Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Allegations of paedophilia made against Indian guru, Sathya Sai Baba are back in the limelight again, after the UK’s Sai Youth movement was recognised as an accredited partner of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme.

The Baba’s followers deny the allegations, and the Sai Youth UK’s National Co-ordinator called them “totally unfounded”. Sai Baba attracts followers from many countries around the world who revere him as a “living god”.

Around 200 youth are due to fly to India on November 13th after receiving a “divine commandment” to carry out a month-long “humanitarian pilgrimage” that will coincide with the birthday celebrations of Sai Baba, who will be 81 on November 23rd.

Pressure has been mounting on the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme charity to break its association with the Baba’s organisation.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Buffalo, New York —The preliminary hearing for a lawsuit filed against the Elmwood Village Hotel proposal in Buffalo, New York as well as the City of Buffalo has been postponed indefinitely and will take place “as needed” pending the resubmission of the proposal by Savarino Construction also of Buffalo. A request was made to New York State Supreme court Judge Justice Rose Sconiers, the judge to preside over the case, to discuss a “timetable” for resubmission, but the court “decided not to,” said attorney Arthur Giacalone who represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The hotel would require the demolition of at least five properties, 1109-1121 Elmwood and would cause the closure of several businesses. Already, two businesses, Skunk Tail Glass and Six Nations Native American Gift Shop have relocated, outside the Elmwood Strip. Don apparel, H.O.D. Tattoo and Mondo Video still remain on Elmwood; however, Mondo Video is planning on moving to a new location. The hotel will be 72 rooms and will cost at least 7 million dollars to build. Wyndham Hotels is expected to be the owner/operator of the hotel. The properites are currently owned by Hans Mobius. Two other properties, 605 and 607 Forest might also be part of the proposal. 605 Forest is owned by Pano Georgiadis, owner of Pano’s Restaurant on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo. 607 Forest is owned by Mobius.

“There’s no new [court] date. The next appearance will be as needed,” said Giacalone.

The proposal was withdrawn by Savarino on July 13, 2006 to undergo “a do-over” and according to the Buffalo News, “shed the lawsuits” against the proposal; however, so far the proposal has “not yet” been resubmitted, but could be in about a “week.”

“With Council being out of session we have a bit of time [before resubmitting]. [We will] Probably resubmit] in a week or so,” said Sam Savarino, CEO of Savarino Construction.

“We welcome some discourse on this project and while we realize that, in all likelihood, we will not make everybody happy, we hope we can develop a consensus that what we provide on that corner will be something that is an enhancement to the neighborhood and the community. Better to have that decided (again?) in a public forum and through the approval process than through a debate over points of law in a courtroom,” added Savarino.

Despite the withdraw of the proposal, Giacalone states that the lawsuit his clients filed is still in effect due to the re-zoning of the properties, which he says are still in place and that he is “frustrated” that his client’s “day in court” has been delayed continuously by Savarino and the city.

Savarino believes that the re-zoning of the properties are “not in effect” because the proposal was withdrawn. He also stated that he is “unsure” on a decision to request the rezoning again because the “city suggested” the rezoning “last time.”

“We have pulled the request [proposal] so I would suppose it [the rezoning] is not in effect. We are as of yet unsure of whether or not to request rezoning of all the parcels. We are communicating with the City on this. You may recall that the City suggested this to us last time. We want to make sure we are doing the correct thing – and the proper thing. I am not sure whether I have a clear indication of that at this juncture,” said Savarino.

Savarino was asked if the proposal was going to be resubmitted or not, but did not answer the question.

Giacalone states that there may be several resons as to why “a new application has not been filed. Is Savarino having a hard time coming to an agreement with Mobius? Has Wyndham Hotels backed out? Is Savarino negotiating with Pano to buy the [605] Forest Avenue property?”

Buffalo’s Common Council is scheduled to meet on September 9, 2006 after Summer recess.

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.“

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Recently, Finnish open-source video game developer Perttu Ahola discussed Minetest, his “longest ever project”, with Wikinews.

Started in October 2010, Minetest was an attempt by Ahola to create a sandbox game similar to Minecraft. Minecraft is a multi-platform commercial game, which was in alpha version when Ahola challenged himself to create something similar to it from scratch, he told Wikinews.

Minetest is an open-source game, which is free for anyone to download and play. It is written in the C++ programming language, and the source code is available on code-hosting site GitHub. According to Ahola, Minetest attempts to run on older hardware, with limited graphics, but to be accessible to more people: those who have outdated technology, and making it available for no cost. Minecraft, on the other hand, is a paid game, currently costing USD 26.95 for its computer version. Minecraft is currently owned by Microsoft, and performs poorly on older hardware.

A correspondent from French Wikinews contacted Perttu Ahola via Internet Relay Chat a few weeks ago, discussing Minecraft. This interview is built on top of the previous interview, as we take a deeper dive into knowing more about this free game which is about to turn ten years old in a few months.

Friday, June 30, 2006

An Australian has been shot in the abdomen in Thailand. The 22-year-old man from Wagga Wagga, Lee Burkinshaw, was shot in the Chantaburi province during a drive by shooting. He was evacuated to Bangkok hospital after receiving some treatment at a local hospital. An operation is needed to remove the bullet from his abdomen. He is expected to make a full recovery.

His spleen was removed but no vital organs have been damaged.

His father received a call at 2 a.m. AEST.

Lee went to Thailand to study the gem cutting.

“It is the gem capital of the world, and a lot of the rough cut gemstones come into there to be cut and styled,” Mr. Burkingsaw said.

He is undeterred from revisiting Thailand.

“This is purely a one-off incident … Thailand is a wonderful country, it’s just an unfortunate incident,” said Lee.

This is the second incident in recent weeks in which an Australian had been shot in Thailand. Last week a nurse was killed when she was shot in the neck near a bar.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Penny Lucas is running for the Progressive Conservative in the Ontario provincial election, in the Kenora-Rainy River riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed 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.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Oldbury nuclear power station in South Gloucestershire, England caught fire today after overheating. No-one was injured in the blaze which is believed to have been an accident and was extuinguished within minutes by an automatic sprinkler system.

The fire took place on the non-nuclear side of the plant, in an electricity transformer, but prompted shutdown of the reactor for the foreseeable future in “accordance with standard procedure,” said Dan Gould, spokesman for the British Nuclear Group. He also stressed that there was no release of radiation. There were also reports of an explosion in the transformer.

The BBC reported that 12 fire trucks attended the scene of the fire, but ITV stated ten crews were involved and tvnz.co.uk quoted a spokesman for Avon Fire and Rescue as saying that ten trucks were sent.