The European Union has announced that a French goat has become the first animal other than a cow to ever have tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The results were announced after over two years testing of the goat’s remains. Scientists originally thought that the goat was suffering from scrapie, another degenerative disease that can be found in goats and sheep.
This discovery proves correct the theory that BSE, or mad cow disease as it is commonly know, can exist in ruminants other than cattle.
The EU has stated that eating goat products is still safe due to precautionary measures which have been put in place. “I want to reassure consumers that existing safety measures in the EU offer a very high level of protection.” The EU Commissioner responsible for Health and Consumer Protection, Markos Kyprianou said regarding the findings.
“This case was discovered thanks to the EU testing system in place in France.”
“The testing programme has shown us that there is a very low incidence rate of TSEs (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies) in goats and allowed us to detect suspect animals so that they can be taken out of the food chain, as was done with this goat and its entire herd.”
The EU intends to test 200,000 goats in the 25 member states over the next six months.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
By a narrow vote late in the evening on December 21st, 2005 the US Senate blocked opening the nation’s oil reserve in National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska . This vote delivers a victory to environmentalists and denies the Bush administration their top energy priority. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) attached the drilling plan to a measure to fund ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the Senate late last night agreed to pass the defense bill, without the drilling provision.
Two key Republicans, Lincoln D Chafee (R-R.I.) and Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), joined Democrats in opposing the drilling. Senator Lieberman (D-Conn) said yesterday that Stevens was to blame for holding up money for the military. By including the drilling measure in the defense spending bill, it was hoped to twist the senators’ arms into voting for both provisions together in the scramble to finish the important business before the Senate’s Christmas break.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Last night HBO premiered I Am An Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA. Since its inception, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has made headlines and raised eyebrows. They are almost single-handedly responsible for the movement against animal testing and their efforts have raised the suffering animals experience in a broad spectrum of consumer goods production and food processing into a cause célèbre.
PETA first made headlines in the Silver Spring monkeys case, when Alex Pacheco, then a student at George Washington University, volunteered at a lab run by Edward Taub, who was testing neuroplasticity on live monkeys. Taub had cut sensory ganglia that supplied nerves to the monkeys’ fingers, hands, arms, legs; with some of the monkeys, he had severed the entire spinal column. He then tried to force the monkeys to use their limbs by exposing them to persistent electric shock, prolonged physical restraint of an intact arm or leg, and by withholding food. With footage obtained by Pacheco, Taub was convicted of six counts of animal cruelty—largely as a result of the monkeys’ reported living conditions—making them “the most famous lab animals in history,” according to psychiatrist Norman Doidge. Taub’s conviction was later overturned on appeal and the monkeys were eventually euthanized.
PETA was born.
In the subsequent decades they ran the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty against Europe’s largest animal-testing facility (footage showed staff punching beagle puppies in the face, shouting at them, and simulating sex acts while taking blood samples); against Covance, the United State’s largest importer of primates for laboratory research (evidence was found that they were dissecting monkeys at its Vienna, Virginia laboratory while the animals were still alive); against General Motors for using live animals in crash tests; against L’Oreal for testing cosmetics on animals; against the use of fur for fashion and fur farms; against Smithfield Foods for torturing Butterball turkeys; and against fast food chains, most recently against KFC through the launch of their website kentuckyfriedcruelty.com.
They have launched campaigns and engaged in stunts that are designed for media attention. In 1996, PETA activists famously threw a dead raccoon onto the table of Anna Wintour, the fur supporting editor-in-chief of Vogue, while she was dining at the Four Seasons in New York, and left bloody paw prints and the words “Fur Hag” on the steps of her home. They ran a campaign entitled Holocaust on your Plate that consisted of eight 60-square-foot panels, each juxtaposing images of the Holocaust with images of factory farming. Photographs of concentration camp inmates in wooden bunks were shown next to photographs of caged chickens, and piled bodies of Holocaust victims next to a pile of pig carcasses. In 2003 in Jerusalem, after a donkey was loaded with explosives and blown up in a terrorist attack, Newkirk sent a letter to then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat to keep animals out of the conflict. As the film shows, they also took over Jean-Paul Gaultier‘s Paris boutique and smeared blood on the windows to protest his use of fur in his clothing.
The group’s tactics have been criticized. Co-founder Pacheco, who is no longer with PETA, called them “stupid human tricks.” Some feminists criticize their campaigns featuring the Lettuce Ladies and “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” ads as objectifying women. Of their Holocaust on a Plate campaign, Anti-Defamation League Chairman Abraham Foxman said “The effort by PETA to compare the deliberate systematic murder of millions of Jews to the issue of animal rights is abhorrent.” (Newkirk later issued an apology for any hurt it caused). Perhaps most controversial amongst politicians, the public and even other animal rights organizations is PETA’s refusal to condemn the actions of the Animal Liberation Front, which in January 2005 was named as a terrorist threat by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
David Shankbone attended the pre-release screening of I Am An Animal at HBO’s offices in New York City on November 12, and the following day he sat down with Ingrid Newkirk to discuss her perspectives on PETA, animal rights, her responses to criticism lodged against her and to discuss her on-going life’s work to raise human awareness of animal suffering. Below is her interview.
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This exclusive interview features first-hand journalism by a Wikinews reporter. See the collaboration page for more details. |
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Chandeliers Some basic fact
by
Stephen Neal
Chandeliers can be defined as branched candle holders or electric light holders which are suspended from ceilings. In their earliest forms, chandeliers were made from wood or iron and came in simple shapes. But that was before the Norman Conquest, when they were used in the Anglo Saxon churches. In the 12th and the 13th centuries, huge openwork hoops of iron or bronze with a multitude of spikes for candles became more common. The late European middle ages saw the emergence of the brass chandeliers; quite like its predecessors, these were also mostly used in churches.
During the 18th century, one finds the use of fine chandeliers in silver and gilded wood. Then came the era of elaborate glass chandeliers complete with glass icicles round the shaft and long cascades of pear shaped drops. Venice and Bohemia were the best places to look for glass chandeliers of the highest quality. The multicoloured glass and floral decorations in the Venetian chandeliers are famous all across the world to this day. Gradually, chandeliers came to be used in ballrooms or large royal mansions and palaces. And in the present day and age, one can find crystal chandeliers in the mansions of the rich and the famous. And why only the rich nd the famous ? As of now, people who want to live life luxuriously are purchasing these with other articles of home decor to make their homes and living areas quite special. Many common people can now afford to purchase and use a chandelier. And they are doing just that. They are buying these articles of home decor and changing the look of their dining rooms and living areas quite drastically. And the great news is that there are a host of designs to choose from. A person wanting to make a purchase can check out the online stores dealing in chandeliers and get to know more about all the design options currently in vogue. This way, he or she would not have to go out and visit the brick and mortar stores in search for a modern and stylish chandelier. He can review the best options in style and lighting and select the perfect design that would suit his home the best. One thing that potential buyers must remember is that a good chandelier is one which hangs high on the ceiling. So, in instances where the ceilings are low, one needs to consider buying a smaller one. The product bought need to be proportional to the room in which it would be placed; this way, the chandeliers would look their best. To conclude, one can say that chandeliers have illuminated churches, mansions, and halls since times immemorial. And now, these very distinguished pieces of home decor are available to one and all. Anybody and everybody who want to make their living areas or other spaces come alive can buy a chandelier according to his aesthetic tastes and sensibilities. A buyer can choose from crystal chandeliers, black chandeliers, and chandeliers with glass shades. To know more about how you can create your very own royal ambiance, visit periodstylelighting.
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Wednesday, March 23, 2005The trial against internet file-sharing network Kazaa in Sydney, Australia, is coming to an end, as closing arguments began today. Kazaa pleaded it could not be held responsible for the copyright infringements perpetrated by its users, as it cannot control how the software is used.
The peer-to-peer distribution software and its owner, Sharman Networks Ltd. and its directors were sued by a group of Australian record labels for copyright infringements by the network’s estimated 100 million members worldwide. Members of the software share music files with each other, and download up to three billion songs and music files monthly. The music industry claims it has lost millions of dollars in unpaid royalties as a result.
Lawyer Tony Meagher argued that Sharman is no more responsible for the uses of its software than the designers of the photocopiers and video recorders were responsible for the illegal copying of materials on those machines. The remaining question is whether Kazaa authorises its users to download files illegally.
“We tell these users in our Web site and we tell them in our license that they cannot use this (software) for infringing copyright,” Meagher told Judge Murray Wilcox. By consenting to this license by users, Kazaa is exempted from responsibility.
The record industry claims Kazaa not only enables but encourages copyright infringement. Record industry lawyer Tony Bannon argued that as Kazaa collected information from its users through spyware and sold it to advertisers, the company’s claim that it had no control over the software was “completely mind boggling.”
This is not the first trial against Kazaa, and other programs of its kind. In August last year, Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that the distribution by Grokster and Morpheus of peer-to-peer software does not violate U.S. copyright law. Rod Dorman, lead trial council for Sharman Networks in the U.S., said, “As a result of this decision, Sharman Networks will be filing a motion for summary judgement, nearly identical to the successful motions filed by Grokster and Morpheus, and we are confident that Judge Wilson will find that our product, Kazaa, is a lawful product as well.” However, the ruling held no precedential effect in the Australian trial, as the principles differed.
Kazaa and the FastTrack protocol are the brainchild of the Scandinavians Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, and were introduced in March 2001 by their Dutch company Consumer Empowerment. It appeared during the end of the first generation of P2P networks. Napster shut down in July of that year. (Wikipedia)
The trial is expected to wrap up later today. A verdict should be passed within six weeks.
Friday, April 4, 2008
A death, which has been treated as murder, in the car park of a pub in Bristol, United Kingdom has resulted in two arrests. The murder, which occurred on Wednesday evening took place near Highridge Road in Bishopsworth, Bristol.
A local resident told Wikinews that the police presence surrounding the murder scene was high in the hours after the murder.
The police described the arrests in a press release. It said that “two local men in their early 20s have been arrested in connection with this incident.”
This story has updates See Family of ‘murdered’ teenager react to death
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Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Witnesses heard gunshots in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Cedar Park, Texas, near Highway 183, on Sunday morning. Police arrested eighteen year-old Soloman Onwukaife at the scene. Four, including the gunman who had facial wounds unrelated to the shooting, are being treated for injuries after the incident. A fifth victim has been released.
Cedar Park Police Captain Mike Harmon said authorities arrived at the parking lot around 4:30 AM local time. There they arrested Onwukaife, who has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The Cedar Park Wal-Mart was closed down briefly on Sunday morning; however, no staff or customers were injured.
Police have released the names of the victims, eighteen-year-old Cody McGrath, nineteen-year-old Shayne Davis, nineteen-year-old Zacharia Gietl and 22-year-old Leland McGlocklin. As-of Monday, Gietl has been released from hospital whilst the others remain in critical, but stable, condition. Police informed media the incident occurred follwing a dispute which began at a nearby party where alcohol was being served. After moving the fight to the parking lot, Onwukaife is alleged to have shot the four victims.
Onwukaife was expected to be released on Monday, after which he would immediately be jailed. Police advised media the investigation is on-going and more charges may still be filed. Specifically, Police are trying to determine if any other participants in the fight were armed.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Journalist, counselor, painter, and US 2012 Presidential candidate Joe Schriner of Cleveland, Ohio took some time to discuss his campaign with Wikinews in an interview.
Schriner previously ran for president in 2000, 2004, and 2008, but failed to gain much traction in the races. He announced his candidacy for the 2012 race immediately following the 2008 election. Schriner refers to himself as the “Average Joe” candidate, and advocates a pro-life and pro-environmentalist platform. He has been the subject of numerous newspaper articles, and has published public policy papers exploring solutions to American issues.
Wikinews reporter William Saturn? talks with Schriner and discusses his campaign.