Saturday, March 12, 2005

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Studies carried out by researchers near the village of Khiam found radio active material at the site of bombing by Israel during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. The UN says that it has found no evidence of urianum-based munitions.

Two previously unknown Lebanese professors of physics, Mohammad Ali Kubaissi and Ibrahim Rachidi claim that the levels of radiation, about 700 nanosieverts per hour, twenty times the average levels, are consistent with the use of a depleted uranium bomb casing. Military use of depleted uranium is quite controversial due to its toxicity and low level radioactivity. Depleted uranium features in the list of weapons capable of causing mass destruction, superflous injury and unnecessary suffering, passed by the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the UNHRC in 1996 and 1997.

This analysis has been partially coroborated by an independent consultant specialising in career, organisation and community psychology issues, Dai Williams, affiliated with the environmentalist organisation Green Audit, with testing done by Chris Busby, a member of the Defence Depleted Uranium Oversight Board of the British Ministry of Defence and a director and co-founder of Green Audit. Williams believes that these anomalies may have been caused by Israel’s use of uranium based weapons involving some secret physical techniques, not nuclear fission; however, there are no known such physical processes.

The U.S. is currently the only nation known to use depleted uranium bomb casings and munitions. Some observers have claimed that Israel used depleted uranium muntions during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war; however, U.N. observers have never found Israel using depleted uranium.

This level of radiation is also consistent with Israel having destroyed some form of storage facility for nuclear material. Such facilities are speculated to exist in the Middle East, often controlled by Islamic extremist groups who (allegedly) hope to construct a dirty bomb.

Dirty bombs are not considered to be as effective militarily as merely using more explosives. Post September 11th news reports about the dangers of dirty bombs have been criticized as fear mongering for fallaciously assuming years of continued exposure by victims without acounting for clean up procedures, or even rain fall.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

A mobile home in Seminole County, Florida burned down last night, leaving a man and his dog homeless. The cause of the blaze was determined as accidental.

Firefighters were alerted to a fire in a wooded area of Geneva at around 11 pm local time (0400 UTC) last night. By the time they reached the scene the house had already been destroyed and a brush fire had been started. It took them about two hours to extinguish the fire which engulfed the house and it took about 40 minutes to contain the brush fire. To combat the brush fire the Seminole fire department had to bring out equipment normally used to combat forest fires.

Firefighters were still on the scene up to eight hours later to ensure that the fire did not reignite. The man and his dog escaped from the house, however the man did sustain minor injuries. The Red Cross will assist the man with food, shelter and clothing for a few days.

A State Fire Marshal office investigator revealed that the fire was accidental and was caused by an unattended grill which ignited the house and subsequently the woods.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Two probes have been initiated into the collapse of the Big Valley Jamboree stage which killed one person, placed four others in the critical care unit and caused injuries to 75 others in Camrose, Alberta located in Canada.

“We are trying to determine from what is left of the evidence what damage was done by the wind and what damage was down by rescue workers. We may not be able to make that determination. So that is going to hamper things. It will be tougher,” Chris Chodan, spokesman for Alberta Occupational Health and Safety.

Panhandle Productions has brought in independent investigators to determine why the stage collapsed and to collect evidence. Due to the large number of people trapped under the stage the evidence had to be moved for rescue operations.

The stage collapsed shortly before 6:00 p.m. local time on Saturday killing 35-year-old Donna Moore, who was attending the festival from Lloydminster. Premier Global Productions supplies the stage for the event, which are transported from venue to venue in sections via three semi trailers. “It’s their stage. In fact, I know this stage has been used by Paul McCartney, it’s been used by Metallica, and by Tim McGraw on tour.” said Larry Werner the producer from Panhandle Productions.

The stage is suspected to have been brought down by a phenomenon called plough wind, which produces winds similar to a tornado. This particular front hit speeds greater than 100 km/hr (62 mi/hr). A plough wind travels in narrow straight line paths rather than in circular formations, but causes damage similar to that inflicted by a tornado.

Alberta Municipal Affairs has initiated their investigation into the engineering specifications of the stage and emergency procedures. Alberta occupational health and safety is investigating building codes.

The Big Valley Jamboree is a large annual country music festival located in Camrose, Alberta, Canada which sees 25,000 people attending the four day event.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Five activists have installed themselves on the rooftop of Vestas Wind System‘s Venture Quays factory in Cowes, Isle of Wight, England, in support of the Vestas employees.

The five — four of whom are members of the Climate Camp which has set up in the Isle of Wight — scaled the Cowes plant, which is located about five miles (8 kilometres) north of Vestas’s main Isle of Wight plant in Newport, on August 4 and have been camping on the rooftop ever since.

Martin Shaw, a self-described “environmental anarcho-syndicalist” on the roof of Vestas Venture Quays, spoke with Wikinews. He reports that while none of the five rooftop occupiers are Vestas employees, but instead consist of one RMT member and four Climate Camp members, factory employees “instigated this action” and had intended to occupy the roof themselves, but Shaw and the other four, as experienced climbers, had the technical ability and experience to accomplish the task.

While on the roof, the five are living in tents and washing in rainwater heated by the sun in black plastic bags. Food is sent up on ropes from members of the local community; unlike at Vestas Newport, the police and security are not restricting the bringing in of food and drink.

While Shaw notes that the stand of the anarcho-syndicalists on the best fate of Vestas does not exactly match that of the workers, who have called for nationalisation of the plant, “whatever their demands are are our demands”.

The central message of the rooftop protest, Shaw related, is opposition to NIMBYism. “I personally have got some sympathy with Vestas”, Shaw noted, accusing the Isle of Wight’s MP, Andrew Turner, of on the one hand saying he supported the Vestas workers but on the other hand campaigning against wind farms being built on the island. “Local opposition is stopping wind turbines being built in this country”, stated Shaw. The occupiers plan to unveil a banner tonight on the roof of the Vestas plant reading: “Save the environment, scuttle a NIMBY”.

The problem, he went on to say, is Europe-wide. The upcoming Copenhagen Climate Summit, Shaw accuses, will be a “business summit rather than an environmental summit”.

The Vestas Cowes occupiers plan to stay on the factory roof “until the workers want us to come down”. If the police come to remove them, as happened earlier today at Vestas’s Newport plant, the five occupiers say they will resist “determinedly and creatively” but offered no details. Shaw says that while they won’t use violence to resist the police, “we will defend ourselves”.

Friday, January 4, 2008

A new study amongst doctors in the United States on the use of placebos—pills with no medical effect—shows that almost half of the questioned practitioners prescribe placebos, most of them within the last year.

The majority of 466 faculty physicians at Chicago-area medical schools interviewed by a research group of the University of Chicago stated that placebos are useful to calm a patient down or to respond to demands for medication that the doctor disagrees with, i.e. “to get the patient to stop complaining”.

96 percent of the physicians surveyed believe that placebos can have therapeutic effects. Close to 40 percent stated that placebos could benefit patents physiologically as well as mentally.

Twelve percent of surveyed physicians think that placebos should be banned from clinical practice. Among the doctors who prescribed them, one in five said they outright lied to patients by claiming a placebo was medication. But more often the physicians came up with ways to explain like that “this may help you but I’m not sure how it works.”

The American Medical Association (AMA), the largest association of U.S. doctors and medical students, tells its members that “[p]hysicians may use placebos for diagnosis or treatment only if the patient is informed of and agrees to its use.” The research, published in Journal of General Internal Medicine this week, is the first major U.S. study of doctors on the use of placebos since 1979.

Friday, May 26, 2006

In February of 2006, the Savarino Services Construction Corp. proposed the construction of a seven million dollar hotel on Elmwood and Forest Avenues in Buffalo, New York. In order for the hotel to be built, at least five properties containing businesses and residents would have to be destroyed. It was not certain whether the properties were owned by Savarino or by the landlord Hans Mobius. The hotel was designed by Karl Frizlen of the Frizlen Group, and is planned to be a franchise of the Wyndham Hotels group.

Elmwood Avenue is known by the community as a popular shopping center, and Nancy Pollina of Don Apparel (who is “utterly against” the construction) claims it’s the only reason why students from Buffalo State College leave campus. Additionally, Michael Faust of Mondo Video said he did not want to “get kicked out of here [his video store property].”

In 1995, a Walgreens was proposed to be built on the same land, but Walgreens later withdrew its request for a variance because of pressure from the community. More recently, Pano Georgiadis tried to get the rights to demolish the Atwater House next to his restaurant on Elmwood Avenue, but was denied a permit due to the property’s historical value. He has since been an opponent to the hotel construction.

In the process of debating the hotel, it was thought that a hotel had previously existed on the proposed site, however; research done at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society had shown that no hotel had previously existed on the site.