Sunday, October 30, 2011

U.S. Republican Party presidential candidate and former Governor Buddy Roemer of Louisiana took some time to answer a few questions from Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn.

Roemer served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1980s as a member of the Democratic Party. He was elected governor as a Democrat in 1987 before switching to the Republican Party ahead of the 1991 election for governor. That year, he lost the party’s primary to state legislator David Duke. After his governorship, Roemer worked as CEO of Business First Bank in Baton Rouge.

Roemer announced his candidacy for president back in July after exploring a bid for several months. He has focused his campaign on the issue of campaign finance reform, refusing to accept money from political action committees (PACs) and limiting individual campaign contributions to $100. He raised a total of $126,500 in the third quarter of 2011, far short of the $14.2 million raised by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

For his campaign, Roemer has adopted the slogan ‘Free to Lead’. He rails against corruption, special interests, and money in politics, and has expressed support for the Occupy Wall Street protests. Furthermore, he has taken issue positions in favor of fair trade, a balanced federal budget, and a strengthened national defense.

Roemer has not been invited to any national presidential debates. He has focused largely on the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire, and recently signed up to appear on the state’s primary ballot. However, a recent University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll shows him with less than one percent support in the state. Pearson Cross of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette commented, “If Buddy can exceed expectations in New Hampshire or even sneak in and steal third — that would give a boost that he could build on”.

Monday, February 16, 2009

In the 1970s, she was one of the most popular female vocalists in France, and became well-known internationally. Anne Marie David, from Arles in the south of France, parlayed her initial success from playing Mary Magdalene in the French production of Jesus Christ Superstar into taking home the “grand prix” at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1973. Her winning song, “Tu te reconnaîtras” (You will recognize yourself), became a Europe-wide hit that spring.

At the height of her popularity, David perfomed world tours, and even lived abroad in Turkey for a time. In 1979, she tried once again to win the Eurovision, and placed a respectable third. Her song “Je suis l’enfant soleil” (I’m a child of the sun) became similarly popular across France and in the Francophone nations.

As time went on, however, her place in the French music scene became less certain. Touring the world had taken a personal toll, and David decided to retire from music completely in 1987. However, with the help of her fan base, she was coaxed out of retirement in 2003 and is returning to a part of her life that she tried to leave, but never left her. Celebrating four decades in the music scene, David is looking forward to adventurous new projects and a newfound zest for life.

Anne Marie David corresponded with Wikinews’ Mike Halterman about her eventful career, her personal anecdotes regarding living abroad, her successes in past Eurovision contests and her grievances with the way the show is produced today. This is the second in a series of interviews with past Eurovision contestants, which will be published sporadically in the lead-up to mid-May’s next contest in Moscow.

Tuesday, May 9, 2006The Australian Budget (Appropriation Bill No. 1) for 2006-2007 was released by the Australian Liberal Party–Australian National Party coalition government treasurer, Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal).

Costello noted the resilience of the economy against natural disasters and terrorism, and through “disciplined and prudent management” the Government was able to “repay Labor’s debt” of quoted 96 billion dollars of net debt and the Government was now “debt-free”.

Costello noted that the Government budget was in “surplus for the ninth time” with a forecast surplus of 10.8 billion.

Friday, January 12, 2007

The iPhone only made its appearance as a prototype and there have been controversies aroused.

The dispute has come up between the manufacturer of the iPhone (which was resented on Wednesday for the first time) – Apple Inc. – and a leader in network and communication systems, based in San Jose – Cisco. The company claims to possess the trademark for iPhone, and moreover, that it sells devices under the same brand through one of its divisions.

This became the reason for Cisco to file a lawsuit against Apple Inc. so that the latter would stop selling the device.

Cisco states that it has received the trademark in 2000, when the company overtook Infogear Technology Corp., which took place in 1996.

The Vice President and general counsel of the company, Mark Chandler, explained that there was no doubt about the excitement of the new device from Apple, but they should not use a trademark, which belongs to Cisco.

The iPhone developed by Cisco is a device which allows users to make phone calls over the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).

Thursday, November 2, 2006

The Group of Ministers which is overseeing the issue has decided not to resume the sealing of unauthorised commercial establishments until Monday. The decision came after seeing the current tense situation in New Delhi.

The Group of Ministers is headed by Home minister Shivraj Patil and comprised of Law minister H R Bhardwaj, Delhi CM Sheila Dikhit, Union Urban Development minister S Jaipal Reddy and his deputy Ajay Makan.

S Jaipal Reddy told reporters that it is very difficult to conduct the sealing drive in the city under these circumstances. He made the statement after a meeting of Group of Ministers.

The Supreme Court had already sent the notice to Municipal Corporation of Delhi to resume the sealing drive from Thursday. They will approach the apex court on Friday and will apprise the court about the difficulties in carrying out the sealing drive in these circumstances where the traders are going on strike and creating situation of tension in the capital.

Supreme Court’s Monitoring committee called on the MCD to resume the sealing of unauthorised shops in the city on Friday.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Alfred Hsing, a US martial artist with Chinese origins, besides having a long history of martial arts training in various styles, such as traditional kung fu, tae kwon do and karate, considers wushu – an athletic sport based on Chinese martial arts – as a form of art that pushes one’s physical limits and stimulates the mind at the same time. After having won the gold medal at the 10th World Wushu Championships, he became international movie star Jet Li’s personal assistant and went on to do stunts, action choreography, and land roles in movies.

Hungarian Wikinews contributor Teemeah has interviewed Alfred Hsing about his views on martial arts, life and Wikipedia.

Thursday, December 30, 2004

Mosul – With a Friday dump truck car bombing that left a massive crater and many dead, Iraqi insurgents frontally assaulted U.S. troops in Mosul, Iraq. Initial reports showed 25 Iraqis and one U.S. soldier dead. (As of this writing, additional information on the bombing was expected.)

Wednesday, July 6, 2005

File:European-parliament-strasbourg.jpg

The European Parliament has rejected the directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (software patent directive) sustained by lobbies of large software publicists such as the corporations Microsoft, Siemens, Nokia and Alcatel, grouped under the title of the European Information & Communications Technology Industry Association (EICTA, [1]). The directive involved the granting of software patents.

648 MEPs out of 680 rejected the text, 18 voted for and 14 abstained.

A rejection vote became the expected outcome when the European People’s Party, initially in favour of the directive, decided to reject it.

The European Greens, Socialist Group and European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party also voted for rejection of the directive for heterogeneous reason. Michel Rocard, author of a number of amendments to the original directive, said that the majority of the modifications were unlikely to be supported by the Commission and Council, with whom the Parliament would have had to enter a Conciliation procedure if it had voted for maintaining the directive in moditifed form. “Better have no text at all than a bad one”, he added.

Before the vote, Rocard pointed at the irritation of the Parliament towards the Commission: “There is collective anger throughout the Parliament because of the way the directive was handled by the Commission and the Council”.

During the debate on Tuesday, Commissioner Joaquín Almunia told MEPs: “Should you decide to reject the common position, the Commission will not submit a new proposal.”.

The rejection was welcomed by small and medium software companies, as well as by Free Software supporters. The Directive had been subject to an intense campaigning, within the Parliament, in the news media and on the Internet. The supporters of the Council position appear to have spent several ten millions, hiring prestigious PR agencies with at least 30-40 lobbyists who roamed the halls of the Parliament every day for 3 months, and many full-page advertisements in EU newspapers such as European Voice, EU Reporter etc. The opponents of software patentability (that is supporters of the position taken by the European Parliament in its 1st reading of 24 September 2003), coordinated under the roof of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), also had several lobbyists stationed in Brussels, conducted several conferences and demonstrations and published some newspaper advertisements, with a total budget of nearly 100,000 eur apart from countless unpaid working hours of a dedicated supporter base, consisting mainly of programmers and software entrepreneurs.

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.

Our third interview is with Henderson, Nevada’s Brad Lord-Leutwyler, a professor of logic and critical thought at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Capitalisation and formatting is that of the candidate, not Wikinews.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Raymond Lee Oyler of California, United States has been convicted of the murders of five US Forest Service firefighters killed while attempting to control a wildfire he had lit.

Oyler, 38, set the Esperanza Fire out of anger his dog had been impounded, according to prosecutors. The October 2006 blaze destroyed 34 houses and 20 outbuildings, scorching over 17,400 hectares. Prosecutors said he was “bent on destruction”.

Prosecutors also alleged Oyler started the fire at night specifically to leave firefighters “on their own” without aerial support. He was identified as the arsonist behind the fire after a security camera saw his car several times and samples taken from the scene matched those found in his girlfriend’s house. Oyler, an unemployed car mechanic, was also identified by the owner of a local petrol station as having stood in a car park and watched the fire’s spread.

The five firefighters that were killed died when their truck was overrun by the flames. Oyler was convicted of murdering them on Friday March 6 after a six-week trial in Riverside California. The twelve-member jury took nearly a week of deliberation before returning the guilty verdict, and will meet to hear arguments regarding Oyler’s sentence on Tuesday. He may face the death penalty.

His defense had admitted Oyler likely started several fires in the Riverside County area, but denied he had started the one that killed the firefighters.