magyarazurben.net

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

The government of Brazil has granted a licence allowing the controversial construction of what would be the third largest hydro-electric dam in the world, in the Amazon rainforest, which environmental groups say will threaten the survival of indigenous groups, as well as cause major devastation of a large area of rainforest.

The $17bn Belo Monte dam will, if a developer is found, be situated on the Xingu river, a tributary of the river Amazon, and has been surrounded in controversy since the 1990s, when the initial plan for the 11,000 megawatt dam was rejected amid global protests. The Brazilian government says that fears had been taken into account before approving the environmental licence. Whoever wins the bidding process will have to meet forty conditions, as well as pay $800m in order to protect the environment.

Critics state that diverting the flow of the river will damage fish stocks and part of the Amazon ecosystem, as 500 square kilometres of land would be flooded — as well as affecting forty thousand people, of which twelve thousand would be displaced. 48 of the 500 square kilometres already flood for half the year due to the rainy season.

Friday, October 10, 2008

In an attempt to speak with as many candidates as possible during the 2008 Canadian federal election, Wikinews has talked via email with Stefan Jetchick, who is a candidate in Quebec’s Louis-Hébert riding, running under the Christian Heritage Party of Canada (CHP) banner. The CHP is a minor, registered political party running a significant number of candidates across the country, looking to earn its first ever seat in the House of Commons. Jetchick is their only candidate running in the province.

The Quebec riding of Louis-Hébert, in the Capitale-Nationale region, has existed in the House of Commons since 2004. It includes the west section of Quebec City, primarily Sainte-Foy—Sillery and Laurentien’s south end. The Conservative incumbent in the riding is Luc Harvey; also running are Pascal-Pierre Paillé (Bloc Québécois), Denis Blanchette (New Democratic Party), Jean Beaupré (Liberal Party of Canada), and Michelle Fontaine (Green Party of Canada).

The following is an interview with Mr. Jetchick, conducted via email. The interview is published unedited, as sent to Wikinews; this includes Mr. Jetchick’s separation of multipart questions into fragments, and his formatting relating to his applicable experience.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a drug-resistant strain of bacteria, killed nearly 19,000 Americans in 2005 alone, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That is more people than were killed by AIDS in the United States. More than 94,000 Americans were afflicted with MRSA infections in 2005.

Although the supergerm, or superbug, is primarily found in hospitals, a growing number of cases have been contracted at public gyms and schools. In Moneta, Virginia, a high school senior died from an infection that spread to his kidney, liver, lungs and heart. In Bedford County, where Moneta is located, school officials have reported five cases of the Methicillin-resistant strain of the Staph bacteria. County officials closed the schools to clean them.

“Certainly, MRSA now has to be viewed as a very important target for prevention and control,” said Dr. David A. Talan, an infectious diseases specialist at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

French fishing vessels have blockaded the English Channel ports of Calais, Bolougne, and Dunkirk.

The protest is an industrial action over tighter fishing quotas imposed by the European Union, with French fishing unions asking for their government to provide financial assistance or take a tougher line. CFTC Fishermans Union spokesman Bruno Dachicourt told Agence France Presse: “There are easily twenty boats blocking the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer in organized ranks. Not a boat will go in nor out.”

The fishermen are protesting the lowering of European Union quotas on fishing, which place a ceiling on the amount of fish that the fishermen of each member country are allowed to catch and sell. The EU has lowered quotas in response to concerns about the sustainability of fisheries, but each drop in quota reduces the amount of work each fishing vessel can do. “The feeble amount of the quota obliges us to close the fishing zones three months after the beginning of the catch”, said Stéphane Pinto, spokesman for the CFDT trade union group representing fishermen in Boulogne.

Ferry sailings between Dover in the United Kingdom and Calais were suspended, with UK authorities implementing the Operation Stack management plan in response. Under the plan sections of the M20 motorway are closed to traffic and used as a managed lorry park. Motorists have been advised to seek alternative routes if possible. Most cars and passengers from the P&O Calais-Dover sailings at 16.10 (apparently the first sailing affected), 17.40 and 18.25 left on the “Pride of Dover” at 11.47 arriving Dover at 12.30. Two SeaFrance ferries, Renoir and another, left slightly earlier.

Fishermen have also used fires and roadblocks to interfere with access to the ports by road.

The blockades come eight days after a similar incident in the Mediterranean, when French fishermen in Marseille, Ajaccio, Toulon and other port cities interfered with oil tanker movements and blockaded ports throughout the south of the country.

Wikinews is unaware of any official statement from the British or French Governments in response to the blockade.

Monday, September 6, 2021

In the Northern Territory of Australia, voters in the electoral division of Daly are scheduled to vote for a new Member of the Legislative Assembly on September 11. The previous Member, Ian Sloan of the Country Liberal Party (CLP), resigned in August. Daly covers communities near Darwin, as well as more remote places such as Timber Creek and Wadeye.

Wikinews spoke to one of the four candidates in Daly, Wayne Connop, who is running as an independent candidate. Connop has previously stood for both the Labor Party (ALP) and the CLP. He pleaded guilty to perjury in 2018 after inaccurately claiming on his website that his legal expertise covered work, health, and safety law.

Thursday, April 7, 2005

Sony’s recently introduced Playstation Portable has proved popular with curious geeks who discovered various talents hidden within the new handheld video console.

The biggest ‘hack’ so far has been the manipulation of a web browser embedded within the PSP game ‘Wipeout Pure’, which can be easily coaxed into accessing the majority of Internet via a suitable portal. Jonathan Terleski was able to monitor the digital conversation held between his PSP and Sony’s website when the browser in his game ‘Wipeout Pure’ would try to download new software from Sony via the Internet. Using a suitably set up DNS server, Terleski configured his handheld console to access his own custom PSP portal, instead of Sony’s website, and then invited other owners to use his gateway to the web. [1]

From this discovery, Robert Balousek later created a web based IRC interface that allows people to talk to each other and hold conversations in real time via the Internet on their PSP consoles. According to Reuters, his IRC website has to date been used by as many as 100,000 visitors and Balousek now plans to introduce a web based interface to the AOL instant messaging network for PSP users.

Other notable recent ‘hacks’ include reading ebooks and comics and watching pre-recorded television shows, taken from a TiVo, on the Sony PSP.

None of the ‘hacks’ have yet employed writing custom software for the device. So far, most are spin-offs of Jonathon Terleski’s web browser hack. Other hacks, like the ebook reader and television show viewer, are made possible through use of the PSP’s built in tools for viewing video and images. Sony has not yet released an SDK which would allow end-users to write ‘homebrew’ software, therefore hackers are tied to manipulating software included with the PSP or available through the games purchased separately.

Speaking to Wikinews, Jacob Metcalf, who documented the web comic’s hack on his website, explained his motivation: “Web comics are already designed for on-screen reading and they have some of the same audience as people who play games – lots of the most popular web comics are about gamers, like PVP and Penny Arcade.”

He added: “I do wish that [Sony] would come out with an actual web browser like the Dreamcast had. South Korea is going to get a real web browser and I have a feeling in my gut that there is going to be Internet software for the PSP like a web browser and email announced at E3 this year.”

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, the San Jose, California-based joint venture of Japanese storage vendor Hitachi and U.S. technology giant IBM, has set a new record for storage density at 230 gigabits per square inch (Gb/in²). The company has developed technology to implement a recording method known as perpendicular recording, which allowed the increase in density above the current ~130 Gb/in² limit.

Techworld claims there is a race between Hitachi and Toshiba for who will get the first drives to market which use the technology. According to Hitachi, they expect, “to ship [their] first perpendicular recording product in 2005 on a 2.5-inch hard drive”. Toshiba is also planning to ship a drive in 2005 that uses perpendicular recording.

According to Techworld, Toshiba will ship an 80 GB, 1.8″ drive in 2005. Toshiba’s 1.8″ drives are used in portable electronic devices such as Apple’s iPod, which is currently available in sizes 60 GB and smaller.

While all commercially available hard drives to date use longitudinal recording, perpendicular recording has roots in research done in academic circles over 100 years ago.

Hitachi Tech has produced a Flash animation that explains the rudiments of perpendicular recording in a music-video style.

Inspired by the 1970s Schoolhouse Rock series of educational animation shorts, the flash movie features whimsical moments with data bits and disk platters that speak and sing (not possible with today’s technology), it also contains realistic details. Of no importance to the viewer, but perhaps of interest to some, the animation shows Texas Instruments’ UC5608DWP chips visible briefly in the background. While TI’s UC5608DWP 18-line SCSI terminator chips have been made obsolete by the new UCC5618, the chips are indeed designed for use in hard drives.