All posts by Admin

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has been buried in the town of Janzur, west of the Libyan capital Tripoli. He was the only individual convicted in association with the Lockerbie bombing of 1988. He died at his residence Sunday, aged 60.

The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York resulted in 270 fatalities, including all 259 of the airplane’s occupants and eleven individuals on the ground. 189 of those who died in the incident were US citizens. The death toll for this terrorist incident is larger than that for any other which has occurred in the United Kingdom thus far.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was placed on trial in May 2000 in the Netherlands alongside Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah. While Fhimah was found not guilty on all charges placed against him, al-Megrahi was found guilty of his and sentenced to at least 27 years imprisonment. Having been initially placed in HM Prison Barlinnie, al-Megrahi was transferred to Greenock in 2005.

In 2002, an appeal against his conviction was unsuccessful. Five years later, senior judges in Scotland were to review his case, but he dropped the appeal. Due to suffering from prostate cancer, he was granted a compassionate release from Scottish prison two days later.

Current UK Prime Minister David Cameron commented on his belief that al-Megrahi “should never have been released from prison” and said his death was an occasion “to remember the 270 people who lost their lives in what was an appalling terrorist act”. According to Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland, the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing is ongoing. Salmond also called for remembrance of those killed. Prosecutors, he said, had always thought there were others besides al-Megrahi involved in the attack.

US citizen Susan Cohen, the mother of one of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing, thought of al-Megrahi as “a mass murderer” who “deserved to die”, adding to CNN: “I feel no pity around him. He got to die with his family around him. My daughter [Theodora], at age 20, died a brutal, horrible death”. However, UK citizen Jim Swire, father of another victim of the bombing, believes al-Megrahi was not guilty. He described al-Megrahi’s death as “a sad time”, telling the BBC he was “satisfied for some years that this man was nothing to do with the murder of my daughter”.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has consistently denied responsibility for the attack. In his final recorded interview in December 2011, he insisted he was “an innocent man” who was “about to die and I ask now to be left in peace with my family.” His brother Mohammed al-Megrahi claimed “[t]here never was exact proof” and said al-Megrahi’s “pain is over now – he is with God”.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

A resident of Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound his whole life, Correctional Services officer Paul Johnstone is running for the Ontario New Democratic Party in the Ontario provincial election. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

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.

Friday, January 27, 2006The humble beginnings of many popular Web services, such as Google, LiveJournal, and Yahoo!, are well-documented and available on their websites, and frequently recounted in news stories about the firms. These websites are also scrutinized for any perceived violations of users’ privacy or other basic rights.

However, until recently, no investigation had been done into MySpace and Facebook, two new “social networking” sites of explosive popularity among teenagers and college students. American bloggers, using Google and financial records, have begun investigations into the origins and policies of these sites, making some claims that the site owners explicitly deny.

Monday, September 5, 2005

The nations hard hit by last year’s devastating tsunami are now lending advice to the United States on how to cope with the Katrina crisis.

Nopadol Somboonsub, the head of tsunami corpse identification in Thailand noted that the U.S. needs to “…examine the bodies slowly and put all the data into a computer,” and added that “It’s very important to get it right. You cannot assume that this or that body is the right body simply because a relative identified it.”

Somboonsub noted that life insurance and identity theft fraud are all matters to consider when dealing with body identification. Somboonsub speaks from a position of experience, his team having dealt with the identities of 5,395 corpses of various ethnicities in Thailand.

In India too, experts have advice for the U.S. For instance, one unnamed Indian official said that nations should not be arrogant when it comes to handling disasters. He also stated that “In India, for all its vastness, we have a very easily operable contingency plan for disasters at the grassroots level. It is not a highly complicated national response system.”

He emphasized that relief is most important on the local level: “A person at the grassroots level knows that sandbags have to be organized, identifies likely places of breaches, plans clearing debris and setting up relief camps and cooking centers.”

In Aceh, in Indonesia, Budi Atmadi, head of relief operations, said that humanitarian concerns must come first.

“In that period, the blame game is rampant because one person will always say the relief has been slow while another says there are so many limitations. The blame game will always be there so your ears need to be thick,” Atmadi stated, along with “The important thing is to stay committed and put humanitarian concerns at the top.”

The United States has so far only accepted help from other countries in the form of monetary aid and oil.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Marion Schaffer is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the Oakville riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed her regarding her values, her experience, and her campaign.

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.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

After reports that US President Barack Obama has fired the director of the Minerals Management Service, Elizabeth “Liz” Birnbaum, the Interior Department revealed that she instead resigned “on her own volition”. The resignation occurred amidst growing criticism of the federal government’s response to the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion and the agency’s oversight over offshore drilling. 

Birnbaum, who became director in June 2009, was expected to testify before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives today with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. She was not present when Salazar began to speak, however. Salazar said in a statement: “She is a good public servant. She resigned today on her own terms and on her own volition. I thank her for her service and wish her the very best.”

News agencies had reported that Birnbaum was forced out of office, and Obama was expected to officially announce the supposed firing later today in a news conference along with discussing an Interior Department report on the explosion. Birnbaum observed in her letter of resignation that Salazar “will be requiring three new leaders for the Office Natural Resources Revenue, the Bureau of Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement” as the entire Minerals Management Service is reorganized.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

The Law and Justice Party of Poland, which took power last week, this week removed web pages featuring the results of an investigation into the Smolensk air disaster in Russia in 2010. The cause of the crash, which killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, is disputed.

The flight was carrying high-profile political figures to attend a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, when thousands of Polish prisoners of war and civilians were killed by the Soviets. All 96 on board died. Amongst the dead were First Lady Maria Kaczy?ska, several members of the lower parliamentary house known as the Sejm, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer, National Security Bureau head Aleksander Szczyg?o, and Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last President of the Polish government-in-exile.

The Law and Justice Party was in power at the time, led then as now by Lech Kaczynski’s identical twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Jaroslaw was himself Prime Minister of Poland from 2006 to 2007. Jaroslaw contested the vacated Presidency later that year but was defeated by Bronislaw Komorowski of the Civic Platform Party. Lech and Jaroslaw co-founded Law and Justice.

Russian and Polish investigations deemed the crash an accident. Edmund Klich, head of the Polish air accident investigatory body, said in 2010 the Polish military pilots of the Tupolev Tu-154 were determined to get the dignitaries through dense fog so they could attend the ceremony. He said the pilots were insufficiently trained and put safety second, whilst Russian air traffic controllers should have diverted the aircraft away from Smolensk. Passengers entered the cockpit during the final stages of the flight.

Government spokesman Elzbieta Witek yesterday said Donald Tusk, a former Prime Minister, should be prosecuted before the State Tribunal, although Witek said this was a personal view and not government policy. Jaroslaw and allies have insinuated Russia purposefully brought the plane down.

Law and Justice accuse Tusk, Prime Minister from 2007 to 2014, of failings before and after the crash. He is accused of not ensuring the President was safe, of not establishing an international investigation, and of allowing Russia to maintain possession of the wreckage.

Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee performed its own investigation blaming solely Poland’s pilots and exonerating the controllers. Upon receiving the first draft of their report in 2010 Tusk branded the contents “unacceptable”, the findings “without foundation”, and the overall result a breach of the Chicago Convention, an international regulatory document on air travel.

Tusk resigned last year to take the European Council Presidency until 2017. Witek said he had “given away” investigative control. Polish minister Adam Lipinski has previously called for Tusk’s prosecution after his European duties conclude, saying he has “a lot to answer for” over the disaster.

Polish conspiracy theorists have been spurred on by Russian refusal to accede to Polish requests to return wreckage, which the Russians claim to still be investigating.

The new Prime Minister is Law and Justice’s Beata Szydlo. Asked on Tuesday about one disappearing website containing investigative findings, Szydlo told press “the website has been closed and will simply remain closed.”