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Friday, May 1, 2009

At approximately 06:00 a.m. (00:30 GMT) Wednesday, between four and seven people were killed when an Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) passenger train crashed into a stationary freight train at Vyasarpadi Jeeva station, in Chennai, India. Between eleven and twenty persons were injured, and rushed to General Hospital in Chennai.

Officials are unsure of the number of persons aboard the passenger train, which was operated by an unknown person. “It is not clear who operated (it),” said S. Jayanth, acting general manager of Southern Railway. The operator of the EMU train was not in the train when it left 15 minutes to half an hour before the scheduled departure time. It is said some passengers did board the passenger train.

The EMU train ignored all signals, and drove about 7 kilometers (4 mi) at high speed, jumping tracks, before colliding with the goods train.

The driver of the goods train, Arumugam, has been confirmed as one of those who has died. The goods train was traveling between Arakkonam to Chennai. The motorman, guard and assistant jumped from the goods train sustaining fractures.

“We heard a loud noise and saw several compartments in flames. The smell emanating from bodies from the mangled coaches was nauseating,” said M.N. Selvi, a nearby resident.

The platforms at the Vyasarpadi Jeeva station were destroyed, and electrical cables were torn down. The EMU train caught fire in the collision destroying two compartments completely. The other compartments were thrown from the tracks. The freight train was loaded with oil tanks, however reports indicate that only the EMU train was set ablaze.

All train services were canceled for a time on one of the busiest rail lines of India. “Train services are disrupted due to the mishap but we hope to restore the services in two to three hours time,” an Indian Railways spokesperson.

Railways Minister Lalu Prasad announced that an inquiry will be held.

Saturday, April 23, 2005

The president of Romania, Traian B?sescu, said on Friday that his country will do everything possible in order to free the three Romanian journalists kidnapped in Iraq a few weeks ago, after Islamic militants released a video threatening to kill them.

Al-Jazeera reported a few days earlier that the Iraqi militants would kill the journalists unless the Romanian government withdraws its troops from the country within four days. With 850 troops, Romania has one of the largest contingents in Iraq. In January this year, after President B?sescu was elected, he pledged to send more peacekeeping troops in Iraq.

On Friday evening, the colleagues and relatives of the journalists gathered in front of the Cotroceni Palace, B?sescu’s residence, to call for their release. After learning of the released tape, B?sescu returned from the GUUAM summit in Chi?in?u, Republic of Moldova, where he was an observer, to Bucharest, where he called for a meeting with the relevant departments to discuss the issue.

The families of the journalists were also invited to Cotroceni, and sympathy was expressed for them. The President told them that, “The state institutions are doing everything we can [to save the three journalists].”

Reporter Marie-Jeanne Ion, from Prima TV, and cameraman Sorin Dumitru Miscoci and reporter Ovidiu Ohanesian, from newspaper România Liber?, were kidnapped in Baghdad on March 28, one day after President B?sescu made an unexpected visit to Iraq to announce a supplement of troops.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

News reports have said that British television and radio presenter Vernon Kay has been forced to state that he is not dead after an editor to the free content encyclopedia Wikipedia posted inaccurate claims that he was dead.

He said that “I am alive and kicking. A few friends rang to check that I was all right. I wish I was on a yacht in Greece,” in response to the claims.

After seeing these reports, Wikinews decided to investigate these edits further.

Wikinews learned that the first of these edits was made by a user contributing from the IP address 86.22.190.95. The IP address was from the United Kingdom and used by a user of the Virgin Media internet service.

The IP address added the claim at 10:05 UTC on September, 13 2008. They claimed that “Vernon Kay sadly passed away after falling off a yacht on Holiday in Greece.”

The next user to add to the claims was contributing from the IP address 86.22.191.253, which was also from the United Kingdom and used by a user of the Virgin Media internet service. This user claimed that “his funeral will be held on Friday the 19th of September in Bolton,” in addition to expanding on the report of his death.

At 11:11 UTC, over one hour after the claim was initially made, a new user, who identified himself as Woody55, removed the claims that he was dead, saying that Kay is “not dead.”

Just six minutes later, however, the claims were re-added. An edit war then took place with several contributors adding and removing the complaints over the next few days. The article was protected by a Wikipedia administrator from editing by new and anonymous users.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Mr Alexander Litvinenko, reputed to have been an Ex-Russian spy who had defected to Britain, died last night in mysterious circumstances. He had alleged many associations between people in high places and organised international crime, implying that President Putin and Romano Prodi among others had been involved personally. He had sought political asylum in UK in 2000 and became a naturalised citizen in October this year, just weeks before his death.

Mr Litvinenko was said to have been investigating the shooting of Russian journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, a well-known critic of Russian activities in Chechnya, in her apartment in Moscow October 7, 2006. It is reported that he had met two Russians in an hotel room, one said to be former member of the KGB in conneciton with the affair and he went on to meet Mario Scaramella at a sushi bar in Piccadilly where some papers were exchanged. Some hours after this he was taken ill.

Mr Litvinenko was admitted to Barnet General Hospital, north London on November 1, 2006 complaining of feeling sick. By November 11, he was said to be suffering from serious poisoning. A week later he was transferred to University College Hospital in central London. A week later he was said to have been poisoned by ingesting thallium, once used in rat poison, but, in the opinion of some doctors, there were signs of radioactive poisoning, including loss of weight and shedding of hair. Various explanations of his condition were offered. Last night he suffered a heart attack, after having left a message blaming President Putin for having him killed.

The radioactive isotope polonium-210 was found in his blood and urine as reported by the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency. The post-mortem was cancelled. Subsequently the Agency examined conditions in the hospitals in which Mr Litvinenko has been treated. Police visited the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, his home in Muswell Hill and the Millennium Hotel, Grosvenor Square where the meeting on November 1 had been held. Traces of radiocactivity were found in all three places. It is speculated that the polonium was probably eaten by Litvinenko as a substance that could be combined with a salt-like substance, such as polonium nitrate.

It was reported that a meeting had been held in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (COBRA) used for high level emergency planning and control, to consider the implications of these events. The Foreign Office asked Moscow for a response to the accusation of Russian involvement and President Putin himself dismissed the allegations saying (before the cause of death had been established) that there was no proof of an unnatural death and that the case was being used as a “political provocation”.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

On Sunday, Wikinews interviewed creator of memorial site LisaMcPherson.org, former Lisa McPherson Trust employee and long time Scientology critic Jeff Jacobsen.

LisaMcPherson.org is a memorial site created in 1997 containing information on her death and the resulting legal case against the Church of Scientology.

Lisa McPherson died in 1995 while in the care of the Church of Scientology. After a car accident, she became mentally unstable. Scientologists removed her from the hospital and placed her in the Introspection Rundown, she died 17 days later while still in care of the Church. She was used as an icon during Project Chanology, the protest of the Church of Scientology by Anonymous. Protesters were pictured with signs that said “Remember Lisa McPherson” and “Ask Scientology Why Lisa McPherson Died”, other protesters had posters with her picture on it.

Friday, April 1, 2005

A resident of Schaumburg, Illinois in the (U.S.) was severely injured by an industrial punch press machine on Monday. He died an hour later.

Elk Grove Village police said William Naras, 48, was operating the machine at a local metal manufacturing plant when he became pinned by an I-beam, or metal arm, about 4 p.m. He was transported to Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village where medics pronounced him dead at 4:51 p.m.

The death was ruled an industrial accident and reported to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, according to a spokesperson for the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Presses of the type which killed Naras routinely develop pressures in the 80,000 pounds (40 tons) per square inch range, according to manufacturers’ Internet pages.

Sunday, March 5, 2017

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday recused himself from any investigation of Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential race but reserved the right to make decisions “on a case-by-case basis” about other issues involving Russian hacking.

“I have decided,” Sessions told the press, “to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.”

During his confirmation hearing on January 10, Sessions was asked about contact between the Russian government and now-President Donald Trump’s campaign. He responded, “I did not have communications with the Russians.” However, he met twice with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, whom the U.S. Justice Department considers a spy. A spokesperson for Sessions said those meetings, like meetings he had with other ambassadors, were in his capacity as a Senator and member of the Armed Services Committee and not as a member of the Trump campaign, which is why he feels his answer was not truly misleading.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has called for Sessions to resign entirely. Democrats want a special prosecutor to investigate the Russians’ role in the election, but there are not enough of them in Congress to force this. Sessions’ statement delegated his duties to his acting deputy, Dana Boente.

“Jeff Sessions is an honest man. He did not say anything wrong. He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional […]” said President Trump in an official statement defending Sessions. “[The Democrats] lost the election and now, they have lost their grip on reality. The real story is all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. It is a total witch hunt!”

Although Sessions has recused himself from any such investigation, it was not disclosed to the public whether the Justice Department is, in fact, conducting one. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has done some exploration and House Intelligence Committee has commissioned an inquiry, but Sessions’ statement reads “This announcement should not be interpreted as confirmation of the existence of any investigation or suggestive of the scope of any such investigation.”

Earlier this year, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn resigned, also over concerns of impropriety related to contact with the Russian ambassador.