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Wednesday, May 10, 2006

An Australian munitions factory exploded in South Australia. Two people were killed, another two were injured and one is still missing.

The factory produced explosives for quarrying, civil engineering and the military.

The explosion leveled everything within 100 metres and could be heard from 70km away.

Emergency services have been held back to a one kilometre radius of the factory until an explosives expert from Adelaide could come.

“It’s very dangerous, so we’re holding back,” police inspector Phil Warwick said, “It’s an explosives factory. All right it’s exploded, but that doesn’t mean all the explosives have gone. There’s still smoke coming from the area, which means there must be fire or heat. Put them (remaining explosives and fire) together and we could have another (explosion).”

Friday, May 26, 2006

In February of 2006, the Savarino Services Construction Corp. proposed the construction of a seven million dollar hotel on Elmwood and Forest Avenues in Buffalo, New York. In order for the hotel to be built, at least five properties containing businesses and residents would have to be destroyed. It was not certain whether the properties were owned by Savarino or by the landlord Hans Mobius. The hotel was designed by Karl Frizlen of the Frizlen Group, and is planned to be a franchise of the Wyndham Hotels group.

Elmwood Avenue is known by the community as a popular shopping center, and Nancy Pollina of Don Apparel (who is “utterly against” the construction) claims it’s the only reason why students from Buffalo State College leave campus. Additionally, Michael Faust of Mondo Video said he did not want to “get kicked out of here [his video store property].”

In 1995, a Walgreens was proposed to be built on the same land, but Walgreens later withdrew its request for a variance because of pressure from the community. More recently, Pano Georgiadis tried to get the rights to demolish the Atwater House next to his restaurant on Elmwood Avenue, but was denied a permit due to the property’s historical value. He has since been an opponent to the hotel construction.

In the process of debating the hotel, it was thought that a hotel had previously existed on the proposed site, however; research done at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society had shown that no hotel had previously existed on the site.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Cars drove home the big prize last night, from the 34th Annual Annie Awards. The animation industry’s highest honor, ASIFA-Hollywood’s Annies recognise contributions to animation, writing, directing, storyboarding, voice acting, composing, and much more.

As mentioned, Pixar took home the big prize last night, after facing stiff competition from four other Happy Feet, Monster House, Open Season, and Over the Hedge.

But the biggest winner of the night didn’t get a “Best Animated Feature” nod at all. Flushed Away won five feature animation categories including Animated Effects (Scott Cegielski), Character Animation (Gabe Hordos), Production Design (Pierre-Olivier Vincent), Voice Acting (Sir Ian McKellan as Toad), Writing (Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan, and Will Davies).

Over The Hedge won awards for Directing (Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick), Storyboarding (Gary Graham), and Character Design (Nicolas Marlet).

Of little surprise, Randy Newman won an Annie for Cars in the “Music in an Animated Feature Production” category. Newman has won many Oscars for his movie music, and has a nomination this year for the song “Our Town”. Newman didn’t attend the Annies, instead picking up a Grammy for “Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media”.

DisneyToon Studios’ Bambi II won “Best Home Entertainment Production”, while “Best Animated Short Subject” went to Blue Sky Studios’ No Time For Nuts, which is based on Ice Age.

“Best Animated Video Game” went to Flushed Away The Game, while a United Airlines ad named “Dragon” won a “Best Animated Television Commercial” Annie for DUCK Studios.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

The Australian House of Representatives heard the traditional right-of-reply to the Budget released May 9, from the Australian Labor Party, led by Kim Beazley (Labor, Brand), plus Budget replies from minor parties in the Australian Senate.

While the Budget is politically popular, having as one of its main features significant tax reform, Beazley focused on the omissions in the Budget, such as the failure to address a skills shortage.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Marion Schaffer is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the Oakville riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed her regarding her values, her experience, and her campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

2020 Melbourne Lord Mayor candidate Wayne Tseng answered some questions about his campaign for the upcoming election from Wikinews. The Lord Mayor election in the Australian city is scheduled to take place this week.

Tseng runs a firm called eTranslate, which helps software developers to make the software available to the users. In the candidate’s questionnaire, Tseng said eTranslate had led to him working with all three tiers of the government. He previously belonged to the Australian Liberal Party, but has left since then, to run for mayorship as an independent candidate.

Tseng is of Chinese descent, having moved to Australia with his parents from Vietnam. Graduated in Brisbane, Tseng received his PhD in Melbourne and has been living in the city, he told Wikinews. Tseng also formed Chinese Precinct Chamber of Commerce, an organisation responsible for many “community bond building initiatives”, the Lord Mayor candidate told Wikinews.

Tseng discussed his plans for leading Melbourne, recovering from COVID-19, and “Democracy 2.0” to ensure concerns of minorities in the city were also heard. Tseng also focused on the importance of the multi-culture aspect and talked about making Melbourne the capital of the aboriginals. Tseng also explained why he thinks Melbourne is poised to be a world city by 2030.

Tseng’s deputy Lord Mayor candidate Gricol Yang is a Commercial Banker and works for ANZ Banking Group.

Currently, Sally Capp is the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the Victorian capital. Capp was elected as an interim Lord Mayor in mid-2018 after the former Lord Mayor Robert Doyle resigned from his position after sexual assault allegations. Doyle served as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne for almost a decade since 2008.

Monday, January 25, 2016

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Alaska, United States, near the state’s most populous city of Anchorage. City authorities say they do not know of any injuries caused by the earthquake, which occurred early yesterday morning.

The earthquake’s epicentre was 162 miles (about 260 km) away from Anchorage, where residents reported feeling intense shaking. Associated Press reporter Mark Thiessen said he was woken from sleep by the quake, despite having taken sleeping pills earlier.

In the city of Kenai, gas explosions destroyed two homes. The quake destroyed four homes in total; the two other homes were damaged by fire, but did not explode. Authorities said around twenty people took shelter in a local armoury opened up for those whose homes were evacuated.

In Anchorage, utility companies reported small-scale power outages.

The quake was followed by two smaller quakes. Its focus was around 50 miles (80 km) underground, which, according to the National Weather Service, meant that the quake struck too deep to cause a tsunami.

Friday, April 13, 2007

New Zealand’s state-owned broadcaster, TVNZ (Television New Zealand) announced yesterday its proposed redundancy cuts that will see jobs go from various sectors, the most going from their news and current affairs sector.

At least 140 people will be told that they will be set to lose their job in the next six months, at least 50 of those are from the news sector.

Seven general reporting journalists will be leaving, which only leaves six left from the Auckland newsroom. Two sports reporting journalists will also be leaving from the Auckland newsroom, leaving six. Accredited parliament reporters also look to face redundancy cuts, as well as reporters from the Christchurch newsroom. As well as people losing their jobs, the Queenstown, Wanganui and Rotorua newsrooms will be closed, as well as the news reference library, and the current affairs show, Sunday looks set to close its Wellington office. Head of journalism at the University of Canterbury, Jim Tully says that the closing of the Queenstown newsroom is a big mistake. Current affairs show, Close Up will also lose two journalists and a Christchurch producer, but will gain a producer in Auckland. Fair Go, consumer affairs show, will lose three senior producers. Breakfast will lose a weather and sports presenter, and a producer.

The final decision of the exact numbers will be disclosed in the next few weeks, following consultation with the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, which represents, altogether, 5,000 employees.

Some of the job losses include experienced journalists, and Bill Ralston, former head of news and current affairs for TVNZ, said that they will be replaced by cheaper, inexperienced journalists. “If you do that your audience will reduce even further . . . this move makes no commercial sense whatsoever,” he said.

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union has described the job losses as an attack on democracy, and have launched a campaign titled, ‘Our Media’ to bring these issues to light. The National Secretary, Andrew Little has said that an essential function of communities is good quality regional news reporting, which will be reduced because of the job cuts.

Steve Maharey, broadcasting minister, has refused to comment regarding TVNZ.

Mr Ralston has said that this move will destroy TVNZ’s 30-year reputation being “…a good quality public broadcaster who gives you a news and current affairs service that you can believe and trust.”

He also questioned why they were cutting the news sector heavily when there are other sectors that are unnecessary, such as human resources. “Last time I looked at TVNZ it had 25 people in its human resources division – TV3 has none.” One TVNZ staff member has said that the job cuts were run by the human resources decision, and that they are very “anti-journalist”.

TVNZ plan to launch a new continuous news channel next year on New Zealand’s new digital platform, FreeView.

The New Zealand Herald is currently also looking at reducing staff numbers by outsourcing their sub-editors/copy editors.

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Scotland Yard issued a statement that Jean Charles de Menezes, the 27-year-old Brazilian electrician shot to death yesterday by police in a London Underground station was “not connected” to Thursday’s bombings and called the incident “a tragedy”. A day earlier, the police commissioner said the man was “directly linked” to Thursday’s attacks.

The police statement said

“We are now satisfied that he was not connected with the incidents of Thursday 21st July 2005. For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets.”

The man was followed when he left a flat that had been under surveillence. He did not obey instructions from police (not in uniform) as he ran onto a Tube train at the station. Eyewitnesses said he “was wearing a large coat, unusual for the time of year”, but didn’t seem to have “any guns or anything like that; I didn’t see him carrying anything. I didn’t even see a bag to be quite honest.”

Mark Whitby, apparently the closest eye witness said; “He half-tripped, was half-pushed to the floor. The policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand, he held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him.”

The shooting is being investigated by the Metropolitan Police Service‘s Directorate of Professional Standards and the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which investigates all fatal police shootings.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke described the shooting of Mr Menezes as an “absolute tragedy” before going on to say “I hope [the family] understand the police were trying to do their very best under very difficult circumstances.”

Alex Pereira, a cousin of Mr Menezes, also living in the UK, was interviewed by the BBC and said “Apologies are not enough. I believe my cousin’s death was result of police incompetence.” He also stated that he believed his cousin had been “a victim of government’s mistakes”.