Saturday, October 4, 2008

The U.S. Senate passed a revised bailout bill designed to help the struggling U.S. financial economy, which has measures nearly identical to the bill rejected by the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday.

“Senate Democrats and Republicans believe it is essential that we work quickly on this important legislation to restore confidence to our financial system and strengthen the economy,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The new revisions include raising the FDIC insurance cap to $250,000, a move designed to please progressives. However, the $110 billion in tax breaks, earmarks and what has been called pork barrel spending is not offset by any increases in revenues and has added opposition to the bill from some Representatives in the House.

Earmarks added into the bailout bill included $192 million in tax rebates for the Virgin Islands rum industry, $148 million in tax cuts for the wool industry, $100 million tax cuts to the auto racing industry, and $48 million in Hollywood tax incentives.

Vice President of Taxpayers for Common Sense, Steve Ellis, offered his explanation for the pork and earmarks added in. “People who support some of these provisions will forget about the $700 billion and concerns they may have on that, and say, ‘If you give me a few million in tax breaks for my constituents, I’ll go along'”.

The tactic seems to have worked, however, managing to flip enough votes to pass the bill.

“The inclusion of parity, tax extenders and the FDIC increases has caused me to reconsider my position,” said Representative Jim Ramstad (R Minnesota), who voted against the previous bill on Monday. “All three additions have greatly improved the bill.”

But Representative Marcy Kaptur (D Ohio) was not changing her no vote. “I will not support this legislation because it’s the wrong medicine,” she said.

The Senate took H.R.1424, a bill originating in the House concerning “equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group health plans, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment,” and extended it with the bailout provisions.

H.R.1424 was introduced on March 9, 2007, by Rep. Patrick Kennedy (RI-1) and had the support of First Lady Rosalind Carter. It is noted on the Congressional Website that “On 10/1/2008, the Senate passed H.R.1424 as the vehicle for the economic rescue legislation. In the EAS version of the bill (Engrossed Amendment as Agreed to by the Senate), Division A (pp.1-110) is referred to as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008; Division B (pp. 110-255) is referred to as the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008; and Division C (pp. 255-441) is referred to as the Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008.” It was not treated as an appropriations bill in the House.

There were two votes in the Senate. The first was to amend H.R.1424, which required 3/5 to be accepted, which it was. The second was a vote on the bill. Passage of the Bill required only a 1/2 majority. It was passed with 74 yeas and 25 nays. Senator Kennedy did not vote.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a vault containing millions of seeds from all over the world, saw its first deposits on Tuesday. Located 800 kilometers from the North Pole on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, the vault has been referred to by European Commission president José Manuel Barroso as a “frozen Garden of Eden“. It is intended to preserve crop supplies and secure biological diversity in the event of a worldwide disaster.

“The opening of the seed vault marks a historic turning point in safeguarding the world’s crop diversity,” said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust which is in charge of collecting the seed samples. The Norwegian government, who owns the bank, built it at a cost of $9.1 million.

At the opening ceremony, 100 million seeds from 268,000 samples were placed inside the vault, where there is room for over 2 billion seeds. Each of the samples originated from a different farm or field, in order to best ensure biological diversity. These crop seeds included such staples as rice, potatoes, barley, lettuce, maize, sorghum, and wheat. No genetically modified crops were included. (Beyond politics they are generally sterile so of no use.)

Constructed deep inside a mountain and protected by concrete walls, the “doomsday vault” is designed to withstand earthquakes, nuclear warfare, and floods resulting from global warming. Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg called it an “insurance policy” against such threats.

With air-conditioned temperatures of -18 degrees Celsius, experts say the seeds could last for an entire millennium. Some crops will be able to last longer, like sorghum, which the Global Crop Diversity Trust says can last almost 20 millenniums. Even if the refrigeration system fails, the vaults are expected to stay frozen for 200 years.

The Prime Minister said, “With climate change and other forces threatening the diversity of life that sustains our planet, Norway is proud to be playing a central role in creating a facility capable of protecting what are not just seeds, but the fundamental building blocks of human civilization.” Stoltenberg, along with Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, made the first deposit of rice to the vault.

“It is very important for Africa to store seeds here because anything can happen to our national seed banks,” Maathai said. The vault will operate as a bank, allowing countries to use their deposited seeds free of charge. It will also serve as a backup to the thousands of other seed banks around the world.

“Crop diversity will soon prove to be our most potent and indispensable resource for addressing climate change, water and energy supply constraints and for meeting the food needs of a growing population,” Cary Fowler said.

A compilation of brief news reports for Friday, January 20, 2012.

If you believe any of these stories deserves more in-depth coverage, feel free to write a full article on the issues raised.

The time is 18:00 (UTC) on August 27th, 2006, and this is Audio Wikinews News Briefs.

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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Pascal Lamy, suspended negotiations in the Doha round of trade talks on Monday, after a meeting of six “core” negotiators India, Brazil, the United States, European Union, Japan, and Australia in Geneva failed to make any headway in reconciling differences over agricultural trade liberalisation. The US wanted cuts in import tariffs for farm products, which were rejected by EU, Japan and India, who asked for cuts in agricultural subsidies.

Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, told the Financial Times: “If the US continues to demand dollar-for-dollar compensation in market access [cutting tariffs] for reducing domestic support, no one in the developing world will ever buy that and the EU will not either.” Brazil also identified the US stand on subsidies as the reason the talks failed.

Susan Schwab, the US trade representative, said that the other countries sought exemptions from tariff cuts for a wide range of goods and that such exemptions would defeat the object of the talks – to expand trade. “As we went through the layers of loopholes . . . we discovered that a couple of our trading partners were more interested in loopholes than market access,” she said.

The Indian Commerce and Industries Minister, Kamal Nath said that developing countries could not allow their subsistence farmers to lose their livelihood and food security to provide market access to agricultural products from developed countries.

Monday, December 4, 2006

Fiji’s fourth coup in 20 years rose today as troops disarmed Fiji’s only armed police unit. This is the first step in the long expected military coup.

Fiji’s president dissolved parliament on Tuesday and sanctioned the military to remove embattled Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, said New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark

Qarase, who is in his residence in Suva, said the military was staging a coup and he would not resign but would have to be forcibly removed from office.

“I am not going anywhere,” Qarase told Reuters.

“I am the democratically elected prime minister of the people of Fiji. They will have to move me by force.”

“I have been advised this morning that the president of Fiji has acted outside his constitutional powers and supported the removal of the democratic prime minister by the military,” Clark said in a statement to the New Zealand parliament.

Acting Police Commissioner Moses Driver denied that any take over had occurred. He said soldiers arrived to inspect police weapons, and were waiting for approval for that inspection. Troops later surrounding the Nasova Police Academy in Suva demanding the handover of weapons, and occupied the main police station in Suva. No shots were fired when the police were locked out.

At a news conference inside the main Suva barracks, Commander Frank Bainimarama said that police weapons were confiscated so that “dissidents” did not use them against the military.

There are also reports that military checkpoints are been set up around the capital. There are approximately four roadblocks with 20 soliders at each.

Troops tried to arrest the Prime Minister of Fiji, Laisenia Qarase, in the afternoon by setting up a roadblock between Suva and the province where Mr Qarase was attending a meeting, but he escaped in a helicopter, and has since been in hiding. The Prime Minister and his cabinet are understood to be in safe, secure places, and some of them separated for extra security.

The army kept up the pressure on Mr Qarase when he was later summoned to President Ratu Josefa Iloilo’s residence.

Mr Qarase drove to the estate, but was told by soldiers at a roadblock outside that he would have to walk the rest of the way. A witness inside the grounds said the prime minister, whose bodyguards were also disarmed by the military, refused and returned to his office.

Mr Qarase will make another attempt to meet President Iloilo on Tuesday morning.

Military chief Commander Frank Bainimarama had repeatedly threatened to remove Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase’s government unless it drops several pieces of legislation, including a bill that would grant amnesty to those involved in a coup in 2000. Commander Bainimarama has laid allegations on PM Qarase of stalling his pledge of ditching of the controversial legislation.

However Bainimarama is denying a coup is under way. “This is not a coup,” Bainimarama said today. “Everything is normal. Nothing is going on.”

He had earlier imposed a deadline of noon (0000GMT) on Friday, December 1 but that deadline was extended to today as there was the annual rugby game between the police and the military. Commander Bainimarama is both an avid rugby fan and active church goer. The police won the rugby game. “I maintain my demands and the deadline still stands and I will make a commitment to my stand after the rugby match,” he said.

Mr Qarase told Fiji radio on Monday morning that he remained in control and has called an emergency cabinet meeting for Tuesday.

Fiji’s Great Council of Chiefs called for calm on Monday and for the military to return to negotiations with the government.

Local radio reported seven government vehicles used by ministers and parliament’s Speaker had been confiscated by the military since Monday night.

World leaders have commended Commander Bainimarama actions. Including New Zealand which has banned Commander Bainimarama from entering New Zealand except if he is attending political crises talks. Helen Clark described the situation as “…it’s a very disturbing situation.” Some of Commander Bainimarama’s close family live in New Zealand.

Conditions on the street of Fiji are said to be mixed, with some apprehension.

The United Nations might discontinue use of Fijian soldiers in peacekeeping operations of which is a large source of Fiji’s income. Also the British army might not use Fijian soldiers. The International Community have said they will discontinue aid to Fiji which is worth millions annually.

Friday, October 12, 2007

I had an unofficial phone call from Gay Talese last Tuesday. He had just flown back from Colombia and he was cranky. “I’m happy to do an interview with you,” he said, “but what the hell could you ask me that’s not already out there? Have you even bothered to look?!”

“Jeez, Mr. Talese, lots of things,” was my response. I lied. The truth is that when I call people to interview them, I do not have a set of preconceived questions. My agenda is to talk to them and gain a sense of who they are; to flesh them out as humans. To find out what they think about the world around them at that moment. With Gay Talese I had little interest in talking about Frank Sinatra Has a Cold and with Augusten Burroughs I had little interest in discussing Running with Scissors. I want to know what they think about things outside of the boxes people have placed them in.

With a memoirist like Burroughs, even this is a challenge. What parts of his life he has not written about himself, other interviewers have strip-mined. When we met for dinner at Lavagna in the East Village, I explained to Augusten this issue. I suggested we make the interview more of a conversation to see if that would be more interesting. “Instead of you in the catbird seat,” I said, “let’s just talk.”

We struck an instant rapport. What set out to be an hour and half interview over dinner had turned into four hours of discussion about our lives similarly lived. I removed half of the interview: the half that focused on me.

Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s conversation with writer Augusten Burroughs.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Federal investigators with the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) of the United States have declared that a recent explosion that damaged homes alongside a Woods Cross, Utah refinery was triggered when a pipe burst. The revelation comes as locals begin questioning the decision to build houses near the facility.

The explosion at the Silver Eagle refinery on Wednesday morning was the second next year, and blasted a fireball into the neighbourhood. Ten houses suffered damage including cracked foundations, roofs lifted off, doors and windows blown out and debris hurled into rooms. One resident, Linda Wood, has been told to leave her house, which lies condemned after it was knocked clear of its foundations and damaged structurally.

Two local emergency dispatch centers were clogged up as calls came through to the 911 emergency number. Firefighters arrived quickly and tackled the resulting blaze at the refinery after establishing that there were no injuries. The 1950s refinery was not evacuated and is expected to continue operating despite the damage. It employs 80 people.

Silver Eagle’s own firefighting crews were already in control when they were joined by the emergency services, and together they put the flames out in around thirty minutes. Woods Cross mayor Kent Perry said that over the last six months there have been a lot of improvements in local firefighting and praised the reaction of emergency services. Later, 120 residents were visited by structural engineers to assess damage. There were also power outages in the area, with two other refineries amongst those affected.

Silver Eagle had also sent employees on a firefighting course following another explosion in January. In that accident, a large cloud of flammable vapour developed over a tank of naptha before igniting, causing a flash fire that injured several employees. The firm has said they will pay for all the damages caused by the latest incident, and Perry advised affected people to keep track of expenses incurred.

As well as the CSB, Utah’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Silver Eagle themselves are investigating the accident. The CSB released preliminary findings yesterday that indicated a burst pipe was to blame, although the reasons for its failure are unknown.

A pipe ten inches in diameter burst along a horizontal section near a point where it changed direction from vertical. The pipe normally carried hydrogen and diesel and was linked to a reactor that took waxes out of diesel fuel, but due to maintenance by Silver Eagle the pipe was only transporting pressurised hydrogen. When it failed at 9:15 630 pounds of hydrogen spilled out and were ignited by a nearby furnace. The resulting 800 degrees Fahrenheit fireball leapt 100 feet into the air and sent a string of pressure waves to buffet the housing, as the pipe pointed east towards the homes.

The CSB’s Donald Holmstrom commented that “The unit was immediately engulfed in flames… We’re extremely fortunate that no one got hurt. Five workers were in this process unit just a few minutes before.” The revelations come as local residents expressed concern about the fact that houses were built so close to the refinery in the first place.

It has been discovered that there were no houses near the refinery until six years ago, when an application was denied after an engineer commissioned by the council reported that the risks were too high. However, the developer convinced officials to change their minds with a report by a company he had hired himself. The CSB is due to look into these studies as well as one by the refinery. An opinion piece by the Salt Lake Tribune also criticised the company’s safety record, with the refinery also experiencing explosions in 2005 and 2007. However, the refinery had recently passed a safety inspection when the accident occurred. The CSB will examine whether the refinery was properly inspecting the pipe.

Friday, October 24, 2008

On August 21, the Polish weekly Przekrój published an advertisement for Dan-Mark exercise books, bearing the logo of 4fun.tv, a Polish music/interactive TV station. Part of the advertisement contained a definition of the word “exercise book”. The wording looked familiar, and Wikinews consulted Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia.

Upon seeing the Wikipedia definition, it appeared that the entry quoted in the promotional material was identical to the initial two paragraphs of the relevant Wikipedia entry.

Freelance reporters for the Polish Wikinews decided to find out the reason for such a similarity and whether either of the texts (the advertisement’s or Wikipedia’s) might be a case of copyright violation.

The reporters contacted a Jaros?aw Janas, Creative Director of 4fun.tv., where the ad appeared. His reply included the following claim:

Copyright on text does not last for fifty years as claimed by Janas, but for 70 years after the death of the author.

To investigate the authenticity of the above claims, Wikinews asked the main author of the two paragraphs in question, Wikipedian Julo, about the sources used to write the entry. He confirmed that he had written the text in question, and not copied it from an encyclopedic publication as claimed by Jana.

It is therefore impossible that both Julo and the people responsible for the exercise book advertisement have used the same uncopyrighted encyclopedia, thus coincidentally creating identical texts. The reporters also noted that the first draft of the introduction to the article was written by WaldemarWolskiHuta (February 2006). Afterward the text had undergone some modifications by Julo (September 2006), as well as Picus viridis and Beno (March 2008). However, the text presented in the press promotional material, which – according to 4fun.tv – came from an old-print encyclopedia is identical to the Wikipedia entry after the changes mentioned above had been made. Julo added that he was still alive, together with the other authors of the article in question who constituted the group of the copyright co-holders. This naturally led to a conclusion that neither 50 nor 70 years could have passed since their death. He left 4fun.tv’s actions with a comment that although the contents he and the other Wikimedians had made public and free, they are far from making them available in any “free style”, but under a specified license.

In follow up messages to Jaros?aw Janas, Wikinews reporters confronted the creative director over his seemingly inaccurate claims.

Wikinews was told in a reply that 4fun.tv would ignore the claims unless they see permission from the author of the original content to investigate this story. They were also informed that further e-mails without any specifics sent by the reporter would be qualified as spam. 4fun.tv’s creative director further added that he found the reporter’s picture on the Internet and asked how the person would feel if this picture was to appear on billboards or press releases that advertised the TV station.

Wikipedia does allow copying of its content under certain conditions. The encyclopedia’s content is released under the GNU Free Documentation License, which means that it can be copied, modified, and used commercially and non-commercially – under the conditions that the license’s text is included with the copied content and the five main authors are mentioned. If a part of the article is used, like in the example quoted in this news story, a “right to quote”, recognized by Polish law, may be used. In such a case it suffices to mention the source of the text (Polish Wikipedia) and the author of the excerpt. 4fun.tv met none of these conditions, meaning that copyright has been violated.

Over a year ago Polish Wikinews reported on a similar problem, regarding the use of free-licensed photographs. Since that time such “borrowings” have become less frequent, however photos are still being used in discordance with the license. Journalists have gotten used to citing sources, e.g. Wikipedia, although licensing conditions require attributing the actual author, not the source. So instead of attributing John Doe for his contribution, agencies like Polska Agencja Prasowa (Polish Press Agency) are attributing the source, Wikipedia.

In early September 2008 a similar situation occurred in relation to the Polish edition of Wiktionary. Gazeta Wyborcza, a Polish daily, published an IKEA advertisement, on the opening page of which an almost word-for-word Wiktionary entry was placed; additionally the advertisement used the characteristic MediaWiki layout. The reference to the external source used was missing.

In April 2008, an example of an Australian professor was cited; the scientist, in a reply to a news story, quoted a Wikipedia definition almost word-for-word. The same professor condemned the use of Wikipedia in his previous press appearances.

In 2005 Wikipedia material was discovered in the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, which acknowledged its fault and published appropriate apologies in place of the article in the online edition.

Frontline magazine in 2007 was found using an image from Wikipedia without proper credit. When pointed out the magazine acknowledged the failing and a correction was promptly given in the subsequent issue.