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Sunday, July 16, 2006

Seven Canadians were killed, and six others were in critical condition, after an Israeli raid in Lebanon on Sunday, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay announced. The deaths were believed to be the first recent casualties in Lebanon from any G8 country.

Associated Press reports anonymous Lebanese officials saying the family of Canadians were killed at their home in the town of Aitaroun. Many Lebanese citizens have emigrated to Canada and often return to spend their summers in the south of Lebanon.

Sixteen thousand Canadians have registered with the embassy in Beirut, but MacKay said the number of those present could be as high as 40,000. “We’re calling for restraint in all sectors right now and hope to be able to have those ships in place and citizens moving out of Lebanon as quickly as possible.” MacKay said.

Parliament Hill demonstrators in Ottawa on Sunday protested the Harper government’s position regarding the ongoing strikes. One placard declared, “Killing children is not a ‘measured response’,” referring to the G8 statement released earlier.

During a protest in Montréal on Sunday, one woman said she had just been informed that two of her family members were killed in the Israeli air strike. The unnamed woman screamed “My father, my uncle — they’re dead. What’s happening?” She said her family members were in the Middle East for a summer vacation.

The deaths occurred on the fifth day of Israel’s military attacks in Lebanon, instigated by the capture of 2 Israeli soldiers and killing of 8 others by the Shiite Hezbollah in a cross-border attack. The fighting has caused at least 148 fatalities in Lebanon and 23 in Israel.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Hours before the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, 21-year-old Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died after hitting an unpadded pole during a routine training exercise at the Whistler Sliding Centre in Vancouver, Canada on Friday morning.

According to those on the scene, blood was “pouring” from the athlete’s head as he was being placed into a stretcher. Doctors did try to revive him, but to no avail.

“Our first thoughts are with the family, friends, and colleagues of the athlete,” Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), told international media. “The whole Olympic family is struck by this tragedy, which clearly casts a shadow over these Games.”

CEO of the Vancouver organizing committee, John Furlong went on to say: “We are deeply struck by this tragedy, and join the IOC in extending our condolences to the family, friends and teammates of this athlete, who came to Vancouver to follow his Olympic dream.”

The International Luge Federation (FIL) is now in the process of conducting an internal investigation into the circumstances of what occurred. Training was suspended until officials were able to certify the course as safe.

The president of the ILF, Josef Fendt, said in a statement: “This is a terrible accident. This is the gravest thing that can happen in sport, and our thoughts and those of the luge family are naturally with those touched by this event.”

Mr. Kumaritashvili is the fourth athlete to die in Winter Olympic history.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Nervous savers have re-formed queues this morning outside many branches of Northern Rock, after the £2.68 billion bank took an emergency loan from the Bank of England, the UK central bank.

Shares in the bank had dropped 25% by lunchtime yesterday in London – and stood nearly 60% lower from their high of February – after the Bank of England acted in its capacity as “lender of last resort” to provide Northern Rock with short-term financing to enable it to continue operations.

The Bank of England hasn’t acted as lender of last resort since 1973, when the collapse of Cedar Holdings – a pioneer of second mortgages to UK home-owners – threatened a crisis in the country’s banking industry.

Northern Rock has been hit hard since June this year by the turmoil in world credit markets. Although only 0.24% of its assets are exposed to subprime US housing debt, the bank’s business model saw it grow its loan book by 43% in the first six months of this year. Rather than lending money deposited with it by savers, Northern has borrowed aggressively in the short-term capital markets.

“Northern Rock is not a reckless lender,” said Angela Knight, head of the British Bankers Association on national radio this morning. Urging the bank’s savers not to withdraw their money in panic, “the mortgage lending it does well and it does in a high quality, high calibre way,” she added.

But savers queuing to withdraw their money from Northern Rock today said they were “horrified” by the Bank of England needing to step in.

“I am going to take out the lot, every penny,” said one Northern Rock saver to Bloomberg as he queued outside the bank’s West End branch in London.

Friday, February 27, 2009

On February 24th the Swedish Royal Court announced that the Crown Princess Victoria is to be married in 2010 to her boyfriend and former fitness trainer Daniel Westling. KP Victoria, 31, and Daniel, 35, have been in a relationship for seven years. As the wedding is to be held in the summer of 2010, it gives the court 18 months to prepare, contemplate the wedding dress of the Crown Princess, and complete the guest-list – which will include prominent guests from Europe and the world.

According to the Swedish constitution, KP Victoria must ask for the King’s approval for the marriage, who then has to call a cabinet council so that the government can give its approval. This was done on Tuesday morning, just before the court announced the engagement.

After the wedding, Daniel will be given the title of Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland. Their children will be next in line to the throne after Crown Princess Victoria.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

At least 400 people have been killed and a further 10,000 injured by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake and its aftershocks which struck remote and mountainous Yushu county, in the south of Qinghai province in the west of China.

An official for the town of Jiegu (Gyêgu), the county seat, which was one of the worst-hit locations, said that “the death toll will definitely go up.”

The USGS reports the tremors started at 07.49 local time (23.49 UTC). The epicentre was 240 kilometres north-northwest of Qamdo, Xizang, and 375 kilometres south-southeast of Golmud, Qinhai, at a depth of ten kilometres. The China Earthquake Networks Center, however, conflicted the USGS statistics, putting the earthquake’s magnitude at 7.1.A local official, Huang Limin was quoted by the Chinese Xinhua news service as saying: “Soldiers have been dispatched to save the people buried in the collapsed houses.” Authorities have ordered supplies to be moved to the area, but Yushu is hundreds of miles away from any airport, according to the BBC.

The USGS also reported there was a 5.8 magnitude aftershock hit the same area about an hour and a half later, at 09.25 local time (01.25 UTC).

The head of news for the Yushu county television station, who was a witness to the quake, spoke to the state broadcaster CCTV about the incident, saying “In a flash, the houses went down. It was a terrible earthquake. In a small park, there is a Buddhist tower and the top of the tower fell off.” He said that residents fled after the tremors began.

“Everybody is out on the streets, standing in front of their houses, trying to find their family members,” he added.

Another official commented that around 85% of the buildings in the town of Jiegu, located close to the quake’s epicentre, were destroyed, saying that “the streets in Jiegu are thronged with panic – injured people, with many bleeding in the head.

“Many students are buried under the debris due to building collapse at a vocational school. I can see injured people everywhere. The biggest problem now is that we lack tents, we lack medical equipment, medicine and medical workers.”

The plateau where the earthquake hit is frequently visited by tremors; however, there are rarely many casualties due to its remoteness and small population. However, in May 2008 a heavy 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck near Sichuan foothills, killing 80,000 people.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Yesterday, at this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), company CEO Steve Jobs unveiled iPhone 4, along with the new iOS 4 operating system for Apple mobile devices.

The announcement was long-awaited but not a very big surprise. In April, the technology blog Gizmodo obtained a prototype of the new phone and published details of it online. While introducing iPhone 4, at the annual conference, Jobs started by hinting at the incident, saying, “Stop me if you’ve already seen this.”

The new iPhone was praised by Jobs as “the biggest leap we’ve taken since the original iPhone.” It is only 9.3 millimetres (0.37 inches) thick, making it “the thinnest smartphone on the planet”, a 24 percent reduction from Apple’s previous model, the iPhone 3GS. Structure-wise, iPhone 4 has a new stainless steel frame, which acts as an antenna, supposedly boosting its signal reception abilities and possibly reducing the amount of dropped calls. It also has a new screen, dubbed a “retina display,” which displays images at 326 pixels per inch. During the keynote, Jobs demoed the device’s new internal gyroscope as well. Even though it now uses Apple’s faster A4 processor (first used in its iPad tablet), iPhone 4 has a claimed seven hours of 3G talk time, up two hours from the 3GS.

In addition to its design features, Jobs showed off iPhone 4’s new video calling abilities. This feature is called FaceTime, and connects with other iPhone 4s via Wi-Fi. The phone has two cameras: one on the front for video chats, and one on the back for taking pictures and other videos. The rear camera has a resolution of five megapixels, is capable of recording high-definition video, and has an LED flash.

The iPhone 4 will use Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 4. Formerly “iPhone OS,” iOS 4 was first introduced by Apple in April, and includes multitasking capabilities. Jobs called the new software “the most advanced mobile operating system in the world.” iOS will support Apple’s new mobile advertising service, iAd, which goes live on July 1.

iPhone 4 will be available on June 24 in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan. It comes in two colors—black and white—and two storage capacities. The 16GB version is priced at US$199 and the 32GB version at US$299. The iPhone 3GS’s price will be reduced to US$99, and the iPhone 3G will be discontinued. iOS will be available as a free software update to users of compatible older Apple devices (including the 3GS) on June 21. In the U.S., iPhone 4 will only be available on AT&T’s cellular network, despite calls for Apple to let the iPhone be used on other carriers, such as Verizon.

Competition-wise, the BlackBerry mobile device is still the most popular smartphone right now. Apple is also facing some serious competition from web giant Google’s Android operating system, as well as Palm’s webOS. Earlier this year, Android phones managed to outsell iPhones. iPhone users, however, account for over half of those surfing the Internet on a mobile browser in the U.S. Jobs also noted that over five billion iOS applications, commonly called “apps,” have been purchased from Apple’s App Store. The App Store currently has around 225,000 different apps for sale.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Macomb, New York Councilman Steve Burke took some time to speak with Wikinews about his campaign for the U.S. Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

Burke, an insurance adjuster and farmer, was elected councilman in Brookhaven, New York in 1979. He left the town after being accused and found not guilty of bribery in the 1980s. Since 1987 he has served as Macomb councilman off-and-on and currently holds the post. From 1993 to 1996 and 1999 to 2002 he worked as chairman of the Democratic Party of St. Lawrence County, New York. Among his many political campaigns, Burke unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1992 and recently attempted to run for U.S. Congress in 2014 but too many of his ballot petition signatures were found invalid. Burke filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for president in the 2016 election on September 18, 2015 and has qualified for the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire Primary.

With Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn?, Burke discusses his political background, his 2016 presidential campaign, and his policy proposals.