Saturday, June 25, 2005

In an interview on NBC’s Today show with Matt Lauer, Tom Cruise aggressively defended his opposition to psychiatry and anti-depressive drugs. This occurred after being asked questions about his criticism of Brooke Shields, who has been taking drugs, including Paxil, for postpartum depression. Cruise is usually known for keeping his cool in interviews, but recently he has been slightly more unbound.

Cruise’s statements, including “Psychiatry is a pseudoscience“, and “There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance in a body”, reflect the beliefs of the Church of Scientology, of which he is a member. The interview became particularly tense when Lauer mentioned that he knew people who had been helped by taking Ritalin, an attention-deficit disorder drug.

“Matt, Matt, you don’t even — you’re glib,” Cruise responded. “You don’t even know what Ritalin is. If you start talking about chemical imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt, OK. That’s what I’ve done.”

Cruise went on to say: “You don’t know the history of psychiatry, I do.”

Cruise has not formally studied medicine beyond a high school education, having dropped out in his senior year (1980) to pursue an acting career. In light of this, some members of the psychiatric community have refuted Cruise’s controversial statements. Dr. John Scully, medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, has said “The illnesses we treat – anxiety, depression – are very real illnesses…The treatments work. We have demonstrated that through robust scientific study.”

Lauer insisted that Ritalin helped people: “You’re telling me what’s worked for people I know or hasn’t worked for people I know. I’m telling you, I’ve lived with these people and they’re better,” Lauer said.

Cruise hinted that Lauer was promoting Ritalin and Lauer scoffed: “I am not. I’m telling you in their cases, in their individual case, it worked.”

The exchange ended when the two basically agreed to disagree. Cruise, who is 42, did admit that one of his goals is to speak more about Scientology in an effort to get people to understand it better.

Scientology has historically been at odds with the established medical and mental health community. The rift dates back to the 1950s and Scientology’s founding father L. Ron Hubbard. In his book, “Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health”, published in 1950, Hubbard claims that Dianetics (later called Scientology) could cure the majority of human ailments. These claims were sharply disputed by a variety of mainstream science and medical professionals including psychiatrists.

On Monday, June 27, 2005, the American Psychiatric Association released a statement that stated the following:”It is irresponsible for Mr. Cruise to use his movie publicity tour to promote his own ideological views and deter people with mental illness from getting the care they need…Rigorous, published, peer-reviewed research clearly demonstrates that treatment (of mental illness) works…It is unfortunate that in the face of this remarkable scientific and clinical progress that a small number of individuals and groups persist in questioning its legitimacy.”

The APA represents nearly 36,000 physicians specialising in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

The Kosi River changed course one week ago to a path which it has not taken for over 100 years. While 900,000 people were evacuated by rescue workers, new data has revealed that 50,000 people, from the town of Saharsa, have refused to leave their homes.

Advertisements in local newspapers have been used to encourage the people who are still remaining in the area to leave soon. People are encouraged to go to one of many camps, which are funded by the government, to seek refuge from the continued flooding.

People have also started to return to their homes, due to the fact that they have seen the water level drop by over half of a metre in some areas. This is despite statements by officials emphasizing that people may need to stay in the camps for up to six months.

Approximately 1.2 million people are estimated to have had their homes flooded by the disaster. 42 people have been confirmed dead, although The Australian has reported that the actual death toll is likely to be much higher.

The incident started when gushing waters quickly overflowed the channel boundaries on both sides at a rate of about 200 meters per day, flooding vast tracts in Supaul, Araria, Saharsa, Madhepura, Purnia, Katihar, parts of Khagaria and northern parts of Bhagalpur, as well as adjoining regions of Nepal. About 2.7 million people are affected by this flood disaster of massive dimensions, with about 900,000 people in the affected areas having moved to 285 relief camps and 249 health centers. An estimated 100,000 are still trapped in various villages without food or drinking water since several days ago when the crisis began.

During the last 250 years, the Kosi has moved its path up to 150km westward on multiple occasions, leaving behind a series of paleochannels. The river is a tributary of the Ganges, with catchment areas in the Nepal Himalayas, one of the fastest rising mountain chains, flowing through a 150-kilometer wide and 180-kilometer long alluvial fan. Fast silting of the channels by the tons of annuvium brought down by the river makes it drift off so often that it is often cited as one of the text book examples of a dynamic river system to geologists.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Canadian authorities report that a Chinese restaurant in the Chinatown area of Toronto has been closed down by the Board of Public Health for the second time yesterday after investigators saw a video and pictures of a rat in the window.

The photos were posted on websites and local TV. Witnesses around the area report that they have seen rats crossing the streets, often going in and out of the restaurant.

Jesse Ship, arts editor of Format Magazine, filmed the picture of the rat while on his way to work. “I was just walking past Happy Seven [the restaurant] today on Spadina and snagged images of a rat in the window on my cell phone, sitting right next to the health inspector sign,” he said, commenting on his find. “The restaurant wasn’t open yet.”

The video of the rat in the restaurant, which according to blogTO, is one of the most liked Chinese restaurants in Toronto, was then posted on the video sharing site Vimeo four days ago. It took a couple of days after the publication of the video to attract widespread press attention.

Until the video of the rat was made public, officials believed that the restaurant was safe, giving it a pass for food safety. The restaurant will be given permission to reopen once professionals are hired to remove the rats, and inspectors are satisfied that they have been removed.

Inspectors have closed 41 restaurants in Toronto this year, six of which have been in the same area as Happy Seven. Of the restaurants in the same area, half have been for rat problems.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Mount Stromlo, Canberra — This Easter weekend, elite mountain bike riders competed in the Australian 24-hour solo championships at Canberra’s Stromlo Forest Park. Jason English from Port MacQuarie rode 33 laps and won the men’s race. Liz Smith from Wollongong rode 25 laps and won the women’s race.

Races are won by riding the most laps. If two riders complete the same number of laps in 24-hours, the winner is the one who has ridden them in the shortest time.

Riders wear lights on their helmets and bicycles during night laps. Due to the time of year, there is roughly twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness each day.

The event is a curtain raiser for the WEMBO World Solo 24 hour Mountain Bike Championships, which will be held at Stromlo Forest Park on 12 and 13 October 2013. The race was for solo riders only.

The weekend before, the teams of riders took to the track at the Mont 24 hour race at Canberra’s Kowen forest. With over 3,000 riders participating, it is now Australia’s largest cycling race.

The team version of the race was favoured by the weekend warriors, but also attracted more than a few elite athletes. Laps were ridden in relay fashion: each rider handed over the baton (which looked like a credit card) to another member of the team after riding one or more laps.

The track was in excellent condition, running through the trees. Without steep climbs or overly difficult technical sections, it permitted fast lap times.

No injuries were reported.

Friday, January 1, 2021

After an active year of original content published on the English-language Wikinews, we take a look back at some of the two dozen-plus original reports from our contributors during 2020.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

With online gaming in persistent worlds becoming more prevalent, a US congressional committee has begun to look into the tax implications of these booming online economies. Games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life have large player driven economic systems in which – either following the rules or against them – real world currencies are exchanged for in-game currencies. With the GDP of some of these economies rivaling that of some small countries, the US government is wondering if it is missing out on a potential source of tax revenue: or as some gamers might put it, the IRS is asking “You buy gold?”.

In cases where exchange of a real world currency for in-game currency is permitted by the rules of the game, some of these online games such as Second Life require that players report any income generated by these means to his or her government. In most on-line games however, a black market exists where players buy and sell in-game currencies in direct violation of the game’s rules; situations involving black markets are notoriously hard to tax.

Compounding the issue of currency exchange is the existence of in-game assets. In the real world if someone wins a luxury vehicle, he or she is expected to pay a capital gains tax on his or her winnings. If a 40 person “raid” in World of Warcraft gets a rare “drop,” worth up to thousands of dollars if sold illegally, should they be required to pay a capital gains tax?

Even if the issue of capital gains is ignored, there is still the matter of sales tax. In many of these games, non-player characters and players alike sell items to one another. If sales tax is to be applied, at what rate should it be charged and to what State does it go? Questions such as these have just recently been answered in much less hazy situations such as online versions of brick and mortar establishments.

Dan Miller, senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee had this to say on the issue, “I found that talking about this issue with some of the other economists on the committee, they are not really familiar with what a virtual economy is. The idea of Second Life or World of Warcraft or some of these other synthetic universes, they have trouble wrapping their head around it. So there’s an educational hurdle to overcome here.”

The preliminary findings of the committee state that virtual economies deserve clarification of existing tax laws, not new taxes.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

One of the most important arguments in the run-up to the Iraq war made by Colin Powell in his United Nations speech and President Bush in his State of the Union address was that Iraq had an active biological weapons program and possessed mobile biological weapons labs. According to an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the main source for this information was an Iraqi defector codenamed Curveball who was a source for the German central intelligence agency BND.

Several German intelligence officials responsible for Curveball have now told the LA Times that the Bush administration and the CIA have repeatedly exaggerated his claims and ignored warnings of the BND that the source was unreliable. Recounting his reaction after seeing Powell’s United Nations speech one German intelligence officer said: “We were shocked. Mein Gott! We had always told them it was not proven…. It was not hard intelligence.” This corroborates reporting by the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit from 2003 and 2004 based on statements of unnamed senior German intelligence officials.

Nine months earlier, in May 2002, a fabricator warning was posted in Curveball’s file in U.S. intelligence databases. Powell was never warned that his United Nations speech contained material that both the DIA and CIA had determined was false, even though several people present at Powell’s CIA meetings were fully aware of this.

At this time German intelligence officers would not let the CIA meet directly with Curveball, but allowed a CIA doctor to draw blood samples. Questioning the validity of Curveball’s information in front of his CIA supervisor, the doctor was advised to “Keep in mind that this war is going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn’t say and the Powers That Be probably aren’t terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he’s talking about.”

Shortly after Powell’s UN speech and several days before the invasion, United Nations weapons inspectors attempted to directly verify several key claims made by Curveball, but concluded that they were unsustainable. The White House insisted on its WMD claims based on Curveball’s information.

Even after the invasion, when more and more of Curveball’s accounts were shown to be pure fabrication, the CIA and the Bush administration relied on Curveball’s information. When U.S. forces discovered trucks with lab equipment and Curveball claimed that these were identical to the ones he has been reporting about, the CIA rushed to publish a White Paper claiming that these trucks were part of Saddam Hussein’s secret biological weapons program and Bush claimed publicly that “We found the weapons of mass destruction.” Several days later, twelve of the thirteen WMD experts who analyzed the trucks agreed that the equipment was not suited for biological weapons production, with the only dissenting voice coming from the author of the original White Paper.

The White Paper remains posted on the CIA website to this date, and President Bush has not yet retracted his statement that Iraq produced “germ warfare agents” made in his State of the Union address or his postwar assertions that “we found the weapons of mass destruction.”