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Saturday, March 13, 2010

Fearing fresh protests from Palestinians, Israeli forces have moved to close the West Bank for 48 hours, preventing Palestinians from entering.

The protests have been sparked by a recent decision to include the Al-Aqsa mosque as an Israeli heritage site, as well as a plan by Israel to add up to 1,600 settlement homes in the West Bank.

The Al-Aqsa mosque is a holy site for both Muslims and Jews, however Muslims fear that along with the rest of Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa is to be annexed and claimed by Israel. It has been a flash point for conflict during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, sparking the Second Intifada in 2000. Only worshipers with an Israeli identity card and age 50 or over were allowed to pray today at the mosque. In response, Palestinian youths have reportedly thrown rocks at Israeli soldiers, and several Palestinians have been badly wounded.

Some 3,000 Israeli soldiers and policemen are patrolling East Jerusalem, checking ID cards and positioning themselves on rooftops.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Microsoft Global announced that Xbox 360 first-person shooter Halo 3 launched world-wide during September 25 to 27. This launch of Halo 3 focuses on strategy, shooting, co-operating, and global linking between different languages.

In the United States, more than 10,000 retailers opened their stores at midnight on September 25. They provided a Halo 3 painted car as a grand prize. Gamers lined up for hours in excitement for the long awaited game to come out.

Shane Kim (Director of Microsoft Games Studio) awarded the first gamer who lined up for the launch at the Best Buy store in New York City, taking pictures with Jim Cush who dressed as “Master Chief”, and remarked that other 37 countries will play this game with different languages except English, with the sales of 10 million game copies.

In Taiwan, after Microsoft’s local division separately invited Taiwanese Band “Mayday” last Sunday (September 16) and SBL Yulon Dinosaur Team Players (Hsueh-lin Li and Chih-chung Chen) 4 days ago (September 22) at the “Halo 3 Pre-launch Carnival” in Taiwan, the company invited famous model Ruru Lin from Catwalk Co., Ltd. for the launch, and held a friendship match with 4 players who lined up from first place to fourth place.

Meanwhile, Microsoft Hong Kong held a “Halo 3: Ultimate Collection Exhibition” launch activity to show the Halo series figures, posters, game packs, and history. The first Chinese version of “Halo 3: Midnight Ultimate Madness” was published prior to Taiwan’s and USA’s release, at the Grand Century Place in Mong Kok, Kowloon in Hong Kong.

Thursday, December 7, 2006

The New Zealand Government has tabled the Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill, despite unprecedented political opposition.

In 2003 the Hon Annette King signed a Treaty with Australia agreeing to hand control of the natural health products sector over to an Australian regulatory body, however she needs to pass enabling legislation in New Zealand. “This will be a world-class joint scheme designed to regulate the safety, quality, effectiveness and promotion of therapeutic products in both New Zealand and Australia. That includes the regulation of complementary and alternative medicines, over-the-counter and prescription medicines, medical devices, blood and blood products and tissues and cellular therapies,” Ms King said.

Twice the Bill has been thrown out by select committees, but the Government is determined to ram it through Parliament, according to the New Zealand Health Trust.

“Late tonight the Bill was finally tabled, with no announcement from the Minister,” said Amy Adams, spokesperson for the Trust, “Clearly the Minister is keen to sneak it into Parliament under cover of the silly season, in the hope that she can keep it under the public’s radar.”

“I welcome the support of a majority of the House who want to see the Bill go to Select Committee where New Zealanders can have their say,” Ms King said.

The NZ Health Trust conducted research earlier this year which showed 62% of New Zealanders used natural health products. “This Bill represents a massive and irreparable change to the way we make rules for New Zealand dietary supplements,” Mrs Adams said.

“Under the proposed regime, well over a million New Zealand consumers would find the choice of products adversely affected, and experience cost increases. So you can see why the Government is trying to sneak this into the House without any fuss – they don’t want the public to know.”

All the political parties except Labour have pledged their opposition the proposal, despite some intense lobbying by Australian and New Zealand officials.

“It is a very serious thing to hand sovereignty over your country over to another nation,” Mrs Adams said. “And all the other political parties see the sense in making sure the sector is regulated from New Zealand – not as a minor state of Australia.”

Ms King said: “The Bill… ensures that New Zealand will have an equal say in the setting up and running of the new Authority and joint scheme.” The new authority will be like a crown-owned entity and will have to provide an anuual report and a statement of intent to parliament each year.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

The name Robert Cailliau may not ring a bell to the general public, but his invention is the reason why you are reading this: Dr. Cailliau together with his colleague Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, making the internet accessible so it could grow from an academic tool to a mass communication medium. Last January Dr. Cailliau retired from CERN, the European particle physics lab where the WWW emerged.

Wikinews offered the engineer a virtual beer from his native country Belgium, and conducted an e-mail interview with him (which started about three weeks ago) about the history and the future of the web and his life and work.

Wikinews: At the start of this interview, we would like to offer you a fresh pint on a terrace, but since this is an e-mail interview, we will limit ourselves to a virtual beer, which you can enjoy here.

Robert Cailliau: Yes, I myself once (at the 2nd international WWW Conference, Chicago) said that there is no such thing as a virtual beer: people will still want to sit together. Anyway, here we go.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Inmates at Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba have attacked guards with fan blades and other makeshift weapons. Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo says some detainees were injured in “the most violent outbreak” at the facility since it was opened in 2002.

Officers fired rubber bullets at the detainees after the guards were attacked with “broken light fixtures, fan blades” and other improvised weapons. Rear Admiral Harris says, “minimum force was used to quell the disturbance”.

The New York Times reports that a riot-control unit with batons and shields quelled Thursday’s disturbance. Another episode involved two other groups of inmates who tore apart their quarters and attacked guards.

Military officials said the detainees’ actions were designed to draw attention to the plight of the terror suspects detained indefinitely in “Gitmo”. Rear Admiral Harris, said that a prisoner was pretending to hang himself to lure the guards into the room. “The detainees had slickened the floor of their block with faeces, urine and soapy water in an attempt to trick the guards,” he said. “They then assaulted the guards with broken light fixtures, fan blades and bits of metal.”

The guards used pepper spray and blasted the detainees with several shots from a shotgun, firing rubber balls during the five-minute fight. No guards were hurt, but six inmates were treated for “minor injuries,” he said.

Colonel Mike Bumgarner said guards shot five rounds of “nonlethal” pellets from a 12-gauge shotgun, and a rubber grenade from an M-203 launcher. He said rioting then broke out in two other blocks of Camp Four when around 50 detainees damaged their quarters and made weapons to attack the guards. Colonel Bumgarner said it took an hour to bring the disturbances under control. He says the six detainees received minor injuries.

A military spokesman said 60 of the detainees were later transferred to more secure areas of the camp. Colonel Bumgarner says “detainees were jumping out of the beds on top of the guards” and some guards were knocked to the floor. “Frankly we were losing the fight at that point,” he said. “This illustrates to me the dangerous nature of the men we have detained here,” Rear Admiral Harris told reporters in a teleconference.

Earlier in the day, two other detainees attempted suicide by overdosing on hoarded prescription drugs. Guantanamo officials said there have been 41 suicide attempts by 25 detainees and no deaths since the camp opened in January 2002. Defense lawyers contend the figure is higher.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Committee Against Torture has called on the United States to shut down Guantanamo and close any other “secret prisons” it operates. The UN declared the indefinite detention of suspects without charge a “violation of the UN Convention Against Torture.”

“The State party should cease to detain any person at Guantanamo Bay and close this detention facility, permit access by the detainees to judicial process or release them as soon as possible,” the committee said. They called on the US to “ensure that no one is detained in any secret detention facility under its de facto effective control”.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Rico Daniels is a British TV presenter living in France who is known for his two television series — The Salvager — whilst he still lived in the UK and then Le Salvager after he moved to France. Rico has been in a variety of jobs but his passion is now his profession – he turns unwanted ‘junk’ into unusual pieces of furniture. Rico’s creations and the methods used to fabricate them are the subject of the Salvager shows.

Rico spoke to Wikinews in January about his inspiration and early life, future plans, other hobbies and more. Read on for the full exclusive interview, published for the first time:

Saturday, May 12, 2007

An object that fell through the roof of a New Jersey home in January was not a meteorite, according to Jeremy Delaney, a geologist at Rutgers University. Instead, it appears the object was space junk or orbital debris.

“Basically, it’s a piece of stainless steel. There’s huge amounts of material that have been left by the various space programs of the world,” said Delaney.

The meteorite shaped object was not from a naturally occurring substance and had a silver like reflection. It weighed about the same as a small can of soup, 13 ounces (about 370 grams), but was no bigger than a golf ball.

Earlier during the incident, scientists from Rutgers examined the object visually along with police who were at the scene, and determined it was a meteorite. But further tests by geologists confirmed that it was not a meteorite, but probably a metal piece from a rocket or satellite. They had earlier thought it was made of iron.

“That’s the nature of science. If the conclusion from the test says it’s not a meteorite, then it’s not a meteorite. We have to move forward,” said Srinivasan Nageswaran, a member of the family that found the object.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Archaeologists Timothy Darvill of Bournemouth University and Geoff Wainwright, President of the Society of Antiquaries, claimed to have found evidence that Stonehenge was once a center of healing. In an excavation conducted at the site, a large number of human remains were found that display signs of physical injury or disease. Study of the teeth from the skeletons indicates that about half of them were from outside the area.

A large number of bluestone or spotted Preseli dolerite chips found during the excavation led the researchers to conclude the stones were venerated for their healing properties. It is believed that about 80 of such bluestone blocks were transported from the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire, Wales to the Salisbury plains. The inner circle of bluestones are the earliest stone structures found in this site. Later bluestones were encircled by the imposing sandstone monoliths of sarsen stones. “It could be that people were flaking off pieces of bluestone, in order to create little bits to take away… as lucky amulets,” said Professor Darvill.

Radiocarbon dating indicates that the original bluestone circle was built around 2300 BC. This date coincides with the burial of “Amesbury Archer“, whose tomb was discovered near Stonehenge. The skeleton of this man reveals that he had serious knee injury and tooth problems. Researchers therefore conclude that the Archer came to Stonehenge to be healed.

Dating of charcoal fragments revealed that the site was inhabited as early as 7200 BC by groups of hunter-gatherers. This is more than 3500 years earlier than previously known.