Friday, June 13, 2008

British drivers have been urged not to panic buy fuel because of the 4-day walkout by delivery drivers working for companies delivering to Shell petrol stations. The 600 workers have walked out over pay disagreements, wanting an increase to their current pay of £36,500, however their union Unite turned down a last-minute offer of £41,500.

Hoyer UK, which employs tanker drivers for Shell, said, “We extended our offer to the very limits that our business could sustain.” However Unite said in a press release that, “this dispute could have been resolved if Shell had advanced a fraction of the billions of pounds in profit they make every month”, continuing to say, “one of the world’s richest companies is prepared to play Pontius Pilate and see the British public inconvenienced rather than settle this dispute for a sum smaller than the chairman’s pay increase last year”

Shell admitted that the walkout could leave some of its 1,000 forecourts without fuel, but the UK Petrol Industry Association, which represent oil refiners, said that forecourts would have around 4 days of supply, maintaining usual stocking levels. Shell also commented that the strike impact would be “significant”, as the company runs around 1 in 10 of all petrol stations in the UK.

British Business Secretary, John Hutton, said that “the strike, which will have a disproportionate effect on people in Britain, cannot be justified,” and urged both sides to resume negotiations in order to settle the dispute. “We have been working closely with industry to put in place detailed contingency plans to reduce as far as possible the disruption for the driving public,” he added. Unite’s press release also confirms that “provision has been made for fire, police and the emergency services.”

Tanker drivers on strike have set up picket lines at many of Shell’s UK refineries, including those in Stanlow, Avonmouth, Plymouth, Pembroke, Cardiff, Kingsbury, Basildon, Grangemouth, Aberdeen, Inverness, Jarrow and Luton Airport.

Wikinews accredited reporter Killing Vector traveled to the G-20 2009 summit protests in London with a group of protesters. This is his personal account.

Friday, April 3, 2009

London — “Protest”, says Ross Saunders, “is basically theatre”.

It’s seven a.m. and I’m on a mini-bus heading east on the M4 motorway from Cardiff toward London. I’m riding with seventeen members of the Cardiff Socialist Party, of which Saunders is branch secretary for the Cardiff West branch; they’re going to participate in a march that’s part of the protests against the G-20 meeting.

Before we boarded the minibus Saunders made a speech outlining the reasons for the march. He said they were “fighting for jobs for young people, fighting for free education, fighting for our share of the wealth, which we create.” His anger is directed at the government’s response to the economic downturn: “Now that the recession is underway, they’ve been trying to shoulder more of the burden onto the people, and onto the young people…they’re expecting us to pay for it.” He compared the protest to the Jarrow March and to the miners’ strikes which were hugely influential in the history of the British labour movement. The people assembled, though, aren’t miners or industrial workers — they’re university students or recent graduates, and the march they’re going to participate in is the Youth Fight For Jobs.

The Socialist Party was formerly part of the Labour Party, which has ruled the United Kingdom since 1997 and remains a member of the Socialist International. On the bus, Saunders and some of his cohorts — they occasionally, especially the older members, address each other as “comrade” — explains their view on how the split with Labour came about. As the Third Way became the dominant voice in the Labour Party, culminating with the replacement of Neil Kinnock with Tony Blair as party leader, the Socialist cadre became increasingly disaffected. “There used to be democratic structures, political meetings” within the party, they say. The branch meetings still exist but “now, they passed a resolution calling for renationalisation of the railways, and they [the party leadership] just ignored it.” They claim that the disaffection with New Labour has caused the party to lose “half its membership” and that people are seeking alternatives. Since the economic crisis began, Cardiff West’s membership has doubled, to 25 members, and the RMT has organized itself as a political movement running candidates in the 2009 EU Parliament election. The right-wing British National Party or BNP is making gains as well, though.

Talk on the bus is mostly political and the news of yesterday’s violence at the G-20 demonstrations, where a bank was stormed by protesters and 87 were arrested, is thick in the air. One member comments on the invasion of a RBS building in which phone lines were cut and furniture was destroyed: “It’s not very constructive but it does make you smile.” Another, reading about developments at the conference which have set France and Germany opposing the UK and the United States, says sardonically, “we’re going to stop all the squabbles — they’re going to unite against us. That’s what happens.” She recounts how, in her native Sweden during the Second World War, a national unity government was formed among all major parties, and Swedish communists were interned in camps, while Nazi-leaning parties were left unmolested.

In London around 11am the march assembles on Camberwell Green. About 250 people are here, from many parts of Britain; I meet marchers from Newcastle, Manchester, Leicester, and especially organized-labor stronghold Sheffield. The sky is grey but the atmosphere is convivial; five members of London’s Metropolitan Police are present, and they’re all smiling. Most marchers are young, some as young as high school age, but a few are older; some teachers, including members of the Lewisham and Sheffield chapters of the National Union of Teachers, are carrying banners in support of their students.

Stewards hand out sheets of paper with the words to call-and-response chants on them. Some are youth-oriented and education-oriented, like the jaunty “Gordon Brown‘s a Tory/He wears a Tory hat/And when he saw our uni fees/He said ‘I’ll double that!'” (sung to the tune of the Lonnie Donegan song “My Old Man’s a Dustman“); but many are standbys of organized labour, including the infamous “workers of the world, unite!“. It also outlines the goals of the protest, as “demands”: “The right to a decent job for all, with a living wage of at least £8 and hour. No to cheap labour apprenticeships! for all apprenticeships to pay at least the minimum wage, with a job guaranteed at the end. No to university fees. support the campaign to defeat fees.” Another steward with a megaphone and a bright red t-shirt talks the assembled protesters through the basics of call-and-response chanting.

Finally the march gets underway, traveling through the London boroughs of Camberwell and Southwark. Along the route of the march more police follow along, escorting and guiding the march and watching it carefully, while a police van with flashing lights clears the route in front of it. On the surface the atmosphere is enthusiastic, but everyone freezes for a second as a siren is heard behind them; it turns out to be a passing ambulance.

Crossing Southwark Bridge, the march enters the City of London, the comparably small but dense area containing London’s financial and economic heart. Although one recipient of the protesters’ anger is the Bank of England, the march does not stop in the City, only passing through the streets by the London Exchange. Tourists on buses and businessmen in pinstripe suits record snippets of the march on their mobile phones as it passes them; as it goes past a branch of HSBC the employees gather at the glass store front and watch nervously. The time in the City is brief; rather than continue into the very centre of London the march turns east and, passing the Tower of London, proceeds into the poor, largely immigrant neighbourhoods of the Tower Hamlets.

The sun has come out, and the spirits of the protesters have remained high. But few people, only occasional faces at windows in the blocks of apartments, are here to see the march and it is in Wapping High Street that I hear my first complaint from the marchers. Peter, a steward, complains that the police have taken the march off its original route and onto back streets where “there’s nobody to protest to”. I ask how he feels about the possibility of violence, noting the incidents the day before, and he replies that it was “justified aggression”. “We don’t condone it but people have only got certain limitations.”

A policeman I ask is very polite but noncommittal about the change in route. “The students are getting the message out”, he says, so there’s no problem. “Everyone’s very well behaved” in his assessment and the atmosphere is “very positive”. Another protestor, a sign-carrying university student from Sheffield, half-heartedly returns the compliment: today, she says, “the police have been surprisingly unridiculous.”

The march pauses just before it enters Cable Street. Here, in 1936, was the site of the Battle of Cable Street, and the march leader, addressing the protesters through her megaphone, marks the moment. She draws a parallel between the British Union of Fascists of the 1930s and the much smaller BNP today, and as the protesters follow the East London street their chant becomes “The BNP tell racist lies/We fight back and organise!”

In Victoria Park — “The People’s Park” as it was sometimes known — the march stops for lunch. The trade unions of East London have organized and paid for a lunch of hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries and tea, and, picnic-style, the marchers enjoy their meals as organized labor veterans give brief speeches about industrial actions from a small raised platform.

During the rally I have the opportunity to speak with Neil Cafferky, a Galway-born Londoner and the London organizer of the Youth Fight For Jobs march. I ask him first about why, despite being surrounded by red banners and quotes from Karl Marx, I haven’t once heard the word “communism” used all day. He explains that, while he considers himself a Marxist and a Trotskyist, the word communism has negative connotations that would “act as a barrier” to getting people involved: the Socialist Party wants to avoid the discussion of its position on the USSR and disassociate itself from Stalinism. What the Socialists favor, he says, is “democratic planned production” with “the working class, the youths brought into the heart of decision making.”

On the subject of the police’s re-routing of the march, he says the new route is actually the synthesis of two proposals. Originally the march was to have gone from Camberwell Green to the Houses of Parliament, then across the sites of the 2012 Olympics and finally to the ExCel Centre. The police, meanwhile, wanted there to be no march at all.

The Metropolitan Police had argued that, with only 650 trained traffic officers on the force and most of those providing security at the ExCel Centre itself, there simply wasn’t the manpower available to close main streets, so a route along back streets was necessary if the march was to go ahead at all. Cafferky is sceptical of the police explanation. “It’s all very well having concern for health and safety,” he responds. “Our concern is using planning to block protest.”

He accuses the police and the government of having used legal, bureaucratic and even violent means to block protests. Talking about marches having to defend themselves, he says “if the police set out with the intention of assaulting marches then violence is unavoidable.” He says the police have been known to insert “provocateurs” into marches, which have to be isolated. He also asserts the right of marches to defend themselves when attacked, although this “must be done in a disciplined manner”.

He says he wasn’t present at yesterday’s demonstrations and so can’t comment on the accusations of violence against police. But, he says, there is often provocative behavior on both sides. Rather than reject violence outright, Cafferky argues that there needs to be “clear political understanding of the role of violence” and calls it “counter-productive”.

Demonstration overall, though, he says, is always a useful tool, although “a demonstration is always a means to an end” rather than an end in itself. He mentions other ongoing industrial actions such as the occupation of the Visteon plant in Enfield; 200 fired workers at the factory have been occupying the plant since April 1, and states the solidarity between the youth marchers and the industrial workers.

I also speak briefly with members of the International Bolshevik Tendency, a small group of left-wing activists who have brought some signs to the rally. The Bolsheviks say that, like the Socialists, they’re Trotskyists, but have differences with them on the idea of organization; the International Bolshevik Tendency believes that control of the party representing the working class should be less democratic and instead be in the hands of a team of experts in history and politics. Relations between the two groups are “chilly”, says one.

At 2:30 the march resumes. Rather than proceeding to the ExCel Centre itself, though, it makes its way to a station of London’s Docklands Light Railway; on the way, several of East London’s school-aged youths join the march, and on reaching Canning Town the group is some 300 strong. Proceeding on foot through the borough, the Youth Fight For Jobs reaches the protest site outside the G-20 meeting.

It’s impossible to legally get too close to the conference itself. Police are guarding every approach, and have formed a double cordon between the protest area and the route that motorcades take into and out of the conference venue. Most are un-armed, in the tradition of London police; only a few even carry truncheons. Closer to the building, though, a few machine gun-armed riot police are present, standing out sharply in their black uniforms against the high-visibility yellow vests of the Metropolitan Police. The G-20 conference itself, which started a few hours before the march began, is already winding down, and about a thousand protesters are present.

I see three large groups: the Youth Fight For Jobs avoids going into the center of the protest area, instead staying in their own group at the admonition of the stewards and listening to a series of guest speakers who tell them about current industrial actions and the organization of the Youth Fight’s upcoming rally at UCL. A second group carries the Ogaden National Liberation Front‘s flag and is campaigning for recognition of an autonomous homeland in eastern Ethiopia. Others protesting the Ethiopian government make up the third group; waving old Ethiopian flags, including the Lion of Judah standard of emperor Haile Selassie, they demand that foreign aid to Ethiopia be tied to democratization in that country: “No recovery without democracy”.

A set of abandoned signs tied to bollards indicate that the CND has been here, but has already gone home; they were demanding the abandonment of nuclear weapons. But apart from a handful of individuals with handmade, cardboard signs I see no groups addressing the G-20 meeting itself, other than the Youth Fight For Jobs’ slogans concerning the bailout. But when a motorcade passes, catcalls and jeers are heard.

It’s now 5pm and, after four hours of driving, five hours marching and one hour at the G-20, Cardiff’s Socialists are returning home. I board the bus with them and, navigating slowly through the snarled London traffic, we listen to BBC Radio 4. The news is reporting on the closure of the G-20 conference; while they take time out to mention that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper delayed the traditional group photograph of the G-20’s world leaders because “he was on the loo“, no mention is made of today’s protests. Those listening in the bus are disappointed by the lack of coverage.

Most people on the return trip are tired. Many sleep. Others read the latest issue of The Socialist, the Socialist Party’s newspaper. Mia quietly sings “The Internationale” in Swedish.

Due to the traffic, the journey back to Cardiff will be even longer than the journey to London. Over the objections of a few of its members, the South Welsh participants in the Youth Fight For Jobs stop at a McDonald’s before returning to the M4 and home.

Monday, September 24, 2007

A woman found herself £226,000 richer, one the biggest ever payouts to a female client, after placing a series of bets on last weeks Champions League games, despite knowing nothing about football.

Kathrin Rotmann, 33, placed a £1,000 bet based on her tactics of supporting “teams that are strong and winning”.

“I am delighted. I only ever bet on football — last year I won £35,000 with one bet. I just keep a track of those teams which are playing well and bet on them. It was very exciting when the results went my way.”

She was delighted when she saw her bet multiply in front of her eyes, when her 226-1 odds of wins for Arsenal, Man United, Rangers, Slavia Prague, Barcelona, Roma, Fenerbahce and PSV come in on television.

The exact amount won was £226,834.36.

Thursday, November 2, 2006

John Kerry, former Presidential candidate, U.S. senator from Massachusetts, and decorated war veteran, apologized yesterday for a statement made on Monday at an appearance at Pasadena City College that American students who did not study hard and stay in school would end up “stuck in Iraq.”

“You know education,” he said, “if you make the most of it, and you study hard, and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Kerry posted on his website that he meant to say if you don’t study hard, you would end up like U.S. President George W. Bush stuck in Iraq.”My poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to, any troop,” Kerry said yesterday. “I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.”

Mr. Bush said Kerry’s comment was “insulting” and “shameful” and that he should apologize to the U.S. forces. War veterans also demanded that he say he was sorry.

On November 1, 2006, the following statement was released by the Democratic Senator’s office:

As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop.

I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.

It is clear the Republican Party would rather talk about anything but their failed security policy. I don’t want my verbal slip to be a diversion from the real issues. I will continue to fight for a change of course to provide real security for our country, and a winning strategy for our troops.

“Sen. Kerry’s apology to the troops for his insulting comments came late, but it was the right thing to do,” said the White House, which were quick to respond to Kerry’s apology.

In response to the comment, U.S. troops in Iraq held up a sign saying: “Halp us Jon Carry — We R stuck hear N Irak.” Eight U.S. soldiers, who are stationed near the southeastern city of Nasiriya, are shown holding the sign in a photo that has been widely distributed on the Internet.

Saturday, November 16, 2019

In findings published on Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE, an international team of scientists report ancient Egyptians captured sacred ibises (Threskiornis aethiopicus) from the wild for use in ritual sacrifice rather than domesticating the birds.

Millions of mummified ibis birds have been found in Egyptian tombs and catacombs in Saqqara and Tuna el-Gebel, and Egyptologists have reported they were sacrificed to the god Thoth, who is often depicted with the head of an ibis, the way Horus is shown with the head of a falcon and Bast with the head of a cat.

Lead author Sally Wasef of Australia’s Griffith University explained to the press, “The ibis was considered [to represent] the god Thoth, the god of wisdom, the god of magic, the god of judgment, writing all sorts of things […] If you had a boss that annoys you and you don’t feel like you are getting a good judgment from him or you want fairness and justice, you go and ask Thoth to interfere and in return you promise to offer him an ibis, a mummified ibis, in his annual feast.”

Some scholars have suggested Egyptians raised or farmed the birds to make them available in the necessary numbers. While some ancient Egyptian writers made passing mention of feeding bread and plants to ibises, according to Wasef archaeologists have not yet turned up any hatchery structures.

The team collected DNA samples from mummified birds collected from six separate catacombs including sites at Abydos, Saqqara, and Tuna el-Gebel with permission from the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquity, and several museums offered to send tissue samples from the mummified ibises in their collections. They were able to extract complete mitochondrial DNA sequences from fourteen. These they compared to those of 26 modern ibises from different parts of Africa — ibises of this species disappeared from Egypt itself during modern times. They found the DNA sequences from the ancient birds to be relatively diverse. If the birds had been domesticated or even heavily farmed, they reasoned, the Egyptian specimens would have shown only a little genetic diversity.

Wasif suggested, in likelihood, “next to each temple there was like a lake or a wetland — it is a natural habitat for the ibis to live in and if you are giving them food they will keep coming[.]”

According to the researchers, sacrifice and mummification of sacred ibises was common in Egypt from about 664 b.c.e. to 250 c.e., from the twenty-sixth dynasty into the early period of Roman Egypt.

Sunday, April 10, 2022

On Friday, leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Proud Boys organization Charles Donohoe pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to obstruct the United States Congress and assault of an officer of the law, both felonies, on January 6, 2021.

Donohoe’s plea was part of a bargain in which he also agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors’ investigations of the Proud Boys and its leadership. Other alleged leaders, including national chairman Enrique Tarrio, have entered not guilty pleas on charges of seditious conspiracy. According to prosecutors, they were members of an elite group of leaders called the “Ministry of Self Defense” and hand-picked by Tarrio.

Prosecutors’ filings also said Donohoe supplied the Proud Boys with radio transmitters, so they could communicate before and during the 2021 attack on the Capitol. Tarrio was arrested two days before the riot. Immediately after Tarrio’s arrest, Donohoe deleted the group’s messages on the Telegram communication platform and messaged that plans might be compromised. “Well at least they won’t get our boots on the ground plan because we are one step ahead of them,” he wrote in a follow-up.

Donohoe reportedly never entered the Capitol, even though he was in the first wave of people descending upon the building, as he was overcome by pepper spray. Nevertheless, his assault charges stemmed from throwing two water bottles at Capitol Police officers. He allegedly also sent messages stating: “We stormed the capitol unarmed … we took it over.”

The assault on the Capitol took place while Congress was certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden. The Proud Boys were in favor of a second term for former president Donald Trump.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Voters in Haiti are going to the polls today to vote for the country’s next president. The election follows months of political turmoil after the corrupt first round election in November caused a crisis requiring international intervention.

Haiti is still struggling to recover from the devastating January 2010 earthquake, with about one million people remaining in squalid, temporary shelters and a recent cholera epidemic which threatens to break out again with the return of the rainy season. Observers are hoping the new president will restore enough stability so rebuilding efforts can begin with international help.

In Haiti’s first round of balloting in November, names were missing from voter rolls, ballot boxes were stuffed or trashed, voters were blocked from the precincts by supporters of candidates, among other irregularities. Haitians rioted, plunging the process into chaos that was quelled by the determined efforts of foreign monitors.

Out of the original 19 candidates, two remained after the first round: Mirlande Manigat, age 70, a sedate, reserved university professor and wife of former president Leslie Manigat, and pop star “Sweet Micky” Martelly, age 50, who the The Washington Post described as being “a popular kompa singer […] famous for dropping his pants on stage, mooning audiences, and dressing in drag — or sometimes a diaper.”

However, Martelly has waged an energetic, well financed campaign with pink campaign posters picturing his smiling face and bald head, cultivating a populist image with Haiti’s poor. He has been successful at marketing himself as an unpretentious outsider who will shake up the political system and yank the country out of its paralysis. At the same time, he has courted the upper class with a platform containing pro-business promises and support for the return of the Haitian army.

The sedate personality of Manigat contrasts starkly with that of Martelly. She portrays herself as a dignified, mature mother figure able to nurture Haiti through its troubles.

The determining factor may be the popular former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who returned two days ago to Haiti from South America after seven years in exile. Aristide has not endorsed either candidate, but Aristide supporters, among those Haitians most desperately poor, have voiced support for Manigat. Upon Aristide’s arrival, there were banners saying, “My mother is here already. Welcome home Father”, according to The Washington Post.

Pierre-Marie Boisson, a private-sector economist in Haiti, sees the candidates as having similar platforms, promising jobs, housing and free education, even if their personal styles are so different. “They have both promised the moon to the voters,” he said. He noted that this puts tremendous pressure on the winner to produce results quickly in a world where the price of food and fuel is rising.

As voting concluded, despite some irregularities such as missing ballots and late starts, authorities concluded the voting went well, without the pervasive fraud that marked the November election. Colin Granderson, head of Organization of American States (OAS) observer mission, said the runoff election was a great improvement over the previous one.

The final results will be announced on April 16.