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Saturday, April 17, 2010

Journalist, counselor, painter, and US 2012 Presidential candidate Joe Schriner of Cleveland, Ohio took some time to discuss his campaign with Wikinews in an interview.

Schriner previously ran for president in 2000, 2004, and 2008, but failed to gain much traction in the races. He announced his candidacy for the 2012 race immediately following the 2008 election. Schriner refers to himself as the “Average Joe” candidate, and advocates a pro-life and pro-environmentalist platform. He has been the subject of numerous newspaper articles, and has published public policy papers exploring solutions to American issues.

Wikinews reporter William Saturn? talks with Schriner and discusses his campaign.

Saturday, January 6, 2007

An avalanche on U.S. Route 40, which was 100 feet wide and 15 feet deep, has buried many cars, caused other cars to be pushed over the edge of an expressway, and injured eight people, just outside of Denver, Colorado. The avalanche started at 10:30 AM, starting about 12 miles off Interstate 70, and taking three different paths down the mountain before coming to a stop.

“Our crews said it was the largest they have ever seen. It took three paths,” said a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation, Stacey Stegman.

All eight (7 adults, 1 minor) have been taken to the St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver. According to a hospital spokeswoman, all of the victims suffered minor injuries. Seven patients were released on Saturday. There were no casualties.

U.S. route 40 is currently closed to traffic. According to Winter Park spokesman Matt Sugar, there are no plans to close the ski hills. “We’ve gotten calls from all over the country asking if the resort is closed,” he said, “and the answer is no.”

This is the third snow storm to hit the Denver area in three weeks.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Philip Tisson, a member of the Saint Lucia national football team, has been killed by a gunshot wound to the head in New York. Tisson was in New York participating in the Digicel Caribbean Cup tournament.

Several members of the team were at Tropiks Bar and Grill in Brooklyn celebrating an earlier victory over Saint Kitts and Nevis. At 4.30am, Tisson entered a parked car outside of Tropiks. While seated in the rear of the car, Tisson was shot in the head. Three women were in the car at the time of the shooting, with one requiring medical attention for a shoulder wound.

According to teammate Sheldon Emmanuel, Tisson left the bar at 3:30 A.M. (EST) with an unknown woman. Tisson’s brother remained with his teammates and only found out about the shooting afterwards by phone. Emmanuel also stated that no one witnessed Tission involved an argument with anyone. A police official said that there are no known suspects. Police are waiting for video evidence.

Tisson had scored in the Saint Kitts and Nevis game. St. Lucia advanced to the finals with their win over Saint Kitts and Nevis to face Jamaica. The team stated they will still play in the final on Sunday “despite the loss of a friend, a teammate and one of their most powerful players”.

In St. Lucia, Tisson is survivied by his three year-old daughter.

Monday, February 11, 2008

José Ramos-Horta, President of East Timor, has been shot by rebel soldiers in an attack on his home near the capital of Dili. He is now undergoing treatment at the Royal Darwin Hospital‘s intensive care unit in Darwin, Australia.

The military is blaming the shooting on rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, who, along with another attacker, was shot and killed by the president’s guards. “The attack was carried out by Alfredo’s group,” said military spokesman Domingos da Camara. Reinado, a former major, was charged with murder after leading rebel soldiers in the 2006 East Timor crisis.

Camara said the shooting took place at 4:30 am local time, when two cars passed the president’s residence in Areia Branca, two kilometers outside of the capital. According to Camara, the group “assaulted him, but after rapid reaction by security, his attackers fled”. One of the president’s guards was killed in the attack, Camara said.

Ramos-Horta’s current condition is serious, but stable, according to doctors at the Royal Darwin Hospital. “This is a very traumatic and a nasty event – high-velocity, high-powered weapons shooting somebody in the chest in the abdomen are nasty injuries, but we would be very hopeful and cognoscente of a good recovery,” said Len Notaras, the hospital superintendent. Notaras says he has found three bullet wounds, two in the stomach and one in the back.

The president was initially taken to a hospital at an Australian military base in Dili. He was then flown by airplane to Darwin and driven to the hospital under police escort. His sister and mother are in Darwin with him. Ramos-Horta is currently in an induced coma, and it is unclear when the doctors will begin operating.

Januario Freitas, a neighbor of the president, said his wound looked “serious”. Maria Gabriela Carrascalao, the president’s sister-in-law, said, “He was able to talk. We don’t know how far is the damage, let’s hope that he’s not very, very serious.”

Australian and East Timorean troops stepped up sercurity around the capital, while United Nations police sealed off the road leading to Ramos-Horta’s house. “UNPol is in a high state of alert in Dili,” UN spokeswoman Allison Cooper said.

Local media reported that the home of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao had also come under attack, but a statement released by the United Nations said Gusmao was safe in his office and working with international forces.

“The prime minister is in control of the situation,” said East Timor foreign minister Zacarias da Costa. “I think the country is safe. We have the support of the Australian and New Zealand military here … and I believe our own defenses are capable of handling those problems.”

Australia agreed to send 120 more soldiers and up to 70 police to Dili. Australian foreign minister Steven Smith says the troops could be used to capture the other members of Reinado’s group, who he believes attempted a coordinated assassination. “This wasn’t a coincidence, this was a deliberate assassination attempt to take out the Prime Minister and the President – the two key figures in the duly elected East Timorese Government, and that’s why the events of the day are effectively so shocking,” Smith said.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

120 years after it was founded, the University of Wales (UoW) will shut down. Already comprised of several institutions, two will merge fully while two more will become independent universities.

With a charter from 1893 and the Prince of Wales as its chancellor, problems began at UoW last year after concerns the head of a Malaysian partner institution, a local pop artist, had non-legitimate qualifications. This was followed by Thailand’s authorities denouncing another UoW partner as illegal, then an investigation in the UK into all the UoW’s foreign ties.

The Quality Assurance Agency said UoW’s overseas checks on foreign institutions were inadequate. The UK Border Agency is investigating a possible visa scam whereby foreign students were sold exam answers for a qualification leading to UoW entry and British visas. Two colleges — Rayat London College and Lampton College — are suspended over the claims.

Trinity St David and Swansea Metropolitan universities are to merge, forming University of Wales: Trinity St David. It is to use the latter’s own royal charter, which is itself 190 years old. Newport and Glyndwr are set to become universities in their own right. The dissolution follows calls from the leaders of rival universities for the end of UoW.

“I warmly welcome the historic decision taken today by the University of Wales Council,” said UoW Vice-Chancellor Professor Medwin Hughes, who will fill the same role for the new University of Wales: Trinity St David. “The transformed University will serve and deliver for Wales.” His counterpart for Newport, Dr Peter Noyes, said “The inevitable end to the story of the University of Wales should not detract from a distinguished history lasting 12 decades. Wales should be sad that this day has come[.]” UoW chairmain Hugh Thomas has resigned.

The Prince of Wales is among past students, having spent a 1969 term there. The institution’s various member organisations at one point included the now-separate Cardiff University.

Friday, July 10, 2009

The Saskatchewan provincial government alongside the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) have come together to establish a CA$500 million, 10 megawatts research nuclear reactor to produce medical isotopes.

“In 1949 … cobalt-60 treatment was tried for the first time here in Saskatchewan, where it saved a woman battling cervical cancer. Maybe we can lead again in terms of nuclear medicine,” said Brad Wall, the Premier of Saskatchewan, “Governments should be involved in pure research. We’re dealing with some circumstances as they present themselves”

“We’ve had faculty that are interested in this. We have an issue of national importance, We see a reason why the U of S and the province could assist in this national issue. We see how it could help the country. We see how it could build on the university’s research strength,” said Richard Florizone, U of S vice-president of finance and resources.

The research conducted at the Canadian Light Source Synchrotron on campus would be enhanced by a research reactor.

“In the case of a power reactor, in Saskatchewan we have much better alternatives. In the case of a medical isotopes research reactor, this may be a circumstance where the benefits outweigh the risks,” said Peter Prebble, director of energy and water policy for the Saskatchewan Environmental Society.

The nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ontario in Canada was shut down on Thursday, May 14 by the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) due to a leak of heavy water and will not re-open until late 2009 or spring of 2010.

The repairs of the NRU are complex and challenging. “I’ve heard it described as . . . trying to change the oil in your car from your living room. We’re faced with conducting remote investigations in a radioactive environment with high radiation fields, conducting the examinations and inspections through small openings in the top of the reactor and accessing over great distances,” said David Cox, director of the NRU engineering task force.

“The unplanned shutdown of the NRU will result in a significant shortage of medical isotopes in Canada, and in the world, this summer,” said Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health and Lisa Raitt, Minister of Natural Resources.

The Petten reactor in the Netherlands is another of the six extant nuclear reactors globally. It must also be shut down between mid July and mid August.

Medical isotopes are used in diagnostic procedures for cancer, heart disease and other medical conditions. When radioactive isotopes are injected into the body, radiologists can view higher radiation via medical imaging, enabling them to make a more accurate diagnosis.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Irish budget airline Ryanair have added newspaper publishers Associated Newspapers and Mirror Group to their legal targets in a High Court defamation action filed yesterday in Dublin that also targets Channel 4.

The move confirms the carrier’s expression of intent to sue Channel 4 after the UK broadcaster screened Secrets of the Cockpit, a documentary about safety at the airline, on Monday night. Part of the Dispatches series, the show reported on an incident in Spain last year where three Ryanair jets declared fuel emergencies after being diverted to Valencia. Fuel policy was a strong focus for the documentary.

Pilots interviewed for the programme said they felt pressured to save fuel, the cost of which has hit Ryanair’s profits. The Spanish Air Authority described Ryanair flights usually landing with a bare minimum of fuel, in a report the airline dismissed as “manifestly inaccurate and factually untrue”.

Ryanair have also sacked veteran pilot John Goss for appearing on the show, the only pilot interviewed who did not seek anonymity. Ryanair have stated intent to sue Goss and claim he confirmed in the weeks before the show that he had no issues with his employer’s safety. Goss is a member of Ryanair Pilots Group (RPG), which the airline call a union front.

Channel 4 previously promised when threatened with legal action to see Ryanair in court. “We stand by our journalism, and will robustly defend proceedings if they are initiated,” a spokesperson said. The Belfast Telegraph was also sued but the action has been dropped after the Northern Irish publication issued an apology. The paper had published a story titled “Are budget airlines like Ryanair putting passengers at risk?”.

Associated Newspapers are behind The Daily Mail and its online and Sunday variants. Mirror Group publish The Daily Mirror, its Sunday sister, and The People.

Secrets of the Cockpit also examined an RPG poll of 1,000 Ryanair flight crew, dismissed by the airline as part of unionisation efforts. According to the RPG survey almost 90% of respondents said the safety culture was nontransparent. Two-thirds said they felt uncomfortable raising safety issues, with a pilot interviewed by Channel 4 accusing Ryanair of “threats and bullying”. Ryanair had told pilots anybody signing a “so-called safety petition” might be dismissed.

Over 90% of those surveyed wanted a regulatory inquiry, with RPG saying the survey results were passed to the airline and the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA). The IAA has already called the programme a “misguided attack” on Ryanair, saying “Ryanair Plc fully complies with all European and international regulations in all areas of its operations”.

The IAA itself was accused of failing to respond to concerns from Ryanair pilots and one interviewee said his “personal belief is that the majority of Ryanair pilots do not have confidence in the safety agencies and that is a pretty critical issue”. The authority responded “The IAA has responded to personal letters and reports from Ryanair pilots, this included several meetings and face-to-face interviews with pilots and their legal and professional representatives.”

Ryanair makes heavy use of zero-hour contracts, which do not guarantee work and which the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association describe as offering some of aviation’s worst employment conditions. RPG chairman Evert van Zwol, also a recent Dutch Airline Pilots Association president, said zero-hour contracts tended to make pilots choose to fly when unwell and keep quiet if they had safety concerns. In 2005 a Polish Ryanair pilot became lost near Rome a few days after attending his son’s funeral, while his Dutch co-pilot was seeing his first experience of navigating severe weather.

In the 2005 incident air traffic control intervened to keep the flight safe from midair collisions. The Polish pilot told Italian investigators he feared losing his job if he took extra time off work. The investigation concluded in 2009 he had been unfit to fly. Ryanair denied he would have been fired for taking time off to recover.

Secrets of the Cockpit also reported that in twelve separate serious incidents data from cockpit voice recorders had been wiped before investigators could access it, which the carrier says is a common occcurrence in aviation and attributed to pilot error.

In Sweden a report into a Ryanair emergency landing concluded this week an airline employee wiped the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder to prevent the investigation accessing them. The aircraft had returned to an airport near Stockholm shortly after takeoff suffering electrical malfunctions. Ryanair reject the Swedish Accident Investigation Authority’s take on the missing data, telling newspaper Södermanlands Nyheter recordings were reset by a technician trying to repair the aircraft after consultation with Ryanair’s technical department, who did not think the recordings needed saving.

Ryanair, which has never suffered a fatal accident, says the documentary is “false and defamatory”, and the IAA says it is “based upon false and misleading information”. “We have been instructed to vigorously prosecute these libel proceedings,” said a statement from Ryanair’s lawyers, who promised “other litigation is pending”.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

A local Swiss government has shown some bare cheek and has taken action, after hordes of German naked hikers rambling across the Swiss alps au naturel, caused indignation amongst locals.

Authorities in Swiss canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden have warned that starting from February 9, the government will impose hefty fines of 200 Swiss Francs (£122, €135) on naturists found walking or hiking in the nude without clothes in the picturesque mountains because of a recent influx of visiting German nudists.

The new ordinance is expected to be passed this spring. If it is approved by the local parliament on February 9 it should be effective on April 26. The Swiss canton aims to stop spread of ‘indecent practice’ by minimally-clad German climbers.

The problem started with a group of “boot-only hikers” who were stopped by the police in the Alpine region last autumn. They had wandered there regularly, proudly marching through nature with bare bums, and had also advertised what they thought was a naked paradise on the internet. But it was all too much for the Swiss.

A nude rambler dressed in nothing more than a rucksack and walking boots in the eastern Appenzell region was arrested and detained in the canton, but authorities were unable to file lawsuit because the act was not punished by law or ordinance at the time.

“We were forced to introduce the legislation against this indecent practice before the warm weather starts,” Melchior Looser, the canton’s justice and police minister, said. “Ultimately, in the summer lots of kids stay in our mountains,” he added.

In the guidelines imposed, arrested offenders who cannot pay the fine, will face legal action. The new enabling ordinance has, however, been met with protests by nude hikers. “We simply try to tune into nature. It’s the most harmless pursuit possible,” said Dietmar, age 58, a German lawyer.

German tabloid Bild Zeitung has editorially attacked Swiss intolerance and even suggested nudist alternatives worldwide, after hinting a Swiss tourism boycott. Local authorities of Harz mountain range in central Germany have also announced the openness to any visitor of an “official naked walking route” in nature’s outdoors.

Freikörperkultur (“FKK”), or “free body culture”, is a popular pastime in Germany. It is a German movement which endorses a naturistic approach to sports and community living. Behind that is the joy of the experience of nature or also on being nude itself, without direct relationship to sexuality. The followers of this culture are called traditional naturists, FKK’ler, or nudists.

The naked ramblers have hoped it doesn’t lead to another naturist-clothed ‘war’, like the one at a beach between German and Polish holidaymakers in 2008. Naturism has roots traced from the start of the 20th century. “Abandoning unpractical clothes enables a direct contact with the wind, sun and temperature”, naked hiker website nacktwandern.de stated.

But Markus Dörig, a spokesman for Appenzell Innerrhoden canton has defended the law, explaining that the “public nuisance” was a foreign import. “We have been receiving many complaints. The local people are upset and we in the government share their concern. How would one feel if one was to go walking in nature and suddenly came across a group of naked people? They are definitely not people from the area, and I think many of them come from Germany,” he noted.

“We are a small and orderly community and such things are simply out of place here. Perhaps in vast mountain areas naked people would not be much of a problem but here they simply stick out,” Dörig added. “I can understand that we all have to live in this world together,” said Barbara Foley, International Naturist Foundation member of the central committee. “But I would certainly enjoy doing the hike in the nude and I wouldn’t want to be deprived of it. It’s nice to feel the sun on your skin. Maybe they should designate a couple of trails and people would know they might come across naturists there,” she added.

Appenzell Innerrhoden (Appenzell Inner Rhodes) is the smallest canton of Switzerland by population and the second smallest by area, Basel-City having less area. The population of the canton was 15,471 as of 2007, of which 1,510 (or 9.76%) were foreigners. The canton in the north east of Switzerland has an area is 173 km². It was divided in 1597 for religious reasons from the former canton Appenzell, with Appenzell Ausserrhoden being the other half.

Appenzell is the capital of this canton. The constitution was established in 1872. Most of the canton is pastoral, this despite being mountainous. Cattle breeding and dairy farming are the main agricultural activities: Appenzeller cheese is widely available throughout Switzerland. Due to the split of Appenzell along religious lines, the population (as of 2000) is nearly all Roman Catholic (81%), with a small Protestant minority (10%).

The town, however is far from liberalism: the canton granted women the right of suffrage only in 1990 under pressure from the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland and international human rights groups. The Alpine village of Appenzell Innerrhoden, being known for its beautiful landscape, has recently been declared a “naked rambler paradise” by a German mountaineering website, which was created by a lobby group of hikers.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

The U.S Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled more products over the last few days, though not all because of excessive lead.

While American toy companies have been rocked in the last few months by numerous unsafe Chinese-made products, mostly due to excessive amounts of lead in paint, a few of the latest recalls were actually due to design flaws.

Also recently recalled are sunglasses and toy cars from the Dollar General chain of price-point retailers.

Monday, June 1, 2009

In a televised speech from the White House at 16:00 UTC today, President of the United States Barack Obama presented a reorganization plan following the 12:00 UTC announcement by General Motors that it had filed for bankruptcy and Chapter 11 protection from its creditors, the largest bankruptcy of a U.S. manufacturing company.

Describing the problem with the company as one that had been “decades in the making,” Obama explained the rationale behind his proposed reorganization plan for General Motors. He stated that his intent was not to “perpetuat[e] the bad business decisions of the past,” and that loaning General Motors money, when debt was its problem, would have been doing exactly that. His plan, he stated, was for the United States government, in conjunction with the governments of Canada and Ontario (which he thanked for their roles alongside the government of Germany which he thanked for its role in selling a corporate stake in GM Europe), to become shareholders in General Motors. The United States government would hold a 60% stake. The government will give GM a capital infusion of US$30 billion in addition to the funds it has already received.

Of the government ownership he stated that he refused “to let General Motors and Chrysler become wards of the state”, and described the bankruptcy of Chrysler, and the bankruptcy of General Motors that he envisioned as being “quick, surgical, bankruptcies”. He pointed to the bankruptcy of Chrysler as an example of what he envision for General Motors, but stated that General Motors was a “more complex company” than Chrysler.

Responding to challenges voiced by political opponents, before the speech, that the federal government would actively participate in the affairs of the restructured company, he stated that he had “no interest” in running GM, and that the federal government would “refrain from exercising its rights” as a corporate shareholder for the most part. In particular, he stated that the federal government would not exercise its rights as a shareholder to dictate “what new type of car to make.” He stated that he expected the restructured GM to make “high quality, safe, and fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow,” and several times described what he anticipated as “better” and “fuel-efficient” cars, after a streamlining of GM’s brands.

He said to the general public that “I will not pretend that the hard times are over.” He described the financial hardship that some — shareholders, communities based around GM plants, GM dealers, and others — would undergo as a “sacrifice for the next generation” on their parts, so that their children could live in “an America that still makes things,” concluding that one day the United States might return to a time when the maxim (a widely-repeated mis-quotation of what Charles Erwin Wilson once testified before the U.S. Senate when nominated for the position of Secretary of Defense) would once more be true that “what is good for General Motors is good for the United States of America.”