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Saturday, June 6, 2009

35 children were killed and more than 40 were injured in a fire which roared through the ABC child care center in Hermosillo, Mexico on Friday afternoon. Among the injured were six adults, most who have yet to be identified. Over twenty other children have been hospitalized with burns. They have been transported to local hospitals and other medical facilities in the United States.

Neighbors, employees and firefighters broke walls to rescue unconscious children and babies from the fire in the converted warehouse building which was equipped with only one exit.

Three air ambulances, medical equipment and fifteen burn specialists were dispatched to the scene where children between the ages of six months and five years old perished from smoke inhalation. The majority of the injured and killed were under three years of age, said government officials.

Red Cross rescue workers say that 100 children were being cared for when the fire broke out. Sonora state Gov. Eduardo Bours confirmed that 142 children were in the child care center. Already, 27 of the 31 child fatalities have been identified, as parents continue to await news on their children.

Preliminary reports state that the fire may have started in the neighboring tire and car warehouse and spread to the childcare center. President of Mexico Felipe Calderón has placed the attorney general, Eduardo Medina-Mora in charge of the investigation into the cause of the blaze.

Mexico’s Social Security Institute also sent out resources to their privately run facility.

Hermosillo, population of over 700,000, is the capital of the Mexican state of Sonora 167 miles (269 km) from the American border.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Supporters of jailed priest Jean-Juste say that he needs medical treatment in the United States. His attourney, Bill Quigley, told reporters that the priest, who was considered a potential presidential candidate before his arrest and long detainment, may have cancer and should be released so that he can seek medical attention in the United States. A doctor, Dr. John Carroll, who examined Jean-Juste said that an abnormal white blood cell count, as well as swelling in his neck and under his arms could be early signs of cancer. The government of interim President Alenxandre said that their doctors have examined the priest as well and said no signs of cancer exist.

Jean-Juste has been in jail since July when he was arrested at a funeral of a popular Haitian journalist and poet. He was originally detained for questioning related to the murder but also allegations of illegal weapons possessions have been brought up. He’s yet to be charged in any crimes. The doctor who made the claim of possible cancer is a supporter of Jean-Juste and some might think that this is an exaggeration to allow Jean-Juste out of Haiti to plan his political future.

Monday, October 1, 2012

The Iranian Fars News Agency (FNA) yesterday apologised over an article it reproduced Friday, originally written by US satirical news website The Onion on Monday September 24. The parodic article reported “a Gallup poll” suggesting “the overwhelming majority of rural white Americans” would vote for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, instead of US President Barack Obama. The Onion article also said “77 percent of rural Caucasian voters” would prefer to drink beer with Ahmadinejad or attend a baseball game with him as opposed to Obama.

The FNA’s English service Editor-in-chief said the article had been “extracted” from The Onion and that FNA gives “our formal apologies for that mistake”, as well as pointing out the article was “taken down from our outlook in less two hours”.

However, the editor-in-chief also said “we do believe that if a free opinion poll is conducted in the US, a majority of Americans would prefer anyone outside the US political system to President Barack Obama and American statesmen”. He stressed that this belief does not constitute justification for the error.

In The Onion’s article, fictional West Virginia resident Dale Swiderski says about Ahmadinejad: “I like him better”. ‘Swiderski’ is also quoted by the Chicago, Illinois website as saying the Iranian President “takes national defense seriously, and he’d never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does.”

In Iran, homosexuality is a criminal offence which can carry a penalty of incarceration or capital punishment. Just over five years ago, when he participated in a debate at Columbia University in New York, New York, Ahmadinejad said: “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country”.

The FNA’s error made international headlines, including in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, and Australia. Will Tracy, editor of The Onion, said their website “freely shares content with Fars and commends the journalists at Iran’s Finest News Source on their superb reportage”, a humourous reference to The Onion’s slogan, ‘America’s Finest News Source’.

On the original web page on The Onion’s website, the satirical news organisation added a reference to “our Iranian subsidiary organization”, providing a link to a screenshot of the FNA’s page.

On the article page, in which The Onion was not attributed as a source, the FNA copied The Onion’s article verbatim and in its entirety, save for part of a sentence saying Ahmadinejad was “a man who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and has had numerous political prisoners executed”.

This is not the first time The Onion has caused the mistaken belief of their material being factual. In a November 2007 interview with Wikinews, The Onion’s Editorial Manager Chet Clem recounted an incident in which the Beijing Evening News reproduced a story from The Onion created in 2002, copied entirely verbatim, headlined “Congress threatens to leave DC unless new capitol is built”. When the error was highlighted to the Chinese newspaper, Clem said “their response was not to print a correction, but just to say that some newspapers in America make money by printing lies.” In a separate incident, Christians forwarded a story on the Internet from The Onion saying children were converting to Satanism as a result of reading the Harry Potter book series.

The FNA statement released yesterday went on to say “[a]ctive and well-known media occasionally make mistakes, and no media is an exception to this rule”, before going to provide a list of errors made by such publications as The New York Times and Beijing Evening News, as well as television broadcasters like the BBC, ITV, and CNN.

The bottom of the FNA’s statement introduces a list of notable BBC errors reported by The Daily Telegraph on December 6, 2010. While the FNA referenced The Daily Telegraph and the order of the mistakes was changed from the original article, the wording was reproduced verbatim, excluding one omitted sentence under the subheading ‘Nicky Campbell and hunting mark II’ which reads: “Campbell, who is also the presenter of the BBC’s flagship programme for Holy Week, apologised profusely for the mistake.”

According to BBC News Online, the FNA is associated with the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, an Iranian military branch.

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.

Monday, October 3, 2005

St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, a large organ transplantation center, reports that a low priority Saudi liver transplant patient received improper priority, and the actions were concealed.

Hospital President Gus Valdespino confirmed that hospital staff members falsified documents several times to cover up the maneuver, pretending that the transplant was for a patient who was near the top of the regional waiting list, when the Saudi patient was 52nd on the state’s liver transplant list.

Priority is believed to have been granted because the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia would pay 25% to 30% more for the operation than U.S. insurance companies would have paid. The medical community views giving preference to one patient for nonmedical reasons as “totally unconscionable,” according to Dr. Douglas Hanto, of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The National Organ Network permits a maximum of 5% of donated organs to go to foreign nations. According to records, St. Vincent provided about 8% of its organs to foreign nationals.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

A small aircraft struck an apartment building in New York this afternoon, killing the pilot and a flight instructor. Cory Lidle, a pitcher for the New York Yankees baseball team, was the registered owner of the aircraft and is believed to have been piloting it; his passport was found on the scene. The flight instructor was Tyler Stanger.

The plane, a Cirrus SR20 with registration number N929CD, hit the 26th floor of the Belaire Condominium, a 50 story brick luxury residential building on the Upper East Side at 524 East 72nd Street at York Avenue near the East River in Manhattan, New York City, of which the first 20 floors are a hospital. An eyewitness, present half a block from the building, reported that the plane hit the building, creating an enormous fireball, broke in two and crashed down onto on the street below. Authorities received a 911 call reporting a crash at 2:42 p.m. Eastern time.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a press conference at approximately 5:20 p.m. Eastern time to report that the plane was occupied by a flight instructor and a student pilot, but as next-of-kin had not been able to be notified, the identities of the two people on the plane would not be released at this time.

Apartments were seen to be engulfed in flames. The FBI has stated that it was not an intentional attack. The New York area was grey and overcast during the time at crash; however, visibility was not hampered.

After an hour and a half, the fire was extinguished by the FDNY. According to CNN Television ten people have been injured, six of them firefighters. The New York Times, however, reports that eleven firefighters have been injured.

Initial reports suggested that a helicopter was involved, but the FAA has stated that it was a fixed-wing aircraft. CNN Television reported that it was a single-engine fixed-wing plane which left Teterboro Airport, a busy General Aviation airport in New Jersey, circled the Statue of Liberty was tracked on radar until it was lost near the 59th Street Bridge, that the plane may have been having fuel problems or fuel pump problems, and that it was “a pilot in distress.”

Wallace Sines, a source for CNN stated he believes the plane was a Cirrus SR-20 with an installed parachute, which did not deploy. The whole-plane parachute system may have saved the lives of the aircraft occupants had it been safely deployed clear of buildings, but the system is not designed to prevent the trauma associated with a plane impacting a builing. The Cirrus SR-20 was introduced in 2001 and the Cirrus line of 4-seater aircraft has since become one of the most purchased single engine aircraft in the world. The SR-20 does not normally carry an airline-style flight-data recorder, but some are equipped with GPS equipment which logs flight direction, speed and altitude.

The aircraft was owned by baseball player Cory Lidle. He was on board reported by AP. Lidle was killed, according to reports. CNN Television reported that the FBI stated he was at the controls as the only occupant of the plane, and that his passport was found on the ground below the accident.

A little over an hour and a half after the crash, the fire was extinguished after 39 fire units and over 100 fire fighters responded.

The White House has said that there has been no change in the terror threat alert level and that President Bush is being updated constantly.

La Guardia airport was temporarily restricted to no take offs from other airports, however by 4:10 Eastern Time, CNN Television reported that all New York-area airports were open.

CNN Television announced at 3:50 p.m. Eastern Time that as of a few minutes earlier, NORAD is putting fighter aircraft on patrol over certain major American cities as a precautionary measure similar to the actions taken after the 9/11 attacks as a “just in case” measure. It also reported that tomorrow is the 6th anniversary of the attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen.

Moments after the crash, there was a drop in the New York Stock Exchange, however it quickly returned to normal after it was reported that the crash was an accident.

The New York Yankees organization confirmed the plane is registered to Cory Lidle of the New York Yankees, who was planning to fly from New York to Florida, and that some unnamed member of the Yankees organization was on the plane.

One eye-witness interviewed by the BBC stated: “I was wondering why the plane was doing acrobatics and then the next thing I knew was that it had crashed into the building.”She also added that the plane was a small, white, 4-seater winged aircraft and not a helicopter as many news agencies were reporting it to be.

CNN Television broadcast reports from eyewitnesses who reported:

• A pilot who saw the impact stated, “It looked like a pilot who was desperately trying to get to an airport.”
• Another eyewitness who saw the event from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, also referred to the incident as appearing as if the plane was “desperately trying to get to LaGuardia” and that as to whether he “clipped” the building, or struck it directly, that “he hit it dead on.”
• “I heard a buzzing noise and then an explosion which looked like a mushroom cloud.”

Friday, March 11, 2011

Japan’s government has declared its first ever “nuclear emergency” after pressure rises in the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, combined with a minor radiation leak, caused a 10 km radius around the plant to be evacuated. An attempt to relieve the pressure inside the containment vessels of the plant has been delayed.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company’s 40-year old nuclear facility, 270 km NE of Tokyo, reported mechanical difficulties with its cooling system, although the automated shutdown systems worked correctly. With the core reaction shut down the plant is no longer actively generating heat, but the fuel rods continue to generate excess heat and radiation and need constant cooling.

The cooling system runs a constant flow of water to take the heat away from the submerged fuel rods, but the pumping system requires electricity to operate even after the plant is no longer producing electricity itself—generally from back-up diesel or natural gas generators.