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Wednesday, April 19, 2006

George Galloway, an MP in the British Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow, has won a court battle allowing him to publish photos of the infamous News of the World “fake sheikh”, undercover reporter Mazher Mahmood famed for setting up high-profile figures. George Galloway had a meeting with the reporter after being approached via a contact. Over dinner at the Dorchester hotel, Mazher is said by George Galloway to have asked leading questions over political party funding and to have solicited anti-semitic remarks. George Galloway became ever more suspicious, especially after seeing that the reporter’s driver had a ‘mouthful of gold teeth’, as described in journalist Andrew Marr’s book.

After threatening to release a photograph of the reporter, who has in the past tried hard to keep his identity secret, the News of the World sought an injunction against publication, claiming that they feared for his safety, and lost.

In a post on the Guardian newspaper’s Comment is Free weblog, George Galloway said that Mazher “has crossed the cusp of reputable journalism into seeking to procure criminal acts”.

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.

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.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

People rallied in 300 locations across Australia today to protest the Federal Government’s proposed changes to industrial relations laws, WorkChoices. According to police, around 150,000 people congregated in Melbourne, from where speeches were broadcast throughout the country. In Sydney, thirty thousand gathered in Belmore Park and Martin Place to watch the broadcast before marching to Chifley Square.

Sharan Burrow, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), said that under the changes many working conditions would be under threat, including “penalty rates, public holidays, overtime pay, control over rostered hours, shift penalties, even 4 weeks annual leave.” The government has claimed, despite various expert assesment to the contrary, and opposition from major Australian religious and charity organisations and some concern from its own backbench, that the IR changes will improve the economy and ultimately benefit workers, and dismissed the protests as having “little effect”.

Friday, October 2, 2009

At least thirteen people have been killed after torrential rains caused mudslides in Italy on Friday.

The mudslides occurred in the city of Messina, located in the northern part of Sicily. The mud blocked rails and road, cut off communications, and destroyed several buildings.

Search and rescue teams were using dogs to locate survivors buried beneath the rubble. Around forty people were hospitalised.

“Most of the dead and seriously injured were in two buildings that collapsed in mudslides,” emergency services spokesman Giampiero Gliubizzi told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Over one hundred people were forced to evacuate when mudslides threatened their homes, officials said. Some escaped onto roofs, where they were airlifted by helicopters.

“I didn’t understand what was happening. I was at home and everything started moving. Then I found myself surrounded by rubble,” said a survivor. Witness reports suggest the depth of the mud reached seven metres (23 feet) in some areas.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Western Australian Master Builders Association (MBA) yesterday demanded the Carpenter Government call an emergency cabinet meeting to avoid a “state of emergency” over the energy crisis gripping WA. A MBA spokesperson said that hundreds of workers have already been stood down, many without pay, and that the cost of building material is soaring.

The Minister for Energy, Fran Logan has admitted that the gas shortage caused by Tuesday’s fire is damaging the economy as mining, manufacturing and construction industries wind back operations. Western Australia’s two major brick producing companies have shut operations and Wesbeam’s $A100 million Neerabup pine production facility has been closed, their 130 employees have been stood down.

Wesbeam chief executive James Malone said, “It’s an industrial tsunami in my view. It’s a little ripple that has very quickly had a huge multiplying effect on the whole community”.

Michael McLean, Master Building Association director said “It’s a worst-nightmare scenario, and not one we could have imagined in our wildest dreams,” building supplies are expected to start running out by the middle of next week.

Premier Carpenter has announced a meeting of ministers and industry representatives to take place on Sunday to discuss solutions to the growing crisis. Tim Wall, managing director of Apache Corporation has said Apache is conducting a worldwide search for the parts need to repair the pipeline.

Major mining companies and Apache partners BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have already reported they are suffering with the loss of gas supply; the Chamber of Minerals and Energy has talked down the effect saying that they don’t expect the crisis to take the heat off the booming mining industry.

Opposition leader Troy Buswell has describe the performance of Fran Logan as “absolutely dismal” noting that Mr Logan had experienced a similar incident in January this year, when a fire at Woodsides Karratha operations had a similar effect.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

The following is the sixth and final edition of a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2016 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail: the Free & Equal Foundation holds a presidential debate with three little-known candidates; three additional candidates give their final pleas to voters; and past Wikinews interviewees provide their electoral predictions ahead of the November 8 election.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia agreed to hear Victor DiMaio’s suit against the Democratic National Committee on Monday. Dimaio sued the DNC over their decision to ignore the results of Florida’s Democratic primary.

DiMaio claims that excluding Florida’s Democratic voters and allowing some states to vote earlier than others violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The DNC countered that they have the power to exclude any state that does not follow their rules, and that the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the right of political parties to make and enforce their own rules as protected by the Freedom of Association in the First Amendment. The DNC’s rules currently allow early primaries to be held in only four states: Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

The appellate court’s decision could take more than a month. Whichever way this court decides, the losing party is expected to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to review the question.

Meanwhile, a furor is brewing inside the Democratic Party over what will be done with the delegates representing the voters of Florida and Michigan. Schemes to offer an inexpensive mail-in revote in Florida have been abandoned by the Florida Democratic Party as being at risk of vote tampering.

A plan to distribute Florida’s delegates among the candidates was proposed Wednesday by Florida state senators Steven Gelleras and Jeremy Ring. The plan recommends seating half of Florida’s 210 delegates based on the votes cast in Florida’s primary. Their remaining delegates could be allocated evenly or in proportion to each candidate’s national tally.

The Michigan legislature was considering a re-run of the Michigan Democratic primary for June 3rd but Barack Obama questioned the legality of the planned vote. The Michigan legislature adjourned for spring recess today (Thursday) before reaching a decision which has effectively ended the possibility of a re-vote on June 3rd. Last minute deals are still possible but the re-ballot would have to occur before June 10 to comply with DNC rules.