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Thursday, November 16, 2006

Currently, there are blackouts, heavy rain, and high winds in British Columbia. Over 220,000 BC Hydro customers have no power. Buildings have already collapsed and trees have been knowed down. Five Vancouver rivers were in danger of flooding, which rain fell at 10 mm an hour for more than six hours at midday.

The steel frame of a four-storey building under construction in Vancouver collapsed. Construction workers escaped injury, luckily they were on a coffee break at the time of the incident. The steel frame crushed cars in a parking lot and missed a truck driver.

Citizens had to evacuate a subdivision of 30 homes. The winds smashed trees into houses in West Vancouver.

“We have some real fears here with electrical problems,” said Captain Rob Jones Cook of the Vancouver Fire Department. “This is impinging on electrical poles and lamp standards. We also have hydro bus lines running down two sides of the building.” The Vancouver Fire Department says they have no idea as to why the building collapsed.

Winds are gusting at more than 100 kilometres an hour (62 mph) in some areas and rainfall amounts of 50 to 130 millimetres.

According BC Hydro spokeswoman Elisha Moreno, the hardest-hit areas are Vancouver, Surrey, Langley, Abbotsford and Mission, B.C. “We’re trying to be optimistic and hoping it’s by end of day today, but there may very well be customers that are into the early-morning hours before restoration,” Moreno said.

Extensive ferry cancellations, road closures, and massive power outages are in effect until the storm ends.

The RCMP have advised people to stay home and off the highway.

The same heavy weather has also affected nearby Washington State, USA.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Annabel Goldie, Scottish Conservative Party leader from 2005 to 2011, has announced she will stand down as an MSP at the next elections in 2016. Goldie, who has been an MSP for the West Scotland (previously West of Scotland) electoral region since the Scottish Parliament’s formation in 1999, said she intends to focus on her role in the House of Lords, where she has been a peer since 2013.File:Annabel Goldie.jpg

In a statement today, Goldie said leading the party was an “enormous honour” for her. She also said: “It has afforded me both satisfaction and pleasure to serve my constituents and to serve the parliament and I will look back with great happiness at my time as an MSP. I am grateful to friends and colleagues from all parties for their support. Sometimes we found common ground, sometimes we disagreed but never I hope with rancour nor disrespect. Politics is a rough trade but we have built a strong parliament in Scotland of which we can all be rightly proud.” She said because of Ruth Davidson, her successor as Scottish Conservative leader, the party is now “in fine fettle and stands a great chance of making real progress in the years ahead,” concluding by saying: “I look forward to continuing to work as part of that effort in the House of Lords in the years to come.”

Davidson responded to the news by calling Goldie an “unstoppable force”, adding: “She has been an inspiration to a whole generation of Scottish Conservatives, and she has been a tremendous mentor, support and friend to me. In Holyrood, she has fostered both affection and respect from all members – regardless of their political affiliation – and her retirement from the Scottish Parliament will leave an Annabel-sized hole which won’t ever quite be filled. She is unique.” Meanwhile, David Cameron, UK Conservative leader and UK Prime Minister, said: “Annabel is one of those rare breeds in Scottish politics, somebody known by her first name alone. When she was Scottish Conservative leader, I valued her sage advice. She has been a towering strength to our party in Scotland, a doughty debater in the TV studios and Scottish Parliament and has one of the sharpest wits around. I wish her a long and happy retirement after 17 years unstinting service at Holyrood – but look forward to seeing her on the red benches of the Lords for years to come.”

Goldie, the Scottish Conservatives’ first ever female leader, was elected unopposed. She took up the role in the aftermath of David McLetchie’s resignation from the role in an expenses usage controversy and subsequent resignation of Brian Monteith from his Conservative whip role in the Scottish Parliament for briefing the media against him. Meanwhile, as Scottish Conservatives won 18 seats in the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and 2003, the party had been less successful in UK general elections in Scotland; Conservatives went up from zero out of a possible 72 UK MPs in Scotland in 1997 to one in 2001. This led to Goldie remarking in her inaugural speech in 2005 that: “The wheels are back on the wagon – and I’m the nag hitched up to tow it.” She also said: “The party is still way ahead of where it was in 1997. And my first task is to take it forward to 2007.” However, under Goldie’s leadership, the number of seats the Scottish Conservatives won in the Scottish Parliament slightly decreased from 18 in 2003 to 17 in 2007 and to 15 in 2011. At the same time, the number of Conservative MPs stood at one out of a possible 59 after the 2010 UK general election.

In the aforementioned 2005 speech, she also said the party could be trusted with devolution in Scotland, adding: “making devolution work better means real devolution: not the lumbering and cripplingly expensive array of government departments, government advisers, consultants, quangos, quasi-quangos and agencies with all their expensive appendages, but devolving down to people and their communities, their right to make their own decisions about their lives, how for example they procure healthcare and how they educate their children.” Goldie would go on to sit on the advisory board for the Smith Commission, which was set up to examine which further political powers should be devolved to Scotland following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. More recently, Goldie supported a reduction in the voting age for Scottish Parliament elections from 18 to 16 in a vote earlier this month, commenting: “I think it is an opportunity for them to continue their high level of engagement in topical affairs that we saw with the independence referendum.”

Goldie, a member of the Salvation Army’s West of Scotland Advisory Board and a Church of Scotland elder, is not the only Scottish Conservative MSP intending to stand down in 2016. Mary Scanlon, Gavin Brown, Alex Fergusson and Nanette Milne all reportedly intend to leave the Scottish Parliament next year.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Following an explosion in November of 2005, China’s Songhua river was contaminated with nitrobenzene and similar chemicals. Its clean-up by The State Environmental Protection Administration and others was covered previously on Wikinews.

The State Environmental Protection Administration Minister Zhou Shengxian has said that “The water quality of the Songhua River will not exceed national standards on a large scale during the spring thaw, and fish in the river and from pounds along the banks are safe to eat.” Zhou further guaranteed that livestock near the river banks and products from such livestock to be safe to eat, and that the growth of crops will not be inhibited by use of water from the Songhua River for irrigation.

Concerns of residents that the possible release of remnants of nitrobenzene that may have been trapped in the ice and in the sediment might occur and endanger the safe utilization of the river after the influence of a period of being frozen have been settled.

Zhou said that research indicated only a small amounts of the toxic chemical within the ice and that the quantity that could be entrapped in the sediment was limited by its structure as composed mostly of sand. These characteristics and the inevitable high flow rate of the river once the winter’s ice melts in the spring will allow the water to be safe said Zhou, referencing an interim assessment of the river spill done by a consortium which began the assessment on December 13 2005.

Chen Jining of Tsinghua University’s Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, commented that “Even in the rare cases when levels are beyond standards in some places, we also have the technology in place for example, activated carbon to ensure safe drinking water supplies.”

Zhou has also stated that the joint program with Russia to monitor boundary rivers will continue. The front of the pollution from the explosion has been predicted to reach the estuary of the Armur river in Russia near the end of January 2006.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Businessman Rocky De La Fuente took some time to speak with Wikinews about his campaign for the U.S. Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

The 61-year-old De La Fuente resides in San Diego, California, grew up in Tijuana, and owns multiple businesses and properties throughout the world. Since getting his start in the automobile industry, De La Fuente has branched out into the banking and real estate markets. Despite not having held or sought political office previously, he has been involved in politics, serving as the first-ever Hispanic superdelegate to the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

De La Fuente entered the 2016 presidential race last October largely due to his dissatisfaction with Republican front-runner Donald Trump. He argues he is a more accomplished businessman than Trump, and attacks Trump as “a clown,” “a joke,” “dangerous,” and “in the same category as Hitler.” Nevertheless, De La Fuente’s business background begets comparisons with Trump. The Alaskan Midnight Sun blog described him as the Democrats’ “own Donald Trump.”

While receiving only minimal media coverage, he has campaigned actively, and according to the latest Federal Election Commission filing, loaned almost US$ 4 million of his own money to the campaign. He has qualified for 48 primary and caucus ballots, but has not yet obtained any delegates to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Thus far, according to the count at The Green Papers, De La Fuente has received 35,406 votes, or 0.23% of the total votes cast. He leads among the many lesser-known candidates but trails both Senator Bernie Sanders who has received nearly 6.5 million votes and front-runner Hillary Clinton who has just shy of 9 million votes.

With Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn?, De La Fuente discusses his personal background, his positions on political issues, his current campaign for president, and his political future.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

British media has reported that Prince William and his recently wedded wife, Kate, are to move their London residence into Kensington Palace, close to Hyde Park.

Two units in the Palace, labeled Apartments 8 and 9, were previously occupied by Prince Charles and Diana, William’s parents, when they married in 1981. Prince William and his brother Prince Harry went to nursery and school nearby. Diana also lived in Kensington Palace after her separation and divorce from Prince Charles.

However, the newlyweds will not live in Apartments 8 and 9, as they are currently being used as office space. They will instead live in a small apartment that was previously occupied by staff. The palace has undergone some renovations, including asbestos removal.

The couple is also set to choose one “housekeeper-dresser”, who will provide valet service for the Duchess of Cambridge. Kate will continue to buy her own clothes, and the new servant is not to be seen as a “stylist”. The position has been advertised internally within Buckingham Palace.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expected to move within a few weeks, before they leave on a trip to Canada and the United States. The London residence is expected to be used only as a starter home for about a year. The couple will keep their permanent residence without personal staff in Anglesey, Wales, where William serves on the Royal Air Force as a search-and-rescue pilot. They will continue to run their Household Office at St James’s Palace.

Saturday, February 3, 2007

According to news reports from Turkey, a number of the members of the Turkish security forces, though unofficially, are treating Ogün Samast, the assassin of Hrant Dink as if he were a national hero.

For instance, after being taken into custody, Samast was filmed shoulder to shoulder with the Turkish police, in front of a Turkish flag and a quote from Turkey’s founder Atatürk: “The nation’s land is sacred. It cannot be left to fate.”

On January 24th, Ogün Samast was transferred to the Bayrampa?a prison, Istanbul’s largest prison. Before the transfer, inmates from a section of the prison were temporarily moved to another section, which, as a result, housed more than 100 inmates, 80 more than its maximum capacity. Then, the now-vacant section, often subject to inmates’ complaints regarding bedbugs, was cleaned and disinfected. Finally, the walls were painted, a brand new cotton bed was put in, and red carpet was laid out on the floors of the section.

When Samast was brought to the Bayrampa?a Prison, inmates witnessed that he was welcomed with cheers and applause by the jail management, soldiers, and the guards. Witnesses also report that Samast was given two guards to serve him. He ate kebab, a luxury food compared to the food given to other inmates.

After four days, Samast was transferred to the Kand?ra F-type Prison.

Ultra-nationalist elements of the Turkish society seem to have penetrated into the Turkish security forces. These events resulted major Turkish newspapers such as Sabah, Radikal, and Vatan to accuse the Turkish security forces and the Turkish state of supporting, endorsing, and cooperating with the killers of the journalist.

A 52 year old Turkish-Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink was assassinated in front of the Agos newspaper office, at the Istanbul district of Osmanbey, where he worked as the editor and a journalist. Dink, a brave journalist who was not afraid to discuss one of Turkey’s most controversial issues, clearly called what happened to Armenians in 1915 when the land was being governed by the Ottoman Empire the Armenian Genocide.

Following her father’s assassination, Dink’s daughter, referring to the fascist obsession with pure blood, said:

Large numbers of people marched protesting the killing of Hrant Dink on the day of his funeral, carrying placards that read “We are all Armenian” and “We are all Hrant Dink”.

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

The US Army Corps of Engineers decision to place restrictions on issuance of nationwide pollution permits has been upheld by a federal court. In National Association of Home Builders v. Army Corps of Engineers, the District Court for the District of Columbia found that the Corps of Engineers had not acted in an “arbitrary” or “capricious” manner in changing the terms and conditions for issuance of a national pollution permit, including reducing the size of area into which pollutants may be discharged from 10 acres to 1 acre, raising the threshold for requiring additional permits from 1 acre to 1/10 acre,

A nationwide permit allows an organization to engage in certain industrial activities on a national basis (such as mining and construction), reducing the amount of paperwork and filings needed for otherwise minor environmental impacts, as opposed to an ordinary permit for a specific location which will engage in activities which generate water pollution.

Due to concerns over the amount of discharge taking place in waterways, the Corps of Engineers began in the 1980s to reduce the authority granted by nationwide permits and to bar use of the permits in certain ecologically sensitive areas.

Some industry groups, including the plaintiff in the above case, The National Association of Home Builders, sued the Corps of Engineers in 2000 over the change in an attempt to block its implementation. Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, were given permission to intervene in the case in support of the actions of the Corps.

Environmental groups were pleased with the decision, but are concerned over other actions of the Bush Administration, such as the attempts to weaken provisions of the 2002 Clean Water Act to allow additional dumping of construction and mining waste into waterways as fill material.