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Tuesday, January 24, 2006

January’s second Interview of the Month was with Danny O’Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on 23 January in IRC.

The EFF is coming off a series of high-profile successes in their campaigns to educate the public, press, and policy makers regarding online rights in a digital world, and defending those rights in the legislature and the courtroom. Their settlement with Sony/BMG, the amazingly confused MGM v Grokster decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, and the disturbing cases surrounding Diebold have earned the advocacy organization considerable attention.

When asked if the EFF would be interested in a live interview in IRC by Wikinews, the answer was a nearly immediate yes, but just a little after Ricardo Lobo. With two such interesting interview candidates agreeing so quickly, it was hard to say no to either so schedules were juggled to have both. By chance, the timing worked out to have the EFF interview the day before the U.S. Senate schedule hearings concerning the Broadcast flag rule of the FCC, a form of digital rights management which the recording and movie industries have been lobbying hard for – and the EFF has been lobbying hard to prevent.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Interview:_Danny_O%27Brien_of_the_Electronic_Frontier_Foundation&oldid=4635193”

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Last night HBO premiered I Am An Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA. Since its inception, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has made headlines and raised eyebrows. They are almost single-handedly responsible for the movement against animal testing and their efforts have raised the suffering animals experience in a broad spectrum of consumer goods production and food processing into a cause célèbre.

PETA first made headlines in the Silver Spring monkeys case, when Alex Pacheco, then a student at George Washington University, volunteered at a lab run by Edward Taub, who was testing neuroplasticity on live monkeys. Taub had cut sensory ganglia that supplied nerves to the monkeys’ fingers, hands, arms, legs; with some of the monkeys, he had severed the entire spinal column. He then tried to force the monkeys to use their limbs by exposing them to persistent electric shock, prolonged physical restraint of an intact arm or leg, and by withholding food. With footage obtained by Pacheco, Taub was convicted of six counts of animal cruelty—largely as a result of the monkeys’ reported living conditions—making them “the most famous lab animals in history,” according to psychiatrist Norman Doidge. Taub’s conviction was later overturned on appeal and the monkeys were eventually euthanized.

PETA was born.

In the subsequent decades they ran the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty against Europe’s largest animal-testing facility (footage showed staff punching beagle puppies in the face, shouting at them, and simulating sex acts while taking blood samples); against Covance, the United State’s largest importer of primates for laboratory research (evidence was found that they were dissecting monkeys at its Vienna, Virginia laboratory while the animals were still alive); against General Motors for using live animals in crash tests; against L’Oreal for testing cosmetics on animals; against the use of fur for fashion and fur farms; against Smithfield Foods for torturing Butterball turkeys; and against fast food chains, most recently against KFC through the launch of their website kentuckyfriedcruelty.com.

They have launched campaigns and engaged in stunts that are designed for media attention. In 1996, PETA activists famously threw a dead raccoon onto the table of Anna Wintour, the fur supporting editor-in-chief of Vogue, while she was dining at the Four Seasons in New York, and left bloody paw prints and the words “Fur Hag” on the steps of her home. They ran a campaign entitled Holocaust on your Plate that consisted of eight 60-square-foot panels, each juxtaposing images of the Holocaust with images of factory farming. Photographs of concentration camp inmates in wooden bunks were shown next to photographs of caged chickens, and piled bodies of Holocaust victims next to a pile of pig carcasses. In 2003 in Jerusalem, after a donkey was loaded with explosives and blown up in a terrorist attack, Newkirk sent a letter to then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat to keep animals out of the conflict. As the film shows, they also took over Jean-Paul Gaultier‘s Paris boutique and smeared blood on the windows to protest his use of fur in his clothing.

The group’s tactics have been criticized. Co-founder Pacheco, who is no longer with PETA, called them “stupid human tricks.” Some feminists criticize their campaigns featuring the Lettuce Ladies and “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” ads as objectifying women. Of their Holocaust on a Plate campaign, Anti-Defamation League Chairman Abraham Foxman said “The effort by PETA to compare the deliberate systematic murder of millions of Jews to the issue of animal rights is abhorrent.” (Newkirk later issued an apology for any hurt it caused). Perhaps most controversial amongst politicians, the public and even other animal rights organizations is PETA’s refusal to condemn the actions of the Animal Liberation Front, which in January 2005 was named as a terrorist threat by the United States Department of Homeland Security.

David Shankbone attended the pre-release screening of I Am An Animal at HBO’s offices in New York City on November 12, and the following day he sat down with Ingrid Newkirk to discuss her perspectives on PETA, animal rights, her responses to criticism lodged against her and to discuss her on-going life’s work to raise human awareness of animal suffering. Below is her interview.

This exclusive interview features first-hand journalism by a Wikinews reporter. See the collaboration page for more details.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Ingrid_Newkirk,_co-founder_of_PETA,_on_animal_rights_and_the_film_about_her_life&oldid=4618871”

Friday, August 24, 2007

Health authorities in Finland have banned a squirrel from visiting a SIWA supermarket in the central Finnish city of Jyväskylä.

The squirrel had previously been allowed in by the store’s manager, Irene Lindroos, where it would enter daily via the open front door, and help itself to a Kinder Egg chocolate from the confectionery section. Once it had one, it would carry it back outside to eat it.

The appearance of the squirrel regularly amused customers, often with the effect of causing them to purchase Kinder Eggs themselves.

However, as of today, the squirrel has been barred from entering. “It’s a decision of the health authorities. The door of the store has remained open all summer, but now it will be shut,” said an employee of the supermarket.

The squirrel had received widespread press attention earlier in the year. “I named it the Kinder-squirrel, after the treats. It always goes after them, other sweets do not seem to interest it as much,” Irene Lindroos had said at the time. The sweets contain a small plastic toy, and Lindroos had said “It removes the foil carefully, eats the chocolate and leaves the store with the toy”.

The squirrel was banned by the authorities because they decided that the terms of the Food Act meant it could not remain there. Lindroos told reporters the squirrel had become very popular with customers, saying that almost everyone who entered the store had asked about it. She added that one customer had made a donation of 30 Euros (41 US) to fund the squirrel’s continuing chocolate-taking.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Squirrel_banned_from_Finnish_supermarket&oldid=3794518”

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Antelope Valley, California —The Crown Fire that has burned through 13,980 acres in the High Desert of Southern California since 2:32 pm (2232 UTC) Thursday was at 82% containment Saturday evening, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

On Friday high winds caused the fire to jump the California Aqueduct and spread into the city of Palmdale. Over 2,000 residents of Leona Valley, Ana Verde, and Rancho Vista were given mandatory evacuation orders. The sky was blanketed with thick orange pyrocumulus clouds and falling ash, making the air hard to breathe.

State Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger arrived in Palmdale on Friday to survey the burned areas. “We were very fortunate to not have fires for quite some time because the air temperature was cool and we didn’t have the experiencing of dry weather and all the winds and so on, but all of a sudden the fire season kicked in as if, ‘Here we are,'” Schwarzenegger said during a press conference. “But we are ready and we have luckily distributed resources all over the state of California, so we are ready at any given time.”

The fire has so far destroyed one house and three mobile homes, damaging the roof of another and burning car garages, horse stables, and other outbuildings. Most of the more seriously threatened homes were constructed recently from fire-proof materials, with walls coated in stucco, and fire-resistant plants in the yards. Although some roads are still closed to all traffic, all existing evacuation orders were lifted late Friday night and 500 residents of Rancho Vista were told to “shelter in place” until further notice. Despite the absence of mandatory evacuation orders, over 2,000 houses, 60 commercial buildings, and 100 outbuildings are still under threat.

Throughout the night, fire crews have been battling the wildfire, assisted by cooler temperatures and lighter-than-expected winds which have enabled them to establish containment lines. “Crews went out [Friday] night and did some great work trying to complete more lines and also trying to take care of what we call ‘cat eyes’ which are embers within the perimeter of the fire, so there will be much more work being done there today,” said LACFD Captain Roland Sprewell. “But of course we’re not going to rest on our laurels today…we’re going to be vigilantly watching the winds, especially in the ridge and down in the valleys.”

At the height of the fire, 1,700 firefighters from all over California were battling the flames, although as of 12:00 pm Saturday afternoon, it has been reduced to around 1,350 personnel. 16 fire camp crew have also assisted. 250 fire engines and four bulldozers have been used. In the air, 4 Boeing 747 supertankers, 1 McDonnell Douglas DC-10 tanker, and 6 modified Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters known as “Firehawks” have been dropping water and red Phos-Chek slurry. The Los Angeles Sheriffs Department also increased its presence in the Antelope Valley by bringing in response teams from stations outside the AV. This afternoon, the deployment has been scaled back to three teams as the fire stabilizes and further evacuation orders become unlikely.

Three firefighters have been injured battling the fire, although all injuries are minor. One sheriff deputy was also hospitalized for smoke inhalation but has since been released.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=14,000-acre_Southern_California_%27Crown_Fire%27_at_82%25_containment,_evacuation_orders_lifted&oldid=4225234”

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Sunday, June 27, 2010

Toyota announced on Friday that it will recall around 17,000 Lexus vehicles in response to risks of the fuel tank in the cars leaking after a collision.

The Lexus HS 250h model was subjected to the recall following a US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation. Despite previously passing Toyota safety inspections, the conclusions of an NHTSA sub-contracted investigator were that; when the vehicles in question collided with an object at more than fifty-miles-per hour, more than 142 grams of fuel, the maximum allowed by US law, leaked from the crashed car.

According to Toyota, further tests did not show any additional failure of the fuel tank.

In response to the findings, Toyota issued a recall of all affected vehicles, since the company had no solution immediately available. The recall includes 13,000 cars already sold, as well as another 4,000 still at dealerships.

Toyota says it plans to conduct further tests to determine the cause of the leak. A Toyota spokesman, Brian Lyons, said that the company was “still working to determine what the root cause of the condition is.” It’s still unclear when exactly the recall will take place, or when dealerships will be allowed to sell this model again. Lyons said that Toyota is “working feverishly to get this resolved as soon as possible.”

Toyota isn’t aware of any accidents stemming from the leaking fuel tank in the affected vehicles, first introduced in the summer of 2009.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Fuel_leak_prompts_17,000-vehicle_recall_by_Toyota&oldid=4099641”

Saturday, May 3, 2008

The Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism issued a statement Friday praising comments made Wednesday by Malaysian politician Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan on conversion to Islam. Malaysian Consultative Council president Datuk A. Vaithilingam said that Ong’s views are shared by Malaysians from all religious faiths in the country.

“Conversion to Islam should not be abused as a means to evade one’s legal obligations to one’s family. A person’s conversion to another religion should not cause pain and suffering for other members of the family,” said Vaithilingam. He asked state and federal government authorities to take necessary steps to fix loopholes in the law, so that Malaysians could freely practice religion in the country.

	Conversion to Islam should not be abused as a means to evade one’s legal obligations to one’s family.

Ong is the current Minister of Housing and Local Government in the Malaysian cabinet, and also serves as the secretary-general of the {{w|Malaysian Chinese Association]] (MCA) and Perak MCA chairman. In his Wednesday statement, he said that individuals who convert to Islam through the marriage process should be permitted to renounce the religion if they leave the marriage. Ong also stated that the religion of a minor child with one Muslim parent should be determined by both parents, or remain the same until the child turns 18.

Ong said that issues involving divorce, custody of children and inheritance in matters of constitutional rights of non-Muslims had increased dramatically in the last three years. Ong emphasized the importance of civil law as related to non-Muslims in the country, as opposed to that of Syariah (Sharia), Islamic religious law.

	We urge the Government to be transparent in this process.

“Non-Muslims are not to be subjected to any form of Syariah laws and for any disputes or overlapping areas involving the jurisdiction of civil and Syariah courts, civil laws must prevail. […] We urge the Government to be transparent in this process,” said Ong.

Ong’s comments were made as part of an 11-page motion of thanks on the royal address. His motion was seconded by Bintulu Minister of Parliament Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing. Ong also spoke about the corruption, education, crime and security and the economy in his two-hour speech.

Of the 27 million people in Malaysia, 60 percent are Muslim Malaysian Malays, 25 percent are Chinese and mainly Buddhists or Christians, and 7.8 percent are ethnic Indians and mainly Hindus.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Multifaith_council_commends_Malaysian_politician%27s_comments_on_conversion_to_Islam&oldid=4552944”

Sunday, May 25, 2008

J. R. Simplot, french fry “king” & founder of the J. R. Simplot Company, an agricultural supplier specializing in potato products has died today in Boise, Idaho. He was 99 years old.

He was born John Richard “Jack” Simplot on January 4, 1909 in Dubuque, Iowa, United States. By World War II, the J. R. Simplot Company had become the largest shipper of fresh potatoes in the nation. By the early 1960s it was the primary supplier of french fries to McDonald’s; by 2005 it supplied more than half of all french fries for the fast food chain. Simplot also produced fertilizers for agriculture.

In 1961, Simplot financed the Brundage Mountain ski area area near McCall, two hours north of Boise. The Simplot Company sold its 50% interest in Brundage in April 2006 to the longtime co-owner, the DeBoer family.

Simplot is survived by his wife, Esther.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=French_fry_%27king%27_J._R._Simplot_dies_at_age_99&oldid=4577287”

Sunday, April 4, 2010

A Chinese merchant ship has run aground off the coast of Australia and began leaking oil into the ocean near the Great Barrier Reef, triggering fears of a major oil spill into the waters near the reef.

The ship, the Shen Neng 1, was carrying 950 tonnes of oil, along with 65,000 tonnes of coal, from Gladstone, a port in Queensland, Australia, to China. It reportedly ran aground sometime late on Saturday 70 kilometers from Great Keppel Island, according to a spokesperson from the Queensland state government. The spokesperson, Mark Strong, said that oil had been spotted off the ship about two nautical miles away, although there was currently no major leak. A plane was dispatched to spray a dispersant over the oil, as well as to assess the situation, and a major clean-up operation was being planned by authorities.

The day after the ship first grounded, reports began emerging that it had been travelling in a restricted zone of the ocean, around nine miles outside the normal shipping lane, and had been travelling at full speed when it grounded. An official from Queensland said that a probing inquiry would later be conducted into its presence outside the shipping channel.

Conservationists said that the incident was “a sign of things to come,” and that there was the potential for a much larger accident in the future. One such person, a spokesman for the Capricorn Conservation Council, said that “We are outraged that no marine pilot is required on ships between Gladstone and Cairns.” Cairns is a city on the northern coast of Australia.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Chinese_ship_leaking_oil_near_Great_Barrier_Reef&oldid=4220379”

Categories

chevyplaces.com

Interview: Danny O’Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder of PETA, on animal rights and the film about her life

Contents

Squirrel banned from Finnish supermarket

14,000-acre Southern California ‘Crown Fire’ at 82% containment, evacuation orders lifted

Category:April 23, 2010

Pages in category “April 23, 2010”

Fuel leak prompts 17,000-vehicle recall by Toyota

The Top 5 Gifts To Send Your Mum Or Grandma For Mother’s Day}

Multifaith council commends Malaysian politician’s comments on conversion to Islam

French fry ‘king’ J. R. Simplot dies at age 99

Chinese ship leaking oil near Great Barrier Reef