rusgames.net

Friday, September 11, 2009

A 19 year old from South Tyneside, England has been banned from looking after animals after stealing a cat and forcing it to inhale cannabis.

Mark Kane, from South Shields, England, was banned from looking after animals for 10 years after causing “unnecessary suffering” to a tabby cat in January 2009. Kane was originally sentenced to three months in jail which was suspended two years. Kane also has to pay £100 (US$167) in fines.

Kane had stolen the cat from a friend of his girlfriend. A mobile phone camera recorded the incident and showed Kane putting the cat into a bag, inhaling some cannabis and blowing it into the bag. He then swung the bag around his head in a similar fashion to a lasso. The cat survived the attack but it ran off afterwards and has yet to have been found. During the video Kane is quoted as saying “This cat is getting stoned off its head” and “Get it stoned to fuck”.

Kane was prosecuted by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in a court in South Shields. He was found guilty and sentenced to twelve weeks in prison, two years suspension and a ten year ban from looking after animals as well as being ordered to pay £100 costs. In a previous court hearing, Kane had also admitted two counts of cruelty to animals.

Chairman of the Bench Ken Buck said, “We do think the charges of animal cruelty are appalling in nature and caused real stress and unnecessary suffering to a domestic pet which was in your care.” Clive McKeag, who was prosecuting Kane on behalf of the RSPCA described the attack as “sadistic and wicked” and stated: “This was a vile offence.”

In regards to the case, RSPCA inspector Claire Hunt said, “He thought it was a funny thing to do to a defenseless animal.” Claire also stated that she was happy with Kane’s sentencing saying, “It deters people from doing the same thing.”

Friday, June 1, 2007

U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton has been asking webizens to vote on her official campaign song. Campaign Manager Patti Solis Doyle sent an email today to previous voters, urging them to choose a song in the second and final round of voting.

Clinton, as many of the other candidates, have been using “Web 2.0” applications like YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, and blogs to try and engage young voters.

The top five songs in Round One were “Suddenly I See” by KT Tunstall, “Rock This Country!” by Shania Twain, “Beautiful Day” by U2, “Get Ready” by The Temptations, and “I’m a Believer” by Smash Mouth. Five top write-ins were also added to the list of round 2 nominees: “Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz, “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” by McFadden & Whitehead, “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police, “You and I” by Celine Dion, and “The Best” by Tina Turner.

Many of the nominated songs are from international artists; Tunstall is Scottish, Twain is Canadian, and U2 are Irish.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

This weekend saw the opening of two new exhibitions at Edinburgh’s National Gallery of Modern Art. Wikinews attended Thursday’s press preview for the event where a full contingent of the capital’s press turned out to see the striking collection of paintings, photographs, and other works. Presented below are a selection of images captured at the preview.

REFLECTIONS: A Series of Changing Displays of Contemporary Art, billed as a showcase of a “diverse range of internationally-renowned contemporary and modern artists” is to display major works from the Gallery’s permanent collection, alongside important loans. Alongside this broad range of works, a three-room display of pieces on-loan from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation — with a dramatic painted steel relief, ‘borrowed’ from the Tate in London — runs from March 14 through to January 10 next year.

Admission to both exhibitions is free; being located in Dean, to the north-west of Edinburgh’s city centre, a free Gallery bus service is available.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

David S. Touretzky, prominent free speech activist and critic of Scientology, discussed his opinions on the recent Internet backlash against the Church of Scientology in an interview with former Scientologist and Wikinews reporter Nicholas Turnbull. The recent conflict on the Internet between critics of Scientology and the Church has been spurred on in declarations by a nebulous Internet entity using the name Anonymous that the Church of Scientology “will be destroyed”. Anonymous has directed recent protests at Scientology centres across the world, which have attracted significant numbers of individuals supporting the cause. In recent e-mail correspondence with Wikinews, a representative of the Church of Scientology declared that the Church considers the activities of Anonymous to be illegal, and that Anonymous “will be handled and stopped”.

Touretzky, a research professor in artificial intelligence and computational neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University, has been a prominent critic of the Church of Scientology since mid-1995, and has been protesting against Scientology vociferously since then; he has also run websites that publish material that Scientology wishes to keep suppressed from the public eye, such as extracts from Scientology’s formerly-confidential Operating Thetan (OT) materials. Touretzky views the actions of the Church of Scientology as being “a threat to free speech”, and has endured harassment by the Church of Scientology for his activities.

The Church of Scientology continues to suffer damage to its public reputation through increased exposure on the Internet and vocal protests by Scientology critics such as Prof. Touretzky. A recent event that focused intense attention on Scientology’s totalitarian attitude was the leak of an internal Church of Scientology propaganda video to the Internet video sharing site YouTube, in which celebrity Scientologist Tom Cruise spoke heavily in Scientology’s jargon and stated that that “we [Scientology] are the authorities” on resolving the difficulties of humanity. The declaration of war by Anonymous followed shortly after this leak, in the form of a video posted to the Internet.

The ongoing dispute, cast by some as Scientology versus the Internet, brought Scientology terms such as “SP” (Suppressive Person, an enemy of Scientology) and “KSW” (Keeping Scientology Working) into general usage by non-Scientologists from the late 1990s onwards; increased attention has been drawn to Scientology by the release of the Cruise video in addition to media coverage. This focus has caused an even greater propagation of these terms across the outside world, as Touretzky comments in the interview.

Wikinews asked Prof. Touretzky about the impact that the activities of Anonymous will have on Scientology, the public relations effect of the Tom Cruise video, the recent departure of individuals from the Church of Scientology’s executive management, the strategies that Anonymous will employ and Touretzky’s experiences of picketing the Church.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Al Jazeera marks its tenth birthday by launching Al Jazeera English on cable, satellite, on broadband, IPTV, ADSL, terrestrial and mobile phone platforms in Western Europe, the Middle East, Australia, Malaysia and there will be a live stream to the one billion users of the Internet worldwide. Cable providers will take the signals to 40 million subscriber. This, claims Al Jazeera, is a unique event in terms of the scale of audience already available at the time of launch. Sky, a leading satellite broadcaster will distribute Al Jazeera English.

At the same time, Al Jazeera’s English website, aljazeera.net/English, will have a new look and will provide live streams of the TV channel, RSS feeds, e-mail, newsletters and interactive discussion boards and will allow everyone to “express their opinion freely, encouraging debates, viewpoints and counter viewpoints”. Notably, aljazeera.com is an unrelated website publishing inflammatory opinion articles about Middle East issues.

Al Jazeera claims to be impartial and says that its team of journalists “share a common set of attributes: objectivity, accuracy, and a passion for truth”. It is supported by the Emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani who enabled it to start up with a grant of $150M and it is said to receive $30m annually from him.

Nigel Parson, al-Jazeera International’s British managing director, said he intended to bring home to British viewers what was being done in their name. He would not hesitate to show dead soldiers in “long shots” and with “pixilated faces”, even before their next of kin had been told. The Telegraph reports reactions of two opposition defence spokesmen: “a promotion of brutality” and “grotesque” said a Tory and “banning such material could result in the public getting a sanitised, cleaned-up version of those realities” voiced by a Liberal Democrat. The Ministry of Defence is reported as saying that the public had a right to know what goes on in operational theatres, but expected media to report with “consideration of the welfare of service families”.

The London office has contributors from the BBC including Sir David Frost, Rageh Omaar and Darren Jordon, and from ITN, Shiulie Ghosh.

Al Jazeera is often criticised in the West. On one occasion its offices were bombed by the U.S., when on 13 November 2001, a U.S. missile hit Al Jazeera’s office in Kabul, Afghanistan. On 8 April 2003 a U.S. missile hit a generator near the Baghdad office and the subsequent fire killed a reporter. In Spain, Al Jazeera reporter Taysir Allouni was sentenced to seven years for being a financial courier for al-Qaeda. He claims that his only association with that group was an interview with bin Laden after 9/11.

Friday, August 25, 2006

An 8th case of mad cow disease was found in a cow in the province of Alberta. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency did a test and found BSE. The agency found no part of the beef cow’s carcass entered either the human or animal feed chains. The CFIA said that, “the cow could have likely lived another 6 months or so, but died of complications of mastitis”.

“The animal’s age is between eight and 10 years”, said the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The CFIA also traced 172 animals would likely ate feed out of that load.

“The cow’s exposure to BSE likely occurred before or during the introduction of new feed regulations in 1997 prohibiting use of cattle parts susceptible to the disease in certain animal feeds”, A release said yesterday.

An investigation is already underway to find the animal’s birth farm and potential sources of contaminated feed.

The United States has delayed lifting a ban on older cattle imports from Canada, pending investigation.