Sunday, October 6, 2013

On Tuesday, South Korea staged a huge military parade to mark its armed forces’ 65th anniversary in a display of long-range missiles considered a direct threat to North Korea. 11,000 troops and 190 different weapons systems were on display in the parade. Wikinews interviewed several specialists about the parade’s possible significance.

Thursday, July 7, 2005

A Florida man is being charged with 3rd degree felony for logging into a private Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) Internet access point without permission. Benjamin Smith III, 41, is set for a pre-trial hearing this month in the first case of its kind in the United States.

This kind of activity occurs frequently, but often goes undetected by the owners of these wireless access points (WAPs). Unauthorized users range from casual Web browsers, to users sending e-mails, to users involved in pornography or even illegal endeavours.

According to Richard Dinon, owner of the WAP Smith allegedly broke into, Smith was using a laptop in an automobile while parked outside Dinon’s residence.

There are many steps an owner of one of these access points can take to secure them from outside users. Dinon reportedly knew how to take these steps, but had not bothered because his “neighbors are older.”

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The 11th-annual SecuTech Expo & Asian Security Week, organized by New Era International Inc., starts with topics from security devices, information security, and fire & safety on April 16 to 18. 750 companies form 20 nations participated in this fair and more then hundred security experts grasped for the safety & security industry in Global Digital Surveillance Forum, Asia-pacific Information Security Forum, Asian Manufacturer Club and Annual Summit, and Annual Summit for Industrial and Environmental Safety in Taiwan.

In the Industrial Safety and Security Device areas, products related to CCTV and digital surveillance was progressively respected by industrial executives, and before the main show of the “SecuTech Award” announcements, most of participants manufactured security products in conjunction with IT security applications. By the way of the Asia-pacific Information Security Forum, several experts from IT industry did forecasts and analyzed crisis on global IT security.

New Era International Inc., the show organizer, scheduled to promote the “SecuTech” brand to Vietnam by holding the “SechTech Vietnem” first time at Vietnam Exhibition Fair Centre (VEFAC) in Hanoi, Vietnam. And also, this fair was confirmed to move to the TWTC Nangang for more spaces to showcase the security industry worldwide including Taiwan.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Two people were killed and two others were seriously injured yesterday when a boulder collapsed onto a house in the German town of Stein an der Traun, south-east of Munich. A family of four were said to have been watching television together in the lounge when a large lump of rock, about 50 tons, broke off from a 50 foot cliff above the house.

The boulder fell from about 15 metres above the residence and landed on top of the house, crushing it. The cause of the rock fall is unknown, but police have said that there had been no prior signs that the cliff was unstable.

The accident, which happened at approximately 1940 local time, killed a 45-year-old father and his 18-year-old daughter. A 40-year-old mother and her 16-year-old son were seriously injured and were taken to hospital for treatment, after a rescue operation that lasted into the early hours of the following morning. The task involved up to 250 rescue personnel, some with sniffer dogs.

An official from the international humanitarian movement the Red Cross said “[w]e made contact with them early on and kept talking with them through the night as we pulled away at the debris.” Joachim Herrmann, the Bavarian Interior Minister, spoke of his thoughts about the incident. “I have never seen anything like this,” he was quoted as saying. “This is an extremely sad and terrible day.”

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The UK operations of Setanta Sports have been placed into administration. Financial firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu confirmed the division would be liquidated.

The sports broadcaster, which employs 420 people in Ireland and the UK, entered administration after plans to raise fresh capital through the Russian-American businessman Leonard Blavatnik failed.

With effect from today, the company is to cease accepting payments from television customers who had subscribed to its broadcasting services, and 200 employees in the United Kingdom are to be made redundant. Administrators will attempt to find a buyer for the Irish and international arms of the company.

The administrators at Deloitte are Neville Kahn, Lee Manning, and Nick Edwards. The specific companies in administration are Setanta Sport Ltd and Setanta Transmissions (UK) Ltd. Setanta Ireland is not under administration.

Setanta’s UK sports channels, Setanta Sports 1 & 2, have ceased transmission in the UK, but are continuing transmission in Ireland. Other UK channels that have gone off-air include Setanta Golf and Setanta Sports News.

Racing UK, which was bundled by satellite and cable television operators with Setanta channels, is not owned by Setanta and will continue transmission. Customers who subscribed to the channel via Setanta will be offered the option of subscribing to the channel directly.

64 of the people facing redundancy work for ITN, which had contracted with Setanta to produce Setanta Sports News.

The rights that Setanta had to broadcast football matches to subscribers are to revert to their rights holders. The rights to broadcast 46 Premier League football matches for the next football season, and 23 matches for the three following seasons, have already reverted, and were sold to United States broadcaster ESPN for £260 million yesterday.

Because of UK and European Union monopoly and competition laws, broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting is not permitted to bid for the broadcasting rights that Setanta had.

Friday, June 16, 2017

On Wednesday, a Fine Gael party premier candidate and doctor Leo Varadkar was elected Taoiseach — Prime Minister of Ireland — succeeding Enda Kenny, who confirmed his resignation on Tuesday. He becomes the first openly gay Taoiseach in Irish history.

In Wednesday’s election, 55 members of the Irish parliament Dáil Éireann voted for Varadkar as the 14th Taoiseach, the head of government; 50 against; and 45 abstained.

Also, in Áras an Uachtaráin, the current President of Ireland, head of state, Michael D. Higgins presented Varadkar with the seals of Taoiseach and the Government.

In Wednesday’s speech, Varadkar acknowledged his predecessor Kenny for helping to rebuild the country and legalize same-sex marriage.

In May, Kenny, aged 66, announced his retirement as Taoiseach and, after 15 years of service, the leader of Fine Gael. Kenny has served the parliamentary as also Teachta Dála (TD), a member of the parliament, for Mayo since he was elected TD for Mayo West in 1975, succeeding Kenny’s late father. On Tuesday, Kenny confirmed his resignation ending his premiership after six years of premiership.

In an election on June 2, Varadkar was elected the Fine Gael premier candidate by 60 percent of the votes. His political opponent Simon Coveney was voted for premiership by 40 percent and lost. Varadkar received the electoral college vote, derived from votes by party members, local representatives and parliamentarians. About 70 percent of Fine Gael parliamentary members favoured Varadkar: 51 of 73, while 22 of 73 favoured Coveney. However, 65 percent of overall party members favoured Coveney.

One week later, on June 9, after Theresa May’s Conservative Party won this year’s general election in the United Kingdom but lost the majority, Varadkar said the UK election results signified that hard Brexit lacks a “strong mandate”, calling this “an opportunity for Ireland.” He also said he will negotiate with the UK over Northern Ireland.

Yesterday, Varadkar combined two departments of Finance and of Public Expenditure into one, and appointed new Cabinet ministers, including his rival Coveney as foreign minister.

Leo Eric Varadkar, 38, was born on January 18, 1979 in Dublin, Ireland to his Indian father and Irish mother, a doctor and nurse respectively, who have lived in Ireland since the 1970s, where homosexuality was illegal until the 1990s.

Varadkar, as a 20-year-old Trinity College medical student, campaigned in the 1999 local Mulhuddart election and lost. In 2003, Varadkar became a councilor aged 24 to replace Sheila Terry, who had to resign due to a conflicting parliamentary office.

In 2007, Varadkar was elected TD. While Ireland suffered from ongoing economic crisis, Fine Gael started leading the country in 2011, and Varadkar has since served as minister for social protection; health; and transport, tourism and sport.

In 2015, Varadkar came out as gay in a Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) interview, months before the country legalised same-sex marriage by referendum under Taoiseach Kenny.

A University College Cork lecturer Theresa Reidy told Reuters, “When you’re Taoiseach, you can’t speak as open and freely as when you’re a maverick, straight-shooting minister. If he [Varadkar] doesn’t temper his more colorful contributions, that could actually become a liability quite quickly.” Reidy further said he has relatively little experience despite having held three different cabinet posts.

Varadkar’s partner is a doctor in Dublin. Varadkar is about a year younger than French President Emmanuel Macron; Macron is 39 years old.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

A group of researchers published a paper about their discovery of a new species of Madagascar mermaid skink lizards last December. The species is the fourth forelimbs-only terrestrial tetrapods species known to science, and the first one which also has no fingers on the forelimbs.

The species was collected at Marosely, Boriziny (French: Port-Bergé), Sofia Region, Madagascar. The Sirenoscincus mobydick name is after the existing parent genus, and a sperm whale from the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.

This week, Wikinews interviewed one of the researchers, French zoologist Aurélien Miralles, about the research.

((Wikinews)) What caused your initial interest in Madagascar lizards?

Aurélien Miralles: Well, I would say that since I am a child I am fascinated by the biodiversity of tropical countries, and more especially by reptiles. I did a PhD on the evolution and systematics of skink lizards from South America. Then, I get a Humboldt grant to do a postdoc in Germany, at the Miguel Vences Lab, in order to study Malagasy skinks. Madagascar being a fabulous hotspot for reptiles (and not only for reptiles actually), it was a very nice opportunity. Professor Vences proposed me to associate our complementary fields of expertise: he is expert in herpetology for Madagascar, and I am expert in skinks lizards (family Scincidae). It was a very fruitful experience, and many other results have still to [be] published.

((WN)) How was the new species discovered?

AM: By a very funny coincidence actually. In 2010, I went to Madagascar for a long trip through the south of the island, in the semi-arid bush for collecting lizards and snakes samples. Then, during the last days, just before coming back to Germany, I have visited by coincidence the zoological collection of the University of Antananarivo. In that place, I found an old jar of ethanol with two weird little specimens previously collected by a student who didn’t realize it was something new. Being expert on skinks, I immediately recognised it was something very probably new, very different from all the other known species.

((WN)) What does “Sirenoscincus” stand for?

AM: I am not the author of the genus name Sirenoscincus. This genus name was already existing. It has been described by Sakata and Hikida (two Japanese herpetologists). “Sireno” means mermaid. “Scincus” means skinks, a group of little lizards on which I am particularly focusing my studies. So, Sirenoscinus means “mermaid skink”, in reference to [the] fact it has forelimbs but no hindlimbs.

((WN)) How deep underground do the lizards live?

AM: Hard to answer this question because nothing is known on the ecology of this species. But more reasonably, we can hypothesize, by comparison to similar species of skinks, that it is probably living just under the sand surface, [a] few centimeters deep, probably no more, or below [a] rock, leaf litter, or piece of dead wood.

((WN)) What do the lizards eat?

AM: Again, by analogy, I would say most likely small invertebrates (insects, larvae, worms etc…).

((WN)) What equipment was used during the research?

AM: Classic equipment (microscope) and also a state-of-the-art device: a micro CT-scan. It is a big device producing [a] 3D picture of the internal structure without damaging the specimen. It is actually very similar to the scanner used in human medicine, but this one is specially designed for small specimens. Otherwise, I am currently studying the DNA of this species and closely related species in order to determine its phylogenetic position compared to other species with legs, in order to learn more about the evolutionary phenomena leading to limb loss.

((WN)) There are several news sources that have a photo of the species. Is it a photo as seen in a CT-scan?

AM: No, this picture showing a whitish specimen on a black background is not a CT-scan. It is a normal photograph of the collection specimen preserved in alcohol (the one that was in the jar). You can see the complete of picture (including CT-scan 3D radiography, drawing…) in the original scientific publication.

((WN)) Do you know when the newly discovered mermaid skink species was put into the jar? Do you have its photo (of the jar)?

AM: No, I have no picture of the jar. The specimen has been collected in November 2004.

((WN)) What were the roles of the people involved in the research? What activity was most time-consuming?

AM: As first investigator, I did most of the work…and the longest part of the work was to examine closely related species in order to do comparisons…and also to check the complete bibliography related to this topic and to write the paper.

Mrs Anjeriniaina is the student who […] collected the specimen a couple of years ago.

Mrs Hipsley and Mr Müller learnt me how to use the CT-scan, and helped me concerning some point relative to internal morphology. Mr Vences helped me as supervisors. Additionally, all of them have corrected the article, and gave me many relevant advices and corrections, thus improving the quality and the reliability of the paper.

((WN)) Did you get in touch with an external entity to get the new species officially recognised?

AM: No. In zoology, it is only needed to publish the description of a new species (and to give it a name) in a scientific journal, and to designate a holotype specimen (= specimen that will be the official reference for this species), to get this new species “officially” recognised by the scientific community. That does not mean that this new species is “correct” (it might be invalidated by subsequent counter-studies), but that means that this discovery and the new name of [the] species are officially existing.

((WN)) Are there any further plans on exploring the species habitat and lifestyle?

AM: No, not really for the time being, because ecology is not our field of expertise. But other studies (including molecular studies) are currently in progress, in order to focus on the phylogenetic position and the evolution of this species.