Monday, September 18, 2006

Photographs published by the Investigate magazine and the newspaper Sunday Star Times has shown the Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark’s husband, Peter Davis, being hugged and kissed by openly gay Auckland GP (General Practitioner) Dr. Ian Scott on election night 2005. The editor of Investigate, Ian Wishart, stated that at no time has Investigate ever suggested Davis is gay.

Wishart said that he has “Been targeting Mr Davis for months and has appealed for readers to send him details of his private life. [My] article makes no homosexual inferences and is merely an attempt to background Davis ahead of reports to follow.”

Investigate has been publishing a series of stories involving Davis about an alleged incident overseas. They were tipped off by New Zealand law enforcement. “The picture is all about trying to find out more about the alleged incident. [I am] working through overseas sources to investigate the allegations. Regardless of what his investigation uncovers, the results will be published.” Wishart also says there is more ‘dirt’ to come.

Clark has called it a “pack of lies” and labelled it as a smear campaign. “I’ve been aware of a smear campaign circulating for many months. Actively circulated by National Party people. And I’ve had countless friends phone me about it. It’s been assiduously spread through circles in business, the law, accountants – it’s just come from all quarters.”

Dr. Scott is a close friends of the couple and was, according to Clark, “reasonably boisterous and drunk,” when the situation occurred and Davis was “a bit disgusted,” when he was kissed. “We have a particularly small group of very close friends . . . and Ian is right in there. He is one of our oldest friends as a couple. There is not a shred of truth to what Wishart says,” said Clark.

“People just fall about themselves laughing when they see that was the great ‘gay’ allegation,” Clark said.

Clark has partly blamed the Exclusive Brethren for the smear campaign as they were allegedly the ones who campaigned to unseat Labour and also allegations that they hired a private detective to follow Davis, the church has denied having any involvement. Clark has said “the smear campaign against her husband had spread far too wide for it to be the work of the Brethren alone,” so she also blames Brash.

“I think the National Party has stooped to new levels with his leadership. I think we’re seeing the absolute desperation of, actually, the far Right in politics, which feels it has a right to rule, couldn’t cope with losing three elections in a row and there’s a desperation and nastiness about it and it will stoop to anything,” Clark said.

Brash said that he rejects and condemns the rumour-mongering and a spokesman said: “he [Brash] nor any of his MPs were involved in spreading them [rumours]. National believes the private lives of politicians and their families should be just that – private.”

A source for the National Party said that people had phoned in with the rumour and National told them to “go away.”

Gerry Brownlee, Deputy leader of National, denies any National Party involvement. He said: “Despite Don Brash coming under fire for admitting his marriage was in difficulties amid speculation he had an affair, National is not in a vengeful mode and rejects any such suggestion. The private lives of the families of MPs should be left out of the public eye.”

Media experts are passing off Investigate’s story as poor journalism. Including the head of New Zealand Broadcasting School, Paul Norris. Norris said: “The leader of a party has to expect their private life to impact on their leadership but in this case it seems Clark does not have a lot to answer to. The story has very little substance.”

Clark has denied that a meeting between Brash to discuss toning down personal attacks will take place. But does say a meeting between party representatives could be arranged.

Clark has told the New Zealand Police that she believes that they have been followed by private detectives. The police are yet to confirm that they are investigating the claim as of Monday morning. Clark said that she has been “told by a number of sources that private investigators have been hired to follow both herself and her husband, Professor Peter Davis.”

Sunday, July 20, 2008

The last day of the Wikimania 2008 conference saw Saturday morning sessions on a variety of topics. Wikinews attended a presentation by Eric M. Johnson from the United States Department of State. Eric, a former NCO in the U.S. Marines, is the lead for the Knowledge Management Action team in the department’s Office of eDiplomacy, and involved in department’s use of Web 2.0 technologies for knowledge management. This includes blogs, and the key focus of his talk, Wiki culture in the U.S. Department of State.

Eric opened his presentation with an introduction to the U.S. State Department, one of the oldest agencies of the American government, which today has around 57,000 employees worldwide. When formed in the 18th century their offices and diplomatic staff operated largely autonomously due to lack of ability to communicate rapidly. By the mid-20th century this had changed with the advent of telegraph lines, and changed again with the Cold War and security concerns bringing to the fore the well-known term, “need to know”.

Now, in the 21st century, the volume of internal communication generated by the department is a staggering 1,800,000 cables a year, 1.5 billion emails, production of around 500,000 print volumes, and maintenance of approximately one thousand websites. Both internal and externally facing.

A pilot project was set up, Diplopedia, a MediaWiki wiki running on the department’s internal network, which outside of the department of defence is one of the largest private networks operated by the U.S. government.

A grassroots effort, this project to promote knowledge sharing differs from the well-known Wikipedia in that it does not allow anonymous edits. There are around 1,000 registered users who have contributed over 4,400 pages. Integration with the Department of State’s internal search engine prioritises results from the wiki, increasing the popularity of the site such that it has received over 650,000 page views. Like Wikipedia, users are required to provide sources for entered information at the foot of the article, and users are warned that it is a starting point and not an authoritative source of information. Data on visa requirements and information from other static department sites has been incorporated into the wiki.

Eric described the project as just reaching critical mass and attracting increasing interest from other departments. Among the ingredients leading to the success of the project were the cultural change with increasing awareness of the technology from Wikipedia, the formation by the community of a welcoming committee, and the taking on of roles to carry out tasks such as drafting. A number of staff act as “gardeners” tending to the wiki content, keeping it fresh, and well cross-referenced. The continual updating is a novel concept to many of their employees.

Unlike Wikipedia, and many other projects using MediaWiki, none of the Diplopedia pages are locked or protected. This even includes their main page. To date there have been none of the content disputes that have been an issue on Wikipedia, and the use of the wiki to replace traditional websites which are far more time consuming to maintain is seen as a logical extension of the project.

Carried out with no outside help, and by learning from others’ mistakes, the department has adopted mechanisms for assuming that contributions are well-intentioned, and has a body for oversight in the event of a dispute.

With the success of the project, eDiplomacy plans to introduce a separate, classified wiki. They will also expand the effort to compile biographies of foreign leaders, which was pioneered by the U.S. missions in Italy and Germany. This effort has proven valuable when combined with a version of the site available on portable devices such as the Blackberry.

The future holds moves to seek more support from management and integration with their primary authentication system. Among the features on the main page to keep the project interesting to staff is a “Diploquiz” which poses a weekly trivia question which can be answered from somewhere within the wiki.

Monday, October 30, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Etobicoke—Lakeshore (Ward 5). Two candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include John Chiappetta, Joseph Mignone, Peter Milczyn (incumbent), Arthur Roszak, and Bojidar Tchernev.

Interviewed are newcomer Joseph Mignone, and incumbent Peter Milczyn. Click on either of their names to read their responses.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

At least 21,000 gallons of crude oil has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico near the United States mainland coast, about 30 miles off the shore of Galveston, Texas. The U.S. Coast Guard says that oil is still leaking at a rate of 80 to 400 gallons a day.

The High Island Pipeline began to leak on Sunday and was immediately shut down when a pressure loss was detected. The pipeline is owned by Plains All American Pipeline who state that the incident is “under investigation” and that officials are working to “minimize the impact of the incident.”

“A medium crude oil pipeline ruptured 30 miles southeast of Galveston, Texas, and leaked approximately 21,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico Sunday, December 24,” said a press release by Coast Guard.

“There’s a 60-yard-wide oil sheen that extends for about half a mile. It is still leaking slowly, about 80 to 400 gallons a day,” added the Coast Guard.

Reports say that the oil is traveling away from any shoreline and that remaining oil is being suctioned out of the pipeline. Ships in the area have not been diverted.

“All appropriate agencies have been notified. Plains, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Texas General Land Office are working within a unified command system consisting of Federal and state agencies and oil spill response organizations to manage and mitigate this incident. In addition, Plains has activated its spill response plan to contain and clean up the spill. At present, Plains has mobilized Airborne Support, Inc., Clean Gulf Associates and other additional resources in an effort to minimize the consequences of the incident,” said a press release by the Plains oil company.

So far, no injuries have been reported.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Former Argentine professional wrestler and basketball player Jorge ‘Giant’ González has died at the age of 44. González died in his hometown of San Martin, Argentina. The cause of death was established to be complications of diabetes. González had suffered with the illness for several years and was wheelchair bound.

Standing over 7.5 feet (2.3 metres) tall, González was originally a basketball player before becoming a wrestler. Upon moving to the United States, he was drafted in the third round of the 1988 NBA draft by the Atlanta Hawks. After his basketball career ended, he joined World Championship Wrestling (WCW). During his time there, he wrestled as El Gigante for two years, then joining the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), now World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

During his time with the WWF, González feuded with The Undertaker. He debuted at the 1993 Royal Rumble where he eliminated Undertaker from the Royal Rumble match. He spent the entire of his time at with the WWF feuding with Undertaker and left the company in July 1993 after losing a Rest in Peace match to him. After leaving the company, he wrestled in Japan before retiring in 1995 after suffering from sciatic nerve pain.

González is the latest in a line of former WWE wrestlers to die in the last two months. In August, both Lance Cade and Luna Vachon passed away, while Mike ‘Bastion Booger’ Shaw died at the age of 53 earlier this month.

A compilation of brief news reports for Monday, May 7, 2007.

A 30 meter section of a gas pipeline in Luka (near Kiev) in Ukraine has been destroyed by an explosion. Although supplies to Europe via this pipeline have stopped, Ukrainian Energy Minister Georgi E. Boyko said that supplies to Europe would not be affected.

“There are no changes in volumes of gas being transported,” Yuri Korolchuk said. “Volumes due to pass through the damaged section are being redirected through the Soyuz pipeline.”

Normal flows are reported in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania.

Sources

• “Blast damages pipeline in Ukraine” — Russia Today, May 8, 2007
• Natalya Zinets, Reuters. “Blast hits Ukraine gas pipeline” — The Scotsman, May 7, 2007

Copper prices are rising. Between record copper imports from China, and a mining strike in Peru, the prices have climbed to over $8100 (United States dollars) a tonne, for a gain of $575 dollars over the last week. However the upward trend is not new, it has been climbing for quite some time. In April 2003, the price of copper was under $2000 a tonne.

The metal market has been tending up due to growth in the Chinese industrial production. This trickles down to the local level, where the buying price at scrap yards is ever climbing, making scrap metal collection a more profitable endeavour for individual people using pick up trucks or other such vehicles to collect and cash in the scrap metal at metal buying yards. It can be collected via agreements with businesses, from the garbage, or, sometimes, by theft.

Copper prices fell today on the NYMEX commodity exchange from US$3.7545 per pound to US$3.7125 based on the July futures contract.

Sources

• “Copper up but crude oil down” — Financial Express, May 6, 2007
• Millie Munshi. “Metals Bubble Poised to Burst on Increasing Supplies” — Bloomberg L.P., May 7, 2007
• “Commodity Futures” — Bloomberg L.P., accessed May 7, 2007

One man was killed and another injured by an exploding backpack in the parking lot of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The explosion happened at 4 a.m. PDT when the victim tried to remove a the object left on top of his car.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) are on the scene. Aerial images did not show any apparent damage.

“We believe the victim was the intended target of this,” Bill Cassell said, spokesperson for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. “This is being treated as a homicide in which the weapon used to cause death is a non-traditional weapon.”

Both of the victims worked at the Luxor.

Sources

• Associated Press. “1 dead, 1 hurt in Las Vegas parking lot blast” — MSNBC, May 7, 2007
• “Explosion kills man in Vegas outside Luxor hotel” — Reuters, May 7, 2007

Friday, March 18, 2022

On Wednesday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) directed Russia to “immediately suspend the military operations” in Ukraine in a 13–2 vote of representatives. The ruling against the Russian invasion of Ukraine was opposed by Russia and China.

Ukraine filed the case on February 26, two days after the Russian invasion began. Russia justified the incursion as a special military operation to protect Russian groups in Eastern Ukraine from genocide, which Ukraine says is unfounded. During the hearing, Russia insisted “it was acting in self-defense”.

Ukrainian representative to the ICJ Anton Korynevych demanded “Russia must be stopped”. Ukraine said the United Nations Genocide Convention doesn’t permit invasion as defense against genocide, and denied committing or planning any such acts.

The court ruled in Ukraine’s favor. It reasoned, “the civilian population affected by the present conflict is extremely vulnerable. The ‘special military operation’ being conducted by the Russian Federation has resulted in numerous civilian deaths and injuries.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the victory on Twitter: “Ukraine gained a complete victory in its case”. He also wrote: “Ignoring the order will isolate Russia even further.”

Russia had earlier boycotted the ICJ hearing with a March 7 filing saying the court lacks jurisdiction on the matter. Even though the ICJ ruled in favor of Ukraine, it has no executive right to enforce the verdict.

Russia’s military continues to strike Ukrainian cities and destroy civilian structures. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that about 3 million Ukrainians had taken refuge in nearby countries since the invasion.