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Sunday, April 25, 2010

The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday began simultaneous immunization campaigns, in 112 countries and territories across its Americas, Eastern Mediterranean, and European regions. The unprecedented vaccination drive will last for a week.

This is the first time the World Health Organization has launched such an event across multiple regions at once. WHO officials say their goal is to expand immunization coverage and raise awareness of the importance of vaccines, and that such cross-border activities can prevent disease and save lives.

WHO spokesman Daniel Epstein says that many countries are working to eliminate measles, adding that says countries in the European region are very concerned that they have stalled in their goal of eliminating measles and rubella this year.

“In European countries, in many of them, immunization coverage is below the 95 percent recommended level. And, there have been ongoing measles outbreaks in some of these countries. Measles cases have also been imported to the US and Canada and the Americas from European countries,” said Epstein.

The agency says an important goal of the immunization campaigns is to reach those who have been excluded up to now. It notes that every year, in the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean Region, 25 percent of deaths among children under age five are attributed to vaccine preventable diseases. 2.1 million children in the Middle East hadn’t received a shot against tetanus, whooping cough, or diphteria in 2009, according to the WHO.

In the Americas, WHO says special regional events are being held in border areas of Nicaragua, between Suriname and French Guiana, and between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It says many young children, pregnant women, elderly and indigenous peoples live in isolated areas where vaccine coverage is low.

In all three regions, Epstein said the vaccination campaigns will be accompanied by health information campaigns.

“The biggest obstacle to reaching our goals of vaccination are lack of awareness, lack of information and people being ignorant that they should be vaccinated, and thus not having enough vaccinators, money, trucks, bicycles, etc. to get to these remote regions,” he said.

WHO also began a large polio immunization campaign across sixteen countries in central and West Africa on Saturday. It says 78 million children under five will be vaccinated to stop a major outbreak of the disease.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

A man from Scotland who killed four elderly women and attempted to murder a fifth while working as a nurse in England has lost his appeal. Colin Norris, 33, from Glasgow, gave his victims overdoses of insulin which sent them into comas.

Norris, who was struck off the nursing register following his convictions, was convicted in March last year of murdering Doris Ludlam, 80, Bridget Bourke, 88, Irene Crookes, 79, and Ethel Hall, 86, as well as the attempted murder of 90-year-old Vera Wilby. Only Wilby ever awoke from her coma. He was convicted by a majority verdict at Newcastle Crown Court and sentenced to thirty years to life in prison.

William Clegg QC, defending, told the Court of Appeal in London that the deaths at the General Infirmary and St James’s Hospital in Leeds could have been caused by “severe spontaneous hypoglycaemia” causing “naturally raised insulin levels” in the patients. He said this possibility had never been properly investigated.

Clegg also challenged Mr Justice Griffith Williams’ summing up to the jury in the original trial. However, having also heard arguments from the prosecution, given by Robert Smith QC, the panel of judges did not agree. Lord Justice Aikens stated that the judges directions “cannot validly be criticised” and went on: “We reject both grounds of appeal. The case against the appellant was very strong indeed. We are quite satisfied that the convictions… on all five counts were safe. The appeal is dismissed.”

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

The Supreme Court of the United States on Wednesday April 18 has upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The 5-4 vote reflected the change in vote count resulting from the retirement of Justice O’Connor and the confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.

The Intact dilation and extraction procedure, also known as partial birth abortion, involves removing an intact late-term fetus from the womb via the cervix. While it is a relatively rare operation – 0.17% of all abortions in the US in 2000, it has become a focal point in the abortion debate.

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act bans the procedure in cases where the fetus is terminated during the operation, unless it is performed to to save the life of the mother.

Justice Kennedy wrote in the opinion of the court: “respondents have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases.” Further, he said, “Respondents have not demonstrated that the Act, as a facial matter, is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman’s right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception. For these reasons the judgments of the Courts of Appeals for the Eighth and Ninth Circuits are reversed.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Thomas stated that he joins “the Court’s opinion because it accurately applies current jurisprudence, including Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992).”

In dissent Judge Ginsburg wrote: “Today’s decision is alarming. It refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously. It tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.”

Justice Kennedy’s words also recall the complicated issues of standing related to such cases. An issue in Roe v. Wade was the impossibility of any individual having standing in a court proceeding regarding abortion rights, since court proceedings take more than the 9 months of pregnancy, retiring any individual plaintiff’s standing before an appeals process can take place. The criterion of “a large fraction of relevant cases” may effectively deny standing to any plaintiffs who wish to litigate particular restrictions in some relevant future cases.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Yesterday, Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy announced they had euthanised the last male northern white rhino, Sudan, on Monday, after consulting with wildlife officials. Sudan was 45-years-old, and now only two northern white rhinos, both female and descendants of Sudan, remain.

“Sudan was being treated for age-related complications that led to degenerative changes in muscles and bones combined with extensive skin wounds”, the conservancy said. “His condition worsened significantly in the last 24 hours; he was unable to stand up and was suffering a great deal”, they added.

Sudan, who was born in the early 1970s, suffered a wound in his right hind leg in late February. He was born in South Sudan, and at that time around 700 northern white rhinos were alive.

Sudan was in captivity for the last 38 years. Earlier, he was kept at the Dv?r Králové Zoo in Czech Republic before he was moved to Kenya. He stayed in a 90 thousand acre (about 140 square mile, 364 square kilometre) reserve with the only two remaining female northern white rhinos, 27-year-old Najin and seventeen-year-old Fatu. Najin and Fatu are Sudan’s daughter and granddaughter, respectively.

Ol Pejeta said they collected Sudan’s genetic material on Monday. The conservancy said, “The only hope for the preservation of the subspecies now lies in developing in-vitro fertilisation techniques using eggs from the two remaining females, stored northern white rhino semen from males and surrogate southern white rhino females.”

Last year, an account was opened on dating platform Tinder on Sudan’s behalf, to raise money for a fertility treatment after attempts at natural mating proved futile. Suni, second to last male of the subspecies, died four years ago, in October 2014 in San Diego Zoo, US. He was 42.

Ol Pejeta’s CEO, Richard Vigne, said Sudan “was a great ambassador for his species and will be remembered for the work he did to raise awareness globally on the plight facing not only rhinos, but also the many thousands of other species facing extinction as a result of unstable human activity”.

In 2008, the World Wildlife Foundation declared northern white rhinos extinct in the wild.

Thursday, June 21, 2018

On Tuesday, Mehbooba Mufti resigned as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir state after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) broke their three-year alliance with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). BJP’s decision to dissolve the alliance came after a meeting chaired by BJP President Amit Shah.

The BJP National Secretary General Ram Madhav said, “It has become untenable for the BJP to continue in the alliance government.” “We have tried to put a full stop to the ceasefire violations of Pakistan. PDP has not been successful in fulfilling its promises. Our leaders have been facing a lot of difficulties from PDP in developmental works in Jammu and Kashmir”, he added. Military operations in Jammu and Kashmir were suspended for the Islamic holy month of Ramzan, but on Sunday, the national government decided to end the ceasefire.

Ram Madhav said, “The security scenario has deteriorated, causing serious concern about the protection of basic fundamental rights of life, free speech.” Last week, on June 14, a journalist was killed in Jammu and Kashmir. Recently, the United Nations had released its first-ever report on Kashmir, calling on both India and Pakistan to prevent human rights violation in Kashmir region.

Following the announcement of BJP, Mehbooba Mufti tendered her resignation and said, “The alliance had a bigger motive. I have submitted my resignation to the governor and told him that we are not looking to explore other alliances.” Of the 87 seats in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, PDP has 28 seats, while BJP has 25. Other parties declined to form an alliance. Ram Madhav said the party had “decided that the reins of power in the state be handed over to the Governor.”

Per section 92 of the Jammu and Kashmir constitution, the governor assumes the functions of the state government as well as powers exercisable by any state authority. For the governor’s control over the state, it needs to be formally approved by the President of India. On Wednesday, President Ram Nath Kovind, who is on an international trip, approved the transfer of control to Governor Narinder Nath Vohra after he signed files for the imposition of governor’s rule when he arrived in Suriname. According to a spokesperson for the Home Affairs ministry, the president approved Governor’s rule with “immediate effect”. However, Vohra’s term as Jammu and Kashmir governor is to end on June 25. Previously, in 2013, he received an extension from the national government to continue his role as the governor.

Jammu and Kashmir has previously been under governor’s rule on eight occasions, most recently in 2016 after the death of then-Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Administrators for 711chan.org, one of the websites responsible for starting Project Chanology, a “raid” or attack against the Church of Scientology and their website, slowed down their “attack”.

In an exclusive interview with Wikinews, an administrator of 711chan states that they will “probably stay away from the CoS [Church of Scientology].”

“We’re probably just going to stay away from the CoS raid. It was poorly managed. We could’ve brought down a lot more if we weren’t just a bunch of unorganized brats,” said ‘Plasma’, an administrator on 711chan.org.

“Many people from 711chan still want to raid, but the administration is sick of it,” added Plasma who also stated that “Partyvan IRC actually has decided to remove the raid.”

Much of the reason stems from the fact that the attack on the Church was meant to stay within 711chan and that users were to stay “anonymous.” An e-mail was leaked on the internet when the attack began exposing the script used to attack the Church’s website.

“This is not what the raid originally started as. Partyvan declares this as a threat to the network, and Anonymous alike. We have been under constant botnet attacks, 711chan hacked, and tons of drama over this. You guys did a very poor job of staying Anonymous. It’s obvious that a lot of you broke rules 1, and 2,” said a statement on 711chan’s website.

The rules they refer to, according to Plasma, mean the “Rules of the Internet” and are:

Both key rules were broken by users, according to Plasma.

The attack on Scientology was launched on Wednesday January 16 by a group labelled “Anonymous”, on the website “Insurgency Wiki”, a spinoff of 4chan which is also affiliated with 711chan. The “History” section of the site explains, in a satirical fashion, that the incident was prompted by the Church of Scientology’s attempts to remove a promotional video featuring Scientologist Tom Cruise from YouTube. Though YouTube complied with the Church of Scientology’s requests to take down the video, other sites such as Gawker.com stated that they will keep hosting the video.

One poster admitted to being a part of the effort, writing in a blog post “I have myself, as per instructions, loaded up Gigaloader and started bombarding the Scientology homepage. Theres [sic] something in the hilarious anarchy of the net that produces these ‘events’ every now and again.” The poster wrote that “Prompted I think by the Tom Cruise video, a new obsession is taking hold on the internet. An insurgency against The Church of Scientology.”

Not long after their attack, a previously unknown group called The Regime used keylogging to gain an administrator password to 711chan.org.

“I was actually away from home when I noticed my personal dedi was compromised (my bash_history file had lots of strange entries), so I informed Partyvan IRC staff (the CoS raid room as well as 711chan’s IRC room are there) and minutes later, 711chan’s machine was also compromised. I arrived home around an hour later, and immediately restored the contents of the 711 machine back to a previous state. I also got the passwords reset on my dedi and that was back in order. I went to bed shortly after that,” said Plasma in regards to The Regime’s attack on 711chan.

“The next morning I wake up to hundreds of MSN windows and emails telling me both servers have been compromised again, and our backups for 711 have been removed. The software we use to run 711chan’s machine got bugged up somehow and make it difficult for me to fix things, which is why the site didn’t respond at all for most of the day. At the time of writing this I still haven’t got the backups reloaded onto the machine,” added Plasma.

Plasma states that 711chan.org will be off line at least until the end of January, possibly longer, but the site is not expected to change.

“I shut down our server to prevent any more damage. Right now, our plan is to lay low and get stuff started up on a more secure machine. We’ll be back up by the end of the month, hopefully. 711chan will probably be staying the same it is, however,” said Plasma.

But they didn’t go down without a fight adds Plasma.

“As who the “Regime” is? I took a look at one of the things they planted on my machine, which lead me to #!!regime on GameSurge IRC. `immortal’ and about 30 drones were in that channel. Members of the g00ns community (allies of 711, also linked to Partyvan IRC) found out they had dox (documents such as phone numbers, addresses, SSN numbers, names, that sort of thing) on `immortal’ and his wife. I actually have these details and attempted to call him, but it went unanswered,” said Plasma.

The information that 711chan.org obtained was later posted on the website operated by The Regime. Wikinews has attempted to contact The Regime a second time regarding the incident, and they have only replied with “your articles are bullshit.”

Saturday, October 9, 2010

The 10.10 version of Ubuntu (codename Maverick Merkaat), a free operative system is to be released in the next few days. French Wikinews contributor Savant-fou (Baptiste) has interviewed Fabrice (fabrice_sp on Ubuntu), an Ubuntu’s MOTU (Master Of The Universe), member of the development team of the operative system.

Ubuntu is a computer operating system, based on Debian, which is created collaboratively by thousands of people. There are three official Ubuntu versions: Ubuntu Desktop Edition (for desktop and laptop PCs); Ubuntu Netbook Edition (for netbooks); and Ubuntu Server Edition (for use in servers).