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Monday, October 11, 2010

Wikinews interviewed author Amy Scobee about her book Scientology – Abuse at the Top, and asked her about her experiences working as an executive within the organization. Scobee joined the organization at age 14, and worked at Scientology’s international management headquarters for several years before leaving in 2005. She served as a Scientology executive in multiple high-ranking positions, working out of the international headquarters of Scientology known as “Gold Base”, located in Gilman Hot Springs near Hemet, California.

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

It was reported on Saturday Sirhan Sirhan was stabbed in the neck while in prison. Sirhan, 75, is serving a life sentence for the 1968 assassination of United States senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.

Sirhan was serving his time at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County, California. He was reported to be in stable condition.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) did not identify Sirhan as the victim. Rather, government sources confirmed his identity to various news outlets anonymously.

The Department issued a statement that an inmate had been stabbed: “There was an assault on an inmate on Friday, August 30 at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility at 2:21 p.m. […] Officers responded quickly and found an inmate with stab wound injuries […] He was transported to an outside hospital for medical care, and is currently in stable condition.” They also said they believed they had identified the attacker, who was being held in isolation pending investigation.

Sirhan, an ethnic Palestinian from Jordan, opposed Senator Kennedy’s pro-Israel position. Sirhan later claimed to have no memory of the night Kennedy was shot or of his own confession to the crime. For many years, Sirhan was held protectively separate from most prisoners at Corcoran State Prison because of his fame. At his own request, Sirhan was eventually transferred to the general population at Donovan.

Robert F. Kennedy was the brother of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who had himself been assassinated in 1963. Robert was killed in June 1968, while seeking the Democratic nomination for president. Sirhan shot him in the head just after midnight, while he was walking through a hotel kitchen. Sirhan’s initial death sentence was commuted to life in prison when, for a time, California outlawed the death penalty.

• Sirhan in 1969 (Image: CDCR)

• Sirhan in 2016 (Image: CDCR)

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Rapper Proof, born Deshaun Holton, was shot and killed on April 11, 2006, at approximately 4:30 a.m. EDT (0830 UTC) at the Triple C Club on 8 Mile Road in Detroit.

Proof was known for his work together with his good friend Eminem and his group D12.

Another man was shot shortly afterward, and was taken to St. John Hospital.

On April 12, 2006, Mario Etheridge, 28, of Detroit turned himself in to the police, having been named by several witnesses. Mario was allegedly a bouncer at the club. “Police said he is a cousin of Keith Bender Jr., the bouncer who was allegedly shot by Proof during the fight.” The fight that started inside the club was reported to be over a pool game. The argument was taken outside where, “A shot was fired in the air, Proof allegedly pistol-whipped Bender, knocked him to the ground and then shot him. Etheridge then allegedly opened fire on the rapper, striking him four times in the head and chest. One week later, Keith Bender Jr. died of his injuries on April 18, 2006.

Official Police reports are yet to determine the series of events which left Proof and Keith Bender, 35, deceased. Bender died 8 days later on April 18, 2006. Following Proof’s death, rapper Snoop Dogg called on fellow musicians to unite, describing the incident as “a loss to the hip-hop community”.

The tributes were led by fellow rapper The Game who was first to comment on the tragedy. The Game remembers how he and Proof became ‘real cool and real homies’ and that ‘Proof will always be remembered and I as well as the Black Wall Street family will keep his memory & his family in our prayers 1’. The second to comment on Proof was long time friend Royce da 5’9″ who was deeply saddened by the death of his good friend. Royce had been a friend of Proof for over 9 years and the two had recently reconciled. Royce echoed the music community, saying ‘He is such loss for the hip hop community…I hope that he will be remembered for the talented artist and great person that he was, and not the tragedy that he fell victim to’.

Eminem was the third to discuss Proof’s death days after his passing, clearly affected by the tragedy. Eminem described Proof as “funny, smart and charming” and said that he would be sorely missed and described him as “the heart and ambassador of Detroit hip-hop”. Eminem said that Proof was, and always will be, his best friend.

Tributes poured out of the UK with Vm2k6 leading the remembrance. Proof’s demise which was mainly overlooked by the UK media was documented and reflected by VM2k6 in which he calls Proof ‘fresh, talented and meaningful, a rarity in Hip Hop today’. He continues saying that Proof had ‘the greatest ability to transfer his experiences and most of all feelings into words’ and finished with the heartfelt line- ‘I guess its only in Death you really begin to shine’.

Several fan videos were released in tribute to Proof, including the hit “Good Die Young” music video which used D12’s 2004 single, which is currently one of the highest discussed and viewed videos on YouTube.com. Many other “slide show” flicks were created, which are appearing all over the internet. The “Good Die Young” clip was produced by RYKE Video Productions.

Proof stated how he wanted to be remembered in an interview with Sohh.com shortly after his album release; ‘I want people to say that I was a true artist’, ‘ That I did it best and stayed true to Hip Hop roots’ and ‘I’d want people to understand I did it for the love not for the charts.’

Thursday, October 25, 2012

2012 US presidential election candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney took part Monday in their third and final presidential debate at Lynn University in Florida. The topic of the debate was foreign policy and the candidates discussed the Arab Spring, Iran, and Mali, among other issues.

Mr. Obama criticised Mr. Romney’s foreign policy positions as “all over the map”. “Every time you have offered an opinion you have been wrong.” “You said we should have gone into Iraq, despite the fact there were no weapons of mass destruction. You said we should still have troops in Iraq to this day. You said we shouldn’t be passing nuclear treaties with Russia.” Mr. Romney countered saying Mr. Obama had failed to take proper advantage of the Arab Spring: “I congratulate him on taking out Osama bin Laden and going after the leadership of al-Qaeda, but we can’t kill our way out of this mess”.

Mr. Romney said Mr. Obama was proposing military budget cuts. He said “the highest responsibility of the President of the United states … is to maintain the safety of the American people, and I will not cut our military budget by a trillion dollars… That in my view is making our future less certain and less secure”. Mr. Obama accused Mr. Romney of not properly understanding modern defense priorities. “You mention the navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets. Because the nature of the military has changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines”.

Mr. Romney criticized his opponent for visiting the Middle East on an “apology tour”, and said he would be tougher with Iran. “I think from the very beginning, one of the challenges we’ve had with Iran is that they have looked at this administration and felt that the administration was not as strong as it needed to be. We’re four years closer to a nuclear Iran and we should not have wasted these four years.” Mr. Obama said he would stand with Israel against Iranian threats but added that the main national security concern was terrorist networks. He said his administration had focused on “those who actually killed us on 9/11” and said that under his leadership, “al-Qaeda’s core leadership has been decimated”. Mr. Romney said northern Mali had been taken over by “al-Qaeda-type individuals” .

Mr. Romney criticized China for “holding down artificially the value of their currency”. He added “on day one, I will label them a currency manipulator, which allows us to apply tariffs where they’re taking jobs.” Mr. Obama countered saying under Mr. Romney’s policy America would be “buying cars from China instead of selling cars to China”.

A poll, taken by CBS straight after the debate, indicated 53% of voters thought Mr. Obama had done better, while only 23% thought Mr. Romney had done better.

Both candidates now have plans for continued campaigning ahead of the election on November 6. Mr. Obama is to travel through Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada as well as appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in a two-day “America Forward Tour”. Mr. Romney is to hold two joint rallies with his vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan in Nevada and Colorado before going on to campaign in Iowa and Ohio. Mr. Romney’s advisers said he would also consider making a speech on government spending and debt in the next few days.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Mr Alexander Litvinenko, reputed to have been an Ex-Russian spy who had defected to Britain, died last night in mysterious circumstances. He had alleged many associations between people in high places and organised international crime, implying that President Putin and Romano Prodi among others had been involved personally. He had sought political asylum in UK in 2000 and became a naturalised citizen in October this year, just weeks before his death.

Mr Litvinenko was said to have been investigating the shooting of Russian journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, a well-known critic of Russian activities in Chechnya, in her apartment in Moscow October 7, 2006. It is reported that he had met two Russians in a hotel room, one said to be former member of the KGB in connection with the affair and he went on to meet Mario Scaramella at a sushi bar in Piccadilly where some papers were exchanged. Some hours after this he was taken ill.

Mr Litvinenko was admitted to Barnet General Hospital, north London on November 1, 2006 complaining of feeling sick. By November 11, he was said to be suffering from serious poisoning. A week later he was transferred to University College Hospital in central London. A week later he was said to have been poisoned by ingesting thallium, once used in rat poison, but, in the opinion of some doctors, there were signs of radioactive poisoning, including loss of weight and shedding of hair. Various explanations of his condition were offered. Last night he suffered a heart attack, after having left a message blaming President Putin for having him killed.

The radioactive isotope polonium-210 was found in his blood and urine as reported by the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency. The post-mortem was cancelled. Subsequently the Agency examined conditions in the hospitals in which Mr Litvinenko has been treated. Police visited the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, his home in Muswell Hill and the Millennium Hotel, Grosvenor Square where the meeting on November 1 had been held. Traces of radiocactivity were found in all three places. It is speculated that the polonium was probably eaten by Litvinenko as a substance that could be combined with a salt-like substance, such as polonium nitrate.

It was reported that a meeting had been held in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (COBRA) used for high level emergency planning and control, to consider the implications of these events. The Foreign Office asked Moscow for a response to the accusation of Russian involvement and President Putin himself dismissed the allegations saying (before the cause of death had been established) that there was no proof of an unnatural death and that the case was being used as a “political provocation”.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

A couple from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada has been arrested on charges of public mischief after listing their seven day old baby girl on the popular Internet classified ads website Craigslist.

The listing claimed that the baby was unexpected, “healthy and very cute”. It asked CAN 10 000 for the baby. It also listed a phone number belonging to a stolen cellphone, which was used to find the couple.

It was first noticed by a 62-year old grandmother browsing the website for furniture, who said “I was shaking, and I thought, ‘Come on, how did this even get through?'” The couple claimed that the listing, which has since been removed, was a hoax.

The father, Jeremy Pete, had a history of car thefts and evasion of police, while the mother, 23-year-old Bethany Granholm, had convictions of property theft, fraud and impersonation. The parents have now been released, but charges are still being considered. The baby has been placed in provincial care.

A suspected copycat incident occurred just four days later, also offering a seven-day-old baby girl for CAN 10 000 on Craigslist. This incident turned out to be a hoax, and no child was in danger.

Last week saw a similar incident in Germany, where a couple listed a seven month old baby on eBay. In this case the police have launched a child trafficking investigation, despite the parents’ assertion that the listing was a joke.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

During the fourth day of the 2008 Taipei Game Show, held at the Taipei World Trade Center, visitors voted for their favourite participating companies and games at the “Popular Game Voting” competition.

According to the organizer Taipei Computer Association (TCA), this is the first-ever vote. It has two main categories, quality of the game itself and quality of the presentation at the convention. In the game section there were four categories: leisure game, PC console game, online RPG, and upcoming games. Balancing the vote, booth setup and stage activity were included. If a company won an award in this category, its notoriety is expected to rise and the company could see a great deal of opportunities to market games or its brand to the world.

Aside from the presentation class, winners from the game class were decided by votes from on-site, local gaming magazines, and the official website.

In the end, Microsoft Taiwan won all of the categories of the popular presentation class. In the game voting class, International Games Systems Inc. (IGS) won both popular leisure and upcoming game categories. Soft-World and Softstar Corp. respectively won popular online RPG and PC console game categories.

• International Games Systems, Inc. won most of the awards in the “Popular Game Voting” competition.

• Microsoft Taiwan won the “Popular Exhibitor Voting” with their presentations.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Oakland, California —A developer’s recent glossy sales brochure hails the Coliseum Gardens housing development in East Oakland as the most comprehensive development to date for one of Oakland’s largest nonprofit housing developers, but close scrutiny of the project reveals that only 4 out of the 178 low-income public housing families displaced by the development actually managed to return to the newly rebuilt housing complex that was recently christened as Lion Creek Crossings.

Phase 1 of the 20 acre project at the Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek Crossings mixed income housing development was completed in June of 2006, with phase 4 of the development expected to be completed by December 2008.

Documents reveal that as an effort to reduce violence and drug trafficking within and around the Coliseum and Lockwood communities of Oakland, the HOPE VI program enabled the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA) to use nearly $61 million in federal funding to displace Oakland’s low-income communities from the above mentioned locations.

These projects are only a small part of what is known as the Oakland Coliseum Redevelopment Area, which is approximately 11 square miles in size, extending from 22nd Ave., all the way to the San Leandro City limits, and is located between E. 14th St., and the Oakland Estuary/Airport.

The OHA’s Board of Commissioners approved the selection of the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), the Related Companies of California (Related Companies), and Chambers General Construction as co-developers of the Coliseum Gardens public housing site during its board meeting on October 21, 2002. As partners in the development project, the OHA owns the land, and the developers own the buildings.

As a result of the OHA approval, local nonprofit housing developer EBALDC and Related Companies, LLC., out of New York City, created Creekside Housing Partners, L.P., to take control of Oakland’s public housing property at the Coliseum Gardens site.

After the eviction of 178 families and the demolition of their 178 public housing units during 2004, Creekside Housing Partners (CHP) moved as quickly as possible to rebuild and finish off “phase 1,” of their project. Phase 1 of the development is managed by Related Companies, the tenants pay their rents to the New York based firm, and during the past 6 months the developers have moved people into 115 newly rebuilt housing units at the development.

Twima Early works at the management office of Related Companies located at Lion Creek Crossings and was eager to help shed some light on whats been going on at the newly privatized public housing site in East Oakland.

In an October 18 interview, Twima Early said, “During the past 6 months, we have completed phase 1 of our project and moved people into 115 housing units at our new development. Out of the 178 families who were originally displaced by our project, the OHA sent us a list of 13 families who were eligible to move back into this location, and only 4 of those families actually moved into our new development.”

“It seemed odd that the Housing Authority would only allow 13 families to move back into this location, and I can’t explain why so few were allowed to return,” said Early.

When Randy Shaw of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic learned how few of the original public housing tenants that were actually allowed to move back into the Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek housing development, he said, “The Hope VI program has once again proved to be the major cause of the displacement of low-income people. I’ve never heard of numbers so skewed before in regards to the displacement of families who were promised that the Hope VI project would be beneficial to them.”

Since 1994, Oakland officials and the Federal Government have targeted Oakland’s poor with nearly $84 million in federal funding through the Hope VI program.

The privatization of Oakland’s public housing units have been occurring at a rapid pace. When wealthy billionaire Stephen M. Ross, CEO of Related Companies, teamed up with local nonprofit housing developer EBALDC to re-develop the Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek housing complex, it became apparent that the developers made out much better than the displaced families did.

Carlos Castellanos of EBALDC is involved in the Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek development, and when I asked how did this project benefit the families who used to reside there or how is the City of Oakland benefitting from the displacement of so many families, Castellanos said, “These are loaded questions and not something that I want to talk about. I think that a lot of those tenants did not really want to move back, and I think that you really need to talk to the Housing Authority to find out what happened to all of those families.”

Vivian Haine resided in a public housing unit near the Coliseum Gardens site, and said, “About a year ago, Kim Boyd the site manager where I resided at, told me that I’m lucky to be living here even if there is no money for repairs at this building, because they didn’t have enough funding to finish off the project at Coliseum Gardens, and most of the evicted tenants had no where to go. I believe that many of the families displaced from the Coliseum Gardens development couldn’t find any housing to move into and may have become homeless,” Haine said.

Records show that on June 24, 2006, the OHA’s Board of Commissioners approved the use of market rate rents in its Project-Based Section 8 program at the Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek development, to cover a $600,000 funding shortfall after the EBALDC/Related Companies claimed that they needed more money to complete phase 3 of the project.

A Sept. 19, 2006, OHA memo mentions that EBALDC/Related Companies are co-developing the rental portion at Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek Crossings site, which will include 157 units of public housing. The total number of rental units, including public housing, now planned is approximately 440 units, plus another 28 units of for-sale housing which are planned to be developed by Chambers Construction Company.

With the demolition of 178 public housing units by the developers, and only 157 public housing units being rebuilt at the Coliseum Gardens/Lion Creek Crossings housing site, theres been a net loss of 21 public housing units at this location.

The OHA and City of Oakland continue to funnel millions of dollars to the EBALDC/Related Companies partnership, in an effort to privatize part of Oakland’s public housing program in East Oakland.

Since its inception, the Hope VI program has resulted in the demolition of more than 120,000 public housing units across the nation, only to be replaced by 40,000 mixed income units, and less than 12% of the displaced families have managed to gain entry back into the locations they were originally evicted from. In order to make way for the new housing projects being developed that resulted in the privatization of the nation’s public housing properties, around 30% of the displaced families are given Section 8 vouchers, 49% are moved into other public housing units, and most of the rest of the tenants often end up losing their rental assistance.

June 28, 2005

The Democratic Party held a public committee, aired on C-SPAN 3, at which former civilian employees based in or administering operations in Iraq, testified to specific instances of waste, fraud, and other abuses and irregularities by Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR).

Allegations of fraud by Halliburton, specifically with regard to its operations in Iraq, have persisted since before the Iraq War. The associations between U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Halliburton, have been the basis for repeated speculation over possible political improprieties and business profiteering from the war.

Among the senators and representatives present at the hearing were Byron Dorgan (presiding), Henry Waxman, Frank Lautenberg, and Mark Dayton.

Among those testifying were Bunny Greenhouse, former Chief Contracting Officer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rory Mayberry, former Food Program Manager for Halliburton subsidiary, and Allan Waller, of the Lloyd-Owen International security and operations firm.

Greenhouse, who provided the bulk of testimony, spoke for several minutes about her involvement in the evaluation and crafting of government Army contracts, and how explaining how superiors undermined and dismissed her concerns of illegal business practices. “Ultimately my main concern was the repeated insistence that the Rio contract be awarded to KBR without competitive bidding,” Greenhouse said. She testified to have been given misinformation in answer to her complaints, and being “overtly misled” by KBR managers.

Mayberry, still in Iraq, testified by video from questions prepared by the committee. He said that KBR routinely sold expired food rations to the Army. The interviewer asked, “Are you saying that Halliburton deliberately falsified the number of meals they prepared and then submitted false claims for reimbursement and that they did this to make up for past amounts auditors had disallowed?” Mayberry firmly answered “Yes.” He said that serving expired food ration was “an everyday occurrence, sometimes every meal.” He explained that Halliburton systematically overcharged for the number of meals as well, saying, “they were charging for 20,000 meals and they were only serving 10,000 meals.” Dorgan later commented, “obviously there’s no honor here, by a company that would serve outdated food to our troops in Iraq.”

Mayberry also claimed would-be whistleblowers were threatened “to be sent to Falluja” and other “places under fire” if they talked to media or governmental oversight officials. In 2003 and 2004, Falluja had been well known as dangerous for foreign troops and civilians. “I personally was sent to Falluja for three weeks. The manager told me that I was being sent away until the auditors were gone, because I had talked to the auditors,” Mayberry said.

“The threat of being sent to a camp under fire was their way of keeping us quiet. The employees who talked to auditors were sent to camps under more fire than other camps, and Anaconda.” This report led Dorgan and others to voice considerable outrage that U.S. citizens would be personally threatened with harm for talking to oversight officials or media.

Allan Waller testified to specific examples of how KBR officials had conspired in blocking Lloyd-Owen fuel transports, and using other coercive means against its competitor. The British Lloyd-Owen has a direct contract with the Iraq government to provide fuel to various parts of the country.

In his introductory remarks, Dorgan explained that Senate Republicans had blocked or ignored any requests by Democrats to have a formal bipartisan hearing, resulting in the need for an independent committee.