marathon06.org

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Israel has tested its readiness for a state of war and emergency by testing its emergency services and shelters on a national scale.

The drill is to be analyzed in order to determine the elements which need to be corrected and fixed, and Israel’s emergency readiness is to be assessed.

Israeli school children were told to hide under their school tables as part of the drill, which officials claimed to be the biggest drill ever in Israeli history.

Syria has claimed, in return, that the drill is intended as a battle readiness exercise and claims that Israel is preparing for war.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

One year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster which caused the largest oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and caused huge environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico, experts have warned there are serious questions over the safety of deep water drilling as the United States government approves more exploration without improving safety measures.

Scientists have raised major concerns over repeated assurances from the industry and the government, who insist lessons have been learned from the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Charles Perrow, a professor at Yale University, said the oil industry “is ill prepared at the least” to deal with another oil spill. “I have seen no evidence that they have marshaled containment efforts that are sufficient to deal with another major spill,” he said.

While the government has implemented new regulations, technical systems for stopping oil flowing from a leaking well, and increased oversight from oil officials, Perrow said deep water drilling had become no less dangerous. “I don’t think they have found ways to change the corporate culture sufficiently to prevent future accidents,” he said. “There are so many opportunities for things to go wrong that major spills are unavoidable.”

Last year, Doug Inkley, a scientist at the National Wildlife Federation, said the culture of an “addiction to oil” was ultimately responsible for the catastrophe. “How long must we wait for lawmakers to act to prevent future disasters? How many more lives, livelihoods and animals must be claimed by our addiction to oil?” Greenpeace also slammed BP, who ran Deepwater Horizon, for how they allowed the disaster to happen. “The age of oil is coming to an end and companies like BP will be left behind unless they begin to adapt now,” the organization said.

However, under pressure from industry executives the administration of president Barack Obama has resumed issuing drilling permits. It is understood regulators are still allowing oil companies to obtain drilling permits before reviewing new spill response plans. “I’m not an oddsmaker, but I would say in the next five years we should have at least one major blowout,” Perrow said. “Even if everybody tries very hard, there is going to be an accident caused by cost-cutting and pressure on workers. These are moneymaking machines and they make money by pushing things to the limit.”

BP has insisted it has changed safety procedures. The oil giant came under heavy criticism for how it handled the crisis, and other major oil companies insisted Deepwater Horizon was a result of a culture exclusive to BP. Michael Bromwich, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), the U.S. government agency responsible for regulating offshore drilling, said the view was “as disappointing as it is shortsighted,” and the issue of deep water safety was “a broad problem.”

The warnings came as it emerged BP had attempted to take control of an independent study into the environmental consequences of the Deepwater Horizon spill. Internal emails expose how BP executives attempted to influence the study, which was funded by a US$500m grant from the oil company. The study may be part of the final verdict as to what penalties, fines and criminal charges are brought against the company. Greenpeace, who uncovered the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request, attacked the reportedly unsuccessful attempts to influence the supposedly independent study as “outrageous”.

Protesters rallied outside BP’s annual conference in London this week, where shareholders met for the first time since the disaster off the Gulf coast. Executives faced questions over their competence and large salaries from angry shareholders, many of whom disapproved of the appointment of Carl-Henric Svanberg as chairman and Sir Bill Castell as the head of BP’s safety board.

Some demonstrators purchased shares in BP in an attempt to get inside the meeting; one woman, a fisherwoman who lives on the Gulf Coast was arrested after pouring a black substance down herself at the entrance to the conference centre and refusing to move. “I have travelled all the way over from the Gulf Coast and I just wanted to talk those responsible for destroying my community,” she said as she was led away by police. “My community is dead. We’ve worked five generations there and now we’ve got a dead community. I’m angry, I’ve been angry a long time.”

Monday, February 27, 2012

Former Congressman Virgil Goode of Virginia spoke with Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn about his newly announced 2012 presidential campaign. Goode is currently seeking the nomination of the Constitution Party, a U.S. third party.

Goode served in the Virginia State Senate for twenty-three years. In 1996, he was elected to represent Virginia’s Fifth U.S. congressional district as a Democrat, and was re-elected two years later. Goode left the Democratic Party before his second re-election campaign in 2000, and ran as an Independent. He joined the Republican Party ahead of the 2002 election, and was re-elected three additional times until his defeat in 2008. Since then, Goode has joined the Constitution Party, and has served on its executive committee.

The Constitution Party was founded in 1991 as the U.S. Taxpayers Party. Eight years later, it changed to its current name. The party advocates states’ rights, gun rights, limited government, protectionism, and non-interventionism. It strongly opposes abortion and illegal immigration. In terms of voter registration, it is the third largest U.S. political party with 367,000 members. Pastor Chuck Baldwin won the party’s 2008 presidential nomination, and appeared on 37 state ballots receiving 199,314 votes (0.15%).

Goode had been speculated to make a run for the party’s presidential nomination since last year. In fact, the executive committee passed a resolution last spring to convince him to run. Goode filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on February 10, and announced his candidacy to the Daily Caller six days later.

The 2012 Constitution Party National Convention will be held in April. Other candidates seeking the nomination include former Savannah State football coach Robby Wells. National chairman Jim Clymer described Goode last summer as the frontrunner for the party’s nomination.

To Wikinews, Goode affirmed his credentials for the presidency and shared his view on the Obama administration. Among other issues, he addressed immigration, spending, energy, and foreign policy.

Monday, December 14, 2009

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, after four days of negotiations, Africa countries have made the first draft version of future possible treaty, to replace the 1997 Kyoto protocol. Africa leaders demand 5% of GDP of developed world citizens to be given as a finance to developing countries for struggle with global warming. Along with this, developing countries expect rich countries to increase their emissions cuts goals.

Funding for developed countries was previously expected to be 130 billion US dollars. The new proposal is about 11 times larger, according to 2008 GDP estimates. In an interview in Copenhagen, China’s representative Su Wei commented, “The developed countries need to speed up the process and come forward with more ambitious targets by 2020.”

Many nations offered emissions cuts pledges, which vary from 4% to 17% cuts by 2020, compared with 1990 levels. The Africa’s draft proposes a goal of 65% cut for every developed country. Though the new goals are harder, Anders Turesson, European Union representative at UNCCC, doubted in the ability of them to prevent 2-degree warming. In an interview in Copenhagen, he said, “We are concerned about the environmental integrity of these texts and we do not see how they will deliver the 2-degree target. Hopefully we will be able to step up our ambitions as we move forward in the negotiations.”

British Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband criticised the draft text for absence of a certain temperature raise threshold, said that the new texts “are shorter texts than we’ve had before, which we can negotiate around because the imperative here is to get on with it and get to an ambitious solution”.

Bloomberg news company interviewed several people from New York environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Its policy director David Doniger expects most difficulties to come at the end of the UNCCC, when Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao arrive at the summit: “It’s really come down to a set of difficult issues. It’s a lot easier for lower-level negotiators to come to an impasse and go home. It’s not easy for senior officials and definitely not easy for heads of government.” As international climate policy director of NRDC Jake Schmidt commented similarly, “It’s going to be a tense negotiation over emissions cuts for developed countries.”

Monday, March 14, 2016

Azerbaijan Minister of Finance Samir Sharifov allegedly worked as a “triple agent” for Russian, Turkish, and US intelligence agencies, according to a report by Ukrainian online newspaper Gordon last Wednesday.

Sharifov allegedly worked as a human asset for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service before Turkish intelligence recruited him in South Yemen in 1989–1990. Soon after, he allegedly began working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In the Gordon article, their source ascribed this information to “sources in the Russian intelligence community” who said, “[Russia’s] agencies penetrated the U.S. intelligence community and obtained important information about some of its human assets.”

The claims made in the article have not been verified, according to Russian newspaper ????? ?????? ^{((ru)) Russian language: Oil of Russia} .

Mais Piriyev, press secretary for the Azerbaijan Ministry of Finance, said Sharifov would not comment on what Piriyev called provocative, ridiculous claims. Piriyev told reporters, “Lack of seriousness in Yuri Shvet’s claims can be seen immediately. Only three countries? Where [is] Mossad, special services of the UK and other countries?”

Former Azerbaijani diplomat Arif Mammadov has publicly supported the accusations. In a statement on social media, Mammadov wrote, “The country has a very powerful network that is working against the state. It consists of the most influential people — ministers, deputy ministers, senior representatives of the presidential administration.”

The Gordon article was published on the eve of Sharifov’s trip to the United States to discuss financing for the Southern Gas Corridor energy project.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

While nearly all cover of the 2008 Presidential election has focused on the Democratic and Republican candidates, there are small political parties offering candidates, and those who choose to run without a party behind them, independents.

Wikinews is interviewing some of these citizens who are looking to become the 43rd person elected to serve their nation from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

First off is Long Beach, California’s Frank McEnulty (b. 1956), a married father of two with an MBA (Venture Management) and BS (Accounting/Finance).

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Los Angeles, California — Four of six national television broadcast networks recently wooed potential advertisers for the 2005-2006 season with programming offerings in the new development phase. These included NBC, Fox, ABC and The WB. Two other networks, CBS and UPN, plan to preview their offerings March 24.

After four years of focusing on high-profile reality television, network executives are turning to the past for inspiration on scripted series. Some networks said they are “more consciously aggressive about developing shows” that recall such classics as Taxi and Barney Miller, Craig Erwich, a programming executive for Fox, told USA Today. In the same report, Kevin Reilly, NBC entertainment chief said, “I don’t think the answer has to be that it’s groundbreaking or something you’ve never seen before.”

But at least one ad buyer had reservations about the rear-view mirror technique. “Every network seems to be looking back rather than forward for programming ideas. The reminiscence factor may be good if you are looking for an older audience, but it may not be a way to bring in the younger audiences,” Laura Caraccioli-Davis, senior vice president and director of Starcom Entertainment told Mediaweek magazine.

Sunday, December 5, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO – Shawn Fanning, the creator of Napster and a founder of Snocap, Inc., on Friday revealed his plans for a legal peer-to-peer file-sharing platform. Snocap has signed an agreement with Universal Music Group to make the company’s entire catalogue available through the new service. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

According to Snocap’s press release, the platform will include a copyright management interface, which will allow content owners to control the distribution of their intellectual property among users. The service’s main competitor would be Apple‘s iTunes Music Store, which is currently the most widely used legal source of downloadable music.