Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Mehmet Okur scored 12 of the last 14 points for the Utah Jazz in the final minutes of their game against the Chicago Bulls on Monday night, propelling the Jazz to a 100-95 win against the Bulls. Okur finished with 20 points and was the high scorer for the Jazz, who now have won three in a row. He played most of the fourth quarter despite picking up a fifth foul early in the final period. In addition to Okur’s contribution, Deron Williams contributed 18 points and 13 rebounds in the effort.

Kirk Hinrich was the game’s leading scorer with 26 points, and Luol Deng contributed 23. However, the Jazz shot 50% from the field and dished out 24 total assists. The Bulls could not match those numbers, only shooting 40% and earning 15 assists. The lack of ball movement was obvious early on, as the Bulls committed three offensive fouls in the second quarter – all as the result of Bulls players attempting to drive the ball rather than pass and try to break the effective zone of the Utah Jazz. Ben Gordon also picked up a flagrant foul early in the second quarter, starting off what would be an ugly twelve minutes for the visiting Bulls. The Bulls were outscored 33-18 in the second quarter, leaving them down 57-43 at the half.

It almost wasn’t enough of a lead for the Jazz, as the Bulls were able to fight back and cut the lead to three with a three-point shot from Chris Duhon with 1:20 remaining in regulation time. However, the Jazz answered right back with an Okur three-point field goal, and the Bulls could not recover. While the Bulls would answer back with another field goal, the Jazz would score the next four points and pull away with the victory.

• Andres Nocioni was scratched with a foot injury. Team doctors believe that he may have a torn or inflamed plantar fascia; MRI results are not due back for another day or two. [1]
• Jazz coach Jerry Sloan received a technical foul for arguing with the officials midway through the fourth quarter.
• Earlier in the day, the Bulls’ Tyrus Thomas was named as one of the four participants in the 2008 Slam Dunk Competition during All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas.

Friday, August 4, 2006

Kuwait might finance a great number of public works in East Timor, in an investment worth 500 million to 600 million dollars, the East Timorese Prime Minister said today. José Ramos Horta leaves today for an official visit to Kuwait.

“I want to start right now the negotiations process with the Development Fund of Kuwait for the construction of great projects for East Timor’s roads, bridges, harbors and airports”, Ramos Horta, East Timor’s Prime Minister, said.

“For a project of this magnitude, to carry throughout several years, the amount of money to be spent is about 500 million to 600 million dollars or more. We are now waiting a preliminary study made by an Indian company, paid by Kuwait”, Ramos Horta added.

The East Timorese delegation is composed by the Minister of public works, Odete Victor, and the Minister of energy & mineral resources, José Teixeira.

The visit is part of an invitation by Kuwait’s Prime Minister Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, and includes meetings with the Emir Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the crown prince Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed Sabah Al Salem Al Sabah and representatives of the Development Fund of Kuwait.

This is the second visit to Kuwait in two years by Ramos Horta, an country with who the East Timorese Prime Minister maintains relations with several members of the royal family and of the government.

Friday, March 18, 2011

U.S Nuclear Regulatory Secretary Steven Chu reported to Congress Wednesday that the incidents at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant may end up as a larger disaster than the Three Mile Island meltdown faced by the U.S. in 1979. However, he said reports from Japan officials are contradictory, and concluded that “[w]e don’t really know in detail what’s happening. We hear conflicting reports.”

International frustration is focusing on the slow pace and lack of detail characterizing the updates from Japan. The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, said Japan needs to provide more frequent and detailed information on the crisis to the world.

Currently, the lack of information is particularly important regarding the threat posed by reactor number four. The building housing the reactor is no longer on fire, but smoke or steam is visible on television pictures. Yoshitaka Nagayama, a spokesman for Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, admitted that “[b]ecause we have been unable to go the scene, we cannot confirm whether there is water left or not in the spent fuel pool at Reactor No. 4.”

Thomas Neff, a reactor safety expert with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said: “The problem is that nobody knows. If you don’t know and you’re TEPCO, you probably underplay it. If you’re the regulator, you probably see it in a worse light.”

“The odds are pretty good that no one has good information,” said a former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner, Peter Bradford, who was on the commission at the time of the Three Mile Island disaster.

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

The Delhi Police used lathi(baton)-charges to disrupt striking traders when they gathered in large numbers and attempted to block traffic on the city’s streets on Wednesday morning. The 2-day old strike, protesting a Supreme Court order to seal unauthorised commercial establishments in the city, turned to a more violent note with protestors stranded several buses by puncturing their tyres.

The Supreme Court’s Monitoring committee sent a notice to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on Tuesday to resume the sealing of unauthorised shops from November 2. Initially, the sealing drive was to resume on November 1.

Private medical practitioners also joined the protest on its final day, which affected health services in the city. The traders threatened to extend their strike if MCD resumes its sealing drive.

The first two days of the strike went peacefully without having any serious violence. Traders were expecting the government to meet their demands. They met Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit to resolve this dispute.

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Wikinews extended invitations by e-mail on March 23 to multiple candidates running in the Texas’ 6th congressional district special election of May 1 to fill a vacancy left upon the death of Republican congressman Ron Wright. Of them, independent candidate Adrian Mizher agreed to answer some questions by phone on March 30 about their campaigns and policies. The following is the interview with Mr Mizher.

Mizher describes himself as a senior loan closer on his LinkedIn profile at BBVA USA, a Birmingham-based subsidiary of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria. He has lived in Kennedale, Texas for five years and the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area for 16 of the last 24 years. A cum laude graduate of Southwestern Adventist University, he grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and has lived for eight years in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He endeavours to bring “a never ending fight for fidelity to the Constitution and promotion of our Conservative values”, speaking to Wikinews on matters ranging from the economy to immigration.

An Inside Elections poll published on March 18 shows Republican candidate Susan Wright, the widow of Ron Wright, is ahead by 21% followed by Democrat Jana Sanchez with 17% and Republican Jake Ellzey with 8% with a 4.6% margin of error among 450 likely voters. The district is considered “lean Republican” by Inside Elections and voted 51% in favour of Donald Trump in last year’s US presidential election. This is down from 54% for Trump in 2016’s presidential election, the same poll stated.

Thursday, September 2, 2021

The state government of Victoria, Australia has today announced their intention to introduce a law to ban public displays of Nazi symbols in early 2022, as well as plans to expand the state’s existing anti-vilification laws. Currently, anti-vilification laws in Victoria only cover racial and religious status. In a press release, the state government wrote that they plan to expand these laws to “cover areas such as sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, and HIV/AIDS status”. They also intend to “make civil and criminal vilification easier to prove”.

Attorney-General of Victoria Jaclyn Symes said of the planned reforms “all forms of hate are unacceptable and have no place in Victoria – expanding our anti-vilification laws to protect more Victorians sends a clear message that this vile behaviour will not be tolerated.” Victorian Minister for Multicultural Affairs Ros Spence added “Nazi symbols glorify one of the most hateful ideologies in human history. We must confront hate, prevent it, and give it no space to grow.”

In a press release provided to Wikinews, Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich stated in regards to the banning of Nazi symbols “I never lost faith that this momentous occasion would come to pass. This is a day for the history book, a joyful and profound moment which represents the culmination of a personal campaign that I have spearheaded for the last four years, and I will be lying if I didn’t admit to shedding tears of joy. Above all, this announcement is a resounding triumph for the victims of the Holocaust, the survivors and our brave diggers who died to vanquish the evil Third Reich regime, and a defeat of homegrown neo-Nazis who seek to keep Hitler’s legacy alive.”

Abramovich continued by saying “bravo to the government for rising to the challenge and declaring in a clear and unmistakable voice that the ultimate emblems of inhumanity and racism, that are meant to break our spirit and instil fear, will never find a refuge in our state. The values of democracy, equality and respect are reverberating and ringing loud throughout Victoria and will do so forever. Now Law enforcement will now have the tools they have been asking for and I look forward to attending Parliament in person when this law is passed and to celebrate this milestone.”

The opposition Liberal and National parties welcomed “the Andrews Labor Government’s commitment to ban the Nazi swastika” in a press release, writing “in recent times, Victorians have witness (sic) a deeply concerning rise in the use of the Nazi swastika to strike fear into a range of community groups, including in Beulah, Kyabram, Cranbourne and the Grampians National Park.”

Nazi flags were flown in the regional Victorian towns of Beulah and Kyabram last year. In Cranbourne, a golf club established by the Jewish community was vandalised with swastikas in May 2020, while in the Grampians, a group of approximately 30 neo-Nazis allegedly burnt a cross and were heard shouting “white power” and “heil Hitler” earlier this year.

The Liberal and National press release continued, saying “once this legislation is passed, Victoria will become the first jurisdiction in Australia to have an explicit ban on the ultimate symbol of hate. Today’s commitment is an important step towards a safer, more tolerant future.”

Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs Neil Angus commented on the government’s announcement, saying “the Victorian Liberal Nationals welcome today’s commitment to ban the Nazi swastika. This reform are an important step to ensuring a safer, more tolerate community and demonstrating that intolerance has no place in Victoria.”

Shadow Minister for Police & Crime Prevention David Southwick also stated “today is an important step forward for all those who have been victims of the ultimate symbol of hate – the Nazi Swastika. For too long, frontline police and local communities have been powerless to stop the Nazi swastika being used as a tool to spread hate. More recently we have seen a rise extremist nationalist and racist individuals and groups and this ban will go a long way to take away the symbol that they hide behind.”

Earlier this year in March, a Victorian parliamentary report brought 36 recommendations forward in regards to vilification laws in the state, which included banning the public display of Nazi symbols, and including the laws in the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission’s framework.

It was recommended the commission’s authority in discrimination cases be applied to vilification cases, which ABC News reported would include “the power to compel information and documents”. Additionally, the report also called for an evaluation of maximum punishments in regards to vilification offences, with the aim of giving authorities more reason to prosecute in these cases.

[edit]