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Thursday, June 30, 2005

Monday, October 11, 2010

Wikinews interviewed author Amy Scobee about her book Scientology – Abuse at the Top, and asked her about her experiences working as an executive within the organization. Scobee joined the organization at age 14, and worked at Scientology’s international management headquarters for several years before leaving in 2005. She served as a Scientology executive in multiple high-ranking positions, working out of the international headquarters of Scientology known as “Gold Base”, located in Gilman Hot Springs near Hemet, California.

Monday, July 16, 2018

Yesterday at a meeting of Odessa City Council, deputy Vadim Tereshchuk proposed an official investigation of the abuse of authority by the employees of the Department of Municipal Guard, who beat up journalists and lawyers the day before. The vice-mayor Anatoly Orlovsky did not support the request of Tereshchuk. However, he instructed the officials to inform the deputies about the progress of the investigation and its results.

On July 13, employees of the municipal enterprise “Municipal Guard” attacked journalists who were filming the activity of Odessa city crews. As a result of the incident three journalists suffered, employees of the municipal enterprise used tear gas against them and beat them with rubber clubs.

The events took place near one of the city parking lots in the center of Odessa. There were several cars of the “Municipal Guard”. Their goal was to dismantle the parking bars of the “Redut” law company. However, they met resistance of the parking lot renter’s employees. It ended up with a conflict. The journalists were recording what was happening on cameras, but for some unknown reason the representatives of the “Municipal Guard” used special equipment in the form of tear gas and rubber clubs. As a result, three journalists were injured. At least two of them were delivered to a medical facility.

At the moment, there are criminal proceedings: part 2 of Article 296 (hooliganism) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine; Article 171 (obstruction of the professional activity of journalists); article 345-1 (threat or violence against a journalist).

Two employees of the Municipal Guard were reported of suspicions. Odessa Local Prosecutor’s Office No. 3 is in charge of the criminal investigation which was opened after the events on the Nekrasova street.

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Friday, December 21, 2007

A delegation claiming to represent the Lakota Indian Tribe, an Indian nation within United States borders, have signed a document stating that the tribe withdraws and or cancels all treaties with the U.S. and formally establishes independence from the country. The letter was hand delivered by activists for the tribe to Deputy to the Public Liaison at the State Department, Daniel Turner.

“We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us. This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution. It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent,” said Russell Means, an activist for Native American rights to reporters at a press conference on Wednesday in Washington, D.C..

“Today is a historic day and our forefathers speak through us. Our Forefathers made the treaties in good faith with the sacred Canupa and with the knowledge of the Great Spirit. They never honored the treaties, that’s the reason we are here today,” said Garry Rowland who is also known as Wounded Knee.

The delegation wrote a formal letter to the Department of State which was hand-delivered by activists of the tribe announcing their secession. So far, the U.S. has not issued a public response regarding their decision. Wikinews attempted to contact the State Department, but in an e-mail Director of the Office of Media Affairs Kirsten Petree stated that “this is not an issue for the State Department” and referred us to the Department of the Interior.

Under the declaration, the tribe, which consists of people from Nebraska, North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming, would create and issue its own driver’s licenses and passports. According to a report by Agence France-Presse, all residents who currently live within Lakota borders can continue to reside there without paying taxes, as long as they renounce their U.S. citizenship.

The attempt to gain independence began in 1974 when activists wrote up a draft declaration of independence, which was modeled after the 1776 Declaration of Independence that the U.S. signed in declaring freedom from England.

Many of the treaties the tribe signed with the U.S. are over 150 years old.

“We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children,” said activist Phyllis Young, who was one of the individuals who helped to organize a 1977 conference in Geneva on “indigenous rights.”

The other members of the activist delegation were Duane Martin Sr., Gary Rowland and Phyllis Young. Duane Martin Sr. is a leader of a group called the Strong Heart Society. Gary Rowland is a leader of a group called the Big Foot Riders. Phyllis Young is the founder of a group called Women of All Red Nations.

Means’ group is based in Porcupine, South Dakota on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Means’ group is not an agency or branch of any Lakota tribe, although he ran unsuccessfully for president of the Oglala Sioux tribe in 2006.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

The European Commission has warned Microsoft that features the company intends to include in its next version of Windows known as Windows Vista may breach the European Union’s antitrust laws.

The EU’s commissioner in charge of competition, Neelie Kroes, wrote to Steve Ballmer CEO of Microsoft last week informally warning him that Microsoft’s plans to include security features, search tools, copyright protection services and an application to create documents similar to Adobe’s PDF files into Vista would violate European antitrust laws, according to her spokesman Jonathan Todd.

Mr. Todd said that the commission was worried that features Microsoft plans to include in Vista may prevent customers from choosing their own software combinations. He emphasised that the letter was not a signal of a formal antitrust inquiry into Windows Vista.

The commission wrote the letter following a letter from Microsoft asking them to indicate if there were any possible competition issues with the new system. Mr. Todd said: “We assume that Microsoft has its own interests at heart. It wants to launch another product without having to worry about the Commission instituting various actions under antitrust law.”

Microsoft’s top lawyer in Europe, Horacio Guttierez, said Wednesday that adding such functions into the operating system was essential if Microsoft was to meet customer demand. “I know consumers want more secure computer systems,” he said.

Windows Vista includes software called Windows Defender, which seeks out and removes spyware and adware. Guttierez claims that forcing Microsoft to sell Windows without Defender “is a bit like forcing BMW to sell cars without airbags”.

“We have a responsibility to make our products better and more secure for our customers,” he said.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

A Scottish woman who set out before Christmas to purchase a turkey finally made it home on Monday, after being cut off by snow for a month. Kay Ure left the Lighthouse Keeper’s cottage on Cape Wrath, at the very northwest tip of Great Britain, in December. She was heading to Inverness on a shopping trip.

However on her return journey heavy snow and ice prevented her husband, John, from travelling the last 11 miles to pick her up. She was forced to wait a month in a friend’s caravan, before the weather improved and the couple could finally be reunited.

They were separated not just for Christmas and New Year, but also for Mr Ure’s 58th birthday. With no fresh supplies, he was reduced to celebrating with a tin of baked beans. He also ran out of coal, and had to feed the couple’s six springer spaniels on emergency army rations.

“It’s the first time we’ve been separated”, said Mr Ure in December. “We’ve been snowed in here for three weeks before, so we are well used to it and it’s quite nice to get a bit of peace and quiet.”

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Researchers say that new, ten million-year-old fossils found in Ethiopia, prove that the theory that humans may have evolved from a species of great apes eight million years ago, may not be true, but that humans may have split from apes as long as 10.5 million years ago.

At least nine fossilized teeth, one canine tooth and eight molars, of a previously unknown species of apes found in Africa were discovered by a team of researchers from Ethiopia and Japan who then compared the 3-D make up of the teeth to other fossils that date back as far as 8 million years and found that the fossils are likely a “direct ancestor” of apes currently living in Africa and that the new ape fossils were that of a species of gorilla who ate mostly plants high in fiber.

Current fossils and research say that the evolutionary split from apes to humans occurred at least eight million years ago. The new fossils say that the split may have happened as long as 10.5 million years ago.

“Based on this fossil, that means the split is much earlier than has been anticipated by the molecular evidence. That means everything has to be put back,” said researcher at the Rift Valley Research Service in Ethiopia and a co-author of the study, Berhane Asfaw.

Despite the finds, other researchers are not convinced that the findings are correct.

“It is stretching the evidence to base a time scale for the evolution of the great apes on this new fossil. These structures appear on at least three independent lineages of apes, including gorillas, and they could relate to a dietary shift rather than indicating a new genetic trait,” said a Professor at the London Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom, Peter Andrews who also added, “but the fossil evidence for the evolution of our closest living relatives, the great apes, is almost non-existent.

Researchers have named the newly discovered species Cororapithecus abyssinicus whose remains were found in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, the same place where the remains of Lucy were discovered in 1974.