Thursday, December 13, 2007

Victoria Wyndham was one of the most seasoned and accomplished actresses in daytime soap opera television. She played Rachel Cory, the maven of Another World‘s fictional town, Bay City, from 1972 to 1999 when the show went off the air. Wyndham talks about how she was seen as the anchor of a show, and the political infighting to keep it on the air as NBC wanted to wrest control of the long-running soap from Procter & Gamble. Wyndham fought to keep it on the air, but eventually succumbed to the inevitable. She discusses life on the soap opera, and the seven years she spent wandering “in the woods” of Los Angeles seeking direction, now divorced from a character who had come to define her professional career. Happy, healthy and with a family she is proud of, Wyndham has found life after the death of Another World in painting and animals. Below is David Shankbone’s interview with the soap diva.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Marking the anniversary of an incident at Tak Bai police station which led to 78 people suffocating while being detained by the Thai army, relatives of the deceased plan to file a lawsuit with the Pattani provincial court seeking 80 million baht (approx. US$2 million, 1.6 million euro) in compensation.

Utt Bueraheng, the lawyer representing the families is confident they will win their case as an investigation into the incident took some disciplinary action against involved senior officers.

The suit will name the Thai Defence Ministry, Army, Royal Thai Police Office, Interior Ministry, and Narathiwat provincial authorities as defendants. Earlier in the week other lawsuits were filed in relation to the incident; in all cases the named defendants are the same.

The Tak Bai incident is one of the most publicised events of the South Thailand insurgency. On October 25, 2004 six local men were arrested, accused of supplying defence force weapons to insurgents. Villagers organised a protest, demanding that the police release the accused. Instead, the police called in army reinforcements who used tear gas and water cannons on the crowd; shooting started, and seven people were killed.

Hundreds of local citizens, mostly young Muslim men, were arrested. They were made to strip to the waist and lie on the ground. Their hands were bound behind their backs and later in the afternoon they were loaded into trucks to be taken to an army camp where they were to be detained. The prisoners were stacked on top of each other in the trucks, and by the time the three-hour trip to the camp was completed, 78 men had suffocated in the heat.

The incident provoked widespread protest, not limited to Muslims in the south. Many non-Muslim Thais were shocked by the army’s behaviour. However the Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Sinawatra, gave his full support to the army and until these lawsuits were brought, very little disciplinary action had been taken against those responsible. Thaksin’s response in defending the army’s actions was to say the men died, “because they were already weak from fasting during the month of Ramadan.”

The lawsuits brought earlier this week against the five state agencies seek a total of more than eighteen million baht (approx. US$ 440,000 or 370,000 euros) in compensation. The first lawsuit was filed on behalf of relatives of five of the seven protesters killed outside Tak Bai police station; this suit seeks 5.8 million baht. The second lawsuit was filed by a group of seventeen of the protesters who were injured in the clash with police and security forces; this suit seeks 12.4 million baht compensation for injury and loss of property. All of the lawsuits have been brought with the assistance of the Law Society of Thailand.

The aftermath of the Tak Bai incident saw many of the protesters seeking asylum in neighbouring Malaysia. Recently forty of those who had fled across the border returned after they had been given assurances by authorities regarding their safety.

The leadership of the insurgents remains unclear, with no clearly identified organisational structure, or announced objectives. However, there have been separatists in the former Malay sultanate since the 1930s. Under military rule, they were firmly suppressed and only since early 2004 has violence flared in the troubled provinces. The government reacted to this by declaring Martial law in January of 2004.

Despite the imposition of Martial law, attacks on police, government officials, schools and military compounds continued unabated. This prompted the Prime Minister to introduce an executive decree for administration in emergency situations early in 2005. Additional troops were dispatched to the troubled provinces bringing the total in the area to 30,000; however, lack of counter-insurgency training and experience meant they have done little in the way of quelling the violence. In the past six months the army has reported that 298 have been killed, and over 300 injured in attacks. The estimated total killed since the start of 2004 is claimed to be over one thousand.

Saturday, July 8, 2006

The U.S. Army’s surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, told reporters Friday that soldiers exhibiting personality disorders would not be automatically discharged because many can continue to perform their duties well. However, the army did discharge more than 1,000 soldiers last year for personality disorders. Among them was Steven Dale Green, who now stands accused of raping a young Iraqi female and murdering her and her family.

Kiley also said; “There is something very demanding and tough about being in combat. And anything that would be perceived as being weak and not ready and tough carries with it some stigma.”

U.S. Defense Department officials announced last month that they have set up a task force to study the mental health of American troops. The 14-member Mental Health Task Force’s primary job is to produce a required report for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Congress before June 2007 that lays out a long-term plan to improve the effectiveness of the military’s mental health treatments, according to a Pentagon press release.

On May 4, prior to the creation of the task force, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer said the military faces a “mental health crisis” and criticized the Pentagon for inaction. In a letter to Rumsfeld, Boxer noted that 25 soldiers committed suicide in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2005, up from 20 soldiers the year before.

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.

Thursday, November 3, 2005

The European Union, the Council of Europe and the Red Cross said Thursday they will investigate allegations by Human Rights Watch that the CIA has set up secret jails in Romania and Poland.

Mark Garlasco, senior military analyst with Human Rights Watch discovered the secret prisons by examining flight logs of CIA aircraft.

Garlasco, who is a former civilian intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, told The Associated Press, “The indications are that prisoners in Afghanistan are being (taken) to facilities in Europe and other countries in the world.”

Saturday, October 7, 2017

The Canadian federal government of Justin Trudeau yesterday responded to a group of lawsuits by agreeing to pay C$750 million to the survivors of the “Sixties Scoop” program, in which 20,000 First Nations children were removed from their parents’ households and placed with non-indigenous foster or adoptive parents. The plaintiffs claimed that this caused them mental and emotional problems, in addition to the loss of their ancestral culture. Carolyn Bennett, Canada’s Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister, announced the agreement.

“I have great hope that because we’ve reached this plateau, this will never, ever happen in Canada again,” Marcia Brown Martel, now Chief of the Beaverhouse First Nation, said of the decision. Martel was removed from her home as many as ten times before 1972. She and her sister were among the original plaintiffs. From the 1960s to 1980s, some of the children were sent out of the country to the United States, Europe or New Zealand. Some of the plaintiffs say they were abused by their foster families and others do not. A separate settlement has been offered to the 150,000 children who were instead sent to institutions, such as boarding schools.

“There is also no dispute about the fact that great harm was done,” wrote Ontario Supreme Court Justice Edward P. Belobaba in a preliminary decision in February. “The ‘scooped’ children lost contact with their families. They lost their aboriginal language, culture and identity. Neither the children nor their foster or adoptive parents were given information about the children’s aboriginal heritage or about the various educational and other benefits that they were entitled to receive. The removed children vanished ‘with scarcely a trace.’?” He did concede that the founders of the program meant well, but major sources agree it was subject to considerable culture clash, with social workers removing children from situations that were later found not to be abusive or neglectful.

According to a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs, Jeffrey Wilson, this is the first time anyone has argued that the loss of a cultural identity in a lawsuit in a Western country: “No First Nations case yet to this day has asked the question as to whether or not the loss of identity is an actionable wrong. Aboriginal title to property has been litigated, aboriginal title to identity has not,” he told the The Guardian.

The First Nations people make up approximately four percent of Canada’s population, at about 1.4 million people, and they suffer disproportionately from poverty, violence, addiction and crime.

Canada is not the only country where native children were taken away from their families. From 1910 to 1970, the Australian government collected Aboriginal children, who came to be called the Stolen Generations, and relocated them to schools and other institutions far from their communities. In 1978, the United States passed the Indian Child Welfare Act to curtail similar actions toward Native American children.

Manitoba was the first of Canada’s provinces to apologize for the scoop program, in 2015. The federal government has also announced plans to make a public apology.

Friday, November 3, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Don Valley West (Ward 25). Three candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include John Blair, Robertson Boyle, Tony Dickins, Cliff Jenkins (incumbent), and Peter Kapsalis.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.