Saturday, April 25, 2009

Early results show the African National Congress holding a commanding lead in South Africa’s general election.

File:JacobZuma.jpg

But it is still unclear whether the party has met its goal of the two-thirds majority in Parliament required to amend the constitution.

With half of the vote counted, the ANC has 66% of the vote. Its nearest rival, the Democratic Alliance, has 16%, while ANC splinter-group the Congress of the People trails with 8%.

The results will see ANC leader Jacob Zuma elected as President of South Africa when the National Assembly reconvenes in May.

Provincial elections are also being held, and the ANC looks likely to lose power in the province of Western Cape to the Democratic Alliance. This will be the first time an opposition party has won control of a provincial parliament since the end of apartheid.

The election campaign has focused on crime, poverty, and the suitability of Zuma to be President. Zuma was acquitted of rape in 2006, and corruption charges against him were withdrawn shortly before the election after prosecutors found the charges had been politically motivated.

During the campign, opposition leader Helen Zille warned that Zuma’s election would turn South Africa into a “failed state”.

Turnout has been high, with long lines of voters queuing to cast their ballot in South Africa’s fourth election since the end of apartheid. The election has generally been peaceful and with few irregularities, though a COPE official was shot dead in his home and one election official has been arrested for attempting to stuff a ballot box with ballots marked for the Inkatha Freedom Party.

400 representatives will be elected by proportional representation, half from national and half from provincial lists. Forty parties are contesting the elections, and 23 million South Africans are registered to vote.

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Monday, October 1, 2007

Brian Jackson is running for the Ontario Liberal Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Oxford riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his 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.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

While nearly all coverage of the 2008 Presidential election has focused on the Democratic and Republican candidates, the race for the White House also includes independents and third party candidates. These parties represent a variety of views that may not be acknowledged by the major party platforms.

Wikinews has impartially reached out to these candidates, throughout the campaign. We now interview independent Presidential candidate Frank Moore, a performance artist.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The European Commission currently has proposals on the table to extend performers’ copyright terms. Described by Professor Martin Kretschmer as the “Beatles Extension Act”, the proposed measure would extend copyright from 50 to 95 years after recording. A vast number of classical tracks are at stake; the copyright on recordings from the fifties and early sixties is nearing its expiration date, after which it would normally enter the public domain or become ‘public property’. E.U. Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services Charlie McCreevy is proposing this extension, and if the other relevant Directorate Generales (Information Society, Consumers, Culture, Trade, Competition, etc.) agree with the proposal, it will be sent to the European Parliament.

Wikinews contacted Erik Josefsson, European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (E.F.F.), who invited us to Brussels, the heart of E.U. policy making, to discuss this new proposal and its implications. Expecting an office interview, we arrived to discover that the event was a party and meetup conveniently coinciding with FOSDEM 2008 (the Free and Open source Software Developers’ European Meeting). The meetup was in a sprawling city centre apartment festooned with E.F.F. flags and looked to be a party that would go on into the early hours of the morning with copious food and drink on tap. As more people showed up for the event it turned out that it was a truly international crowd, with guests from all over Europe.

Eddan Katz, the new International Affairs Director of the E.F.F., had come over from the U.S. to connect to the European E.F.F. network, and he gladly took part in our interview. Eddan Katz explained that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is “A non-profit organisation working to protect civil liberties and freedoms online. The E.F.F. has fought for information privacy rights online, in relation to both the government and companies who, with insufficient transparency, collect, aggregate and make abuse of information about individuals.” Another major focus of their advocacy is intellectual property, said Eddan: “The E.F.F. represents what would be the public interest, those parts of society that don’t have a concentration of power, that the private interests do have in terms of lobbying.”

Becky Hogge, Executive Director of the U.K.’s Open Rights Group (O.R.G.), joined our discussion as well. “The goals of the Open Rights Group are very simple: we speak up whenever we see civil, consumer or human rights being affected by the poor implementation or the poor regulation of new technologies,” Becky summarised. “In that sense, people call us -I mean the E.F.F. has been around, in internet years, since the beginning of time- but the Open Rights Group is often called the British E.F.F.“

Monday, July 4, 2005

17 Afghan civilians, including women and children, are thought to be have been killed as the result of U.S. aircraft bombing the village of Chechal in the east of Afghanistan late last week, said a governor.

The air strike occurred last Friday in the same area as an elite U.S. military team went missing three days ago.

Provincial governor Assadullah Wafa told the Associated Press “seventeen civilians died in the U.S. bombing of the village.” He went on to comment that casualties consisted of women and children, though he did not know the exact figure.

A U.S. military statement claimed that the “compound” bombed was a “known operating base for terrorist attacks in Kunar province as well as a base for a medium-level terrorist leader,”

The statement, written after criticism in the press of the U.S. military’s lack of precaution in these matters, then went on to say the U.S. armed forces “regret the loss of innocent lives and follow stringent rules of engagement specifically to ensure that non-combatants are safeguarded. However, when enemy forces move their families into the locations where they conduct terrorist operations, they put these innocent civilians at risk.”

One member of the missing military team has been recovered and is currently being “evaluated” on Monday, a U.S. Defence Department spokesperson said, though he refused to comment on details regarding his whereabouts and health.

Afghan and U.S. forces are currently in the Kunar province searching for members of the missing military team. U.S. officials at the time of the bombing said in a statement that the attack utilised “precision-guided munitions that resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of enemy terrorists and non-combatants,”

The statement continued, concluding that “battle damage assessment is currently ongoing.”

In May, Afghan president Hamid Karzai voiced his concerns over the excessive number of civilian casualties as a result of US-led operations.

Some observers have speculated that the attack on the village was a deliberate response to the downing of a US transport helicopter last month. In that incident, 16 troops died in the worst single blow to American forces since the Taliban was ousted in 2001.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

The final round of the 2009 College World Series of baseball is set, with eight teams qualifying for the double-elimination tournament. The tournament will begin play on June 13 at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska in the United States. The College World Series is the final leg of a three-tiered tournament which determines the top baseball team in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I— the top level of play in American college athletics. The College World Series has been played annually at Rosenblatt Stadium since 1950.

The initial field of 64 teams played through regional competition in the first two legs of the tournament, called the “Regionals” and “Super Regionals.” The eight teams that won their Super Regional, and thus qualified for the College World Series, are:

• Arizona State from the Pacific-10 Conference
• Arkansas from the Southeastern Conference
• California State University, Fullerton from the Big West Conference
• Louisiana State University (LSU) from the Southeastern Conference
• University of North Carolina (UNC) from the Atlantic Coast Conference
• University of Southern Mississippi from Conference USA
• University of Texas from the Big 12 Conference
• University of Virginia from the Atlantic Coast Conference

In the opening round games, Cal State Fullerton will play Arkansas and LSU will play Virgina on Saturday, while UNC will play Arizona State and Texas will play Southern Miss on Sunday. Play will continue in the form of a double-elimination tournament, culminating in a three-game championship series to be held June 22–24.

Of the eight teams in the College World Series this year, two are making their CWS debut: Virginia and Southern Miss. At the other end of the spectrum, Texas and Arizona State are the winningest teams in the history of the tournament, combining for a total of 54 CWS appearances and 11 championships. Last year’s champion, Fresno State University, did not make it out of the Regional round this year, and only UNC and LSU are returning from last year’s final 8.

Friday, April 29, 2005

Swedish company Korsnas Packaging has extended its operations in Romania by transferring two production lines from Germany and the United Kingdom to its Romanian subsidiary in Ploie?ti, an industrial city close to Bucharest. The first production line will be designed for producing packing material for food and the building industry. This line will be transferred to Romania at the beginning of May, with the transaction being worth €1.5 million. The second production line will be transferred in 2006, depending on the 2005 financial results of Korsnas’ Romanian subsidiary.

In the past few years, and the past year especially, more European Union companies have relocated to Romania for to its lower labour cost and skilled workforce. Foreign investors have also been attracted by a new tax policy which started in January 2005, putting in place a flat 16% tax rate for personal income and corporate profit. Foreign investment is expected to increase in the future, as Romania signed in April 25 its Accession Treaty with the European Union and is set to become a member of this organisation on January 1, 2007.