of tapping on school desks. When an opportunity arose at a party, his classmates encouraged him to sit down at a drum set. “I’d never sat behind a kit before, but I sat down — and I could play! One of the musicians turned round and said, ‘Bloody hell, we’ve got a drummer’, and I thought, ‘Bloody hell, I’m a drummer’?”, he recalled in a 2009 retelling of the story to the The Independent.

Baker began his career as a drummer in jazz bands. He played with Acker Bilk and Terry Lightfoot. In 1962, when fellow drummer Charlie Watts was leaving Blues Incorporated for The Rolling Stones, Watts recommended Baker to be his replacement. Later, Baker found early success with rhythm and blues band The Graham Bond Organisation where he met bassist Jack Bruce.

In 1966, Baker, Bruce and singer/guitarist Eric Clapton, who was known from The Yardbirds, formed Cream. The rock trio was a massive success, selling tens of millions of records, including the first ever platinum certified album Wheels of Fire. Cream recorded four albums, then in 1968 disbanded with Baker and Bruce having developed a volatile relationship. Clapton and Baker were subsequently in another supergroup Blind Faith with Steve Winwood and Ric Grech. Blind Faith recorded only one studio album but notably played before a crowd of a hundred thousand at a free concert in London’s Hyde Park.

In the 1970s, Baker moved to Nigeria where he established a studio and began playing polo. Here he collaborated with Fela Kuti and worked on Wings’s album Band on the Run with Paul McCartney of The Beatles fame. Later, he recorded with John Lydon’s Public Image Ltd.

Cream was inducted in 1993 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The band reunited in 2005 for several London and New York concerts. Afterwards he moved to South Africa, and still lived there when the 2012 documentary Beware of Mr. Baker was filmed. Baker’s last recording was 2014’s Why? solo album. Baker retired from live performances in 2016 due to his ill health.

Paul McCartney wrote on Twitter, “Ginger Baker, great drummer, wild and lovely guy. We worked together on the ‘Band on the Run’ album in his ARC Studio, Lagos, Nigeria. Sad to hear that he died but the memories never will.”

“A very sad loss, and my condolences to his family and friends. A loss also for his contribution to music. He was well-grounded in jazz from very early on,” wrote Steve Winwood in a statement. “Beneath his somewhat abrasive exterior, there was a very sensitive human being with a heart of gold. He’ll be missed.”

Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones also reacted on Twitter, “Sad news hearing that Ginger Baker has died, I remember playing with him very early on in Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated. He was a fiery but extremely talented and innovative drummer.”

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

“We’re only two days in and we’re already fucking tired,” says Sune Rose Wagner to David Shankbone as he walks into the dressing room at the Bowery Ballroom. Wagner and Sharin Foo comprise the Raveonettes, a group made for “nostalgists who long for Everly Brothers 45’s and diner jukeboxes, the Raveonettes tweak “American Graffiti”-era rock with fuzzed-out surf-guitar riffs,” said The New York Times. They recently left Columbia and signed with Fierce Panda because they felt constrained by their Columbia contract: “The major label system sometimes doesn’t allow for outside “help” to get involved, meaning that we don’t get to choose who we wanna work with. That can be a pretty terrible thing and bad things will surely come of it,” said the band on their MySpace site. Originally from Denmark, both musicians live in the United States now.

Their first EP, Chain Gang of Love, was a critical and commercial success. “Few albums provoke such amazing imagery,” said the BBC. “Pretty in Black is virtually fuzz-free,” said Rolling Stone of their next album, “highlighting the exquisite detail in the Raveonettes’ gift for pastiche: the prowling, garage-surf guitars in Love in a Trashcan; the ghost dance of Red Tan, wrapped in Phil Spector-style sleigh bells.” Of their current album, Lust Lust Lust, set to be released on November 5th (although Amazon says March 4, 2008), Sune told NME that, “There are a lot of songs that deal with desire, restlessness and the tough choices you have to make sometimes.” Fans can hear some of the new material at MySpace.com/TheRaveonettes.

Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s interview with Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo.

Monday, February 25, 2013

The US-based credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service announced on Saturday their decision to downgrade their rating of the United Kingdom economy from AAA to AA1 – stating that lack of economic growth and austerity continuing into 2016 are to blame.

Moody’s Investors Service said in a statement: “The main driver underpinning Moody’s decision to downgrade the UK’s Government bond rating to AA1 is the increasing clarity that, despite considerable structural economic strengths, the UK’s economic growth will remain sluggish over the next few years due to the anticipated slow growth of the global economy and the drag on the UK economy from the ongoing domestic public- and private-sector deleveraging process”.

George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that the move to lower the credit rating was a “stark reminder” of the debt problems that the country is facing and that the government is planning to stick to it’s original deficit reduction plan. He went on to say “Far from weakening our resolve to deliver our economic recovery plan, this decision redoubles it”.

The British economy shrank by 0.3% in the final quarter of 2012 and output remained flat throughout last year – the economy would have to grow in the first quarter of 2013 in order to avoid a recession. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned George Osborne last month that he should slow down the rate of his deficit reduction and austerity programme if Britain entered a triple-dip recession.

The Labour Party has said that the government must reduce the number of spending cuts and focus on growth. Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: “This credit rating downgrade is a humiliating blow to a Prime Minister and Chancellor who said keeping our AAA rating was the test of their economic and political credibility.”

Saturday, August 25, 2007

The leading supplier of school uniforms in the United Kingdom, Lancashire-based manufacturer Trutex, has announced it is “seriously considering” including GPS tracking devices in future ranges of its uniform products after conducting an online survey of both parents and children.

“As a direct result of the survey, we are now seriously considering incorporating a [tracking] device into future ranges” said Trutex marketing director Clare Rix.

The survey questioned 809 parents and 444 children aged nine to 16. It showed that 44% of parents were worried about the safety of pre-teen children, and 59% wanted tracking devices installed in school apparel. 39% of children aged nine to 12 were prepared to wear clothing with tracking devices in them, while teenagers were notably less enthusiastic and more wary of what Trutex has admitted they see as a “big brother” concept.

However, Trutex has claimed the tracking devices would bring about worthwhile benefits, including being a valuable resource for parents who wanted to keep a close eye on where their children were at all times.

“As well as being a safety net for parents, there could be real benefits for schools who could keep a closer track on the whereabouts of their pupils, potentially reducing truancy levels” says Rix.

Each year, Trutex supplies 1 million blouses, 1.1 million shirts, 250,000 pairs of trousers, 20,000 blazers, 60,000 skirts and 110,000 pieces of knitwear to the UK.

It is not the first company to manufacture school uniforms with a central focus on child safety; last week Essex firm BladeRunner revealed it was selling stab-proof school blazers to parents concerned about violence against their children. The blazers were outfitted with Kevlar, a synthetic fibre used in body armour. It has already received orders internationally, including Australia.

If the Trutex tracking devices go ahead, it is unclear where in the uniform they will be located.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Tyler Clementi, eighteen, a freshman at Rutgers University in the United States, jumped off the George Washington Bridge last Wednesday after roommates broadcast his same-sex encounters online.

Clementi shared a room with Dhraun Ravi, in Davidson Hall on Rutgers’ Piscataway campus.

On September 19, Dhraun Ravi is alleged to have secretly activated a webcam in their room, then retreated down the hall to the room of his childhood friend, Molly Wei, where they used Skype to connect to the live video feed of Clementi having sex. Ravi tweeted, “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my Web cam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay”.

Clementi reported the incident to the university, and that information has been passed to the authorities, according to Gregory Blimling, university vice president for student affairs.

Ravi attempted to repeat his actions on the following Wednesday, after seeing his roommate kissing a teenaged boy. Writing on Facebook he said, “Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes, it’s happening again.”

The following Wednesday, at around 4 p.m., fellow freshman Lauren Garcia saw Clementi leaving the dormitory. “He had his iPod in his ear, and just had this blank stare on his face,”, she said. Clementi drove one hour along the New Jersey Turnpike, abandoning his car on the Jersey side. Writing a final message on his own Facebook page saying, “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry”, he left a wallet containing his driver’s licence and Rutgers ID card, and his mobile phone on the roadside. According to witnesses, he scaled the railings, crouched down, and jumped at approximately 8:50 p.m— about eight minutes after his Facebook posting. Those details were relayed to press anonymously by a law enforcement official.

One of the anonymous witnesses, a 45-year-old from West New York, said “It was so quick, as soon as he saw us, he went. He didn’t give us an opportunity to do anything.”

New York Police Department’s Harbour Unit recovered a body of a young man yesterday, in the Hudson River to the North of the bridge, but it has not yet been positively identified.

Ravi and Wei, both eighteen, were charged with invasion of privacy. Wei voluntarily surrendered to police Monday, and was released on her own recognizance; Ravi surrendered the following day, and has been released on $25,000 bail. All three students started their courses in August.

The crime of “transmitting sexual images” is a 3^rd degree felony, carrying a maximum prison sentence of five years.

Clementi, from Ridgewood, New Jersey, played the violin, and was a member of the Ridgewood High School chamber orchestra. A student from the same hall described him as quiet and shy. His parents were apparently unaware of his sexuality; Robert Righthand, a friend of Clementi since grade school, said “he had it in reserve for a very long time […] You never thought he was depressed. You just thought he was quiet. He wasn’t the person to open up to a lot of people.”

A gathering of around 100 people held a vigil on Wednesday, chanting slogans such as “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re not going home.”

The Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays organization announced a “call to action” today. Stephen Goldstein, of LGBT advocacy organization Garden State Equality, said, “[Clementi,] by all accounts, was brilliant, talented and kind […] we are sickened that anyone in our society, such as the students allegedly responsible […] might consider destroying others’ lives as a sport.”

On Wednesday prior to the incident, the university launched “Project Civility”, a two-year campaign encouraging students to be thougtful of others. The University president, Richard McCormick, issued a letter stating that “If the charges are true, these actions gravely violate the university’s standards of decency and humanity.”

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Brampton, Ontario woman Wendy Grant, 41, is facing 234 charges of double-doctoring after obtaining prescriptions for 6000 pills. The Ontario Provincial Police also charged her with fraud charge after allegedly obtaining false prescriptions for a narcotic, that werefraudulently billed to the Ontario Drug Benefits Plan.

From February to May, Grant obtained pills from 28 doctors and 22 pharmacies in Peel and Halton regions.

The Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia defines “double doctoring” “as a situation where a [person] seeks or obtains a prescription for a controlled drug or narcotic from more than one doctor to treat the same condition for the same period of time.”

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has proposed a bill that would allow Canadians to vote for Senators. Such a change requires an amendment the constitution, however, the government believes that Harper’s proposal bypasses the need for constitutional change.

Traditionally, the Prime Minister advised the Governor General on who to appoint to the upper house. The Senate reform bill, however, would allow citizens in a province or territory to vote in a preferential ballot which would advise the Prime Minister on whom to recommend for appointment to the Senate.

Senators would campaign like any other politician. Voters in their province that has a Senate vacancy would cast ballots for their favorite candidate at the same time as a vote in a general election.

The only provinces that actually has had Senate elections are Alberta and British Columbia. In 1989, then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appointed Stan Waters to the Senate after he was elected in an Alberta-wide vote to fill a vacancy in the upper house.

Alberta Premier designate Ed Stelmach says he agrees with Harper’s proposal.

“I believe what Prime Minister Harper is doing is opening up consultation in terms of how to bring about Senate reform and we’re going to work with him,” said Stelmach in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta. “We have been supportive of Senate reform for many, many years and will continue to do so. I’m awaiting the details of his proposals.”

“This bill will allow us to move to a new era in Canadian democracy,” Harper told the Conservative Party at their last meeting before Christmas break, which was held publicly.

“For the first time, it will let the prime minister give Canadians the decision on who represents them in the upper house.”

“Imagine that. After a century and a half, democracy will finally come to the Senate of Canada,” Harper said in a speech to members of the Conservative Party. “If need be, we’ll use a plurality (first-past-the-post) voting system at first, and then move to a preferential system of proportional representation,” Harper said.

Harper has already introduced a bill which will attempt to limit the terms of senators to eight years. The 105-member Senate is currently dominated by the Liberals.

“Many Albertans I’m sure will share my view that it will not be good for the province to have an elected Senate as long as we don’t have a constitutional change on the number of senators by province,” Liberal leader Stephane Dion said.

If the bill fails, Harper is expected to campaign on the issue in the next federal election, which is expected next year.