Tuesday, October 26, 2021

On Monday, United Kingdom Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak revealed in a media briefing that he will confirm in his Budget, scheduled for half-noon Wednesday, an end to the partial pay freeze on 2.6 million public sector employees introduced last November, alongside a 6.6% increase to the National Living Wage.

Sunak used the fall in wages during COVID-19 to justify his “pause” in public sector employees’ pay that exempted 2.9 million National Health Service workers and those earning under GBP24 thousand per year, but applied to 2.6 million teachers, police, civil servants and members of the British Armed Forces. While a pay rise is in order from spring next year, the precise details are pending consultation by independent advisers and pay review bodies, according to the i. The Guardian writes some 5.7 million public sector employees could see a pay rise.

In addition, about two million on minimum wage, including some from the above 5.7 million, could benefit from an increase in the national minimum and national living wages. According to the i and The Guardian, the National Living Wage applicable for over-23s will increase by 59p to GBP9.50 an hour from next April, about GBP1000 for a full-time worker, in line with recommendations from independent advisory board the Low Pay Commission. The National Minimum Wage for those aged 21 to 22 will rise 82p to GBP9.18 an hour, and the Apprenticeship Rate will go up 51p to GBP4.81 an hour.

However, according to senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies Tom Waters: “While this boosts earnings for full-time minimum wage workers by over £1,000 a year, those on universal credit will see their disposable income go up by just £250 because their taxes rise and benefit receipt falls as their earnings increase.” Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury and Labour MP Bridget Phillipson said the offer was “underwhelming”, and “[m]uch of it will be swallowed up by the government’s tax rises, universal credit cuts and failure to get a grip on energy bills”. UK inflation rose 2.9% the year to September, according to the Office of National Statistics.

Phillipson contrasted Sunak’s measures with those of a Labour government, according to The Independent: “With a new deal for workers, exploitative practices like zero hours contracts banned, Fire and rehire outlawed, a minimum wage of at least £10 an hour and fair pay agreements, a Labour government will transform work and raise standards.”

However, the Daily Mirror says Mr Sunak is considering a rise to GBP10.50 an hour, and the qualifying age for the National Living Wage lowered from 25 to 21 by the next election in 2024. This would match or exceed Labour’s pledge of “a decent income that you can raise a family on”: an increase of the “minimum wage to at least £10 an hour”.

Mr Sunak said during the media briefing that Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle would later call “riding roughshod” over parliamentarians, that it was “[t]he economic impact and uncertainty of the virus” that led to the “difficult decision to pause private pay”, which “[a]long with our Plan for Jobs, this action helped us protect livelihoods at the height of the pandemic. And now, with the economy firmly back on track, it’s right that nurses, teachers and all the other public-sector workers who played their part during the pandemic see their wages rise.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson had announced at the Conservative Party conference his intent to create a “high-pay, high-skill economy” after Brexit, but it may take years for salary growth to catch up with mounting financial pressures, according to the i.

According to The Guardian, analysis by the Resolution Foundation indicates those impacted by the freeze earned nearly 8% less than their private sector counterparts. The differential widened to 0.6% for all public sector employees, including those exempt. The Office of National Statistics writes total private sector pay grew 8.3% from June to August 2021, while public sector pay grew only 2.5%.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Announced early Wednesday morning at Nokia’s GoEvent, in a plan to expand the company’s revenue, Finland-based company Nokia Inc. is developing a mobile phone similar to its rival iPhone, which will be available in the near future for Nokia customers. The phone is expected to be available by 2008.

Most of the features are the same as the iPhone’s. They include music, games, and many other features, even ones that the iPhone may not have. Ovi (in Finnish meaning “Door”) will be the door for more than 2 million songs and games available for download on the new device. Users will be able to download wirelessly in their own home or anywhere there is access to a computer.

But this is not the first time Nokia has made an attempt like this to increase its revenue. In October of 2003 the company revealed the N-Gage, a game-playing cell phone, but was “stocked-out” due to poor sales. The N95 smartphone, which was released in the U.S. on April 7, 2007 (before the iPhone on June 29, 2007) includes WiFi, a GPS, a music player, and a 5 megapixel digital camera. The three other phones that were revealed at the event in London will be in-stock next quarter. The new N81 and the modified N95 smartphones were among the revealed at yesterday’s event; the N81 is a new member to Nokia’s smartphone family; the N95 has been modified by having more memory and a sleeker LCD screen.

When Nokia was asked about the striking similarity between this and the iPhone, Nokia’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of Multimedia, Anssi Vanjoki, said, “If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride.”

Nokia first demoed their iPhone rival August 29th. During their demo they omitted the fact that the demo was for the software to be in use, not the actual hardware.[1]

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

On November 16, code-sharing and hosting service GitHub re-enabled the public access to youtube-dl repository, a software which can download videos from the internet via the command-line. This move comes after Mitchell Stoltz, a Senior Staff Attorney of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), sent a letter to GitHub on the behalf of youtube-dl’s maintainers. The repository was previously blocked on October 23, after GitHub received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take-down notice from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Started in July 2008, youtube-dl is a free/libré open source software written in Python which can download videos from various websites. Citing alleged violation of 17 U.S. Code § 1201 Circumvention of copyright protection systems, RIAA’s takedown notice had alleged youtube-dl was intended to circumvent the technological protection measures of streaming services and to redistribute music videos without authorisation. youtube-dl’s source code had a number of unit tests to check if the software works in different circumstances or not. Some of the test cases included URLs of some copyrighted songs.

In the letter to GitHub, EFF’s attorney Stoltz said “This file contains series of automated tests that verify the functionality of youtube-dl for streaming various types of video. The youtube-dl source code does not, of course, contain copies of these songs or any others […] the unit tests do not cause a permanent download or distribution of the songs they reference; they merely stream a few seconds of each song to verify the operation of youtube-dl. Streaming a small portion of a song in a non-permanent fashion to test the operation of an independently created software program is a fair use.” The letter stressed “youtube-dl does not decrypt video streams that are encrypted with commercial DRM technologies”.

The URLs to copyrighted songs were removed from the source code on November 16, and replaced with a test video that uploaded on YouTube by Philipp Hagemeister, former maintainer of youtube-dl. Philipp Hagemeister had previously spoken about the takedown with Wikinews.

youtube-dl comes with a small JavaScript interpreter where it acts as a web-browser would behave while receiving video data from the server. The script has “extractors” for various websites to handle videos from different sources. “Any software capable of running JavaScript code can derive the URL of the video stream and access the stream, regardless of whether the software has been approved by YouTube”, the letter read. It borrowed an analogy of Doors of Durin from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings for explanation: travelers come upon a door that has writing in a foreign language. When translated, the writing says “say ‘friend’ and enter.” The travelers say “friend” and the door opens. As with the writing on that door, YouTube presents instructions on accessing video streams to everyone who comes asking for it.

Hours after the public access was restored, Sergey M, one of the maintainers of youtube-dl wrote on GitHub, “We would like to thank @github for standing up for youtube-dl and making it possible to continue development without dropping any features. We appreciate [GitHub] for taking potential legal risks in this regard. We would also like to thank [EFF] and personally [Mitch Stoltz] for invaluable legal help. We would also like to heartily thank our main website hoster Uberspace who is currently being sued in Germany for hosting our essentially business card website and who have already spent thousands of Euros in their legal defense.”

Hours after GitHub restored the public access to the repository, Stoltz tweeted “I think of youtube-dl as a successor to the videocassette recorder. The VCR empowered people to take control of their personal use of free-to-air video, but it had to be saved from the copyright cartel. The same goes for youtube-dl. GitHub did the right thing here.”

youtube-dl is used by thousands of people around the world. Multiple Creative Commons-licensed and public domain videos on Wikimedia Commons are uploaded via a tool called video2commons, which relies on youtube-dl to download media. youtube-dl also lets users download videos from LiveLeak — a video-sharing platform for citizen journalism. Videos downloaded using youtube-dl are also used for the purpose of fair use, or for evidence.

When a copyright holder chooses to release their work, be it a photograph, a video, or audio, under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, they allow everyone to freely own, share or modify the work as long as the reusers properly attribute the author of the work. YouTube also hosts many audio and video recordings in the public domain which can be used for any purpose without any restrictions.

In the blog post announcing “youtube-dl is back”, GitHub said, “Although we did initially take the project down, we understand that just because code can be used to access copyrighted works doesn’t mean it can’t also be used to access works in non-infringing ways. We also understood that this project’s code has many legitimate purposes, including changing playback speeds for accessibility, preserving evidence in the fight for human rights, aiding journalists in fact-checking, and downloading Creative Commons-licensed or public domain videos.”

GitHub also announced any new 1201 takedown notices will be “carefully scrutinised by legal experts” to reject “unwarranted claims”, and said it will side with software developers if the claims are ambiguous. The announcement also mentioned GitHub Trust and Safety team would treat developer’s tickets as a “top priority”. GitHub also pledged donation of USD 1 million for developer defense fund “to help protect open source developers on GitHub from unwarranted DMCA Section 1201 takedown claims”.

GitHub had blocked public access to many forks of youtube-dl upon receiving the DMCA notice in October. At that time, Wikinews noted public access was not yet restored for the forked repositories listed in RIAA’s copyright notice and was still displays “Repository unavailable due to DMCA takedown”.

During the period when GitHub had disabled public access for the repository, Sergey M had been developing youtube-dl and hosting it on GitLab, another code-sharing and hosting site. However, since GitHub has restored public access of youtube-dl, Sergey M has made the GitLab repository private.

After this, Wikinews reached out to Richard Stallman, the founder of Free Software Foundation, who has been highly critical of DRM (digital rights management, the subject of the DMCA) for many years now, to discuss the harms of DRM and DMCA 1201.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Few artists ever penetrate the subconscious level of American culture the way RuPaul Andre Charles did with the 1993 album Supermodel of the World. It was groundbreaking not only because in the midst of the Grunge phenomenon did Charles have a dance hit on MTV, but because he did it as RuPaul, formerly known as Starbooty, a supermodel drag queen with a message: love everyone. A duet with Elton John, an endorsement deal with MAC cosmetics, an eponymous talk show on VH-1 and roles in film propelled RuPaul into the new millennium.

In July, RuPaul’s movie Starrbooty began playing at film festivals and it is set to be released on DVD October 31st. Wikinews reporter David Shankbone recently spoke with RuPaul by telephone in Los Angeles, where she is to appear on stage for DIVAS Simply Singing!, a benefit for HIV-AIDS.

DS: How are you doing?

RP: Everything is great. I just settled into my new hotel room in downtown Los Angeles. I have never stayed downtown, so I wanted to try it out. L.A. is one of those traditional big cities where nobody goes downtown, but they are trying to change that.

DS: How do you like Los Angeles?

RP: I love L.A. I’m from San Diego, and I lived here for six years. It took me four years to fall in love with it and then those last two years I had fallen head over heels in love with it. Where are you from?

DS: Me? I’m from all over. I have lived in 17 cities, six states and three countries.

RP: Where were you when you were 15?

DS: Georgia, in a small town at the bottom of Fulton County called Palmetto.

RP: When I was in Georgia I went to South Fulton Technical School. The last high school I ever went to was…actually, I don’t remember the name of it.

DS: Do you miss Atlanta?

RP: I miss the Atlanta that I lived in. That Atlanta is long gone. It’s like a childhood friend who underwent head to toe plastic surgery and who I don’t recognize anymore. It’s not that I don’t like it; I do like it. It’s just not the Atlanta that I grew up with. It looks different because it went through that boomtown phase and so it has been transient. What made Georgia Georgia to me is gone. The last time I stayed in a hotel there my room was overlooking a construction site, and I realized the building that was torn down was a building that I had seen get built. And it had been torn down to build a new building. It was something you don’t expect to see in your lifetime.

DS: What did that signify to you?

RP: What it showed me is that the mentality in Atlanta is that much of their history means nothing. For so many years they did a good job preserving. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a preservationist. It’s just an interesting observation.

DS: In 2004 when you released your third album, Red Hot, it received a good deal of play in the clubs and on dance radio, but very little press coverage. On your blog you discussed how you felt betrayed by the entertainment industry and, in particular, the gay press. What happened?

RP: Well, betrayed might be the wrong word. ‘Betrayed’ alludes to an idea that there was some kind of a promise made to me, and there never was. More so, I was disappointed. I don’t feel like it was a betrayal. Nobody promises anything in show business and you understand that from day one.

But, I don’t know what happened. It seemed I couldn’t get press on my album unless I was willing to play into the role that the mainstream press has assigned to gay people, which is as servants of straight ideals.

DS: Do you mean as court jesters?

RP: Not court jesters, because that also plays into that mentality. We as humans find it easy to categorize people so that we know how to feel comfortable with them; so that we don’t feel threatened. If someone falls outside of that categorization, we feel threatened and we search our psyche to put them into a category that we feel comfortable with. The mainstream media and the gay press find it hard to accept me as…just…

DS: Everything you are?

RP: Everything that I am.

DS: It seems like years ago, and my recollection might be fuzzy, but it seems like I read a mainstream media piece that talked about how you wanted to break out of the RuPaul ‘character’ and be seen as more than just RuPaul.

RP: Well, RuPaul is my real name and that’s who I am and who I have always been. There’s the product RuPaul that I have sold in business. Does the product feel like it’s been put into a box? Could you be more clear? It’s a hard question to answer.

DS: That you wanted to be seen as more than just RuPaul the drag queen, but also for the man and versatile artist that you are.

RP: That’s not on target. What other people think of me is not my business. What I do is what I do. How people see me doesn’t change what I decide to do. I don’t choose projects so people don’t see me as one thing or another. I choose projects that excite me. I think the problem is that people refuse to understand what drag is outside of their own belief system. A friend of mine recently did the Oprah show about transgendered youth. It was obvious that we, as a culture, have a hard time trying to understand the difference between a drag queen, transsexual, and a transgender, yet we find it very easy to know the difference between the American baseball league and the National baseball league, when they are both so similar. We’ll learn the difference to that. One of my hobbies is to research and go underneath ideas to discover why certain ones stay in place while others do not. Like Adam and Eve, which is a flimsy fairytale story, yet it is something that people believe; what, exactly, keeps it in place?

DS: What keeps people from knowing the difference between what is real and important, and what is not?

RP: Our belief systems. If you are a Christian then your belief system doesn’t allow for transgender or any of those things, and you then are going to have a vested interest in not understanding that. Why? Because if one peg in your belief system doesn’t work or doesn’t fit, the whole thing will crumble. So some people won’t understand the difference between a transvestite and transsexual. They will not understand that no matter how hard you force them to because it will mean deconstructing their whole belief system. If they understand Adam and Eve is a parable or fairytale, they then have to rethink their entire belief system.

As to me being seen as whatever, I was more likely commenting on the phenomenon of our culture. I am creative, and I am all of those things you mention, and doing one thing out there and people seeing it, it doesn’t matter if people know all that about me or not.

DS: Recently I interviewed Natasha Khan of the band Bat for Lashes, and she is considered by many to be one of the real up-and-coming artists in music today. Her band was up for the Mercury Prize in England. When I asked her where she drew inspiration from, she mentioned what really got her recently was the 1960’s and 70’s psychedelic drag queen performance art, such as seen in Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, The Cockettes and Paris Is Burning. What do you think when you hear an artist in her twenties looking to that era of drag performance art for inspiration?

RP: The first thing I think of when I hear that is that young kids are always looking for the ‘rock and roll’ answer to give. It’s very clever to give that answer. She’s asked that a lot: “Where do you get your inspiration?” And what she gave you is the best sound bite she could; it’s a really a good sound bite. I don’t know about Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, but I know about The Cockettes and Paris Is Burning. What I think about when I hear that is there are all these art school kids and when they get an understanding of how the press works, and how your sound bite will affect the interview, they go for the best.

DS: You think her answer was contrived?

RP: I think all answers are really contrived. Everything is contrived; the whole world is an illusion. Coming up and seeing kids dressed in Goth or hip hop clothes, when you go beneath all that, you have to ask: what is that really? You understand they are affected, pretentious. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s how we see things. I love Paris Is Burning.

DS: Has the Iraq War affected you at all?

RP: Absolutely. It’s not good, I don’t like it, and it makes me want to enjoy this moment a lot more and be very appreciative. Like when I’m on a hike in a canyon and it smells good and there aren’t bombs dropping.

DS: Do you think there is a lot of apathy in the culture?

RP: There’s apathy, and there’s a lot of anti-depressants and that probably lends a big contribution to the apathy. We have iPods and GPS systems and all these things to distract us.

DS: Do you ever work the current political culture into your art?

RP: No, I don’t. Every time I bat my eyelashes it’s a political statement. The drag I come from has always been a critique of our society, so the act is defiant in and of itself in a patriarchal society such as ours. It’s an act of treason.

DS: What do you think of young performance artists working in drag today?

RP: I don’t know of any. I don’t know of any. Because the gay culture is obsessed with everything straight and femininity has been under attack for so many years, there aren’t any up and coming drag artists. Gay culture isn’t paying attention to it, and straight people don’t either. There aren’t any drag clubs to go to in New York. I see more drag clubs in Los Angeles than in New York, which is so odd because L.A. has never been about club culture.

DS: Michael Musto told me something that was opposite of what you said. He said he felt that the younger gays, the ones who are up-and-coming, are over the body fascism and more willing to embrace their feminine sides.

RP: I think they are redefining what femininity is, but I still think there is a lot of negativity associated with true femininity. Do boys wear eyeliner and dress in skinny jeans now? Yes, they do. But it’s still a heavily patriarchal culture and you never see two men in Star magazine, or the Queer Eye guys at a premiere, the way you see Ellen and her girlfriend—where they are all, ‘Oh, look how cute’—without a negative connotation to it. There is a definite prejudice towards men who use femininity as part of their palette; their emotional palette, their physical palette. Is that changing? It’s changing in ways that don’t advance the cause of femininity. I’m not talking frilly-laced pink things or Hello Kitty stuff. I’m talking about goddess energy, intuition and feelings. That is still under attack, and it has gotten worse. That’s why you wouldn’t get someone covering the RuPaul album, or why they say people aren’t tuning into the Katie Couric show. Sure, they can say ‘Oh, RuPaul’s album sucks’ and ‘Katie Couric is awful’; but that’s not really true. It’s about what our culture finds important, and what’s important are things that support patriarchal power. The only feminine thing supported in this struggle is Pamela Anderson and Jessica Simpson, things that support our patriarchal culture.

Friday, June 22, 2012

According to documents leaked to the press, Conservative education secretary Michael Gove intends to drop GCSE exams as part of a sweeping reform of the school exam system in England and replace them with exams based on the traditional “O-level” system that GCSEs replaced in the 1980s.

As leaked, Gove plans to phase out the current General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exams, with students taking exams in the replacement courses in the summer of 2016. Combined science courses would be split out into separate qualifications in physics, biology, and chemistry. Gove has said reforms to the examination system are needed to fight against what he perceives to be a “dumbing down” of academic standards.

The top ‘A’ grade in mathematics would require advanced topics such as Calculus, and English literature exams would no longer allow access to the set text.

The leaked document also notes the government intends to scrap the National Curriculum at the secondary school level “and not replace it”. Instead, school headteachers would be able to decide what to teach in order to prepare pupils for the examination.

Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said the plans were “self-evidently not policy that has been discussed or agreed within the coalition”.

Justice minister Ken Clarke suggested on BBC programme Question Time the leak originated within the Department of Education rather than from Gove personally: “If the secretary of state for education leaked it I would feel very strongly about it, but I don’t think he did”.

Conservative MP Graham Stuart has questioned the timing of the plans given reforms to GCSEs last year. “This has come out of the blue”, he said to BBC Radio 4. “Just last year, the government was ramping up its new GCSE target and now a year on we are having to change back to the future, and back to O-Levels.”

Kevin Brennan, Labour’s shadow schools minister, said Gove’s proposals were a move “back to the 1950s”.

Andrew Adonis, a Labour Peer, criticised the plans on Twitter: “I can hardly think of a worse education reform than ‘bringing back the CSE’ – dead-end exams for children treated as second rate.” Nick Clegg mirrored this complaint, saying he would oppose any plan “that would lead to a two-tier system where children at quite a young age are somehow cast on a scrap heap”.

Dr Wendy Piatt from the Russell Group, which represents a number of top-end British universities, agreed with Michael Gove that there is a problem: “the current system needs improving”, she told ITV’s Daybreak, because “some GCSEs really don’t stretch the very brightest”. Piatt warned “there is a real danger here… there is a worry that at a very early age you will be pigeonholed and then put on a course that is not really suitable for you and then you won’t be able to change to the more academic course”.

Dr Kevin Stannard from the Girls Day School Trust challenged the plans, suggesting since “able pupils” are already going to continue studying some subjects, “why not require them to take exams at 16 only in the core subjects that they propose to drop? That would encourage breadth in learning to 16, while also giving students the space for deeper learning.”

Leighton Andrews, the Education Minister in Wales, said Wales “certainly won’t be bringing back O-levels” and leaking the plans to the newspapers was a “bonkers way of proceeding”. Instead, he vowed the Welsh would make decisions as to curriculum and exam reform “in our own time on the basis of evidence supplied to us”.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Football legend Sir Bobby Charlton has launched a new campaign he calls “There Must be a Better Way” to find a faster method to clear anti-personnel landmines. The initiative which comes under his “Laureus Sport for Good Foundation” and involves physicists, mathematicians and electronic engineers from the University of Manchester and Lancaster University. In addition the Mines Advisory Group, a mine clearance charity, and the security systems company Rapiscan are involved.

Charlton first became interested in the problem of clearing anti-personnel landmines while visiting Bosnia on a Laureus funded Spirit of Soccer camp. He was appalled by the injuries he saw, especially to children, caused by abandoned anti-personnel mines. Later his visited Cambodia where there are estimated to be four to six million mines. Charlton was told it would take 100 years to clear the mines.

On the way back to Manchester, passing through airport metal detectors, he thought that surely there must be a better way to detect landmines than the laborious method he had seen using only a metal detector and a bayonet. As the mines are made mainly of plastic and have only a small amount of metal every piece of metal including shrapnel must be investigated to see if it is a mine.

He contacted Rapiscan and through them the University of Manchester to see if there was anyone who could help. The University has a number of scientists and engineers with relevant experience, including a project EMBody to develop the next generation walk through metal detector, in collaboration with Rapiscan and Manchester Airport, and work on a scanning metal detector used to image steel reinforcing bars in concrete.

On June 12th a demonstration was arranged at a disused quarry where Sir Bobby and the Professors of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Physics were shown the power of explosives. This included a demonstration where an explosive charge of about 50g of high explosive, about the same amount as a medium sized landmine, was placed under a sand-filled Wellington boot. The charge was detonated with a resounding bang that echoed around the quarry. The boot was projected tens of metres in the air. And when examined the toe had been cut off and the rubber shredded. The shock wave from the explosives thumped the chests of the scientists even at a safe distance. One commented that there was no chance of using delicate instrumentation anywhere near a possible explosion and they had to seek simple solutions.

“Last time I saw a boot fly through the air like that it was against Bolton” said Charlton, but there was a sombre but excited mood as the scientists headed back to the University, buzzing with ideas.

Saturday, April 29, 2006

The first “visual issue” of the Emir of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was issued April 25, 2006, by the Mujahideen Shura Council. A thirty-four minute video containing an approximately twenty minute oration by Zarqawi, footage of him leading mujahideen in training on the battlefield and in a war room, and seated amongst local leaders of al-Anbar province. His speech touches upon a variety of topics, including the purportedly victorious and successful state of the mujahideen in Iraq, waging jihad in Iraq while steadying eyes on Jerusalem, and Usama bin Laden’s proposed truce with the West. In fact, the video proper opens with an excerpt of a speech by bin Laden urging Muslim youth to jihad. On the refusal of the proposal, he warns U.S. President George W. Bush, his allies of the “Crusaders, Shi’ites and the converters” that they will never enjoy life as long as blood courses through the veins of the mujahideen.

Zarqawi also speaks of the alleged lies of the administration and the true state of the American soldier in Iraq. He states: “Why don’t you tell about the reality of your soldiers and their failure to fight…why don’t you tell your people about the soldiers who commit suicide, why don’t you tell your people that your soldiers can not have any sleep without taking drugs which makes them like animals… and they are driven by your generals, who are like the Crusaders and evangelists, to the slaughterhouse.” He also condemns the Iraqi political process, and those who speak falsely of being one of the mujahideen, trying to convince Muslims that the government is an attempt to apply Shari’a law.

Concerning the Mujahideen Shura Council, which appeared on the Iraqi land following the seeming disappearance of Zarqawi, he admits to “being one of them” and continues to hold title as the Emir of al-Qaeda in Iraq, part of the umbrella for the mujahideen in that state. “They all stretch their hands and stand on the same line,” Zarqawi argues. Other portions of the video show Zarqawi inspecting local areas, using a rocket with a range of 50 kilometers, and a final image of him firing an automatic weapon, and stating: “American will go out of Iraq, humiliated, defeated.”

A Full transcript of the video has been provided below:

In the name of Allah the most Gracious the most Merciful

Mujahedeen Shura Council of Iraq

Then fight in Allah’s cause thou are held responsible only for thyself and rouse the believers. It may be that Allah will restrain the fury of the disbelievers; for Allah is the strongest in might and in punishment (Alnisa’a:84)

O’ Banner’s holders stand,Where are the lions of Anbar?Where are the lions of Salah Aldeen?Where are Baghdad’s men?Where are the knights of Ninawah and the champions of Dyalah?Where are the courageous of Kurdustan?Where are you the lions of Monotheism?

Be fully aware of the apostate media sources.

I swear by Allah, that they have nothing with us except the sharp swords, and between them and us will only be the frightened nights.

I swear by Allah that America will be defeated in Iraq.

(Field commander is talking):

As for the developing and manufacturing, the brothers, by the grace of Allah have developed and improved two missiles in Alanbar province in particular.

(When missile was fired):Against the make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. (Alanfal:60)

A message for Mankind

(Osama)I focus this call to the young men of Islam; gather together in fighting the crusades and the Jews, and remember Allah at all times repeatedly, by Allah, it’s either victory or martyrdom. No one will surpass his fate, and he who ever turns out to be a martyr, his sole will freely be flying around the paradise as it wishes, close to the throne of Allah; what a great difference between being near his family and/or near his lord.O’ young men of Islam every where, especially those near the battles, where the obligation is further; O’ young men in Aljazeera, Egypt, and Sham; O’ siblings of Salah Aldeen, O’ knights of Mohammad Alfateh, continue your support to your brothers in Iraq, whereby the gravest of the wars is continues, and its fire is on the rise, the crusades have invaded them, killed thousands of them, and abducted thousands, whishing to eliminate them. And they are instead, by the grace of Allah, fighting the crusades patiently, giving up all they’ve got for the sake of Allah and in order to defend themselves. May Allah be with them and those who support them.

(Abu Musaab)All praise be to Allah granting might to his religion with his victory, lowering the infidels with his supremacy. Sorting circumstances by his order; Plotting for the disbelievers with his arrangement; He who alternated the days with his divine justice.And peace be upon who Allah raised the minaret of Islam with his sword.

My treasured nation,I am conversing to you not with falsehoods, hoping to find with you open ears and prudent hearts, for the honest man does not deceive his family.

The crusade enemy, when invaded Iraq, meant to control this nation and reinforce the Zionist state, from the Nile to the Euphrates. However, Allah granted your sons the Mujahedeen by standing firm before the strongest crusaders attack to the Islamic land.They stood strong against this attack for over three years, disbursing their soles and their wealth. They stood against this massive military, media, and economical attack not for anything except to defend you, your religion, your sons, and your honor.Allah dispersed the enemies’ gathering and their defeat became clearer to who ever has eyesight and prudent heart.Here are your sons, by the grace of Allah, indulging into one battle after another, and attack after attack; they by the will of Allah hold the upper hand in the battle field now.

If it wasn’t for the continuous and ongoing media muting, you would’ve seen the astonishing. By Allah it’s the championships and the victories coming to us, and you my nation should thank Allah for this great bounty, that Allah prepared a group of your sons the Mujahedeen defending you and protecting your honor, otherwise the Sunnah in Iraq would’ve been in between a revulsion crusade and a betraying Shiite. And the women of the Sunnah would’ve been on the laps of the revulsion crusades and the betraying Shiites; Abu Ghraib and the interior ministry jails remain memorable.

My treasured nation,We are in Iraq a stone throw from the Masjed Alaqsa, we fight in Iraq and our eyes are on Alqsa which will never be freed except with a guiding Quraan and a prevailing sword; “but enough is thy Lord to guide and to help” (Alforqan:31)

The history and experience had showed that you have no one after Allah except your Mujahedeen sons; they are your protection, your strong shield, and your beating heart. They become happy to your happiness and sad to your sadness; they stay up all night for your protection and have jealousy for you. Their hearts burst in sorrow for your state, and their tongues never stop chanting: O’ Allah elevate the state of humiliation and defeat away from my nation, O’ Allah bring back victory to my nation.

As for the American administration, and to its chairman the cross banner’s holder Bush, we say to him and to whoever is swimming in his space from the Jews and the crusades and form the Shiites and others, we say that you will never be safe in the Islamic land, and by Allah you will never feel secured so long we still have a beating nerve and a moving eyelash.Previously, our leader Osama Bin Laden may Allah protect him, had offered you a long truce. It could’ve been better for you and those who are with you if you’d have accepted, but your arrogance pushed you to refuse. Here you are today, running from east to west trying to find solutions “will not stand except as stands one whom the evil one by his touch hath driven to madness” (Albaqarah:275). You turned to be a grave liar, betraying your own people that everything is under control, and then soon everyone finds out about your lies and so on. You became like the one who’s treating himself from alcohol by alcohol. You were never at any time truthful with yourself or your people, although it’s found some truth in your great grandparents you are fully detached from.Why don’t you show the truth about your soldiers and their inferior state of struggle?Why don’t you tell your people about the continuous suicides amongst your soldiers?Why don’t you tell your people that your soldiers can never go to sleep unless they take the hallucinating and drugging pills? So they become like cattle driven by your war generals, the Neozionists, to the killing fate.Why don’t you tell your people about the congregational escape and the defiance among your troops?

Listen you grave liar and insolent one; your dreams will never come true, our blood and bodies are between you and your imaginings. And what is coming your way is much greater than what passed by the will of Allah.

The game of rotten democracy that you brought to Iraq, after you gave hope to people about freedom, happiness, and the economical/personal security; all of these lies went with the winds and will never come back by the will of Allah.

There we see you today, trying with all what you got to bring together the clusters, the parties, the partners from your tails to bring about a handicapped government that it might pull you out from your crucial pitfall.

We believe that any government you place in Iraq, whether be it from the betrayal Shiites or Zionist Kurds, or your tails from the Sunnah; it will only be an apostate government that will aid the crusades, and it came only to be a poisoned dagger stabbed in the heart of the Islamic Nation.

America learned today that its planes, tanks, momentous troops, and its tails from the Shiites army will never be able to finalize the battle with Mujahedeen. Therefore, it’s trying to surround the Jehad by pushing its tails from those who are counted to Sunnah, those who accepted to play the role and be a rope that tightens around the Sunnah’s necks and pull the Americans from their defeat. They used those who use the Islamic slogans as a mask to spread their masters’ propaganda on the importance of organizing the military and the police, and confuse the Muslims with their mixed messages injecting poison in honey, forgetting intentionally or not that every occupier throughout history used a cover up face from the occupied to use them in order to establish a solid base and embezzle the wealth of the country and its people.Allah has said: “And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them” (5:51)That is by constituting for this life and the hereafter.And Allah has said: “for Pharaoh and Haman and (all) their hosts were Men of sin” (28:8)

Therefore, we repeat our warning to whoever is trying to reorganize and spread the military and the police forces, which was established only to be a tool for the occupier in their bigger plan, and to implement laws other than the law of Allah.Be extremely aware, those who join these apostate forces have nothing with us except the sharp swords, and between them and us will be nothing except grave days and nights.Allah has said;” Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject faith fight in the cause of evil: so fight ye against the friends of Satan: feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan” (4:76)

Having said the previous, and having mentioned the defeat of the enemy and his paraphernalia. The enemy is trying today to seduce two kinds of people to the alleged parliamentary game to harvest the fruits of the Mujahedeen whom only trying to make the word of Allah prevails.The first kind of which is the one trying to attach oneself with the Mujahedeen, although they never lived the Mujahedeen life nor they ever supported them at the occupation time. The second of which is those who had at the beginning the honor of fighting the crusades, however what counts is the end; their efforts won’t be accepted by the law of Islam unless they strive with action to make the word of Allah prevails, using what Allah lawfully guided us with, the clean means, not by using evil parliaments striving to have the word of Allah mixed with other man made constitutions and laws. The aim does not justify the means here.Although these two kinds, and whoever follows their footsteps, allege that they are trying with these parliaments to implement the law of Allah. However, the actions and the historical experiences oppose their myth. Anyone that is following the political map in Iraq knows that the majority of the parliaments’ members are from the Shiites and the atheists of Kurds and Sunnah, not to mention those of the mixed motion believes. Therefore, the heavy side in the balance of the parliaments will always be in the hand of evil.Allah has said: “beware of them lest they beguile thee from any of that (teaching) which Allah hath sent down to thee” (5:49)

And Allah has said: “Fast thou not turned thy vision to those who declare that they believe in the revelations that have come to thee and to those before thee? their (real) wish is to resort together for judgment (in their disputes) to the evil one, though they were ordered to reject him but Satan’s wish is to lead them astray far away (from the right” (4:60)

As for you patient truthful Mujahedeen, may Allah accept from you and us the best of deeds, and may Allah bless your Jehad. You were able by the will of Allah and his support to stop this crusades’ attack and you’ve bounded him with injuries. Thus, continue your Jehad and operations, and elevate your hits, it’s only the sign of victory and it’s the last breath of the cross worshipers in the land of two rivers. The low fighting self-esteem of the crusades’ soldiers is an only obvious sign in Iraq. Therefore, renew your intentions, and correct yourselves, and carry on together against your enemy. Your enemy is uncovered, by the will of Allah, weakened, unprotected, and broken in pieces. Do not give him a chance to take its breath, continue your stabbings one after the other, O’ Banner’s holders stand,

Where’s are the lions of Anbar?Where are the lions of Salah Aldeen?Where are Baghdad’s men?Where are the knights of Ninawah and the champions of Dyalah?Where are the courageous of Kurdustan?Where are you the lions of Monotheism?O’ siblings of Khaled and Muthananh, Saad and Meqdad and Salah Aldeen.Where are the immigrants? Where are the supporters?Where are the people of Surat Altawbah and Alanfal?Where are the people of Alfath and Alqital?

O’ leaders of this nation; who is for the crying women, who is for the jailed dignified women, who is for the purified women in the jails of the Shiites.O’ Allah, there is no life except the life of the hereafter, O’ Allah grant victory to immigrants and their supporters.

Be very aware from the embezzlers, with their masters the crusades, trying to surround you. Be aware and extremely aware from putting down your weapons, and then you will harvest nothing but the defeat, beat and crush in this life and the hereafter.You were always supplicating to Allah day and night to ease the way for you to join the Jehad in Afghanistan and Chechnya or other places. After that, Allah chose you for the trade of Jehad at your own land, and opened for you the doors of paradise. Be extremely aware of closing these blessed doors, be aware “And be not like a woman who breaks into untwisted strands the yarn which she has spun, after it has become strong”(16:92)

Do not let the trade of Jehad depart your land; otherwise you will be disgraced and you’ll be only ruled by the scum; “they set you hard tasks and punishments, slaughtered your sons and let your women folk live” (2:49)

“If ye turn back (from the Path), He will substitute in your stead another people; then they would not be like you” (47:38)

Finally, I glad tied the nation by establishing the Mujahedeen Shura Council of Iraq, which will be by the grace and will of Allah as the kernel for the establishment of an Islamic State, in which, the word of Allah prevails. All praise be to Allah, the efforts are being joined, and the hands are being extended and shaken for the obedience of Allah and his messenger and the Jehad in the cause of Allah. And this Council will be, by the will of Allah, an umbrella for every truthful Mujahed. I am honored to be one member of this blessed Council under its blessed leadership. At the same time remaining the Ameer (leader) of the Alqaeda Organization in the land of two rivers (Iraq).

The servant of Jehad and Mujahedeen, glorifying Allah, your brother Abu Musaab Alzarqawi.Friday, 23 Rabii Awal 1427,April 21, 2006.

All praise be to Allah.

(One of the commanders in Anbar speaking)

In the name of Allah the most gracious the most merciful, and peace be upon our prophet Muhammad his family and companions.

I welcome our beloved sheikh in the land of Anbar, the land of Jehad. And we ask Allah to keep it a thorn in the eyes of the disbelievers.

I would like to inform about the great victory in the battles of Ramadi, killing many of the disbelievers and taking over the center and headquarter of the infidels.Taking over the city for several days, preventing the crusades from even coming near it.And this operation was a clear message against the visit by the infidels’ ambassadors ( Rice and Straw).In general, the self esteem of the Mujahedeen is high, in opposite to the infidels whom are always in continuous deterioration.

As for the developing and manufacturing, the brothers, by the grace of Allah have developed and improved two missiles in Alanbar province in particular, that will be used soon, one has the ability to travel 40km with a 50kg warhead, here’s a picture of it…

Then fight in Allah’s cause thou are held responsible only for thyself and rouse the believers. It may be that Allah will restrain the fury of the disbelievers; for Allah is the strongest in might and in punishment (Alnisa’a:84)

And the other is anti armored vehicles, is carried on the shoulder and has been internally modified to penetrate armored vehicles, and here’s a picture of it.

“It is part of the mercy of Allah that dost deal gently with them. Wert thou severe or harsh hearted, they would have broken away from about thee: so pass over (their faults), and ask for (Allah\’s) forgiveness them in affairs (of moment). Then when thou hast taken a decision, put thy trust in Allah. For Allah loves those who put their trust (in him” (3:159)

If Allah helps you, non can overcome you: if he forsakes you, who is there, after that, that can help you? in God, then, let believers put their trust (3:160)

Sheikh Ayman Alzahahre’s voice:O’ Islamic Nation, the turf of Iraq now is the most dangerous field of Jehad in this century. Therefore, the nation must support the courageous Mujahedeen that are fighting in the very forefront defending the honor of Islam and its dignity.

Sheikh Abu Musaab: by Allah, American will be defeated in Iraq, by the will of Allah, and it’ll leave Iraq humiliated, crushed, and defeated by the will of Allah.

• BBC News. “al-Zarqawi on tape” — 
• Mujahideen Shura Council. “Transcript” — Official Press-Release,

Saturday, December 11, 2004

VIENNA —Doctors from the Rudolfinerhaus clinic in Vienna say “there is no doubt” Ukrainian opposition leader Victor Yushchenko was poisoned with Dioxin.

Yushchenko’s body had about 1,000 times more than the normal concentration of the toxin. It is unknown if there were any other poisons in his system.

Although it has not yet been proven that the poisoning was deliberate, doctors suspect it was. “We suspect a cause triggered by a third party,” said Michael Zimpfer, head doctor at the Rudolfinerhaus clinic. He suggested the poison may have been administered orally, through food or drink.

Today’s announcements are a follow-up of an earlier press conference, where Dr. Korpan that there were three hypotheses under consideration, one of them involving dioxin. He did not reveal what the other two hypotheses were. Dr. Michael Zimpfer, director of the Rudolfinerhaus clinic emphasized that time there was no proof yet to specify the substance causing the illness.

Yushchenko left Kiev on Friday (2004-10-12) for further examination in Vienna. When Yushchenko fell ill on October 6th, Ukrainian doctors had initially diagnosed food poisoning, leading to speculation that he had been poisoned deliberately. The illness has disfigured Yushchenko’s body and face which doctors say could take up to two years to heal.

He fell seriously ill on the September 6th, during his presidential campaign. Yushchenko was taken to the Rudolfinerhaus clinic of Vienna, where he stayed for four days under Dr. Korpan’s care. He was diagnosed with “acute pancreatitis, accompanied by interstitial edematous changes.” These symptoms were said to be due to “a serious viral infection and chemical substances which are not normally found in food products” as his campaign officials put it. In laymans terms, he developed an infection in the pancreas and got a bad skin condition that disfigured his face with cysts and lesions. The skin condition has similarities with the chloracne associated with dioxin posioning according to a British toxicologist John Henry.

• Viktor Yushchenko (left) as he appeared in July 2004 and (right) as he appeared in November after the poisoningImage: Gleb Garanich/Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters.