marathon06.org

Monday, October 9, 2006

The New Zealand A1GP team, with racer Jonny Reid, placed seventh in A1GP feature race and picked up four championship points in the second round at Brno track, Czech Republic.

New Zealand managed to secure themselves first place in the qualifying race by being fastest in all four qualifying segments with a time of 3:30.053, Germany second with 3:30.524. This put New Zealand in the pole position to start the sprint race.

When racing for the 20 minute sprint race started Germany and New Zealand ‘locked horns’ before the very first corner. It ended with both cars crashing out of the race.

This crash made both New Zealand and Germany start from the end of the track for the feature race.

New Zealand managed to crawl their way back to get seventh place, but dropped to fourteenth place from twelfth, out of 23 competing nations, on the leader board with only five points.

David Sears, Engineering Team Director for both Germany and New Zealand, said: “Reid and his German counterpart Nico Hülkenberg were warned about keeping apart…but still ended up making life difficult for themselves.”

Sears added: “To finish first you must first finish and the track is incredibly wide here at Brno, so why New Zealand and Germany should be rubbing wheels on the very first corner is anyone’s guess. To recover and finish strongly was encouraging for Jonny and the car certainly has the raw speed and looks to be one of the quickest going around. That’s the pleasing part amid the disappointment and we now need to refocus and prepare for the next month’s round in China.”

“We were so much quicker than the other teams in qualifying that it would be criminal to be banging wheels when a great result is there for the taking.”

The next A1GP race takes place on November 12 in Beijing.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Buffalo, New York —Judge Justice Christopher Burns of the New York State Supreme Court has ordered a halt to an emergency demolition on a 19th century stable and livery on 428-430 Jersey Street in Buffalo, New York that partially collapsed on Wednesday June 11, initially causing at least 15 homes to be evacuated. At least two homes remain evacuated.

Burns orders that both the city and the group Save The Livery (www.savethelivery.com) have to come to an agreement on what to do with the building, and try to work out ways of saving at least some portions if it including the facade, side walls and a lift tower. Save The Livery is comprised of concerned area residents who have grown to love the building’s historic and unique character. On June 14, they won a temporary restraining order to stop demolition. The court ruled that the city was only allowed to remove material in immediate danger to residents and pedestrians, but stated that the demolition could only be performed with “hand tools.” The court also ordered that any rubble which had fallen into neighboring yards when the building collapsed, to be removed.

“It is in the interest of the city to have a safe environment–but also important to maintain a sense of historical preservation,” stated Burns in his ruling. Burns has given the sides until tomorrow (Friday June 20) to come to an agreement and has ordered both parties to return to court at 9:30 a.m. (eastern time) “sharp.” Activists of Save The Livery urge supporters of the stable to “fill the courtroom” to show “continued and ongoing support.” The hearing is scheduled to take place at 25 Delaware Avenue in the Supreme Court building, 3rd Floor, trial part 19.

Currently the building is owned by Bob Freudenheim who has several building violations against him because of the buildings poor condition. He has received at least five violations in three months and residents who live near the building state that Freudenheim should be “100% responsible” for his actions. Many are afraid that if the building is demolished, Freudenheim’s charges of neglect will be abolished.

On June 17, developer and CEO of Savarino Companies, Sam Savarino was at the site of the stable, discussing the building with residents and preservationists. In 2006, Savarino proposed and planned The Elmwood Village Hotel, a ‘botique’ hotel on the Southeast corner of Elmwood and Forest Avenues. The project was later withdrawn after residents filed a lawsuit against Savarino and the city. Wikinews extensively covered the story, and contacted Savarino for his professional opinion on the building.

“[I would] love to see it preserved. I was there to see if there was anything we could do to help, to see if anything can be salvaged. I just want to see the right thing happen, and so does the city,” stated Savarino to Wikinews who added that he was allowed inside the building for a brief period.

“The side walls are beyond repair. The roof has rotted and it could come down at any time,” added Savarino who also said that the building “below the second floor appears to be stable.” He also states that the back wall of the building, which borders several homes, appears to be intact.

“Eliminating the back wall could be a problem for the neighbors. It is not unreasonable to leave at least 12 feet” of the back wall standing, added Savarino.

Savarino did not say if he was interested in buying the property, but did state, “I am sure there are a couple of people interested” in buying the property. On Thursday, Buffalo News reported that a “businessman” might be interested in purchasing the property, though Wikinews is not able to independently confirm the report. Savarino says that with the property still slated for emergency demolition, a potential buyer could face tax fees of nearly US$300,000.

Freudenheim gave the city permission to demolish the building on Thursday June 12 during an emergency Preservation Board meeting, because he would not be “rehabilitating the building anytime soon.” Freudenheim, along with his wife Nina, were part-owners of the Hotel Lenox at 140 North Street in Buffalo and were advocates to stop the Elmwood Village Hotel. They also financially supported a lawsuit in an attempt to stop the hotel from being built. Though it is not known exactly how long Freudenheim has owned the stable, Wikinews has learned that he was the owner while fighting to stop the hotel from being built. Residents say that he has been the owner for at least 22 years.

The building was first owned by a company called White Bros. and was used as a stable for a farm which once covered the land around the building for several blocks. The Buffalo Fire Department believes the building was built around 1814, while the city property database states it was built in 1870. Servants and workers of the farm were housed inside resident quarters situated at the rear of the building on what is now Summer Street, but are now cottages where area residents currently reside. Some date as far back as 1829.

At about 1950, the stable was converted into an automobile body shop and gasoline station.A property record search showed that in 1950 at least four fuel storage tanks were installed on the property. Two are listed as 550 square feet while the other two are 2,000 square feet. All of the tanks are designated as a TK4, which New York State says is used for “below ground horizontal bulk fuel storage.” The cost of installing a tank of that nature according to the state, at that time, included the tank itself, “excavation and backfill,” but did not include “the piping, ballast, or hold-down slab orring.” It is not known if the tanks are still on the property, but residents are concerned the city was not taking the precautions to find out.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

In raids that were part of Operation Mokpo, police seized a massive weapons haul from a suburban house.

Officers from Britain’s Metropolitan Police arrested a 55-year-old man after two houses and a business were raided in Dartford, South East of London.

The firearms include hundreds of shotguns, semiautomatic guns and automatic weapons.

Operation Trident officers and Polsa (Police Search Advisor) search teams carried out three search operations early morning though majority of weapon was found in a three bed room house.

“This is the biggest firearms haul we have ever had,” Det. Chief Superintendent Kevin Davis said. “Guns are mounted on every available wall space in the property and live ammunition was found lying on the floor.”

A simultaneous operation is underway in New Jersey, USA.

This was the biggest success for Operation Mokpo, launched 18 months ago after a series of shooting by rival gangs in North London.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Florence Devouard has been a contributor to the French Wikipedia since 2002. In October, 2006, she was nominated to be the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, which manages and hosts several popular wikis, including Wikipedia, a multilingual, collaboratively-written, free encyclopedia. She is also a member of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Communications Committee, and is one of four community representatives to the board^[1].

Wikinews: What were you thinking when Jimmy nominated you to become the new Chair?

Florence Devouard: It was not really a surprise. It had been discussed already for a while, so I had time to collect my thoughts already as to what I intended to do as a chair, thoughts I gave on the Foundation mailing list a few days later. When Jimbo nominated me chair, my thoughts were mostly oriented toward the desire that the change happens smoothly, with no wrong perception of the community or in the press. The fact I became chair is first the sign the organisation is maturing.

This said, it is *difficult* to become the chair after Jimbo. Not internally, as all board members were in agreement and happy with the switch. Jimbo is also very helpful. The main difficulty is rather due to the perception from outside parties that Jimbo still is the chair, or if they are informed he is no more, with their belief he is still in charge anyway. It will take time 🙂

WN: What do you consider your greatest achievement on the Wikimedia projects themselves?

FD: Very difficult to say. I was probably an average editor on the French and English wikipedia. My achievement is probably rather in my involvement in community building. When I joined Wikipedia, the project was essentially monolingual, and it took a lot of dedication to really make it multilingual, with recognition of the importance of cultural diversity. As an admin on several projects, steward for over 3 years now, meta-oriented person, I was hopefully one of these “glue people” who helped to develop the global side of our projects.

WN: When did you first join the Wikimedia projects?

FD: February 2002 as an anonymous on the English wikipedia. I later created my pseudonyme, Anthere, and joined the embryo of French community (less than 10 people) in may 2002.

WN: What is your view on the annual ‘pranking’ of Wikipedia on April 1st?

FD: I… never participated to the annual pranking of the English Wikipedia on April 1st? However, I was more than once the author of “jokes” which were sometimes appreciated, sometimes not so much appreciated…. I especially loved changing the logo. I created false articles. And did some moves I will not publicly revealed as not so proud of them. But overall, I like fun; the fun may stay within reasonable limits of course, and April joke did not always…

WN: Wikimedia Commons recently reached 1 million files. What is your impression of this?

FD: Fabulous job ! I receive more and more phone calls of people willing to use an image from the Commons, which is for me a good measure of this site success. On another note, this project is specifically dear to my heart, because it is one where all languages mix. It is the true Babel Tower (which Wikipedia is not), where people work together, sometimes not sharing even one language. The current state is fabulous. And there is much left to do.

WN: If you could describe yourself in one word, what would it be, and why?

FD: I often sign “ant”, mostly because of a wiki I participated to severalyears ago, where providing a real name was mandatory; I cheated, and called myself AntHere. The ant is a social insect. The ant is very industrious. The ant is never alone, it dies if alone. The ant lives with others in an anthill. And the head of the anthill is a Queen 🙂 (the Queen essentially being a mother actually).

So, Anthere or AntHere is just THE word.

WN: Considering past donations, and the rate we are going at now, do you think we will meet our goal by the deadiline of our current fundraiser?

FD: That is a very good question. I do not know. I can only hope, because the more money we’ll make, the more we’ll be able to make the suitable investments for the future of the projects. According to our Executive Director, Brad Patrick, our basic operations right now, cost around 75 000 dollars per month. This does not count the investments in hardware, which should be around $1,670,000 before June, nor the additional costs in terms of hosting, and bandwidth, due to the ever growing traffic. Add to this the much delayed need to hire more staff and project specific expenses. An insufficient fundraiser at this point would mean we’ll have to organise a new one in the next few months; However, we are currently exploring other ways to collect money, now possible thanks to the completed audit. So let’s be optimistic.

WN: Wikinews gives people credentials (excuse my spelling) which allow us to report in the field. I, myself am not accredited, but what’s your view on this?

FD: I understood this was extremely helpful to approach candidates for interviews and participate to special events. I trust the Wikinews community to be careful in giving these credentials.

WN: If you were explaining Wikipedia to someone who has never heard of Wikipedia (I know, impossible), what would you say?

FD: In the shortest way, an encyclopedia, which aims to bring knowledge to the largest number of people on Earth. Which means 1) lower the financial barrier to access (it’s free of charge), 2) lower the linguistic barrier (we work in over 200 languages), 3) lower the barrier of use (it is under a free licence which allow anyone to reuse the content). On top, an oddity, it is a collective work, with open access and multiauthoring.

1. ? She and Erik Moeller were both elected Member Representatives according to the foundation bylaws at the time. In December 2006, the bylaws were amended and the Board was expanded by two seats. Those two seats will be filled by elected community representatives in elections next summer; the interim appointments to those seats are Oscar van Dillen and Kat Walsh.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Space shuttle mission STS-116 began today with its successful launch at 8:48pm EST (01:47 GMT). Liftoff was uneventful with no immediate problems. Last Thursday’s launch attempt was scrubbed due to low, dense cloud cover. It is the first Space Shuttle night launch in over four years and the last mission planned for pad 39b.

In the complex mission Discovery will first dock with the International Space Station. In three spacewalks the astronauts will install a segment of the station’s integrated truss and replace the orbital laboratory’s power wiring system.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

In a continuing crackdown on tax evasion, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has alleged that brokers with a branch of RBC Dominion Securities, Canada’s largest brokerage company, helped clients set up accounts in the small European principality of Liechtenstein in order to avoid taxation on their wealth.

In affadavits submitted by the CRA, brokers with an RBC Dominion Securities office in Victoria, British Columbia, allegedly helped clients set up 16 offshore entities with a division of the LGT Group in Liechtenstein. While that is not a crime under Canadian law, auditors allege that the entities were used to help Canadians hide worldwide income. Thirteen individuals are either being audited or have made voluntary disclosures, admitting to tax evasion. The agency is presently investigating to see if there are any other individuals participating in this scheme. Regarding the inquiry, dubbed “Project Jade”, the CRA will only say that it was launched on information from a “confidential informant”.

RBC issued a written statement, saying “As a firm, we have never encouraged Canadians — not 25 years ago and not today — to set up entities in Liechtenstein, and we have never instructed our investment advisers to recommend that practice,” and “we comply with all CRA requirements. This means that we provide all our clients with the forms they need to meet their personal tax obligations, and also file reports with CRA that form the basis for reviews such as this.”

Three RBC employees are presently being investigated, with one remaining unidentified.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Australia and Cuba have qualified for the Quarter Final of the 2007 Baseball World Cup. There was only one game taking place today between Chinese Taipei and Italy in Tianmu Baseball Stadium. After six days of play, the competition will most certainly heat up in next 48 hours with every team fiercely vying to qualify for the Quarter Final which takes place Friday, November 15.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

In March, Wikinews reporter Joseph Ford held an exclusive interview with Kevin Baugh, president of the Republic of Molossia, a micronation located near Dayton, Nevada. Due to the interest the article gained, both online and off, a follow-up interview was held this week.

Molossia’s capital city, Espera, is situated on little over an acre of land in Western Nevada, within driving distance of Reno. Another territory, Desert Homestead Province, is located in Southern California. Unlike most of today’s micronations, Molossia allows visitors and has its own economy. It also has its own time zone and holidays as well as a few tourist attractions.

When asked about the culture of his country Baugh replied, “Molossian culture is a mix of several sources. Above all, we value the lifestyle of the western U.S., especially as it pertains to living in a wide-open place such as we do. Life here is fairly relaxed and easygoing.”

He also said that Molossia and the United States “generally ignore each other” and that there haven’t been “any altercations” between the two, despite claiming each other’s land. He went on to tell us much more about his tiny nation, which can be read in the interview below.

The time is 4:45 UTC and this an Audio Wikinews Brief for Wednesday, October 17, 2007.

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