Monday, April 14, 2008

Indiana congressional candidate Tony Zirkle defended his decision to appear at a Nazi meeting. Zirkle, a personal injury lawyer, is running in the United States Republican Party primary for Indiana’s 2nd congressional district.

Zirkle initially created controversy when he gave a speech to the American National Socialist Workers Party on April 20, Adolf Hitler’s birthday. Photos of the event show a picture of Hitlerin the background with a United States flag on one side of the podium and a Nazi flag on the other side and the words “Happy Birthday” on the table in front. In the speech, Zirkle asserted that the pornography industry was run by Jews.

In defending his remarks, Zirkle explained that he saw the location as a valid opportunity to preach his anti-pornography, Christian message and that he would be willing to talk anywhere and noted that he had spoken on an African American radio station. Zirkle also defended his claimed that Jews were involved in pornography. He claimed that in the past male porn stars were generally Jewish but they were now black but the female stars were young white women. Zirkle further asserted that now Jews owned and ran the pornography industry. On his campaign website Zirkle posted a list of links, including a link to Jew Watch which he said backed up views.

When asked if he agreed with the Nazis Zirkle said that he did not know enough about their beliefs to give an opinion.

Both Republican and Democrats have condemned Zirkle’s remarks.

Zirkle had earlier created controversy when he suggested considering bringing back segregation between whites and blacks.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Macomb, New York Councilman Steve Burke took some time to speak with Wikinews about his campaign for the U.S. Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

Burke, an insurance adjuster and farmer, was elected councilman in Brookhaven, New York in 1979. He left the town after being accused and found not guilty of bribery in the 1980s. Since 1987 he has served as Macomb councilman off-and-on and currently holds the post. From 1993 to 1996 and 1999 to 2002 he worked as chairman of the Democratic Party of St. Lawrence County, New York. Among his many political campaigns, Burke unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1992 and recently attempted to run for U.S. Congress in 2014 but too many of his ballot petition signatures were found invalid. Burke filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for president in the 2016 election on September 18, 2015 and has qualified for the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire Primary.

With Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn?, Burke discusses his political background, his 2016 presidential campaign, and his policy proposals.

On 19 February 2007, XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio announced a move that will change the face of satellite radio in the United States and Canada: XM and Sirius will be merging, creating a single satellite radio provider.

This in-depth page will track Wikinews and outside articles to provide you with up to date information about the merger deal. As new actions regarding the merger occur, they can get posted below.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Scientists have uncovered the largest Neolithic settlement in the United Kingdom at the Durrington Walls and believe that the village was inhabited by the people who built the Stonehenge monument.

Scientists say that the village was built around 2,600 B.C., roughly when Stonehenge was believed to have been constructed, and housed over 100 people.

Inside the areas which would have been the interior of houses at the time, scientists also found outlines of what they think were beds and cupboards or dressers. Pieces of pottery and “filthy” rubbish around the site. Animal bones, arrowheads, stone tools and other relics were also discovered.

“We’ve never seen such quantities of pottery and animal bone and flint. In what were houses, we have excavated the outlines on the floors of box beds and wooden dressers or cupboards,” said Sheffield University archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson.

So far, the dig has revealed at least 8 houses roughly 14-16 feet square, but scientists say that they think there may have been at least 25 altogether.

The site was likely to have been occupied only seasonally rather than year-round and evidence suggests that a lot of “partying” went on at the location.

“The animal bones are being thrown away half-eaten. It’s what we call a feasting assemblage. This is where they went to party – you could say it was the first free festival. The rubbish isn’t your average domestic debris. There’s a lack of craft-working equipment for cleaning animal hides and no evidence for crop-processing,” added Pearson.

The Durrington Walls are approximately 2 miles from the Stonehenge site.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

With the 2014 Winter Paralympics set for March, Wikinews sought comment from U.S. Representative Jackie Speier, who serves California’s 14th congressional district about the event and how current U.S. policies impact people with disabilities. Elected to the U.S. House in 2008, she serves on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the House Armed Services Committee. For the first time ever, the Paralympics will be broadcast live in the U.S. on network television.

((Wikinews)) : Will “Obamacare” have a positive or negative impact on the lives of people with disabilities?

Jackie Speier: By-and-large the Affordable Care Act will have a significant and lasting beneficial impact on persons with disabilities […] Most importantly, pre-existing conditions will no longer prevent persons with disabilities from obtaining health insurance. Lifetime limits on medical expenses will be removed and preventive services will be free. All of these provisions of the law create health insurance that is highly supportive of good health outcomes for everyone, but in particular for those who have a disability.

((WN)) : Are there any Paralympic athletes or elite athletes with disabilities from your district that people should know more about?

Jackie Speier: There are currently two Paralympic athletes who train or live in my district that people will definitely hear more about in the coming years. One is a young woman named Allie Hyatt who trains in Judo with Willy Cahill, [whom] I have also trained with. Allie, who is visually impaired and just 15, has already won numerous awards and will participate in the Youth Olympic Games next year. She is sure to be a force in the Judo world for many, many years. Hyatt lives in San Francisco and Cahill is the founder and CEO of the Blind Judo Foundation.

Another great athlete is Mohamend Lahna who is training for the Rio Olympics in 2016 for the paratriathlon,” Speier continued. “He is from Morocco originally but lives now in San Mateo and trains daily at the College of San Mateo. He runs marathons with a prosthetic leg and has his sights set on winning several medals atworld and Olympic events in the future. Lahna has proximal femoral focal deficiency (PFFD), a birth defect that affects the hip and pelvis. He is married and has a 1-year-old child.

Wikinews also sought comment from other members of Congress, including John K. Delaney, Mike Honda, Kyrsten Sinema, Eric Swalwell, Raúl M. Grijalva and Ann Kirkpatrick but at publication time, had received no response.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Annabel Goldie, Scottish Conservative Party leader from 2005 to 2011, has announced she will stand down as an MSP at the next elections in 2016. Goldie, who has been an MSP for the West Scotland (previously West of Scotland) electoral region since the Scottish Parliament’s formation in 1999, said she intends to focus on her role in the House of Lords, where she has been a peer since 2013.File:Annabel Goldie.jpg

In a statement today, Goldie said leading the party was an “enormous honour” for her. She also said: “It has afforded me both satisfaction and pleasure to serve my constituents and to serve the parliament and I will look back with great happiness at my time as an MSP. I am grateful to friends and colleagues from all parties for their support. Sometimes we found common ground, sometimes we disagreed but never I hope with rancour nor disrespect. Politics is a rough trade but we have built a strong parliament in Scotland of which we can all be rightly proud.” She said because of Ruth Davidson, her successor as Scottish Conservative leader, the party is now “in fine fettle and stands a great chance of making real progress in the years ahead,” concluding by saying: “I look forward to continuing to work as part of that effort in the House of Lords in the years to come.”

Davidson responded to the news by calling Goldie an “unstoppable force”, adding: “She has been an inspiration to a whole generation of Scottish Conservatives, and she has been a tremendous mentor, support and friend to me. In Holyrood, she has fostered both affection and respect from all members – regardless of their political affiliation – and her retirement from the Scottish Parliament will leave an Annabel-sized hole which won’t ever quite be filled. She is unique.” Meanwhile, David Cameron, UK Conservative leader and UK Prime Minister, said: “Annabel is one of those rare breeds in Scottish politics, somebody known by her first name alone. When she was Scottish Conservative leader, I valued her sage advice. She has been a towering strength to our party in Scotland, a doughty debater in the TV studios and Scottish Parliament and has one of the sharpest wits around. I wish her a long and happy retirement after 17 years unstinting service at Holyrood – but look forward to seeing her on the red benches of the Lords for years to come.”

Goldie, the Scottish Conservatives’ first ever female leader, was elected unopposed. She took up the role in the aftermath of David McLetchie’s resignation from the role in an expenses usage controversy and subsequent resignation of Brian Monteith from his Conservative whip role in the Scottish Parliament for briefing the media against him. Meanwhile, as Scottish Conservatives won 18 seats in the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and 2003, the party had been less successful in UK general elections in Scotland; Conservatives went up from zero out of a possible 72 UK MPs in Scotland in 1997 to one in 2001. This led to Goldie remarking in her inaugural speech in 2005 that: “The wheels are back on the wagon – and I’m the nag hitched up to tow it.” She also said: “The party is still way ahead of where it was in 1997. And my first task is to take it forward to 2007.” However, under Goldie’s leadership, the number of seats the Scottish Conservatives won in the Scottish Parliament slightly decreased from 18 in 2003 to 17 in 2007 and to 15 in 2011. At the same time, the number of Conservative MPs stood at one out of a possible 59 after the 2010 UK general election.

In the aforementioned 2005 speech, she also said the party could be trusted with devolution in Scotland, adding: “making devolution work better means real devolution: not the lumbering and cripplingly expensive array of government departments, government advisers, consultants, quangos, quasi-quangos and agencies with all their expensive appendages, but devolving down to people and their communities, their right to make their own decisions about their lives, how for example they procure healthcare and how they educate their children.” Goldie would go on to sit on the advisory board for the Smith Commission, which was set up to examine which further political powers should be devolved to Scotland following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. More recently, Goldie supported a reduction in the voting age for Scottish Parliament elections from 18 to 16 in a vote earlier this month, commenting: “I think it is an opportunity for them to continue their high level of engagement in topical affairs that we saw with the independence referendum.”

Goldie, a member of the Salvation Army’s West of Scotland Advisory Board and a Church of Scotland elder, is not the only Scottish Conservative MSP intending to stand down in 2016. Mary Scanlon, Gavin Brown, Alex Fergusson and Nanette Milne all reportedly intend to leave the Scottish Parliament next year.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Armed Fijian soldiers took control of the streets of Suva, Fiji just before dawn

In a show of force, the troops fired a mortar into the harbour and over Nukulau Island, where George Speight, leader of the Fiji Coup of 2000, is currently serving a term of life imprisonment for his role in the overthrow of the constitutional government. Most of the mortar rounds fell into the ocean.

Soldiers, travelling in a convoy of trucks, set up barricades on key roads that led into the central business district of Suva while others patrolled the city.

Major Neumi Leweni, a military spokesman, said that the activity is not a military coup in disguise. “The exercise is in anticipation of any foreign intervention and the [Fiji military] is taking all precautionary measures.” He pointed out to sea where an Australian black hawk helicopter had crashed and where three Australian warships were moored. Australian officials said the ships were there in case Australian citizens needed to be evacuated.

The black hawk helicopter that had crashed was attempting to land on the HMAS Kanimbla, and its passengers were Special Air Service soldiers. Referring to the crash, Major Leweni said: “[It] just confirms that there are other forces out there and that is exactly why we are doing this exercise”.

Talks in New Zealand between Laisenia Qarase, Prime Minister of Fiji, and , military commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama concluded without an agreement. Winston Peters, foreign minister for New Zealand, said the talks were “lengthy, serious and meaningful”, but ultimately unsuccessful. Mr. Qarase said the three hour talks were not long enough to get to any conclusion, “…it was a good start and there is need for further consultations on some of the issues.”

Mr Qarase arrived at Nadi via a Royal New Zealand Air Force plane and then flew on an Air Chatham Islands plan to Suva. He was met by questioning media. Mr Qarase remained quiet. Commodore Bainimarama also said nothing to the awaiting media when he arrived in Fiji on a commercial flight.

Mr Qarase has requested that all regional foreign ministers come to a meeting being held in Sydney, Australia tomorrow that is related to the coup threats.

Countries that are part of the Pacific Forum are able to help other member countries, if the government asks for help.

Ambassadors from the United States of America, Australia and Britain have all met with Fijian military officers to seek insurances that there wasn’t going to be a coup. Major Lewini responded angrily, “[It is] inappropriate for a civilian diplomat to visit a military camp and seek to speak directly to officers,” he said.

“I’m not aware anyone’s threatening foreign intervention. I can assure you New Zealand isn’t,” Helen Clark, Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand, said.

At the same time, Andrew Hughes, police commissioner for Fiji, is currently on leave in Brisbane following threats. Moses Driver will now act as the police commissioner.

The military has said they will “clean up” the government if the armed forces do not get three controversial bills passed and all investigations into senior military officers are dropped.

The military has said that they do not need police permission to conduct such exercises.