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Friday, October 10, 2008

In an attempt to speak with as many candidates as possible during the 2008 Canadian federal election, Wikinews has talked via email with David Sparrow. Sparrow is a candidate in Ontario’s Don Valley West riding, running under the New Democratic Party (NDP) banner. The riding was set to vote in a by-election on September 22, 2008, following the resignation of John Godfrey, but Stephen Harper’s sudden election call nulled that effort.

Also running in the Toronto riding are Liberal Rob Oliphant, Conservative John Carmichael, Green Georgina Wilcock, and Communist Catherine Holliday.

The following is an interview with Sparrow, conducted via email. The interview is published unedited, as sent to Wikinews.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained leader of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar marked her 62nd birthday today, still under house arrest, where she has spent most of the past 17 years.

About 250 supporters met at the National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters in Yangon, not far from Suu Kyi’s home, and held a rally calling for her release. Doves and balloons were released into the air, under the watchful eyes and video cameras of around 50 plainclothes police officers, who were stationed across the street.

The police force was augmented by a dozen truckloads of members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, the political arm of the State Peace and Development, the junta that rules Myanmar.

“The doves symbolise peace. We also released colourful balloons, which rise like her prestige when they fill the sky,” NLD women’s wing leader Lai Lai was quoted as saying by Agence France Presse.

With the party marking marking Suu Kyi’s birthday as “Myanmar Women’s Day,” Lei Lei read out a statement at the ceremony, calling Suu Kyi “irreplaceable” and praising her “honesty, bravery and perseverance.”

Security was beefed up around Suu Kyi’s lakeside home on University Avenue, which is usually open to traffic during daytime, but is closed on significant anniversaries such as Suu Kyi’s birthday or the May 30 anniversary of her detention.

NLD supporters said police were also watching their homes.

“Plainclothes police circled around my house on their motorcycles last night until dawn,” Su Su Nway, 34, was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse. She was arrested on May 15 with 60 others during a prayer rally for Suu Kyi in Yangon, and was released for health reasons on June 7. She said around 52 NLD supporters were still in custody.

Suu Kyi is generally barred from receiving visitors, so she spent the day alone. Except for her maid, a personal physician, a dentist and an eye specialist, the only other person to visit with Suu Kyi in the past year was United Nations Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari, whom she met for one hour last November at a government guest house.

Winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 11 of the past 17 years, continuously since 2003. Her National League for Democracy won a landslide election in 1990, but the military, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, refused to honor the results. The country is also known as Burma, but the military government renamed it Myanmar in 1989.

Calls for Suu Kyi’s release have been issued by the NLD, various world bodies and other countries, but the pleadings have been met by no response from the generals.

“In our view, until their constitution is ratified, she will not be released,” Sann Aung, a Bangkok-based leader of the Burmese government-in-exile was quoted as saying by Reuters.

“They are worried that she will be a threat to the National Convention and the referendum,” he told Reuters, referring to the planned national referendum on a new constitution that is being written by the generals.

The Nation newspaper in Bangkok marked Suu Kyi’s birthday with an editorial, saying that sanctions against the Myanmar regime have been ineffective.

“The junta has earned huge amounts of foreign revenue from oil and gas exports, with prices jacked up many times over. With rich mineral resources, energy hungry countries have been attracted to Burma despite the repressive nature of the junta,” the editorial said, also making note of a recent deal that Russia has made to build nuclear reactor in Myanmar.

The paper also said Myanmar bodes ill for the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional grouping.

“As long as Aung San Suu Kyi remains incarcerated, ASEAN’s reputation and the group’s international standing will be tarnished. Asean leaders have repeatedly appealed to the Burmese junta to free her, but to no avail … today, Burma is the black sheep of ASEAN. Without any current provisions for sanctions, Burma will remain as intransigent in the future as it is today.”

Saturday, October 9, 2010

The 10.10 version of Ubuntu (codename Maverick Merkaat), a free operative system is to be released in the next few days. French Wikinews contributor Savant-fou (Baptiste) has interviewed Fabrice (fabrice_sp on Ubuntu), an Ubuntu’s MOTU (Master Of The Universe), member of the development team of the operative system.

Ubuntu is a computer operating system, based on Debian, which is created collaboratively by thousands of people. There are three official Ubuntu versions: Ubuntu Desktop Edition (for desktop and laptop PCs); Ubuntu Netbook Edition (for netbooks); and Ubuntu Server Edition (for use in servers).

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

The ongoing debate over whether the Australian Health Minister Tony Abbott, or the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) regulate the abortifacient mifepristone (RU486) has complicated with a number of members proposing amendments to the Senate bill, now in the House of Representatives.

Jackie Kelly (Australian Liberal Party, Lindsay) has said that “There should be a transparent process in which the minister is accountable for his or her decision” on so-called restricted goods (of which RU486 is such a good) as listed in the TGA legislation. Kelly has proposed an amendment with points stating that “the Minister for Health and Ageing continuing to have the decision making role in relation to the approval of restricted goods…”, “the Minister being required to obtain written advice from the Therapeutic Goods Administration prior to giving written approval or refusal to approve”, “the Minister’s decision being subject to disallowance”.

In the debate on February 14, Andrew Laming (Liberal, Bowman) noted his intent to propose an amendment in the later consideration in detail stage, noting his views that the TGA process is “so far removed…from the concerns and the beliefs of the community” and that he is “unable to convince [himself] that completely leaving these decisions to the TGA is the right thing to do”. His amendment loosely aims to propose a “disallowable instrument in Parliament where there is a disagreement with the findings of the TGA.”

The introduction of amendments has caused confusion on procedural matters February 15 in the Questions to the Speaker period (that follows Question Time), where members can ask questions of the Speaker on procedural and other technical matters. In the following vote on the proposed legislation, if one of the votes on the amendments succeeds, this has the effect of discontinuing the other amendment proposals, as each of the amendments proposed has the effect of being a complete alternative bill.

The RU486 debate will have precedence over all other matters in the House until it is dealt with. Voting is expected on Thursday.

Monday, November 2, 2020

The following is the sixth and final edition of a monthly series chronicling the 2020 United States presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

This month’s spotlight on the campaign trail: the Free and Equal Elections Foundation holds two presidential debates, three candidates who did not participate in those debates give their final pleas to voters, and three political pundits give their predictions on the outcome of the election.

Friday, October 10, 2008

The head of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy, has called for a meeting to assess the trade finance situation, including the impact on developing countries. The meeting, which is schedule for November 12, will allow credit institutes and government officials to review the current trade credit situation.

“A number of WTO members, in particular developing countries, have flagged the problems they are facing in arranging trade financing,” wrote WTO Director-General Lamy.

“The purpose of our next meeting will be to review how the international market for trade-financing is faring in view of the current very difficult conditions on international financial markets,” he continued.

Credit is vital to trade with around 90 percent of the US$14 trillion in world trade financed by credit. While this market has done well compared to other credit markets, bankers are suggesting that problems might occur shortly. Rates on these trade loans have increased by 3 percent.

Developing countries have seen several recent years of positive growth but the effects of the global financial crisis on these countries have pushed growth levels down.

Lamy has asked that the heads of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and other regional development banks to attend. He also invited the five leading commercial banks in trade finance: Citigroup, Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Scotland, JPMorgan Chase, and HSBC.

Lamy also said that work on the Doha Development Round of trade is continuing but did not say if it would be finished this year.