Tuesday, March 28, 2006

On March 26, thousands rallied outside the Columbus, Ohio statehouse, advocating rights for undocumented immigrants. This was one of a series of rallies following one in Los Angeles, which was reported to have drawn over 500,000 attendees.

The sponsoring coalition included the Immigrant Worker Project, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), UFCW Local 880, MIGUATE (of [Dover, Ohio]), and the Red [network] de Inmigrantes de Ohio. Organizers wanted to raise awareness of bill pending in the US Senate, HR 4437, which would make it a felony to be an illegal alien, or to assist aliens in entering or staying the country illegally. Organizers also called for “true” immigration reform plan that would provide a path to citizenship for all immigrant workers.

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Saturday, December 29, 2007

Arbitrators at the World Trade Organization (WTO) have granted the Caribbean country of Antigua and Barbuda a special dispensation to ignore United States copyright law.

In their report, the WTO panel stated that Antigua possessed “no effective trade sanctions against the USA” and agreed to allow the country to ignore up to US$21 million worth of US copyrights a year. While this amount falls significantly short of the US$3.4 billion per year dispensation that Antigua was seeking, it is far higher than the US$500,000 per year allocation that US negotiators were pushing for.

The ruling comes at the end of a five year legal contest between Antigua and the USA regarding the USA’s blocking of offshore online gambling sites. Because many of these sites were located in Antigua, the Antiguan government filed a complaint with the WTO saying that the US prohibition constituted unlawful restriction of trade. When the WTO agreed, Antigua pressed for US$3.4 billion in punitive damages. They asked to have this penalty assessed as permission to copy US intellectual property, since there was no trade embargo that Antigua could impose on the US to collect the amount for itself. The panel agreed that Antigua had no way to collect punitive damages through trade sanctions. However, they lowered the amount of damages to US$21 million per year.

Thursday, July 6, 2006

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with President George W. Bush at the White House today. The meeting was a short one and focused primarily on global security, particularly bilateral security issues addressing the two countries.

One of the larger issues was the pending U.S. law that would require everyone crossing the Canada-U.S. border to have a passport or a special identification card. Prime Minister Harper said; “if the fight for security ends up meaning that the United States becomes more closed to its friends, then the terrorists have won,” as part of his appeal that Congress delay or reject the proposed border law. [1].

Prime Minister Harper brought birthday greetings and a surprise gift. But Bush found out about it during the press conference in the East Room. A Canadian reporter had allegedly blew the secret. [2].

Friday, April 4, 2008

The fifth annual Sony Fair, established and organized by Sony Taiwan Limited in Taipei, Taiwan since 2004, started at the North Square of Taipei 101 near the TWTC Hall 3 from April 3 to 13. With more opportunities and chances of Blu-ray and High-definition markets, the organizer named its theme slogan with “High-definition Entertainment Park”.

Not only executives supported this show, and high-definition AV-media showcases, but Sony BMG Taiwan will also invite several vocalists to hold some mini concerts in the Sony Fair 2008 to bring up the visitors during holiday nights.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Fears of contaminated bone and skin grafts are being felt by unsuspecting patients following the revelation that funeral homes may have been looting corpses.

Janet Evans of Marion, Ohio was told by her surgeon, “The bone grafts you got might have been contaminated”. She reacted with shock, “I was flabbergasted because I didn’t even know what he was talking about. I didn’t know I got a bone graft until I got this call. I just thought they put in screws and rods.”

The body of Alistair Cooke, the former host of Masterpiece Theatre, was supposedly looted along with more than 1,000 others, according to two law enforcement officials close to the case. The tissue taken was typically skin, bone and tendon, which was then sold for use in procedures such as dental implants and hip replacements. According to authorities, millions of dollars were made by selling the body parts to companies for use in operations done at hospitals and clinics in the United States and Canada.

A New Jersey company, Biomedical Tissue Services, has reportedly been taking body parts from funeral homes across Brooklyn, New York. According to ABC News, they set up rooms like a “surgical suite.” After they took the bones, they replaced them with PVC pipe. This was purportedly done by stealth, without approval of the deceased person or the next of kin. 1,077 bodies were involved, say prosecutors.

Investagators say a former dentist, Michael Mastromarino, is behind the operation. Biomedical was considered one of the “hottest procurement companies in the country,” raking in close to $5 million. Eventually, people became worried: “Can the donors be trusted?” A tissue processing company called LifeCell answered no, and issued a recall on all their tissue.

Cooke’s daughter, Susan Cooke Kittredge, said, “To know his bones were sold was one thing, but to see him standing truncated before me is another entirely.” Now thousands of people around the country are receiving letters warning that they should be tested for infectious diseases like HIV or hepatitis. On February 23, the Brooklyn District Attorney indicted Mastromarino and three others. They are charged with 122 felony counts, including forgery and bodysnatching.

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.

Sunday, September 5, 2021

Since June 2019, the people of South Gippsland Shire, located at the southernmost tip of Australia, have been without a local council, after a state government inquiry found “high levels of tension” within the council. Administrators were appointed by the Victorian state government in July 2019, who have governed the shire since then. However, South Gippsland’s council is scheduled to be restored with an election to be held via post from October 5-22, 2021.

Wikinews interviewed one of the candidates standing in this election, Mat Morgan. He is running as a candidate in the Coastal-Promontory Ward, and is endorsed by the Australian Greens. The Coastal-Promontory ward covers towns such as Venus Bay, Waratah Bay, Yanakie, Foster, Port Welshpool, and Toora, and elects three councillors to the South Gippsland Shire Council.