Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Senator Robert Byrd, the longest serving member of the United States Congress, died yesterday at the age of 92.

A spokesman for the Democratic Senator from the state of West Virginia said Byrd had been hospitalized since last week. At first he was thought to have been suffering from heat exhaustion and severe dehydration but other medical conditions developed. On Sunday, his condition was described as “serious”.

Byrd was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1952 and to the U.S. Senate in 1958. He suffered from ill health in recent years but retained his reputation for securing millions in federal funding for his home state.

Throughout his career in the U.S Senate he held positions including Senate Majority Whip, Majority Leader twice and Minority Leader once. Due to his status as the longest serving Senator, Byrd was serving as President pro tempore of the United States Senate, which made him third in line in the Presidential line of succession. Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii has been sworn in as the new President pro tempore.

Byrd served nine terms in the Senate and was labeled by critics as the “King of Pork”. He used his former chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee to steer over one billion dollars in federal aid to West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the country, described by him as, “one of the rock bottomest [sic] of states”.

Byrd took the title to heart and had no apologies about it, saying, “Pork, to the critic, is service to the people who enjoy some of the good things in life, and I’ve been happy to bring to West Virginia the projects to which they refer. I have no apology for it.”

Byrd was originally born as Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr. on November 20, 1917. He grew up in the coal mining regions of southern West Virginia with his aunt and uncle, who adopted him following the death of his mother in the 1918 flu pandemic. He was the valedictorian of his high school class, but could not afford college and did not attend university courses until his 30s and 40s.

The Senator had a fondness for history, and included excerpts of poetry, Shakespeare, Greek and Roman classics along with verses from the Bible in his Senate speeches. He considered himself a staunch defender of United States Constitution, and carried a copy of it in his pocket. Byrd was versed in parliamentary procedure using some of the Senate’s arcane rules to his advantage. He received awards from the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians for significant contributions to history.

Byrd had his share of controversy. He was at one time a member of the Ku Klux Klan, serving as the top officer of his local chapter and once held racial segregationist views. Byrd was involved in the filibuster against the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he voted against. Byrd later explicitly and repeatedly denounced his former segregationist views.

Byrd is the only Senator to have voted against the nominations of African-American Supreme Court justices Thurgood Marshall and Marshall’s successor following his retirement, Clarence Thomas. Byrd’s opposition of Thomas was based on the testimony of Anita Hill who accused Thomas of sexually harassing her and due to the fact that Byrd felt Thomas was “injecting racism” into the debate by using the phrase “high-tech lynching of uppity blacks” in his defense against the allegations.

Byrd, who supported the Vietnam War, was one of the most outspoken critics of the War in Iraq. He voted against the Iraq War Resolution. Byrd spoke on the eve the invasion saying, “Today I weep for my country. […] No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination.”

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Early results show the African National Congress holding a commanding lead in South Africa’s general election.

File:JacobZuma.jpg

But it is still unclear whether the party has met its goal of the two-thirds majority in Parliament required to amend the constitution.

With half of the vote counted, the ANC has 66% of the vote. Its nearest rival, the Democratic Alliance, has 16%, while ANC splinter-group the Congress of the People trails with 8%.

The results will see ANC leader Jacob Zuma elected as President of South Africa when the National Assembly reconvenes in May.

Provincial elections are also being held, and the ANC looks likely to lose power in the province of Western Cape to the Democratic Alliance. This will be the first time an opposition party has won control of a provincial parliament since the end of apartheid.

The election campaign has focused on crime, poverty, and the suitability of Zuma to be President. Zuma was acquitted of rape in 2006, and corruption charges against him were withdrawn shortly before the election after prosecutors found the charges had been politically motivated.

During the campign, opposition leader Helen Zille warned that Zuma’s election would turn South Africa into a “failed state”.

Turnout has been high, with long lines of voters queuing to cast their ballot in South Africa’s fourth election since the end of apartheid. The election has generally been peaceful and with few irregularities, though a COPE official was shot dead in his home and one election official has been arrested for attempting to stuff a ballot box with ballots marked for the Inkatha Freedom Party.

400 representatives will be elected by proportional representation, half from national and half from provincial lists. Forty parties are contesting the elections, and 23 million South Africans are registered to vote.

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Monday, October 1, 2007

Brian Jackson is running for the Ontario Liberal Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Oxford riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

While nearly all coverage of the 2008 Presidential election has focused on the Democratic and Republican candidates, the race for the White House also includes independents and third party candidates. These parties represent a variety of views that may not be acknowledged by the major party platforms.

Wikinews has impartially reached out to these candidates, throughout the campaign. We now interview independent Presidential candidate Frank Moore, a performance artist.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The European Commission currently has proposals on the table to extend performers’ copyright terms. Described by Professor Martin Kretschmer as the “Beatles Extension Act”, the proposed measure would extend copyright from 50 to 95 years after recording. A vast number of classical tracks are at stake; the copyright on recordings from the fifties and early sixties is nearing its expiration date, after which it would normally enter the public domain or become ‘public property’. E.U. Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services Charlie McCreevy is proposing this extension, and if the other relevant Directorate Generales (Information Society, Consumers, Culture, Trade, Competition, etc.) agree with the proposal, it will be sent to the European Parliament.

Wikinews contacted Erik Josefsson, European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (E.F.F.), who invited us to Brussels, the heart of E.U. policy making, to discuss this new proposal and its implications. Expecting an office interview, we arrived to discover that the event was a party and meetup conveniently coinciding with FOSDEM 2008 (the Free and Open source Software Developers’ European Meeting). The meetup was in a sprawling city centre apartment festooned with E.F.F. flags and looked to be a party that would go on into the early hours of the morning with copious food and drink on tap. As more people showed up for the event it turned out that it was a truly international crowd, with guests from all over Europe.

Eddan Katz, the new International Affairs Director of the E.F.F., had come over from the U.S. to connect to the European E.F.F. network, and he gladly took part in our interview. Eddan Katz explained that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is “A non-profit organisation working to protect civil liberties and freedoms online. The E.F.F. has fought for information privacy rights online, in relation to both the government and companies who, with insufficient transparency, collect, aggregate and make abuse of information about individuals.” Another major focus of their advocacy is intellectual property, said Eddan: “The E.F.F. represents what would be the public interest, those parts of society that don’t have a concentration of power, that the private interests do have in terms of lobbying.”

Becky Hogge, Executive Director of the U.K.’s Open Rights Group (O.R.G.), joined our discussion as well. “The goals of the Open Rights Group are very simple: we speak up whenever we see civil, consumer or human rights being affected by the poor implementation or the poor regulation of new technologies,” Becky summarised. “In that sense, people call us -I mean the E.F.F. has been around, in internet years, since the beginning of time- but the Open Rights Group is often called the British E.F.F.“

Monday, July 4, 2005

17 Afghan civilians, including women and children, are thought to be have been killed as the result of U.S. aircraft bombing the village of Chechal in the east of Afghanistan late last week, said a governor.

The air strike occurred last Friday in the same area as an elite U.S. military team went missing three days ago.

Provincial governor Assadullah Wafa told the Associated Press “seventeen civilians died in the U.S. bombing of the village.” He went on to comment that casualties consisted of women and children, though he did not know the exact figure.

A U.S. military statement claimed that the “compound” bombed was a “known operating base for terrorist attacks in Kunar province as well as a base for a medium-level terrorist leader,”

The statement, written after criticism in the press of the U.S. military’s lack of precaution in these matters, then went on to say the U.S. armed forces “regret the loss of innocent lives and follow stringent rules of engagement specifically to ensure that non-combatants are safeguarded. However, when enemy forces move their families into the locations where they conduct terrorist operations, they put these innocent civilians at risk.”

One member of the missing military team has been recovered and is currently being “evaluated” on Monday, a U.S. Defence Department spokesperson said, though he refused to comment on details regarding his whereabouts and health.

Afghan and U.S. forces are currently in the Kunar province searching for members of the missing military team. U.S. officials at the time of the bombing said in a statement that the attack utilised “precision-guided munitions that resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of enemy terrorists and non-combatants,”

The statement continued, concluding that “battle damage assessment is currently ongoing.”

In May, Afghan president Hamid Karzai voiced his concerns over the excessive number of civilian casualties as a result of US-led operations.

Some observers have speculated that the attack on the village was a deliberate response to the downing of a US transport helicopter last month. In that incident, 16 troops died in the worst single blow to American forces since the Taliban was ousted in 2001.