Monday, February 18, 2008

Television producer and owner of the anti-Scientology website www.xenutv.com (XenuTV), Mark Bunker, also known as Wise Beard Man, chatted online with Wikinews for nearly three hours. More than 120 people followed the interview live (many from Project Chanology), which makes this exclusive Wikinews interview our most attended IRC interview to date.

Bunker started XenuTV in 1999 and began to make videos that he provided for the Lisa McPherson Trust. Bunker has been a critic of the Church of Scientology since 1997.

In 2006, he won a Regional Emmy Award after he and KUSI-TV news reporter Lena Lewis produced a documentary news video on the issues with the United States – Mexico border with San Diego, California.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Wikinews reporter Iain Macdonald has performed an interview with Dr Isabella Margara, a London-based member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). In the interview Margara sets out the communist response to current events in Greece as well as discussing the viability of a communist economy for the nation. She also hit back at Petros Tzomakas, a member of another Greek far-left party which criticised KKE in a previous interview.

The interview comes amid tensions in cash-strapped Greece, where the government is introducing controversial austerity measures to try to ease the nation’s debt-problem. An international rescue package has been prepared by European Union member states and the International Monetary Fund – should Greece require a bailout; protests have been held against government attempts to manage the economic situation.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Top-seeded Glenbard East High School was expected to win the Class 4A Neuqua Valley High School Sectional championship on Friday night. Yet with a lot of determination and a strong defense, the Benet Academy varsity boys basketball team defeated the Rams 68–54. 

The game marks Benet’s sixteenth straight victory this season, giving the Redwings a 26–3 overall record. It is also their first sectional championship since the 1982–1983 season, which was the last time Benet advanced to the Class AA state tournament; there they lost to Thornton Township High School in the quarterfinals.

The Redwings’ aggressive man-to-man defense certainly kept the Rams out of their comfort zone amidst the crowds in the sold-out Neuqua gym. As Benet forward Mike Runger said, “We made them play to their weaknesses instead of letting them get comfortable doing what they want to do.”

Benet scored 71 percent of its shots in the first half, while Glenbard East scored only 27. While the Rams led twice in the first few minutes (3–0 and 7–5), the Redwings led 12–7 after the first quarter. A three-point shot made by Dave Sobolewski two seconds before the buzzer gave Benet a 27–16 lead at the end of the first half. 

Glenbard East desperately attempted a comeback in the second half, but Benet maintained a lead ranging from 10 to 18 points. Rams guard made four three-pointers in the fourth quarter, but to no avail. As Benet coach Gene Heidkamp said, “…we knew they were going to come at us and give us a ton of pressure. We were a long, long way from being comfortable at halftime.”

Benet will play Simeon Career Academy from Chicago in the supersectionals at Hinsdale Central High School on Tuesday night. 

Friday, July 15, 2011

On Tuesday, the Euro fell to a new record low in relation to the Swiss Franc, and to multi-month lows against the U.S. Dollar and Japanese yen; all considered by investors to be safe currencies during times of economic turmoil.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that recent comments from the newly installed head of the International Monetary Fund, France’s Christine Lagarde, resulted in a sell-off of the Euro. At a roundtable discussion in Washington, Lagarde noted that the IMF had not yet reached discussion of terms and conditions of a second Greek bailout plan. In fact, a representative from the IMF is currently meeting with Eurozone policymakers to draft such a new proposal. The yield differential between Italian bonds and German bonds has spread to more than 300 basis points, something not seen in over a decade and evidence of investors’ concern.

Adding to the Euro’s woes is the upcoming release of the bank stress tests on Friday. The European Bankers Association said that they expect the data release to shed new light on the Eurozone’s banking situation. Representatives of several of the Eurozone’s governments, including Germany, have requested that the association consider releasing fewer specific details for fear that investor panic will ensue. The inadequacy of the capitalization rates has been an issue with the European Central Bank, whose president recently called upon Eurozone banks to make every effort to put their balance sheets in order.

For the time being at least, an unsubstantiated rumor reported by the Wall Street Journal states that the Eurozone’s central banks’ purchase of periphery debt has helped to quell the downward momentum of the Euro.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

American animator Ollie Johnston, the last of Disney’s so-called “Nine Old Men”, has died at the age of 95.

Johnston died of natural causes on Monday in Sequim, Washington, according to Walt Disney Studios Vice President Howard E. Green.

Johnston worked on many of the Disney’s classic films, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinnochio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Bambi (1942), and many others.

Johnston worked extensively with his best friend Frank Thomas, a fellow “old man” who died in 2004. The pair met at Stanford University in the 1930s and worked together until Thomas’ death. They retired from animation in 1978, but remained popular speakers and authors about Disney and animation.

“Ollie was part of an amazing generation of artists, one of the real pioneers of our art, one of the major participants in the blossoming of animation into the art form we know today,” said Roy E. Disney.

Johnston devoted much of his retirement to writing and lecturing, but perhaps even more to model trains, a field in which he became considered one of the world’s foremost experts.

Ollie Johnston’s last film was The Fox and the Hound (1981) on which he worked as a supervisor.

Friday, March 18, 2011

At 9:00 p.m. PDT Monday (0400 UTC Tuesday), Microsoft rolled out the first stable Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) release, available in 39 languages, for Windows Vista and Windows 7. Internet Explorer is the most used web browser, responsible for 56% of webpage hits. The new version adds support for new technologies with relation to the HTML5 specification and several feature changes. The browser was released as a beta with a campaign promoting the benefits of HTML5.

It includes support for SVG and the HTML5 canvas, audio, and video tags. It has a failing Acid3 score of 95/100, below Mozilla Firefox 4.0’s 97/100, rating and the 100/100 in Google Chrome 10. The program is the first of its series not to run on Microsoft Windows XP. It includes a redesigned layout of the address bar and the ability to pin sites to the taskbar on Windows 7, along with several minor improvements.

The browser received mixed reviews. “IE9 as a Consumer Browser — Not Worth It,” Jason Mick, DailyTech, concluded. A study by Which? on Tuesday showed that IE9’s Tracking Protection Lists, an optional anti-tracking feature, may mislead users. “We’re disappointed with the way these lists work, and feel consumers who install multiple lists could be left with a false sense of security.” Dr. Rob Reid, Which? Policy senior advisor, said.

In a more positive review, a PC Magazine reviewer said that the positives of the new browser outweighed the negatives, and it is “a major improvement over its predecessor.”

The announcement comes after the company launched a campaign to get Internet Explorer 6 usage down to 1%. Microsoft delayed the Japanese release “to reduce load on network bandwidth at such a critical time” with reference to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan this past Friday.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

The Internet group Anonymous today held further protests critical of the Church of Scientology.

The global protests started in Australia where several hundred protesters gathered at different locations for peaceful protests.

In a global speech, the Internet protest movement said Scientology “betrayed the trust of its members, [had] taken their money, their rights, and at times their very lives.” The protesters welcomed the public interest their protests have led to, and claimed they witnessed “an unprecedented flood of Scientologists [joining] us across the world to testify about these abuses.” The group said it would continue with monthly actions.

In a press statement from its European headquarters, Scientology accused the anonymous protesters of “hate speech and hate crimes”, alleging that security measures were necessary because of death threats and bomb threats. This also makes the Church want to “identify members” of the group it brands as “cyber-terrorists”.

Wikinews had correspondents in a number of protest locations to report on the events.

Anonymous states that the next protest is scheduled to take place on April 18, which happens to be the birthday of Suri, the daughter of Tom and Katie Cruise.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Yesterday, a chilly Amsterdam hosted the Wikimedia Conference Netherlands 2007. Held at the Aristo centre in a suburb of the city and run by Wikimedia Netherlands, the conference was a short train ride from Amsterdam Centraal railway station. The topic, Wikis and Education (Wiki’s en Educatie in Dutch). This was an opportunity for Wikimedians and people in education to come together and see how collaboration could help both.

Wikinews freelance reporter Brian McNeil caught a train from Brussels in Belgium and attended, making an impression on the Wikimedia Foundation chair, Florence Devouard, by spilling her coffee over the first two speakers approximately three minutes before they were supposed to officially open the conference.

Monday, June 5, 2006

Australian media reports that Prime Minister John Howard is expected to push a nuclear energy inquiry through federal cabinet this week. Meanwhile, a list of possible sites for nuclear reactors has been leaked by the Opposition to media. The locations, listed in 1997, include Adelaide, Darwin, Perth, Lucas Heights, Goulburn, Holsworthy, and Broken Hill in New South Wales and other sites.

West Australian (WA) premier Alan Carpenter says the list of fourteen potential sites were a “facade to soften up Western Australians into accepting a nuclear waste dump.” The WA Premier said people would not only be surprised but “stunned to learn that the federal cabinet considered possible sites… without disclosing them to any state government.”

Mr Carpenter said in a media release that the document mentions a site near Perth airport. “People should wake up to what’s happening around Australia, particularly in WA,” said Mr. Carpenter. “Only a few weeks ago, we had three prominent WA Liberal MPs supporting a nuclear waste dump in WA,” he said. “This is all a facade in the Howard Government’s push to soften up West Australians for a nuclear waste dump.”

Premier Carpenter, whose Labor government stridently opposes uranium mining in WA, stated his opposition to a nuclear waste dump: “I vehemently oppose the prospect of our State becoming the dumping ground for the world’s nuclear waste and that is what will happen if we allow uranium mining in WA. The evidence is mounting and indisputable.”

The South Australian Government has ruled out any possible nuclear power plant in SA. “A nuclear power plant would bankrupt our state,” SA Premier Mike Rann said. “It would not be commercially viable and would not, in my view, be acceptable to the public. Nuclear power plants need giant populations to sustain them, there is no-one coming to me from the commercial sector or the mining industry or anywhere else, suggesting a nuclear power plant.”

Earlier, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said South Australia should build a nuclear power station to run a desalination plant. Premier Rann dismissed the idea as ridiculous and said comments by Mr Downer highlight divisions within Federal Cabinet. He said Mr Downer is at odds with the Federal Finance Minister Nick Minchin, who says the high costs of nuclear power would rule it out.

Mr Rann says South Australia will not allow nuclear power. “For once I’m agreeing with Nick Minchin,” he said. “I think Nick Minchin is right that a nuclear power plant isn’t necessary and won’t happen and I think that Alexander Downer is having a bit of a lend of him.”

Victoria’s Energy Minister Theo Theophanous said nuclear energy in Australia did not make sense when the cost and problems of waste disposal were considered. Mr Theophanous has rejected a report that found nuclear power could be competitive with conventional energy generation if it was subsided with help from a taxpayer subsidy.

A recent report found nuclear power could compete with gas or coal-fired electricity if taxpayers helped to pay for it or shouldered the risk of its production. The ANSTO report found nuclear plants could be built in the next 10 to 15 years and an Australian version would cost about $2.5 billion to establish. To make it viable, taxpayers would pay hundreds of million towards start-up costs, said the report.

But Mr Theophanous said Victoria had already had concluded the nuclear proposal did not add up. “I had my department look at this and provide a report to me more than a year ago in relation to the prospect of nuclear power,” he said. “The problem is a commercial one as much as anything else. It costs roughly double the price to produce power out of nuclear energy. If you’re going to pay double the price, why not put in wind farms? Why not use renewable energy, which is even cheaper than nuclear energy?” said Mr Theophanous .

The Victoria Government urges householders to reduce greenhouse emissions by reducing daily energy consumption. A new campaign identifies simple measures residents can adopt to cut power bills and greenhouse emissions, including turning the heating thermostat to no more than 20C, washing clothes in cold water and turning appliances off at the switch when they are not being used.

New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma has also declared his opposition to nuclear power. He said no nuclear power stations would be built in NSW as long as he is premier. Mr Iemma urged state opposition leader Peter Debnam to join him in opposing the construction of nuclear power plants in NSW. “While ever I’m premier of NSW there won’t be any nuclear power plants in NSW,” he told reporters.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie says he “would not jeopardize the state’s coal industry by supporting a nuclear power plant.” Mr. Beattie has ruled out uranium mining in Queensland to protect the state’s huge coal industry. He said he would not support a nuclear power plant. “The State Government would not support it,” Mr. Beattie said.

“We have the power to block them and we would block them, we would not support nuclear power. Why would we have a nuclear reactor in competition with the coal industry?” Mr. Beattie told media.