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Thursday, March 6, 2008

The 2008 Taipei County Jin Shi International Marathon which was established in 1979 and suspended from 1986 to 2001 before being transformed from “Jin Shan” to “Jin Shi” with its racing scale expanded, crossed through three townships including Wanli, Jinshan, and Shihmen was held last Sunday (March 2 in Taipei Time). Not only professional runners from Asian and European countries participated in this race, but several enterprises, governmental and academic teams also supported this race by participating in 6K Fun Run classes.

Even though the Central Weather Bureau warned of an impending dust storm, good weather graced this race with rain-free conditions. Another challenge for the runners in the 21K and 42K classes was cold winds due to the race route partially including coast line.

Finally, Belgian marathon runner Rik Ceulemans, men’s record holder of this race, extended his record with 2H18m13s to win the men’s championship, and Yu-fang Hsu, women’s champion of 2007 ING Taipei Marathon, won her title at women’s class with 2H53m39s. Coincidently, Wen-chien Wu and Wan-ling Wu, former champions of this race, all won the second place in their own gender class.

As a recap for the race, not only runners gave their best performances in this race, but several foreign teams — especially from Okinawa, Japan — played a great role adding a cultural exchange aspect to the event. Bros Sports, the race organizer, supervised by Taipei County Government in this race, some senior managers from Bros Sports hoped organizations from the sports industry could arrange the best integration of several marathon races in Taiwan in the future even though Bros Sports promoted a special attempt this year with three marathon races including Jin Shi, Dajia Mazu, and UMC Hsinchu stages.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Eleven of the 25 workers at the Vestas factory in Newport, Isle of Wight, England who have been carrying out a sit-in since Monday July 20 have been sacked with immediate effect.

According to one of the protesters known as “Mike”, the occupiers were given their dismissal notices concealed under slices of their evening meal of pizza. The company said that the protesters have had ample opportunity to air their point of view, and had no choice but to sack eleven of the twenty five workers that they had positively identified; and that given that the fact that the action constituted a “fundamental breach” of trust, that the eleven would not be entitled to redundancy packages. A press release from the company said that Vestas “saw no other choice than to dismiss the 11 employees, who the company has positively identified as the employees currently participating in the occupation of the factory.”

The protesters remained upbeat, vowing to continue their occupation and have called upon the UK government to save the 625 jobs and to nationalise the Danish owned factory. Occupier Ian Terry told the BBC that if the occupiers are forced out, they plan to leave the building “peacefully”.

Vestas management were dealt a setback today in ending the occupation as Newport County Court ruled that the papers accusing the occupiers of aggravate trespass and requiring they surrender the office they occupy by July 29 were improperly served. The case has been adjourned until Tuesday August 4. In court, Judge Graham White said he was “distinctly uncomfortable” with what he perceived as Vestas’ effort to “get around the rules” in retaking the factory from the occupiers.

Legal representation for the Vestas workers had been offered by Bob Crow, secretary of the RMT trade union. Crow has pledged the “full solidarity” of the RMT and seven other unions with the workers occupying the plant.

Vestas management has also been providing the occupiers with hot meals in an apparent response to Crow’s announcement, made on July 24, that the RMT was planning on airlifting food into the factory by helicopter. Crow is meeting today with Ed Miliband, the Environment Minister.

Earlier in the week, Miliband pledged £6 million in funding to an expansion of Vestas’ Isle of Wight research and development centre, which currently employs 110 workers and could, said the Minister, be expanded to employ 40 more.

Rallies continued throughout the week in support of the Vestas occupiers. Since the occupation began, the Vestas workers have received declarations of support and solidarity from a wide swathe of the British left, including but not limited to: political parties Green Party, Respect, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Alliance for Workers Liberty, and the Communist Party of Britain; the TUCG group, which brings together the BFAWU, FBU, NAPO, NUJ, PCS, POA, RMT, and URTU; and environmental groups Greenpeace, the Campaign against Climate Change, Climate Camp, and Workers’ Climate Action, who claims credit for initiating the campaign to occupy the factory. Attendees of the Big Green Gathering, a large annual environmentalist rally which was due to take place starting today but was suddenly canceled on Sunday, are being encouraged to go to the Isle of Wight and take part in support rallies for Vestas instead.

Speaking to Wikinews about the “red–green” coalition supporting the occupation, a spokesman for the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty said: “We think this struggle is important on at least three grounds — it is central to the struggle for jobs, it is central to the struggle for the environment, and it is central to the struggle for rebuilding the labour movement.”

Photographs shared with Wikinews by the occupiers show the occupiers, mostly young men, talking, carrying out everyday tasks, and keeping in touch with the outside world via mobile phones. The use of mobile telephones in the Vestas occupation has given the press remarkable access to the occupiers and provided an effective platform for relaying their demands and feelings to the media. In contrast, Vestas’s designated media contact for the United Kingdom is on vacation. Attempts to reach Vestas Newport factory manager Patrick Weir, whom a Vestas representative at the company’s Danish headquarters stated was handling press inquiries regarding the occupation, received no reply.

Vestas plans to close the factory on July 31, citing the difficulties of obtaining planning permission for wind farms in the United Kingdom. All blades manufactured at Vestas’ Newport plant are sent to the United States. 1900 employees of the company in Northern Europe face job losses, 625 of them in Vestas’s plants in the south of England.

Monday, December 31, 2007

What would you tell your grandchildren about 2007 if they asked you about it in, let’s say, 20 year’s time? If the answer to a quiz question was 2007, what would the question be? The year that you first signed on to Facebook? The year Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse fell apart? The year author Kurt Vonnegut or mime Marcel Marceau died, both at 84?

Let’s take a look at some of the international stories of 2007. Links to the original Wikinews articles are in bold.

Friday, May 25, 2007

United States President George W. Bush received an unwelcome gift from an overhead-flying sparrow, which deposited a fresh batch of its feces on the left sleeve of Bush’s suit.

Bush was addressing the American press on Thursday in a nationally televised broadcast outside the White House in the Rose Garden. The incident occurred just as Bush said, “I’ve got confidence in Al Gonzales doin’ the job,” referring to a question asked by a reporter about the controversial dismissal of several U.S. attorneys. Bush then tried to remove the offending material several times with his hand.

Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino said the ‘poo-drop’ signified good luck saying, “It was his lucky day…everyone knows that’s a sign of good luck.” On the whole the media coverage of the incident has been lighthearted and humorous.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Paul Schäfer died at 88 from cardiac-respiratory arrest on early Saturday morning in a Chilean prison hospital. Schäfer was the founder and former leader of Colonia Dignidad, an enclave used for torturing and exterminating political prisoners during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Hr was convicted for sexually abusing 26 children for years, and retained thousands of people under his own tyrannical regime, that worked as an aside territory in the country, where people spoke the German language.

Jorge Zepeda, magistrate who investigated the crimes made in Colonia Dignidad, reported that Schäfer was unconscious when he died. He was to stay in prison for 33 years. Hernán Fernández, one of the lawyers against Colonia Dignidad, said that Schäfer’s death should help to accelerate the judiciary processes. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera said, “Paul Schäfer will be judged by the divine justice.”

Schäfer was born in 1921, in Siegburg, Germany. He was a non-commissioned Nazi officer, who moved to Chile after the Second World War, evading accusations of sexual abuse of minors. He established an organization in a rural area of Chile, in favour of the poor people, located 400 kilometers south of Santiago, to the border of Argentina. He named this place Villa Babiera.

He began his rule of this area in 1961; he established a private tyrannical regime, where almost 300 Germans worked for decades without pay. Men and women were segregated, and people who tried to escape were killed. Adults and children considered it an “honour” for Schäfer to chose to have sex with them.

When Pinochet’s regime ended, Schäfer escaped from Chile in 1996 to avoid being imprisoned, after he came under investigation for human rights violations and abuse to minors. He was detained in Argentina, and then extradited back to Chile in 2005. Since then he was imprisoned. Colonia Dignidad still exists, though without the power they had before, less secluded and with new leaders.

Sunday, June 5, 2005

The government of Canada is fighting to keep Washington from having access to passenger lists for Canada’s domestic flights. The Canadian transport minister Jean Lapierre said two-thirds of Canada’s domestic flights at some point cross through American air space. The Minister said he may have to re-route them (around U.S. airspace) rather than breach the privacy rights of domestic Canadian passengers.

In plans which are not yet finalized, Washington recently warned Canada (and other countries) the U.S. intends to require that its no-fly list procedures apply to all foreign airlines which pass through U.S. airspace. After 9/11, a watch list of suspected terrorists was created by the U.S. that bars those on the list from air travel within its borders.

On Wednesday, Lapierre said it’s a “very hot issue,” and that he’s working to protect the privacy of Canadians.

“I’m very worried about it. We don’t think it’s a good idea that Canadians travelling from one (Canadian) city to another would have to be checked under the American no-fly list.” Lapierre said. He estimates that nearly two-thirds of the 278,000 yearly flights between Canadian cities cross over the U.S. border. Most major flight zones from urban centers in Canada are in its southern portion, close to the U.S. where even winds might push a plane across the border.

If the matter can not be resolved, Lapierre said, “We would have to take a northern route, which would be much more expensive.” Yahoo! News Canada reports that Lapierre intends to lobby U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta against the changes.

Last year, the Canadian province of British Columbia put controls on firms that handle an individual’s personal data that prevents them from sharing private information on Canadians with U.S. authorities. The issue goes to Canada’s sovereignty of its citizens and the U.S. sovereignty of its airspace.

The historically close relations between Canada and the U.S. was evident during the recent Virgin Atlantic incident, where a flight was intercepted by 2 Canadian CF-18 jet fighters. They were scrambled from Quebec to escort the inter-continental flight originating from London to the Halifax International Airport after a hijacking signal, an apparent accident, was sent from the plane. The plane was detained in Halifax on Friday for approximately four hours. Ultimately it was cleared, and landed safely at its original destination in John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

Both the ACLU and the Electronic Privacy Information Center are involved in lawsuits against the U.S. government relating to no-fly lists. EPIC has received documents under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act which it says “establish that the TSA administers two lists: a “no-fly” list and a “selectee” list, which requires the passenger to go through additional security measures. The names are provided to air carriers through Security Directives or Emergency Amendments and are stored in their computer systems so that an individual with a name that matches the list can be flagged when getting a boarding pass. A “no-fly” match requires the agent to call a law enforcement officer to detain and question the passenger. In the case of a Selectee, an “S” or special mark is printed on their boarding pass and the person receives additional screening at security.”

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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Following the introduction of a “Do Not Track” feature in modern browsers at the end of last year, Wikinews interviewed several companies and groups about the feature.