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Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Robert Penny, 83, yesterday was charged with the murder of his wife Margaret Penny and hairdresser Claire Acocks, twenty four years after their deaths at the Old London Coiffure hair salon in Portland, Victoria in Australia.

Mr Penny was charged by homicide detectives after a revived investigation found Penny had disclosed details of the women’s deaths to various people, that he could only have known firsthand. He allegedly told Mrs Acocks’s husband the morning after her death that she was killed with a comb, and “died very quickly”; police found no weapon at the scene in 1991.

The prosecution also alleges Mr Penny revealed details of the murders in phone calls to both his son and daughter in the hours following the attack, again referring to the use of a tail-comb as the weapon. Investigators at the time initially believed there may have been two weapons, and Homicide Detective Senior Constable Tom Hogan told the court “it would have been impossible for him or any of the police to understand the ­nature of the injuries” before an autopsy was carried out.

The court also heard evidence of a covertly recorded phone conversation between Mr Penny and his granddaughter in February 2014, in which he said “Would a hitman pick up a comb and kill two women?”.

Mr Penny was released on bail due to poor health, under conditions including surrender of his passport. He is due to face court again in July.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

The Voice of America (VOA) marked its 65th anniversary Saturday amid plans to cancel radio broadcasts to many countries where press freedom is under attack. These program cuts are resisted by many former and current VOA journalists who see them as a dangerous departure from VOA’s mission to support press freedom worldwide. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) – a bipartisan body managing VOA and other U.S. international broadcasts – plans to expand news coverage to the Middle East, North Korea and Latin America by eliminating or reducing programs to Russia, Tibet, China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and a number of other media-at-risk countries. Acting with apparent approval from the White House, the BBG also want to eliminate VOA’s flagship English radio broadcast News Now.

Former and current VOA journalists who have criticized the BBG’s plans as a betrayal of VOA’s support for media freedom are circulating two online petitions asking the U.S. Congress to stop the proposed program cuts.

One of the petitions specifically opposes the planned elimination of VOA Uzbek radio broadcasts by pointing out that Uzbekistan’s ruler Islam Karimov has effectively silenced political opposition and eliminated or forced underground nearly all independent media outlets.

This is the second time the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) – bipartisan body in charge of U.S. international broadcasts – is trying to eliminate VOA radio programs to Uzbekistan. The BBG had stopped VOA Uzbek radio programs once before, in August 2004, but the pressure from the U.S. Congress and human rights groups forced the BBG to resume them in June 2005.

This year the BBG is again trying to end VOA radio presence in Uzbekistan and in a number of other countries. In addition to VOA Uzbek radio programs, the BBG is planning to eliminate or reduce U.S. taxpayer-funded broadcasts to Kazakhstan, Russia, Tibet and China — countries whose regimes were declared by the Paris-based nongovernmental organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) as major violators of media freedom and freedom of expression. Uzbekistan’s leader Islam Karimov, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Kazakhstan’s authoritarian ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev and China’s leader Hu Jintao have been all called by Reporters Without Borders “Predators of Press Freedom.”

The second online petition initiated by a former VOA Associate Director Ted Lipien focuses on the BBG plans to eliminate VOA Russian radio broadcasts. The petition asks the U.S. Congress to reject the proposed cuts and demand from the White House and the BBG a consistent U.S. international broadcasting strategy in support of freedom.

FreeMediaOnline.org, a California-based nonprofit group founded to support freedom of the press worldwide, described these proposed cuts and reductions in U.S. international broadcasting as nothing less than a “gift to dictators and suppressors of press freedom.” FreeMediaOnline.org believes that “this lack of consistency sends a terrible signal to defenders of freedom and courageous journalists around the world. Some of them, like independent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, paid with their lives for exposing human rights violations. To make their voices heard, they have relied on VOA Russian radio programs which the White House and the BBG plan to eliminate.”

According to the BBG, some program cuts are necessary to fund expansion of U.S. broadcasts to Iran and to other major Muslim countries and regions. Critics such as FreeMediaOnline.org activists have pointed out, however, that there are many other noncritical programs within the U.S. international broadcasting bureaucracy controlled by the BBG. They maintain that reducing these support programs instead could easily pay for new programming to the Middle East and for the much needed enhancement and modernization of programs and program delivery to countries like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and China.

VOA first broadcast on shortwave to Nazi Germany February 24, 1942, just weeks after the United States entered World War Two. In that broadcast, news announcer William Harlan Hale told listeners, “The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall tell you the truth.”

VOA Director Dan Austin says although the technology of broadcasting may have changed in the intervening years, the Voice of America’s adherence to its core mission remains the same. He says the agency will continue to honestly and accurately report the news. Austin did not address the issue of the program cuts demanded by the BBG and how they might affect VOA’s mission. He was appointed to his position as VOA Director by the BBG.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Police in the Australian state of New South Wales have reported that they pulled over a 10 year-old child driving his grandmother’s car along the Newell Highway in North-Western NSW on Sunday.

According to police, they received numerous calls around 12:30 p.m. AEST on Sunday from truck drivers who were concerned that two children appeared to be alone in a red Holden Commodore station wagon, one of which was driving along the busy highway. The Newell Highway is the primary road transport route between Melbourne and Brisbane.

Moree police dispatched a highway patrol unit that located the vehicle 35 km North of Moree.

When signalled by police, the 10-year-old driver pulled over and got out of the vehicle with his six-year-old brother to speak to police. They told police that they were with their grandmother in Boggabilla when they decided to visit their grandfather in Moree, 120 km South. The children said they had taken their grandmother’s car to make the trip. When pulled over by police, they had travelled around 85 km.

Sergeant Matt Clifford said “They appeared to be driving normally … certainly better than probably some other people on that road”.

Police drove the vehicle to the children’s grandparents’ home in Moree where the children were returned to their grandparents.

Friday, February 8, 2008

The Nebraska Supreme Court has banned the use of the electric chair in the execution of murderers. The court found that the application violated the Nebraska constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Since July 2002, Nebraska has been the only state in the United States to use electrocution as its only executional method.

The case developed from death sentence of Raymond Mata Jr., who was convicted in the murder of three-year-old Adam Gomez. Mata’s sentence was upheld by the court but stayed it stating that when petitioning for a date, the state should establish that it has a “constitutionally acceptable method of carrying out Mata’s sentence.” With this ban, no states retain electrocution as their primary means of execution; many other states retain it as an option if their primary methods are declared illegal or the condemned chooses them.

Monday, November 26, 2007

In the 18 months since Andrea Muizelaar was crowned winner of the reality TV series Canada’s Next Top Model, her life has been a complete whirlwind. From working in a dollar store in her hometown of Whitby, Ontario, to modeling haute couture in Toronto, she had reached her dream of becoming a true Top Model.

But at what cost? Unknown to casual television viewers, Muizelaar had been enveloped in the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, which inevitably became too much for her to bear. She gave up modeling and moved back to Whitby, where she sought treatment for her disorder, re-entered college, and now works at a bank. Where is she now? Happy and healthy, she says.

Recently Andrea Muizelaar sat down with Wikinews reporter Mike Halterman in a candid interview that stretched to nearly two hours, as she told all about her hopes and aspirations, her battle with anorexia, and just what really happened on Canada’s Next Top Model.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

The United Nations Security Council has announced that it intends to send up to 3,085 more peacekeeping troops to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, despite a commitment from rebel forces to reduce their fighting.

The UN stated that the troops will be deployed immediately, and kept in the Congo for at least the rest of 2008.

Depending on the security situation in the country, the troops may be kept in the country past the end of this year.

The move was made as part of UN Security Council Resolution 1843, and was recommended by the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.

The resolution states that this “temporary increase in personnel aims at enabling MONUC to reinforce its capacity to protect civilians, to reconfigure its structure and forces and to optimize their deployment.”

The resolution also made some other comments in relation to the Congo. The resolution also aimed to work at “reiterating its condemnation of the resurgence of violence in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and demanding all parties to immediately respect a ceasefire.”

The document also welcomed “the appointment of former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo by the Secretary-General as his Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region.

Sunday, July 10, 2016

On Thursday, five police officers were killed and seven were injured after a sniper attacked a public protest march in downtown Dallas, Texas. Sources indicate at least three other people were taken into custody for questioning relating to the attack. The march was held to protest the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota during engagements with police officers.

Police identified 25-year-old Micah Johnson as the suspect. Johnson had previously served in the US army, and police reported he said he wanted to exact revenge upon police officers after news of Sterling and Castile’s deaths. Ammunition and weapons were found inside Johnson’s home. Dallas Police reported the policemen were shot at from a height. Officials said two civilians were also injured in the attack.

Micah Johnson served for the United States Army Reserve from 2009 until early 2015, including a tour of Afghanistan. Johnson had no criminal record. His attack was reported to be a lone mission.

After the attack earlier on Thursday, police killed Micah Johnson in El Centro College’s parking lot by a bomb explosion.

Hillary Clinton, 2016 United States presidential election candidate and favorite for the Democratic nomination this July, said, “There is too much violence, too much hate, too much senseless killing, too many people dead who shouldn’t be. No-one has all the answers. We have to find them together.”

After Johnson was killed, Mike Rawlings, Dallas’ mayor, said “We believe now the city is safe”.