Thursday, December 31, 2009

American professional wrestler “Dr Death” Steve Williams has died aged 49. The retired wrestler died of cancer. Williams was suffering from throat cancer and underwent surgery in 2004.

Williams, who originally trained up as an MMA fighter started his career in 1979. He performed in several different promotions including MidSouth Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment. He held the World Tag Team Championship with Terry Gordy in WCW.

For a short period he wrestled in Ohio Valley Wrestling, WWE’s development facility. During his time there he worked with current WWE Raw superstar Jack Swagger.

Williams officially retired this year. He choose to retire after the death of fellow wrestler and friend Mitsuharu Misawa. He wrestled his last match in Japan on October 25, 2009.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

India and China have settled long-time border disputes, and with freed up cross-border traffic look to creating what would be the largest trading bloc in the world, between the two most populous nations on the planet. During a recent visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to the Indian capital of Delhi, a border was finally agreed on paper.

“India and China can together reshape the world order,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Monday.

“China has a large manufacturing base. I believe it is the world’s factory. And India with its development in software and other areas, I feel, is the world’s office. What I am suggesting is to bring together the factory and the office,” Chinese Ambassador to India, Sun Yuxi, had said ahead of the visit.

The agreement is the first official document for the 3,500 km disputed border between the two countries, in more than 20 years. The dispute erupted into war in 1962, followed by a 14 years freeze in diplomatic relations.

China would give up claims on 90,000 square kilometers to the North-East of India, formally recognising as parts of India, Sikkim — a Himalayan kingdom that merged with India in 1975 — and Tawang — an area in Arunachal Pradesh which China had repeatedly claimed.

India would be formally recognising Tibet as a part of China, giving up Aksai Chin, uninhabited land on the Tibetan plateau that Beijing seized from the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir in 1962. India agreed also “not to allow Tibetans to engage in anti-China political activities on its soil”, according to a report in The Economic Times of India.

A new cross-border trade route would be allowed through Nathula, in Sikkim, and significant road work was to facilitate higher traffic, at least on the Chinese side.

Eleven guiding principles and political parameters for resolving the disagreement, were put forth in the document, including a commitment to enhance bilateral trade from the present US$13.6 billion to US$30 billion by 2010 — trade which only a decade ago was worth just US$1 billion.

“This matter tells us that as long as the two sides bear sincerity, and patience, the border between China and India will become a bridge linking the friendship of the two sides,” Wen said of the document he signed with Singh.

“A growing and stable China is in the interest of India. Similarly, a growing and stable India is in the interest of China,” the Chinese Premier said.

“It shows a lot of give and take on both sides,” said National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, India’s special representative for the border talks.

The treaty “respect[s the] status quo, and is tantamount to accepting the Line of Actual Control as the border between the two countries,” said Swaran Singh, a China expert at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

“The next two years are very crucial to determine how much the two sides put the guiding principles into practice for the actual demarcation of the frontier,” he cautioned.

Feasibility of a China-India Free Trade Agreement would be examined — with China eager, but India tentative.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Glenn Crowe is running for the NDP in the Ontario provincial election, in the Bramalea-Gore-Malton riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Crowe did not reply to various questions asked.

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.

A compilation of brief news reports for Thursday, March 15, 2007.

12 million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be printed by American publisher Scholastic, a record setting number for the first edition of any book.

The immensely popular book series will break Scholastic’s previous record first printing, for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which sold 6.9 million copies in its first 24 hours of release.

The first six books have sold a total of 325 million copies worldwide.

The Deathly Hallows will be released July 21, at 12:01 am EST.

Sources

• Gary Rusak. “Everything’s coming up Harry for Scholastic” — KidScreen Magazine, March 15, 2007
• “J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter 7 Breaks More Records” — The Post Chronicle, March 15, 2007

Photos of the Harry Potter movie cast will appear on French stamps and stationery.

La Poste will release the three designs this weekend, with the following rate/design combinations:

• Priority domestic: Harry Potter
• Slow domestic: Ron Weasley
• International: Hermoine Granger

The Harry Potter characters have appeared on stamps in Australia, the Isle of Man, and Taiwan, as well as numerous smaller nations that depend on stamp sales to foreigners. Canada has issued non-circulation coins of many of the characters, based on the movie actors’ appearances.

Sources

• The Associated Press. “France puts Harry Potter and his friends on stamps” — The Cincinnati Enquirer, March 15, 2007
• “our correspondent”. “Now, Potter and pals on French stamps” — Daily India, March 14, 2007

After launching its Packaging Scorecard initiative on February 1, Wal-Mart has released its first in-store packaging reduction results.

On February 1, Wal-Mart announced that its trying to reduce packaging by 5% as of 2013. Their vendor site has been visited by 2268 companies, and 117 products have been entered into their sustainability calculator. It determines the score based on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions created by production, materials, product-to-packing ratio, and “cube utilization”, how space efficient the product can be shipped.

Buyers will be able to log onto the website in 2008, to make their purchasing decisions.

Beyond attracting environmentally conscientious customers, this move will save Wal-Mart USD$3.4 billion over the next five years.

Sources

• Gary Rusak. “Wal-Mart registers first results on campaign to reduce packaging” — KidScreen Magazine, March 14, 2007
• “Wal-Mart to score electronics environmentally” — Reuters, March 13, 2007

European trading card game-turned-television series Chaotic will air in North America for the first time March 16. Canada’s Teletoon animation channel has scheduled the series to appear regularly Sunday mornings.

The series helps viewers learn game strategies for the game. Unlike most card games, kids are encouraged to play virtually; once they purchase a pack, they type in special codes on the cards to access those characters online.

The plot of Card Captors Sakura was based around a card game, while the Pokemon game is a famous spin-off products, based on the series and video game.

Chaotic was also the name of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline’s reality television series.

Sources

• Gary Rusak. “Teletoon gets Chaotic” — KidScreen Magazine, March 15, 2007

Andy Scott of Marsh Gibbon, England just set the world record for “free falling distance in a vertical wind tunnel”.

By balancing himself in the jet of air for one hour, 18 minutes and 52 seconds, Scott, 37, fell the equivilent of 130 miles at the Airkix Windtunnel in Milton Keynes.

Vertical windtunnels were originally created so that free fall parachutists could safely practice positioning themselves, before making actual real life attempts.

The record has yet to be officially confirmed with Guinness World Records.

Sources

• “World record is set” — Buckingham Today, March 13, 2007

Monday, April 17, 2006

Kevin Ray Underwood, the suspect in the murder of 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin of Purcell, Oklahoma, reportedly kept a weblog in which he joked about cannibalism, discussed the effects of not taking his prescribed medicine, and talked about “dangerously weird” fantasies.

Underwood was arrested Friday after investigators searched his apartment and found Jamie’s body in a plastic bin in his bedroom closet. Also reportedly found in his apartment were barbecue skewers and meat tenderizer, which law enforcement officials believe he intended to use to eat the girl’s flesh.

People who knew Underwood reported that he was a relatively unassuming man, seemingly trustworthy. His mother described him as “a wonderful boy” and said of Jamie, “I would like to be able to tell her family how sorry we are. I just feel so terrible.”

In the profile of his blog, entitled “Strange Things are Afoot at the Circle K” ([1]), Underwood described himself as “Single, bored, and lonely, but other than that, pretty happy.” Also on his profile page, he poses the question, “If you were a cannibal, what would you wear to dinner?” and answers, “The skin of last night’s main course.”

In an entry dated September 8, 2005, Underwood reportedly described 1998 as “the year that a large part of me died” and “the longest year of my life.” He reported losing contact with most of his friends, making an online acquaintance only to lose her again, and suffering panic attacks from being around people at college. Two of his friends also were involved in a car accident, one fatally injured.

He reported in that entry that in the last year he found himself becoming more and more detached from the world, never leaving his apartment except to go to work or his parents’ apartment. In an entry dated September 24, 2004, he reported that his fantasies were “just getting weirder and weirder. Dangerously weird. If people knew the kinds of things I think about anymore, I’d probably be locked away. No probably about it, I know I would be.”

In an entry dated February 4, 2006, he said that he had hardly left the apartment in almost two months, and that “a week or so ago, I spent my day off sitting here at the computer, barely moving from the chair, for 14 hours.”

His last blog entry was dated Thursday, April 13, 2006, one day after authorities believe Underwood killed Jamie Bolin.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

The death of Scottish artist Alan Davie was announced on Sunday. Davie, 93, was known for his colourful abstract paintings.

Davie’s career also saw turns as a jeweler, a jazz musician, a lecturer, and a poet. Born in Grangemouth, near Falkirk, in 1920, he studied painting from 1938 to 40 at Edinburgh College of Art.

His father was a teacher who dabbled in art and his mother’s family was musically inclined. Upon seeing Coleman Hawkins performing in a music shop in Edinburgh, Davie borrowed £600 from his father to buy himself a saxophone. After serving in the Second World War, at which time he wrote much poetry later transcribed by his father, Davie toured with Scottish jazz bands.

Davie’s work was admired by the likes of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and David Hockney. Davie himself collected non-Western art and liked tattoos, graffiti, and ‘outsider art’. His final interview before death, with The Telegraph, gave an insight into how he viewed art: “It’s an urge, an intensity, a kind of sexual need[…] something I do from an inner compulsion, that has to come out.”

He initially avoided painting as a career at all, then spent several years earning money by other means whilst his paintings failed to sell. His exhibitions in the late 1950s, however, were highly successful and launched his career. He was in the habit of choosing titles for his art only after completion.

Despite a strong presence owing to his lengthy red beard and off-beat humour, he was shy; his international fame waned. Recent years have seen a revival of interest with price increases for his early art. London alone is host to three exhibitions this month including at the Tate.

Tate Britain calls Davie “one of the first British artists after the war to develop an expressive form of abstraction” producing “kaleidoscopic canvases[…] that the artist relates to his love of jazz”.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

The Japanese car making company Toyota has announced that their predicted profit loss for 2008 has tripled from their previous estimate. The company reports the loss after demand for its vehicles dropped. In December 2008, Toyota estimated its full year operating loss to be 150 billion yen (US$1.65 billion). Now the company has tripled that number, forecasting a 450 billion yen (US$4.95 billion) loss. This would be the first yearly loss at Toyota in 70 years.

The firm also said that it predicts its global sales to fall by 17.87% to 7.32 million vehicles sold, compared to last year’s 8.91 million vehicles sold. Overall for 2008, Toyota’s car sales in the United States were down 15.4%, but that number was down from 2007 in which sales dropped 18%. For the month of January alone, Toyota’s sales fell 31.7% compared to the overall U.S. sales loss of 37.1%.

As a result of the loss, 17 of the company’s 75 production lines worldwide, will be reduced to only a single shift of workers. The company also announced a full closure of all their Japanese plants for a total of 14 days between January and March 2009.

Toyota’s boss Katsuaki Watanabe described the loss as happening only “once in a hundred years”.

In January, the Japanese Nikkei newspaper said that Toyota was thinking of firing 1,000 Northern American and British workers, all of whom hold full-time positions in the company. The paper quoted Toyota’s Executive Vice President Mitsuo Kinoshita as saying that “outside of Japan, we intend to make every possible effort to protect the jobs of our employees.”