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Thursday, October 5, 2006

Grozny, a city of the Chechen Republic, Russia, celebrated the arrival and the later departure of the first passenger aircraft, a Tu-134A-5, for more than 10 years. The renovated Severny (Northern) Airport opened prior to the 30th birthday of the Republican Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, son of the former PM Akhmad Kadyrov who was killed by terrorists, though no official relation of these events has been confirmed.

The formal opening of Grozny airport occurred under tightened security precautions since the Chechen rebel threat still exists in the region. The airport was used as the base of the 46th Brigade of the Russian Interior troops.

The main building of the airport was heavily damaged by the years of Chechen Wars. Now it has been reconstructed in compliance with international standards.

Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Earlier this month, Wikinews spoke with University of Sussex professor of economics L. Alan Winters regarding the decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union (EU) in the 2016 Brexit referendum and the subsequent negotiations leading up to and following the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement of December, which he has researched extensively. In a call, a Wikinews correspondent spoke with Professor Winters about recent developments in UK trade policy to learn more about his observations.

Winters is professor of economics at the University of Sussex, as well as founding director and fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO). His career spans over 15 years, including as chief economist at the Department for International Development, director of the Development Research Group of the World Bank, CEO of the Migrating Out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium and advisor for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Trade Organization and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Three reports where Winters is listed as an author were used as reference during the interview: “COVID-19 will reinforce the Brexit shock”, “The Costs of Brexit” and “Taking stock of the new UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement: governance, state subsidies and the level playing field”.

Winters was awarded the title “Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath”, styled C.B., on June 16, 2012 as part of the 2012 Birthday Honours.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Brazil —Former advisors to Brazilian Minister of Finance Antonio Palocci have claimed that three million US dollars from Cuba were used in the 2002 political campaign of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The accusation was printed by the Brazilian magazine Veja in its issue circulating this week.

According to Veja, Rogério Buratti, Palocci’s secretary in the early 1990s during the period when Palocci was mayor, claims that Ralf Barquete (another advisor to Palocci) had asked him to find a way to bring money from Cuba.

Another source, economist Vladmir Poleto who had also worked for Palocci, claimed to have brought the three million from Brasília to Campinas by plane. He stated the money was hidden in whiskey boxes: Johnnie Walker Red Label and Black Label and Havana Club (a Cuban brand of rum). Barquete received the money at the Campinas airport Viracopos. Afterwards he claims the money was transferred by car to São Paulo and delivered to Workers’ Party treasurer Delubio Soares.

Workers’ Party President Ricardo Berzoini has responded saying that the accusation is false. And Lula’s aide Gilberto Carvalho has said the story is “absurd”.

According to the blog of Folha de S. Paulo reporter Josias de Souza, Palocci and Lula are worried about the interviews being aired on Brazilian television.

The president of the PPS, federal deputy Roberto Freire (Pernambucostate), has stated that his party will ask the Electoral Justice investigatory agency and the Public Ministry to begin a investigation into the charge. The parties PFL and PSDB are also considering demanding an investigation.

Friday, July 30, 2021

On Monday, Filipina weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in women’s weightlifting in the 55 kg category during her fourth Olympic games. She lifted a combined weight 224 kg (494 lb), tying the previous new Olympic record. In the snatch she lifted 97 kg (214 lb) and in the clean and jerk 127 kg (280 lb), totaling the 224 kg.

After the match, she said in an interview, “I am 30 years old and I thought it would be like going down, my performance, but I was shocked I was able to do it”. A statement from the Philippines’ presidential spokesman Harry Roque celebrated Diaz’s win, saying, “Congratulations, Hidilyn. The entire Filipino nation is proud of you”.

The previous record-setter Liao Qiuyun of China took the silver medal with a total weight of 223 kg (492 lb), and Zulfiya Chinshanlo of Kazakhstan took the bronze with 213 kg (470 lb).

Diaz won the silver medal during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she competed in the 53 kg category. She won a gold medal in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games. Diaz trained in Malaysia, where she was stuck due to COVID-19 travel restrictions imposed by the Philippines. While there, she trained in a self-built gym, using water bottles.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

It can be difficult to be John Reed.

Christopher Hitchens called him a “Bin Ladenist” and Cathy Young editorialized in The Boston Globe that he “blames the victims of terrorism” when he puts out a novel like Snowball’s Chance, a biting send-up of George Orwell‘s Animal Farm which he was inspired to write after the terrorist attacks on September 11. “The clear references to 9/11 in the apocalyptic ending can only bring Orwell’s name into disrepute in the U.S.,” wrote William Hamilton, the British literary executor of the Orwell estate. That process had already begun: it was revealed Orwell gave the British Foreign Office a list of people he suspected of being “crypto-Communists and fellow travelers,” labeling some of them as Jews and homosexuals. “I really wanted to explode that book,” Reed told The New York Times. “I wanted to completely undermine it.”

Is this man who wants to blow up the classic literary canon taught to children in schools a menace, or a messiah? David Shankbone went to interview him for Wikinews and found that, as often is the case, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

Reed is electrified by the changes that surround him that channel through a lens of inspiration wrought by his children. “The kids have made me a better writer,” Reed said. In his new untitled work, which he calls a “new play by William Shakespeare,” he takes lines from The Bard‘s classics to form an original tragedy. He began it in 2003, but only with the birth of his children could he finish it. “I didn’t understand the characters who had children. I didn’t really understand them. And once I had had kids, I could approach them differently.”

Taking the old to make it new is a theme in his work and in his world view. Reed foresees new narrative forms being born, Biblical epics that will be played out across print and electronic mediums. He is pulled forward by revolutions of the past, a search for a spiritual sensibility, and a desire to locate himself in the process.

Below is David Shankbone’s conversation with novelist John Reed.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Supporters of convicted Australian drug trafficker, Van Nguyen, gathered outside the State Library in Melbourne yesterday to display thousands of messages of opposition to his death sentence.

Callers to talkback radio in Melbourne were overwhelmingly against the death penalty of Nguyen, who immediately admitted his guilt and has cooperated with authorities since being caught smuggling heroin into Singapore. Many called for a boycott of Singaporean products.

25-year-old Nguyen was arrested at Changi Airport in 2002 for carrying heroin and sentenced to death in March. Nguyen claims he carried the 396 grams of heroin strapped to his body in an attempt to pay off his brother Khoa’s $30,000 legal debts.

The Singapore government have announced they will execute Nguyen at dawn on December 2nd. Singapore President S. R. Nathan rejected Nguyen’s clemency four weeks ago. The Melbourne salesman was sentenced to death under Singapore law which determines a mandatory death sentence for anyone found guilty of possessing 15 grams of heroin or more.

Nguyen’s mother was informed on Thursday by registered mail from the Singapore prisons service of the execution date. The letter stated that she should start making funeral arrangements. She will get to see her son in the three days leading up to the execution.

Despite repeated pleas for clemency from many thousands of supporters; religious groups; human rights organisations; the Pope; and the Australian Government – including Prime Minister, John Howard – Singapore officials have said Nguyen’s execution is irreversible.

Mr Howard had argued that Nguyen should be spared, citing mitigating circumstances in his case which pointed to the fact that he was not a serial drug trafficker but had merely been trying to pay off his brother’s debts.

The Victorian Attorney-General, Rob Hulls, says the Singaporean Government has shown no compassion whatsoever in its treatment of Van Nguyen and his family.

“What’s happening is brutal, is inappropriate. I, and the Victorian Government, vehemently oppose the death penalty in any circumstances”, he told ABC Radio. “This is a young kid who has assisted the police all the way… In any other country, he would get a discount in relation to the penalty. But because there is a mandatory death penalty for drug offences in Singapore, this young man may well be executed. It is just grossly inappropriate.”

“Singapore maintains that capital punishment is a criminal justice issue; it is the sovereign right of every country to decide whether or not to include capital punishment within its criminal justice system,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Singapore argues that there was no international consensus that capital punishment should be abolished. At the most recent meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights, 66 countries dissociated themselves from a resolution calling for the abolition of capital punishment.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong affirmed Singapore’s position by saying that it has to “stand firm on drugs to protect its citizens from the scourge and to ensure the country does not become a conduit for the trafficking of illicit drugs.”

In reply to a letter appealing for clemency from his Australian counterpart Alexander Downer, Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said: “Mr Nguyen imported almost 400gm of pure heroin which would have supplied more than 26,000 doses to drug addicts.”

No one will be permitted to see Nguyen on the morning of his execution. His body will be released to his mother.