VOLUME 11, IssuE 5

Residence Security Insecure

By CAROLYNNE BURKHOLDER
EDITOR IN CHIEF

UNBC students living in resi-
dence are outraged at the amount
of damage vandals were able to
cause to their buildings on
Saturday, October 30th even
though security was posted at the
doors to residence.

Both buildings were targeted .

by a vandalism spree that took
place over Halloween weekend.
Neyoh received the brunt of the
damage with several holes
punched into the walls in the
hallways and stairwells, but
Keyoh also received a fair share
of vandalism when the culprits
uncoiled one of the fire hoses and
used it to spray down the hall
and do major damagé to the dry-
wall.

According to Ali Sucro,
Residence Life Coordinator of the
UNBC Residences, the charges of
the damage “are not finalized.”

The holes in the walls should
cost a few hundred dollars to

repair, and the water damage is
also very costly, but it is much

more difficult to assess at this”

time.

On top of the costs of repairing
the actual building, the students
in residence will also be paying
for the fire hose, which must be
recoiled by the fire department.
This will cost the residence
upwards of $200.00.

Although this rash of vandal-
ism was extremely costly, Sucro
asserted that she doesn’t think
that this is the worst occurrence
of vandalism ever to happen in
residence.

She stated that “every year is
different” in terms of the scope
and the cost of damage caused by
students in residence and their
guests.

Despite every year being dif-
ferent, Sucro is adamant that peo-
ple should end this behaviour. “I
want this to stop. I really do,” she
said.

CONTINUED ON NEWS PAGE 2

100,000 Deaths in Iraq

Air strikes hurt women and children the
most in “war against terror”

By CHARLES THRIFT
STAFF WRITER

A recent study published in
the medical journal The Lancet
has estimated the number of
civilian deaths in Iraq due to the
US-led military invasion to be
approximately 100,000. The
numbers exclude. the city of
Falluja, where the death toll is
significantly higher than aver-
age: The results of the study
show that “more than half the
deaths reportedly caused by the
occupying forces were women
and children”, and that most of
these deaths were caused as a
result of air-strikes.

“As many as 100,000
people have died,
half of them women
and children. If that
is not a war crime,
what is?”

- Stephen Hawking

The results contradict US
statements regarding the accura-
cy of their-air strikes, which,
before the war, they predicted
would cause few civilian casual-
ties.

The authors of the article were
very critical of US military policy
with respect to monitoring civil-
ian casualties.

They cite US General Tommy
Franks’ statement that “we don’t
do body counts” (which is gener-
ally representative of US policy)

a failure to uphold the Geneva
Conventions. In. particular, the

Geneva Conventions state that

occupying forces are required-to
protect civilians from violence.
The occupying forces’ failure to
collect data about civilian casual-
ties prevents any identification
of threats to the safety of civil-
ians, and prevents any analysis
into how well the occupying
forces are fulfilling their obliga-
tions. ;

The study compares the aver-
age numbers and causes of death
before and after the invasion.
The -estimate of 100,000 Iraqi
deaths has received criticism
from British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, who suggested that the
households surveyed might not
be representative of Iraq as a
whole. He incorrectly suggested
that data from Falluja might
have skewed the data.

Since neither the US or British
militaries have collected data on
Iraqi deaths or casualties, they
were therefore unable to provide
estimates. Other groups have
previously estimated the Iraqi
civilian death toll in the range of
15,000 to 30,000.

This new estimate of 100,000
has been given widespread pub-
licity in some areas of the world.
In the UK, renowned physicist
Stephen Hawking, commenting
on civilian deaths in Iraq, told a
crowd in Trafalgar Square that
the war was based on lies, and
that as a result “As. many as
100,000 people have died, half of
them women and children.” He
then asked the crowd “If that is
not a war crime, what is?”

NOVEMBER 10, 2004

COULD HAVE BEEN OUR Last ISSUE SINCE 1994.

Over The Edge Wins Autonomy

By KATHLEEN DE VERE
News EpiTor ae

UNBC students now have an
autonomous student newspaper,
thanks to a majority of ‘yes’ votes
in the recent referendum to break
Over The Edge away from NUGSS
and fund the paper through a
refundable student fee of five dol-
lars per semester.

Over the Edge’s new found
autonomy means the paper has
joined the ranks of other well
known university newspapers
from across British Columbia such
as the SFU Peak, the UVIC Martlet,
and UBC’s Ubyssey, as indepen-
dent newspaper publishing soci-
eties.

Previously Over the Edge was
the only University newspaper in
British Columbia that was not an
autonomous body, as well as being
one of only a handful of non-inde-
pendent newspapers in the organi-
zation of Canadian University
Press, or CUP.

“I’m thrilled this referendum
has passed,” says Carolynne
Burkholder, Over the Edge’s
Editor in Chief. “UNBC students
have demonstrated that they
wanted an independent and
accountable student newspaper,
and as an autonomous body, we
are in the position to be a truly free
press.”

As an autonomous society, Over
the Edge joins other important
UNBC services like CFUR and
PGPIRG on campus.

With its newfound autonomy
and increased budget, Over the
Edge is looking to dramatically
increase its services to the stu-
dents, something that the paper
has been looking to do for quite

some time but has previously been
unable to because of financial con-
Straints.

The first item on the new Over
the Edge’s agenda is to increase
issue size. Previously the paper
was limited to printing issues that
were 16 pages in length, but now
issues will be expanded as content
dictates.

“UNBC students
have demonstrated
that they wanted an
independent and
accountable student
newspaper, and as
an autonomous
body, we are in the
position to be a
truly free press”

- Burkholder

“Due to the immense volume of
content we’ve been receiving from
students and contributors, we’ve
often had to cut or delay submis-
sions,” said Maggie Gilbert, Over
the Edge’s Arts and Entertainment
Editor. “It will be fantastic that
we'll be able to print everything
that comes in now.”

Over the Edge will also be
expanding to include a Clubs sec-
tion, something that students had
expressed interest in seeing in
Over the Edge. The new section
will include features on clubs and
their activities, as well as postings
about upcoming club events and
fundraisers.

Two day referendum establishes independent student newspaper

PHOTO BY BECKY BOOTH
UNEC students (clockwise from middle) Celena Faullaner, Becky Blixruh, Bryna Casey, and BJ Smith
proudly display their official student newspaper.

“We have a really diverse set of
students reading the paper,” said
Burkholder, “so we're really excit~
ed to be able to cover more student
news. Previously we were in the
position of having to select what
ran in the paper because of space
constraints. If we ran three pages
of opinion, it meant we had to cut
out comics for an issue. This way
there will be more of what people
want to see in the paper.”

Other changes: students can
expect to see in the new Over the
Edge include the use of spot
colour, more frequent printing, as
well as editorial board elections
that will be open to the general
student body. To find out more,
please visit Over the Edge’s web-
site at web.unbc.ca/edge.

(Editor’s Note: Well, if you’ve
read this far,.congratulations! Due
to Over the Edge’s press time
(Tuesday) and due to the expan-
sion of the referendum to cover
two days instead of one, Over the
Edge was unable to get the refer-
endum results verified before we
sent off the paper to press. The
original plan was to prepare two
covers (a YES and a NO cover) and
tell our printer which one to run
after the results were tabulated,
but because of the change, we
decided to think optimistic. So if
this is accurate, yah! If it’s not...
sorry for the flagrantly inaccurate
journalism, but since the referen-
dum failed, we're not going to be
printing for quite some time, so
there won't be more mistakes like
this anyhow... Kathleen De Vere,
News Editor, November 5, 2004.)