Archives March 2019

Monday, December 4, 2006

Fiji’s fourth coup in 20 years rose today as troops disarmed Fiji’s only armed police unit. This is the first step in the long expected military coup.

Fiji’s president dissolved parliament on Tuesday and sanctioned the military to remove embattled Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, said New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark

Qarase, who is in his residence in Suva, said the military was staging a coup and he would not resign but would have to be forcibly removed from office.

“I am not going anywhere,” Qarase told Reuters.

“I am the democratically elected prime minister of the people of Fiji. They will have to move me by force.”

“I have been advised this morning that the president of Fiji has acted outside his constitutional powers and supported the removal of the democratic prime minister by the military,” Clark said in a statement to the New Zealand parliament.

Acting Police Commissioner Moses Driver denied that any take over had occurred. He said soldiers arrived to inspect police weapons, and were waiting for approval for that inspection. Troops later surrounding the Nasova Police Academy in Suva demanding the handover of weapons, and occupied the main police station in Suva. No shots were fired when the police were locked out.

At a news conference inside the main Suva barracks, Commander Frank Bainimarama said that police weapons were confiscated so that “dissidents” did not use them against the military.

There are also reports that military checkpoints are been set up around the capital. There are approximately four roadblocks with 20 soliders at each.

Troops tried to arrest the Prime Minister of Fiji, Laisenia Qarase, in the afternoon by setting up a roadblock between Suva and the province where Mr Qarase was attending a meeting, but he escaped in a helicopter, and has since been in hiding. The Prime Minister and his cabinet are understood to be in safe, secure places, and some of them separated for extra security.

The army kept up the pressure on Mr Qarase when he was later summoned to President Ratu Josefa Iloilo’s residence.

Mr Qarase drove to the estate, but was told by soldiers at a roadblock outside that he would have to walk the rest of the way. A witness inside the grounds said the prime minister, whose bodyguards were also disarmed by the military, refused and returned to his office.

Mr Qarase will make another attempt to meet President Iloilo on Tuesday morning.

Military chief Commander Frank Bainimarama had repeatedly threatened to remove Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase’s government unless it drops several pieces of legislation, including a bill that would grant amnesty to those involved in a coup in 2000. Commander Bainimarama has laid allegations on PM Qarase of stalling his pledge of ditching of the controversial legislation.

However Bainimarama is denying a coup is under way. “This is not a coup,” Bainimarama said today. “Everything is normal. Nothing is going on.”

He had earlier imposed a deadline of noon (0000GMT) on Friday, December 1 but that deadline was extended to today as there was the annual rugby game between the police and the military. Commander Bainimarama is both an avid rugby fan and active church goer. The police won the rugby game. “I maintain my demands and the deadline still stands and I will make a commitment to my stand after the rugby match,” he said.

Mr Qarase told Fiji radio on Monday morning that he remained in control and has called an emergency cabinet meeting for Tuesday.

Fiji’s Great Council of Chiefs called for calm on Monday and for the military to return to negotiations with the government.

Local radio reported seven government vehicles used by ministers and parliament’s Speaker had been confiscated by the military since Monday night.

World leaders have commended Commander Bainimarama actions. Including New Zealand which has banned Commander Bainimarama from entering New Zealand except if he is attending political crises talks. Helen Clark described the situation as “…it’s a very disturbing situation.” Some of Commander Bainimarama’s close family live in New Zealand.

Conditions on the street of Fiji are said to be mixed, with some apprehension.

The United Nations might discontinue use of Fijian soldiers in peacekeeping operations of which is a large source of Fiji’s income. Also the British army might not use Fijian soldiers. The International Community have said they will discontinue aid to Fiji which is worth millions annually.

Friday, October 12, 2007

I had an unofficial phone call from Gay Talese last Tuesday. He had just flown back from Colombia and he was cranky. “I’m happy to do an interview with you,” he said, “but what the hell could you ask me that’s not already out there? Have you even bothered to look?!”

“Jeez, Mr. Talese, lots of things,” was my response. I lied. The truth is that when I call people to interview them, I do not have a set of preconceived questions. My agenda is to talk to them and gain a sense of who they are; to flesh them out as humans. To find out what they think about the world around them at that moment. With Gay Talese I had little interest in talking about Frank Sinatra Has a Cold and with Augusten Burroughs I had little interest in discussing Running with Scissors. I want to know what they think about things outside of the boxes people have placed them in.

With a memoirist like Burroughs, even this is a challenge. What parts of his life he has not written about himself, other interviewers have strip-mined. When we met for dinner at Lavagna in the East Village, I explained to Augusten this issue. I suggested we make the interview more of a conversation to see if that would be more interesting. “Instead of you in the catbird seat,” I said, “let’s just talk.”

We struck an instant rapport. What set out to be an hour and half interview over dinner had turned into four hours of discussion about our lives similarly lived. I removed half of the interview: the half that focused on me.

Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s conversation with writer Augusten Burroughs.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Federal investigators with the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) of the United States have declared that a recent explosion that damaged homes alongside a Woods Cross, Utah refinery was triggered when a pipe burst. The revelation comes as locals begin questioning the decision to build houses near the facility.

The explosion at the Silver Eagle refinery on Wednesday morning was the second next year, and blasted a fireball into the neighbourhood. Ten houses suffered damage including cracked foundations, roofs lifted off, doors and windows blown out and debris hurled into rooms. One resident, Linda Wood, has been told to leave her house, which lies condemned after it was knocked clear of its foundations and damaged structurally.

Two local emergency dispatch centers were clogged up as calls came through to the 911 emergency number. Firefighters arrived quickly and tackled the resulting blaze at the refinery after establishing that there were no injuries. The 1950s refinery was not evacuated and is expected to continue operating despite the damage. It employs 80 people.

Silver Eagle’s own firefighting crews were already in control when they were joined by the emergency services, and together they put the flames out in around thirty minutes. Woods Cross mayor Kent Perry said that over the last six months there have been a lot of improvements in local firefighting and praised the reaction of emergency services. Later, 120 residents were visited by structural engineers to assess damage. There were also power outages in the area, with two other refineries amongst those affected.

Silver Eagle had also sent employees on a firefighting course following another explosion in January. In that accident, a large cloud of flammable vapour developed over a tank of naptha before igniting, causing a flash fire that injured several employees. The firm has said they will pay for all the damages caused by the latest incident, and Perry advised affected people to keep track of expenses incurred.

As well as the CSB, Utah’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Silver Eagle themselves are investigating the accident. The CSB released preliminary findings yesterday that indicated a burst pipe was to blame, although the reasons for its failure are unknown.

A pipe ten inches in diameter burst along a horizontal section near a point where it changed direction from vertical. The pipe normally carried hydrogen and diesel and was linked to a reactor that took waxes out of diesel fuel, but due to maintenance by Silver Eagle the pipe was only transporting pressurised hydrogen. When it failed at 9:15 630 pounds of hydrogen spilled out and were ignited by a nearby furnace. The resulting 800 degrees Fahrenheit fireball leapt 100 feet into the air and sent a string of pressure waves to buffet the housing, as the pipe pointed east towards the homes.

The CSB’s Donald Holmstrom commented that “The unit was immediately engulfed in flames… We’re extremely fortunate that no one got hurt. Five workers were in this process unit just a few minutes before.” The revelations come as local residents expressed concern about the fact that houses were built so close to the refinery in the first place.

It has been discovered that there were no houses near the refinery until six years ago, when an application was denied after an engineer commissioned by the council reported that the risks were too high. However, the developer convinced officials to change their minds with a report by a company he had hired himself. The CSB is due to look into these studies as well as one by the refinery. An opinion piece by the Salt Lake Tribune also criticised the company’s safety record, with the refinery also experiencing explosions in 2005 and 2007. However, the refinery had recently passed a safety inspection when the accident occurred. The CSB will examine whether the refinery was properly inspecting the pipe.

Friday, October 24, 2008

On August 21, the Polish weekly Przekrój published an advertisement for Dan-Mark exercise books, bearing the logo of 4fun.tv, a Polish music/interactive TV station. Part of the advertisement contained a definition of the word “exercise book”. The wording looked familiar, and Wikinews consulted Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia.

Upon seeing the Wikipedia definition, it appeared that the entry quoted in the promotional material was identical to the initial two paragraphs of the relevant Wikipedia entry.

Freelance reporters for the Polish Wikinews decided to find out the reason for such a similarity and whether either of the texts (the advertisement’s or Wikipedia’s) might be a case of copyright violation.

The reporters contacted a Jaros?aw Janas, Creative Director of 4fun.tv., where the ad appeared. His reply included the following claim:

Copyright on text does not last for fifty years as claimed by Janas, but for 70 years after the death of the author.

To investigate the authenticity of the above claims, Wikinews asked the main author of the two paragraphs in question, Wikipedian Julo, about the sources used to write the entry. He confirmed that he had written the text in question, and not copied it from an encyclopedic publication as claimed by Jana.

It is therefore impossible that both Julo and the people responsible for the exercise book advertisement have used the same uncopyrighted encyclopedia, thus coincidentally creating identical texts. The reporters also noted that the first draft of the introduction to the article was written by WaldemarWolskiHuta (February 2006). Afterward the text had undergone some modifications by Julo (September 2006), as well as Picus viridis and Beno (March 2008). However, the text presented in the press promotional material, which – according to 4fun.tv – came from an old-print encyclopedia is identical to the Wikipedia entry after the changes mentioned above had been made. Julo added that he was still alive, together with the other authors of the article in question who constituted the group of the copyright co-holders. This naturally led to a conclusion that neither 50 nor 70 years could have passed since their death. He left 4fun.tv’s actions with a comment that although the contents he and the other Wikimedians had made public and free, they are far from making them available in any “free style”, but under a specified license.

In follow up messages to Jaros?aw Janas, Wikinews reporters confronted the creative director over his seemingly inaccurate claims.

Wikinews was told in a reply that 4fun.tv would ignore the claims unless they see permission from the author of the original content to investigate this story. They were also informed that further e-mails without any specifics sent by the reporter would be qualified as spam. 4fun.tv’s creative director further added that he found the reporter’s picture on the Internet and asked how the person would feel if this picture was to appear on billboards or press releases that advertised the TV station.

Wikipedia does allow copying of its content under certain conditions. The encyclopedia’s content is released under the GNU Free Documentation License, which means that it can be copied, modified, and used commercially and non-commercially – under the conditions that the license’s text is included with the copied content and the five main authors are mentioned. If a part of the article is used, like in the example quoted in this news story, a “right to quote”, recognized by Polish law, may be used. In such a case it suffices to mention the source of the text (Polish Wikipedia) and the author of the excerpt. 4fun.tv met none of these conditions, meaning that copyright has been violated.

Over a year ago Polish Wikinews reported on a similar problem, regarding the use of free-licensed photographs. Since that time such “borrowings” have become less frequent, however photos are still being used in discordance with the license. Journalists have gotten used to citing sources, e.g. Wikipedia, although licensing conditions require attributing the actual author, not the source. So instead of attributing John Doe for his contribution, agencies like Polska Agencja Prasowa (Polish Press Agency) are attributing the source, Wikipedia.

In early September 2008 a similar situation occurred in relation to the Polish edition of Wiktionary. Gazeta Wyborcza, a Polish daily, published an IKEA advertisement, on the opening page of which an almost word-for-word Wiktionary entry was placed; additionally the advertisement used the characteristic MediaWiki layout. The reference to the external source used was missing.

In April 2008, an example of an Australian professor was cited; the scientist, in a reply to a news story, quoted a Wikipedia definition almost word-for-word. The same professor condemned the use of Wikipedia in his previous press appearances.

In 2005 Wikipedia material was discovered in the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, which acknowledged its fault and published appropriate apologies in place of the article in the online edition.

Frontline magazine in 2007 was found using an image from Wikipedia without proper credit. When pointed out the magazine acknowledged the failing and a correction was promptly given in the subsequent issue.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

San Jose, California — A woman eating a bowl of chili at a Wendy’s restaurant bit into a chewy bit that turned out to be a human finger. She immediately spat it out, warned other patrons to stop eating, and upon recognizing the object as a finger, vomited.

“I’m more of a Carl’s Jr. person,” the 39-year-old Las Vegas woman, Anna Ayala, told Knight Ridder. She said this incident was her first visit to a Wendy’s restaurant. Ayala described how she found the finger, “Suddenly something crunchy was in my mouth,” she continued, “and I spit it out.”

According to Devina Cordero, 20, after Ayala found the finger, she ran up to her and Cordero’s boyfriend and said, “Don’t eat it! Look, there’s a human finger in our chili.”

“We went up to the counter and they told us it was a vegetable,” Cordero continued. “The people from Wendy’s were poking it with a spoon.”

The restaurant is located at 1405 Monterey Highway, just south of downtown San Jose.

Wikinews reporter David Vasquez drove his car up to the drive-thru menu and found that chili was still on the menu, at a price of US$1.19 for a small serving. He also witnessed workers unloading supplies from a semi-trailer truck in the restaurant’s parking lot, and carting them into the back door of the establishment.

According to Ben Gale, director of environmental health for Santa Clara County, the finger did not come from any of the employees at the restaurant. “We asked everybody to show us they have 10 fingers and everything is OK there,” he said. The found portion of the finger likely belonged to a woman because of its long and manicured fingernail, also found in the food.

Officials seized the food supply at the restaurant and are tracing it back to the manufacturer, where they believe the finger may have gotten mixed in with the raw ingredients used to prepare the chili. The restaurant’s operators were later permitted to re-open after preparing new chili prepared from fresh ingredients.

As this story was filed, there was no mention of the incident on the Wendy’s corporate web site. Wendy’s issued a statement through a spokesman.

“Food safety is of utmost importance to us,” said Wendy’s spokesman Joe Desmond. He referred to the incident as an “unsubstantiated claim.”

“We are cooperating fully with the local police and health departments with their investigation. It’s important not to jump to conclusions. Here at Wendy’s we plan to do right by our customers,” Desmond said.

According to county health officials, the unfortunate woman who bit into the finger is doing fine, despite her initial reaction. Officials also noted that the finger would have been cooked at a high enough temperature to destroy any viruses.

The Santa Clara county medical examiner reported that the finger had a solid fingerprint, although investigators did not say if a search of fingerprint databases would be performed to find the owner of the finger.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Ford Motor Company said on Tuesday that its sales in the United States rose 43% in February compared to the same period last year, as the automaker outsold rivals Toyota and General Motors.

Ford said that total sales improved to 142,285 units, compared to 141,951 units sold by GM. Additionally, Ford said that its share of the total US car market rose to 17%, up from 14% a year ago. The increase was better than analysts had predicted, and Ford’s stock rose to a five-year high in morning trading, before declining later in the day. Ford’s sales were significantly influenced by a 74% increase in fleet sales to businesses. Rental car agencies alone accounted for around 30,000 units sold. Sales to retail consumers increased only 28%.

The increases were led by sales of two sedans, the Fusion and Taurus, which rose 166.5 and 93.3% respectively, although sales of other models such as SUVs and pickup trucks also increased. Both models were significantly redesigned last year, and analysts said that improved quality from such cars were driving the increases.

Other companies also reported February sales today, nearly all reporting sales gains as well, although none as large as those of Ford. Toyota was the sole exception to the sales gains, as their sales declined 8.7%, as the company was faced with a global recall during the month that led to a temporary stoppage of production for some models.

“The strength of our new products … are resonating with customers,” said Ken Czubay, Ford’s vice president of sales and marketing. However, he believed that traditional Toyota customers were not buying rival autos, but rather awaiting the results from the recalls.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

New York –”Buy cheap Viagra through us – no prescription required!” Anyone with an active email account will recognize lines like this one. According to some reports, unsolicited advertisements (spam) for Viagra and similar drugs account for one in four spam messages.

Ever since pharmaceutical giant Pfizer promised to cure erectile dysfunction once and for all with its blue pills containing the drug sildenafil citrate, spammers have tried to tap into male anxiety by offering prescription-free sales of unapproved “generic” Viagra and clones such as Cialis soft tabs. Legislation like the U.S. CAN-SPAM act has done little to stem the tide of email advertising the products.

Now Pfizer has entered a pledge with Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest software company, to address the problem. The joint effort will focus on lawsuits against spammers as well as the companies they advertise. “Pfizer is joining with Microsoft on these actions as part of our shared pledge to reduce the sale of these products and to fight the senders of unsolicited e-mail that overwhelms people’s inboxes,” said Jeff Kindler, executive vice president at Pfizer.

Microsoft has filed civil actions against spammers advertising the websites CanadianPharmacy and E-Pharmacy Direct. Pfizer has filed lawsuits against the two companies, and has taken actions against websites which use the word “Viagra” in their domain names. Sales of controlled drugs from Canadian pharmacies to the United States are illegal, but most drugs sold in Canada have nevertheless undergone testing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This is not the case for many of the Viagra clones sold by Internet companies and manufactured in countries like China and India. While it was not clear that CanadianPharmacy was actually shipping drugs from Canada, Pfizer’s general counsel, Beth Levine, claimed that the company filled orders using a call center in Montreal, reported the Toronto Star.

For Microsoft’s part, they allege that the joint effort with Pfizer is part of their “multi-pronged attack on the barrage of spam.” As the creator of the popular email program Outlook, Microsoft has been criticized in the past for the product’s spam filtering process. Recently, Microsoft added anti-spam measures to its popular Exchange server. Exchange 2003 now includes support for accessing so-called real-time block lists, or RTBLs. An RTBL is a list of the IP addresses maintained by a third party; the addresses on the list are those of mailservers thought to have sent spam recently. Exchange 2003 can query the list for each message it receives.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

The Internet group Project Chanology today held protests critical of the Church of Scientology. The protests marked what would have been the 49th birthday of Lisa McPherson, who is claimed to be a victim of the Church of Scientology’s practices. Lisa died in 1995 during a running of what Scientologists refer to as an Introspection Rundown, a procedure intended to help Church members deal with a psychotic or deeply traumatic event.

Protests were planned throughout the day in 14 countries and over 50 different cities. The estimation of total protesters world wide for Feb. 10, 2008 is 9,250 people.

Wikinews had correspondents at a number of protest locations to report on the events. This article was updated throughout the day with reports from around the globe.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Russ Aegard is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the Thunder Bay-Atikokan riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.