Friday, November 3, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Beaches—East York (Ward 32). Four candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Donna Braniff, Alan Burke, Sandra Bussin (incumbent), William Gallos, John Greer, John Lewis, Erica Maier, Luca Mele, and Matt Williams.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

The following is the sixth and final edition of a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2016 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail: the Free & Equal Foundation holds a presidential debate with three little-known candidates; three additional candidates give their final pleas to voters; and past Wikinews interviewees provide their electoral predictions ahead of the November 8 election.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Yesterday, former Indian president APJ Abdul Kalam died at the age of 83 after collapsing at about 6:30 p.m. local time (0000 today UTC) while delivering a speech about Livable Planet Earth at the Indian Institute of Management Shillong, in Meghalaya, India. Abdul Kalam was taken to Bethany Hospital’s intensive care unit and was declared dead about an hour and a half later.

Some army doctors were sent from North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences. According to doctors at Bethany Hospital, Kalam was dead by 7 p.m. but they waited for the arrival of Meghalaya chief minister V. Shanmuganathan, about an hour later, before announcing the death.

LC Goyal, home secretary, said the Indian government will declare a seven day national mourning for Kalam. Home minister Rajnath Singh tweeted, “He was an inspiration to an entire generation.”

Kalam’s presidential term completed in July 2007.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Apple Inc. today has introduced the much-anticipated iPhone at the Macworld Conference in San Francisco.

The iPhone is claimed to be “a revolutionary mobile phone” as stated on the Apple website. The device appears to be running a mobile version of the Apple operating system Mac OSX. It is approximately the same size as a 5th generation iPod, it has a 3.5-inch LCD touchscreen display that is used to access all features of the phone including number dial, as well as making phone calls. The iPhone plays music, movies, displays pictures and is able to connect to a wireless network.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the device by walking onto the stage and taking the iPhone out of his jeans pocket. During his 2 hour speech he stated that “Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone, We are going to make history today”.

Today Apple also released their Media Center device – Apple TV. It will directly compete with Microsoft’s Media Center operating system. Apple has taken a different approach to the media center market; rather than storing content (such as movies, music and photos) on the device, Apple TV connects to a computer (Mac and Windows) over a wirless network connection and plays all content stored on that computer. This makes it substantially easier for users to organize their media content.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Oil giant Shell has sold all its retail and distribution operations in Ireland to a distribution and logistics firm called Topaz. The businesses, which are believed to have an annual turnover of over €1bn, include 35 local distribution depots, 6 oil importation facilities, 55 retail service stations and the supply of fuel to 105 independent service stations throughout Ireland.

Shell is retaining its interest in the Corrib Gas field in County Mayo which it is currently developing. Shell has been known for some time to be anxious to exit the increasingly competitive Irish market. Since the arrivial of Tesco to the petrol retail market last year, a price war has raged in parts of the country. Althought Tesco only operates a limited number of stations in the republic, it has expressed a desire to expand throughout the country.

Ion Equity are the consortium behind the takeover which according to the Irish Independent is valued at over €100m. The business will be headed by former Emo Oil managing director Danny Murray.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Wikinews interviewed author Marc Headley about his new book Blown for Good, and asked him about life inside the international headquarters of Scientology known as “Gold Base“, located in Gilman Hot Springs near Hemet, California. Headley joined the organization at age seven when his mother became a member, and worked at Scientology’s international management headquarters for several years before leaving in 2005.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Silvio Berlusconi has layed foundations for a potential election in Italy early next year. The Prime Minister of Italy said he would consider holding an election if his government failed to have a significant parliamentary majority and is unable to pass reforms by the end of January.

Berlusconi only narrowly survived a vote of no confidence in the Italian parliament a week ago, and he is facing a backlash from students over plans to radically reform the university system.

Berlusconi said he had conferred with officials in Lega Nord, his government’s main ally, which has stressed elections are the most promising end to the political crisis in Italy, which began when when a split occurred in Berlusconi’s party, The People of Freedom.

“If, in contrast to what we expect, we do not have a sufficient majority to govern at the end of January, I think that the best thing would be to have the chance to get a fresh majority in both houses of parliament,” Berlusconi told journalists.

However, there is skepticism that even if Berlusconi wanted to hold an election, he would be unable to. President Giorgio Napolitano has insisted dissolving parliament is a last resort. Berlusconi won the vote of no confidence last week by only three votes. The Chamber of Deputies voted to keep Burlusconi in power by 314 votes to 311.

The Prime Minister said he intended to try and persuade those who voted against him to support his government. “There are lots of lawmakers belonging to various political forces who have reasons for dissatisfaction with the groups they belong to,” he said.

The news comes a day after thousands of Italian students mounted a violent protest against proposed, radical reforms of the country’s university system planned by Berlusconi’s administration. Riot police used tear gas on protesters in Palermo; campaigners occupied a rail line in Naples; hundreds of protesters staged a short sit-in in the Mole Antonelliana, a major landmark in Turin, in northern Italy. The students urged President Napolitano to refuse to sign the law.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

On Monday, Google added the “+1” button to its search results. It works similarly to the Facebook “Like” button. Today, Google began planning to add it to text ads, globally known as “AdSense”.

Google Product Manager Nick Radicevic commented at Google’s AdSense blog: “Today, +1’s will start appearing on Google search pages globally. …. We’ll be starting off with sites like google.co.uk, google.de, google.jp and google.fr, then expanding quickly to most other Google search sites soon after.”

Individual websites also can use this feature. People with a Google account can add a “+1” button to their personal websites. If a large number of readers click the button, the site will move closer to the top in Google search results.

Google also plans to eventually add the “+1” button to its text advertisements, globally known as “AdWords”. A user would be able to add rank to an ad and optionally make it available at their Google profile.

Google expects the experiment to be useful to improve search results and to combat poor websites and content farms.