Saturday, October 6, 2007

Torbjorn Zetterlund is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the Willowdale 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.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

A team of eight transplant surgeons in Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA, led by reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow, age 58, have successfully performed the first almost total face transplant in the US, and the fourth globally, on a woman so horribly disfigured due to trauma, that cost her an eye. Two weeks ago Dr. Siemionow, in a 23-hour marathon surgery, replaced 80 percent of her face, by transplanting or grafting bone, nerve, blood vessels, muscles and skin harvested from a female donor’s cadaver.

The Clinic surgeons, in Wednesday’s news conference, described the details of the transplant but upon request, the team did not publish her name, age and cause of injury nor the donor’s identity. The patient’s family desired the reason for her transplant to remain confidential. The Los Angeles Times reported that the patient “had no upper jaw, nose, cheeks or lower eyelids and was unable to eat, talk, smile, smell or breathe on her own.” The clinic’s dermatology and plastic surgery chair, Francis Papay, described the nine hours phase of the procedure: “We transferred the skin, all the facial muscles in the upper face and mid-face, the upper lip, all of the nose, most of the sinuses around the nose, the upper jaw including the teeth, the facial nerve.” Thereafter, another team spent three hours sewing the woman’s blood vessels to that of the donor’s face to restore blood circulation, making the graft a success.

The New York Times reported that “three partial face transplants have been performed since 2005, two in France and one in China, all using facial tissue from a dead donor with permission from their families.” “Only the forehead, upper eyelids, lower lip, lower teeth and jaw are hers, the rest of her face comes from a cadaver; she could not eat on her own or breathe without a hole in her windpipe. About 77 square inches of tissue were transplanted from the donor,” it further described the details of the medical marvel. The patient, however, must take lifetime immunosuppressive drugs, also called antirejection drugs, which do not guarantee success. The transplant team said that in case of failure, it would replace the part with a skin graft taken from her own body.

Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a Brigham and Women’s Hospital surgeon praised the recent medical development. “There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.

Leading bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania withheld judgment on the Cleveland transplant amid grave concerns on the post-operation results. “The biggest ethical problem is dealing with failure — if your face rejects. It would be a living hell. If your face is falling off and you can’t eat and you can’t breathe and you’re suffering in a terrible manner that can’t be reversed, you need to put on the table assistance in dying. There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.

Dr Alex Clarke, of the Royal Free Hospital had praised the Clinic for its contribution to medicine. “It is a real step forward for people who have severe disfigurement and this operation has been done by a team who have really prepared and worked towards this for a number of years. These transplants have proven that the technical difficulties can be overcome and psychologically the patients are doing well. They have all have reacted positively and have begun to do things they were not able to before. All the things people thought were barriers to this kind of operations have been overcome,” she said.

The first partial face transplant surgery on a living human was performed on Isabelle Dinoire on November 27 2005, when she was 38, by Professor Bernard Devauchelle, assisted by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard in Amiens, France. Her Labrador dog mauled her in May 2005. A triangle of face tissue including the nose and mouth was taken from a brain-dead female donor and grafted onto the patient. Scientists elsewhere have performed scalp and ear transplants. However, the claim is the first for a mouth and nose transplant. Experts say the mouth and nose are the most difficult parts of the face to transplant.

In 2004, the same Cleveland Clinic, became the first institution to approve this surgery and test it on cadavers. In October 2006, surgeon Peter Butler at London‘s Royal Free Hospital in the UK was given permission by the NHS ethics board to carry out a full face transplant. His team will select four adult patients (children cannot be selected due to concerns over consent), with operations being carried out at six month intervals. In March 2008, the treatment of 30-year-old neurofibromatosis victim Pascal Coler of France ended after having received what his doctors call the worlds first successful full face transplant.

Ethical concerns, psychological impact, problems relating to immunosuppression and consequences of technical failure have prevented teams from performing face transplant operations in the past, even though it has been technically possible to carry out such procedures for years.

Mr Iain Hutchison, of Barts and the London Hospital, warned of several problems with face transplants, such as blood vessels in the donated tissue clotting and immunosuppressants failing or increasing the patient’s risk of cancer. He also pointed out ethical issues with the fact that the procedure requires a “beating heart donor”. The transplant is carried out while the donor is brain dead, but still alive by use of a ventilator.

According to Stephen Wigmore, chair of British Transplantation Society’s ethics committee, it is unknown to what extent facial expressions will function in the long term. He said that it is not certain whether a patient could be left worse off in the case of a face transplant failing.

Mr Michael Earley, a member of the Royal College of Surgeon‘s facial transplantation working party, commented that if successful, the transplant would be “a major breakthrough in facial reconstruction” and “a major step forward for the facially disfigured.”

In Wednesday’s conference, Siemionow said “we know that there are so many patients there in their homes where they are hiding from society because they are afraid to walk to the grocery stores, they are afraid to go the the street.” “Our patient was called names and was humiliated. We very much hope that for this very special group of patients there is a hope that someday they will be able to go comfortably from their houses and enjoy the things we take for granted,” she added.

In response to the medical breakthrough, a British medical group led by Royal Free Hospital’s lead surgeon Dr Peter Butler, said they will finish the world’s first full face transplant within a year. “We hope to make an announcement about a full-face operation in the next 12 months. This latest operation shows how facial transplantation can help a particular group of the most severely facially injured people. These are people who would otherwise live a terrible twilight life, shut away from public gaze,” he said.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

The Metropolitan Police — the police force for the Greater London area — has announced they may sell their headquarters, New Scotland Yard, in order to cut costs.

They are trying to reduce their £3.6 billion annual budget by £500 million, following cuts by the coalition government. If the sale of New Scotland Yard goes ahead, the Metropolitan Police would move to a new location on the Embankment in the Curtis Green building, formerly the site of Cannon Row Police Station.

Other proposals have been raised including selling off other property assets and closing police counters during off-peak hours, but officer numbers are to be maintained.

New Scotland Yard famously has a three-sided rotating sign that turns 14,000 times per day. John Tully, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents the interests of police officers, said it is “regrettable” that an “iconic building like New Scotland Yard is going to bite the dust”. Tully also noted there will be relocation costs.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

A judge has ruled today that Nigeria‘s 2007 election results, which saw Umaru Yar’Adua’s become president, will not be annulled. Opposition parties claimed that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), of which the President is leader, fixed the results of the 2007 election in his favour and called for a re-run.

The tribunal ruled unanimously against the claims, with Judge Abdulkadir Abubakar Jega stating that there was no evidence that Mr. Yar’Adua had rigged the polls. Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar, leaders of the two opposition parties who launched the case, have both said they will take their complaints to the Supreme Court.

International suspicions were also raised at the time of the election, with some voicing concern over the politcal process.

The ruling could have negative impacts – it could be seen as an admittance of a ‘false democracy’ occurring in the last election and therefore undermining the political process in Nigeria. This could cause instability between political rivals and may spark protests.

Yar’Adua assumed office on 29th May 2007 after the election in April, where he won 70% of the vote. Since then, he has became the first Nigerian leader to declare his personal assets, as well as overturning hikes in petroleum and tax made by the previous government. Despite these positive steps, he has also been surrounded by controversy, with several governors who served him before 2007 being charged by the EFCC, the anti-corruption commission.

Election annulments have been passed for seven of thirty-six state governors and even the senate president, David Mark.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

The controversial plan to raise university tuition fees in England and Wales will be voted on in the House of Commons on Thursday, December 9. The policy has been the cause of protests across the United Kingdom by students, some of which have turned violent. It has also been a source of considerable criticism and political difficulties for the Liberal Democrats and has raised questions as to the long-term viability of the Coalition government.

The new policy on tuition fees will allow universities to double the current tuition fees from £3,290 per year to around £6,000 per year, as well as allowing some universities to get special approval from the Office For Fair Access (OFFA) to raise their fees to £9,000 per year. If passed, the new fee structure will apply starting in the academic year of 2012/2013. The vote on Thursday will only be on the fee rise, with other matters being voted on in the new year following publication of a new higher education white paper.

In addition to increasing fees, the policy will increase the payment threshold at which payment is made. It is currently set at £15,000 and will rise to £21,000, but the interest rate will also rise. It is currently 1.5% but will now vary from between 0% and 3% plus inflation (using the Retail Price Index).

The fee increase follows the publication of an independent review by Lord Browne, former chief executive of BP, a process started by Peter Mandelson, the former Business Secretary. Before the election, two main options were mooted for funding reform in higher education: either an increase in tuition fees or a graduate tax. The Browne Review endorsed the former and the findings of the Review form the basis of the government’s policy. The graduate tax was supported by the Liberal Democrats before the election, and in the Labour leadership elections it was supported by Ed Balls and the winner of the leadership election, Ed Milliband.

Conservative members of the Coalition intend to vote for the reform, and the Labour opposition have been vociferous critics of the rise in fees, despite the previous government’s introduction of top-up fees. The Liberal Democratic members of the Coalition have been left in a politically difficult position regarding the fee hike and have been target of much criticism from protesters. Liberal Democrats have opposed the rise in tuition fees: their party manifesto included a commitment to ending tuition fees within six years, and many signed a pledge organised by the National Union of Students to not vote for any increase in tuition fees.

The Coalition agreement allows Liberal Democrats to opt to abstain on votes for a number of policies including tuition fees. Many Liberal Democrats are expected to abstain, and a few MPs have stated that they will vote against it including former party leader Sir Menzies Campbell, and the recently elected party president Tim Farron, as well as a number of Liberal Democrat back-benchers. Liberal Democrat party leaders have said that they will act collectively, but the BBC have said senior Liberal Democrats have admitted in private that government whips will not be able to force all Liberal Democrats to vote for the policy.

On Tuesday, the Liberal Democrats parliamentary party will meet in the Commons to decide on their collective position. If all ministers decide to vote for the policy, it will probably pass, but if only cabinet ministers (and maybe parliamentary private secretaries) vote for the policy, there is considerable risk of it not passing. If the Coalition does not manage to get the policy through Parliament, it will fuel doubts about the continued effectiveness and viability of the government.

How deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and business secretary Vince Cable vote has been of considerable controversy. Although under the Coalition agreement, they are allowed to abstain, suggestions of doing so have prompted criticism. It was suggested last week that Cable may abstain even though as business secretary he is directly responsible for higher education policy, and has been heavily involved in designing the proposals. Cable has said that Liberal Democrat support of the tuition fee changes has allowed them to push it in a more “progressive” direction.

Cable has now decided that he will vote for the policy, and argues that the policy has “a lot of protection for students from low income backgrounds and graduates who have a low income or take time out for family”. He also believes “there’s common consensus that the system we’ve devised is a progressive one”.

“Dr Cable has performed so many U-turns over the issue of university funding that he is spinning on his heels,” said National Union of Students president Aaron Porter. “That may stand him in good stead with the Strictly Come Dancing judges but the electorate will see it differently.”

Former deputy prime minister John Prescott joked on Twitter that “On tuition fees we’ve noticed Vince Cable’s remarkable transformation in the last few weeks from stalling to Mr In Between”—a reference to a previous attack Prescott made on Gordon Brown as having transformed from “Stalin to Mr Bean”.

On Question Time this week, Liberal Democrat treasury secretary Danny Alexander also confirmed he is prepared to vote for the policy but delegated the question to the meeting of Liberal Democrats on Tuesday.

The politics of the tuition fee debate may also affect the by-election taking place in Oldham East and Saddleworth following the removal of Phil Woolas, where Liberal Democrat and Conservative candidates will both be standing for the first by-election following the formation of the Coalition government.

Opposition to the policy has become the focus for a large number of protests across the country by both current university students, many school pupils and political allies of the student movement.

On November 10, between 30,000 and 52,000 protesters from across Britain marched through central London in a demonstration organised by the National Union of Students and the University and College Union, which represents teachers and lecturers in further and higher education. At the November 10 protest, a number of people occupied Millbank Tower, an office block which houses the Conservative Party. Fifty people were arrested and fourteen were injured. NUS president Aaron Porter condemned the attack and said it was caused by “those who are here to cause trouble”, and that the actions of a “minority of idiots” shouldn’t “undermine 50,000 who came to make a peaceful protest”.

Following the November 10 march, other protests have taken place across the country including an occupation at the University of Manchester, a sit-in at the John Owens Building in Manchester, and a demonstration at the University of Cambridge. A protest was also run outside the offices of The Guardian where Nick Clegg—who was giving a lecture inside the building—was executed in effigy while students protested “Nick Clegg, shame on you, shame on you for turning blue” (blue is the colour of the Conservative Party).

On November 24, a large number of protests took place across the country including a mass walk-out from universities and schools organised on Facebook, numerous university occupations, and demonstrations in Manchester, Cambridge, Birmingham, Leeds, Brighton and Cardiff, and a well-publicised occupation of University College London.

In London, a protest was planned to march down Whitehall to Parliament, but police held protesters in Trafalgar Square until they eventually broke free and ran around in a game of “cat and mouse” along the side streets around Charing Cross Road, Covent Garden and Picadilly Circus.

Simon Hardy from the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts described the police response including the controversial ‘kettling’ of protesters as “absolutely outrageous”. Green MP Caroline Lucas raised the police response including the use of kettling in the House of Commons and stated that it was “neither proportionate, nor, indeed, effective”.

On November 30, protests continued in London culminating in 146 arrests of protesters in Trafalgar Square, and protests in Cardiff, Cambridge, Newcastle, Bath, Leeds, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Belfast, Brighton, Manchester and Bristol. Protesters in Sheffield attempted to invade and occupy Nick Clegg’s constituency office. Occupations of university buildings started or continued at University College London, Newcastle University, Cambridge University and Nottingham University, as well as council buildings in Oxford and Birmingham.

A “day of action” is being planned on December 8, the day before the Commons vote, by the National Union of Students.

Saturday, March 18, 2006The judge in the U.S. federal death penalty trial against Zacarias Moussaoui ruled on Friday that prosecutors can seek replacement witnesses for seven Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees whose testimony was tainted, and therefore disallowed because of pre-trial coaching by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) lawyer.

The 18-member jury (6 alternates) were sent home for a week while the court dealt with the revelation that government aviation security witness had been contacted prior to the trial by TSA lawyer Carla J. Martin, to help prepare their testimony in the case.

Martin, aged 51, is accused of misconduct by sending prosecution witnesses e-mail that included trial transcripts of another related case along with observations of her own that pertained to the Moussaoui case, including suggestions and talking points. She was recently suspended with pay by the TSA and retained Roscoe Howard to act as legal council in the face of legal actions that might arise against her.

Judge Leonie M. Brinkema initially ruled to prevent testimony from any aviation employees, but reversed her decision after the prosecution argued they would have little case left if their testimony remained inadmissible. FAA employee testimony is expected to take the form of what measures would have been taken by the agency to prevent against the September 11, 2001 airliner attacks in New York City and Washington D.C. if Moussaoui had warned officials of the plan prior to the strikes.

The connection to the Carla Martin involvement in the case was discovered in a separate trial involving liability law suits against two U.S. airline companies for losses as a result of the attacks. Family member lawyers of flight attendants drew attention to contacts by Martin to persons involved in the case.

The jury will return Monday for the trial’s resumption.

A U.S. federal public defender appointed to Moussaoui argued for the jury to spare his life during opening statements on Monday, March 6, in the trial that will determine his fate — either life in prison or death by lethal injection.

Defense attorney Edward B. MacMahon said that Moussaoui “aspires to martyrdom,” and called on jurors to deny the Al-Qaeda operative his wish to die. A wish that would result in him becoming “a smiling face on a recruiting poster for Osama bin Laden,” MacMahon said.

Moussaoui is believed by some to be the missing member in the team of 19 other attackers that carried out the suicide airliner strikes in New York City and Washington D.C. Arrested in Minnesota on immigration charges three weeks prior to the attacks, Moussaoui could have warned officials of the pending attacks, but failed to do so, argued Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Spencer for the prosecution in opening statements.

The second day of the trial both Moussaoui and juror’s attention was riveted as a federal prosecutor read a radio transmission account of the exchange between a flight attendant on Flight 11 and ground controllers.

“We are flying low. We are flying very very low. We are flying way too low,” Amy Sweeney told controllers, according to an Associated Press report. The plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center at 8:44 a.m. after she said, “Oh my God, we are way too low!”

Moussaoui has claimed that he had no involvement with the 9/11 attacks when he pleaded guilty to:

1. conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries
2. conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy
3. conspiracy to destroy aircraft
4. conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction
5. conspiracy to murder United States employees
6. conspiracy to destroy property

He said that he was to play a role in another future attack on the White House using an aircraft. Four of the conspiracy charges each carry a maximum penalty of death.

Family members of the nearly 3,000 killed in the attacks were able to watch the Alexandria, Virginia courtroom proceedings by closed-circuit television in six U.S. cities: New York, Boston, Central Islip, N.Y., Newark, N.J., and Philadelphia.

Moussaoui has a history of disrupting previous trial proceedings with outbursts. He has disavowed his lawyers, and mostly ignored his mother who was present during the opening days of the trial because she had spoken to his defense lawyers.

Upon leaving the Tuesday, March 7 court session for a recess, Moussaoui pumped his right fist in the air and shouted, “Allah Akbar! God curse America! Bless Osama bin Laden!”

The outbursts have been timed to occur outside the earshot of Judge Brinkema and the jury as those persons filed out of the courtroom for recesses.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April last year to the conspiracy charges. Evidence linking him to the plot was discovered when his duffel bags were searched after the attacks.