Thursday, June 30, 2005

6,000 residents of Lismore in NSW have been told to evacuate their homes.

A couple is missing on the Gold Coast in Queensland. State Emergency Services (SES) workers are currently preparing to evacuate a number of nursing homes in the suburbs of Southport and Burleigh.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) have said that South East Queensland has recorded rainfalls of 368mm in the last 24 hours and that the Gold Coast suburb of Coolangatta has been averaging 80mm per hour for at least two hours. The Coolangatta airport was closed due to flooding.

Further south the city of Lismore has been inundated. A recently constructed levy has held back the waters of the Wilson river, protecting the town’s central business district.

Monday, November 6, 2006

Gatorland, an Orlando, Florida tourist attraction known for its gator wrestling shows and its conservation programs for alligators, crocodiles, and other reptiles and birds, was heavily damaged by fire on Monday morning, November 6, 2006.

The four-alarm fire was reported at 5:55am EST. The entrance building, which contains the administration offices and the gift shop, was destroyed. The only thing left standing of it was its iconic gator head front gate, whose upper jaw was almost completely charred.

At least four animals — two gators and two snakes, which were being kept near the gift shop — were feared dead. No humans were hurt. The other gators in the public display took refuge in the central pools, and were okay. The birds were in the aviary in the back, and were in no danger.

None of the attraction venues beyond the gift shop, however, were damaged. Gatorland hopes to reopen for tourists in a week, using a temporary entrance.

Orange County Fire Rescue is investigating the cause of the fire.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Libyan rebels edged closer to the capital city of Tripoli on Sunday to help fellow mutineers inside the city who declared a final clash with leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Following a night marred with gunfire, the rebels said that they controlled a handful of Tripoli’s localities. With the rebels within about 25 km of Tripoli, Gaddafi’s hold on power looks fragile. He labelled the rebels, who had been fighting for the past six months, as “rats” and said that he would not yield to their demands.

A coordinated revolt that rebels had been secretly planning for months saw gunfire across Tripoli, instantly after Muslim clerics called people onto the streets. The revolution, combined with rebels advancing to the capital’s periphery, appears to signal the critical chapter in the “Arab Spring” uprising, which is in its sixth-month now.

“The rebels may have risen too early in Tripoli and the result could be a lot of messy fighting,” said Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya. “The regime may not have collapsed in the city to quite the extent they think it has.”

The rebels’ advance toward the city was quick, and the mutineers have halved the distance between them and the capital. Government forces put up a brief fight at the village of Al-Maya, leaving behind a burned-out tank, and some torched cars. On their way to Tripoli, the rebels paused long enough and filled some walls with graffiti, one reading: “We are here and we are fighting Gaddafi.”

In Benghazi, the rebels’ main stronghold and the genesis of the revolt, a senior official said everything was going according to plan. “Our revolutionaries are controlling several neighborhoods and others are coming in from outside the city to join their brothers at this time,” said Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice chairman of the rebel National Transition Council.

Gaddafi — in hiding since the NATO attacks on Libya in June — said in an audio recording broadcast late yesterday that he had no intention of succumbing to the rebellion. A spokesman for Gaddafi, Moussa Ibrahim, in a briefing for foreign reporters echoed the message of defiance and said: “The armed units defending Tripoli from the rebels wholeheartedly believe that if this city is captured, the blood will run everywhere; so they may as well fight to the end.”

“We hold Mr. Obama, Mr. Cameron and Mr. Sarkozy morally responsible for every single unnecessary death that takes place in this country,” he added, referring to the leaders of NATO members, the United States, United Kingdom, and France.

Underground rebel cells in the capital had been following detailed plans developed months ago and had been waiting for a signal to start. The signal was “iftar” – the moment when Muslims who observe the holy months of Ramadan break their daily fast. Imams started broadcasting their message from the loudspeakers of mosques and minarets.

A rebel activist in the city said pro-Gaddafi forces had put snipers on the rooftops of buildings around Bab al-Aziziyah, Gaddafi’s compound, and on the top of a nearby water tower.

State television flashed a message urging citizens not to allow rebels to hide on their rooftops. “Agents and al Qaeda members are trying to destabilize and sabotage the city. You should prevent them from exploiting your houses and buildings, confront them and cooperate with counter-terrorism units, to capture them,” it read.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

A ‘giant black mystery blob‘ in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska has been identified as marine algae. Initially speculated to be an oil spill, the mass was discovered by a group of hunters earlier this month near Wainwright. The blob is reported to be stringy and hairy, and is tangled with jellyfish, among other debris.

The “thick, dark gunk” stretches for as much as 15 miles, and is moving at a slow drift. Upon being first sighted, the U.S. Coast Guard flew out to investigate the mass, and local officials collected samples for testing. Coast Guard Petty Officer Terry Hasenauer reported that “We responded as if it were an oil product. It was described to us as an oil-like substance, thick and lingering below the surface of the water. Those characteristics can indicate heavy, degraded oil, maybe crude oil, or possibly an intermediate fuel oil.”

Test results subsequently revealed that the blob is some sort of unusually extensive algae bloom. “It’s definitely, by the smell and the makeup of it […] some sort of naturally occurring organic or otherwise marine organism”, Hasenauer said. The substance has remained entirely offshore.

However, there is still great uncertainty among local residents and officials alike: “We’ve observed large blooms in the past off Barrow although none of them at all like this”, said Barry Sherr, an oceanography professor. “The fact that the locals say they’ve never seen anything like it suggests that it might represent some exotic species which has drifted into the region, perhaps as a result of global change. For the moment that’s just a guess.”

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Torture proliferates American headlines today: whether its use is defensible in certain contexts and the morality of the practice. Wikinews reporter David Shankbone was curious about torture in American popular culture. This is the first of a two part series examining the BDSM business. This interview focuses on the owners of a dungeon, what they charge, what the clients are like and how they handle their needs.

When Shankbone rings the bell of “HC & Co.” he has no idea what to expect. A BDSM (Bondage Discipline Sadism Masochism) dungeon is a legal enterprise in New York City, and there are more than a few businesses that cater to a clientèle that wants an enema, a spanking, to be dressed like a baby or to wear women’s clothing. Shankbone went to find out what these businesses are like, who runs them, who works at them, and who frequents them. He spent three hours one night in what is considered one of the more upscale establishments in Manhattan, Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber, where according to The Village Voice, “you can take your girlfriend or wife, and have them treated with respect—unless they hope to be treated with something other than respect!”

When Shankbone arrived on the sixth floor of a midtown office building, the elevator opened up to a hallway where a smiling Rebecca greeted him. She is a beautiful forty-ish Long Island mother of three who is dressed in smart black pants and a black turtleneck that reaches up to her blond-streaked hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail. “Are you David Shankbone? We’re so excited to meet you!” she says, and leads him down the hall to a living room area with a sofa, a television playing an action-thriller, an open supply cabinet stocked with enema kits, and her husband Bill sitting at the computer trying to find where the re-release of Blade Runner is playing at the local theater. “I don’t like that movie,” says Rebecca.

Perhaps the most poignant moment came at the end of the night when Shankbone was waiting to be escorted out (to avoid running into a client). Rebecca came into the room and sat on the sofa. “You know, a lot of people out there would like to see me burn for what I do,” she says. Rebecca is a woman who has faced challenges in her life, and dealt with them the best she could given her circumstances. She sees herself as providing a service to people who have needs, no matter how debauched the outside world deems them. They sat talking mutual challenges they have faced and politics (she’s supporting Hillary); Rebecca reflected upon the irony that many of the people who supported the torture at Abu Ghraib would want her closed down. It was in this conversation that Shankbone saw that humanity can be found anywhere, including in places that appear on the surface to cater to the inhumanity some people in our society feel towards themselves, or others.

“The best way to describe it,” says Bill, “is if you had a kink, and you had a wife and you had two kids, and every time you had sex with your wife it just didn’t hit the nail on the head. What would you do about it? How would you handle it? You might go through life feeling unfulfilled. Or you might say, ‘No, my kink is I really need to dress in women’s clothing.’ We’re that outlet. We’re not the evil devil out here, plucking people off the street, keeping them chained up for days on end.”

Below is David Shankbone’s interview with Bill & Rebecca, owners of Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber, a BDSM dungeon.