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Sunday, April 1, 2007

In Estonia, a mouse made its nest in a cash machine and spent the weekend eating tens of thousands of kroons in bank notes. The critter was discovered after a customer making a withdrawal got half-eaten bills from the machine.

Experts are now investigating how the rodent was able to get into the ATM.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

TAIPEI, Taiwan —Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has chosen Frank Hsieh, a leading member of his pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, as the new Premier of the Republic of China.

Frank Hsieh replaces Yu Shyi-kun, who served as Taiwan’s premier for three years. Mr. Yu and the entire 20-member cabinet resigned Monday to allow President Chen Shui-bian to reshuffle the cabinet, after his party’s coalition lost parliamentary elections last month.

Mr. Hsieh, the 59-year-old mayor of Taiwan’s second largest city, Kaohsiung, is a close ally of Mr. Chen and will be expected to closely carry out the president’s agenda. Mr. Hsieh served as Chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party from 2000 to 2002.

President Chen praised Mr. Hsieh as “the best person” to help open a new era of negotiations with both the opposition and with Mainland China.

Analysts suggest that Mr. Chen’s appointment may signal President Chen’s preference for a successor. Mr. Chen’s second term ends in 2008 and Mr. Hsieh has had previous experience as a vice presidential candidate in 1996.

In ways, the two men are alike. Both grew up in poor families, graduated from Taiwan’s most prestigious National Taiwan University, and passed the bar with the highest score in their junior years in college. Like President Chen, Mr. Hsieh rose to prominence defending the dissidents of the Kaohsiung Incident and went on to serve as a Taipei city councilor and a legislator.

Mr. Hsieh is expected to announce a new cabinet in two days. The cabinet must be endorsed by the new parliament, which convenes February 1.

Analysts believe that many key ministers, including those responsible for foreign affairs, defense, and mainland affairs, are likely to retain their posts.

Mr. Hsieh on Tuesday promised to seek co-existence and “cross-strait peace” through dialogue with the People’s Republic of China. He said the new cabinet must maintain cross-strait stability. He will also need to smooth the economic recovery.

He will have to face a parliament in which the opposition holds 114 of the 225 seats. Mr. Chen has complained that passage of his key bills have been slowed by the parliament.

The pro-independence policies of President Chen and his Democratic Progressive Party have angered Beijing, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province. Beijing has threatened a military attack if the Taiwan independence is declared. The two sides split amid civil war in 1949 when the Communists established the People’s Republic and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, moved the original government to Taiwan where they maintained the Republic of China, which Beijing regards as defunct. President Chen maintains there are two countries.

The Kuomintang favors maintaining the status quo. Party leaders say the question of whether Taiwan should be independent or reunited with mainland China should be decided by future generations. The Kuomintang, citing its parliamentary victory, had sought to name its own premier and government.

Philip Yang, an associate professor of political science at National Taiwan University, says the recent election’s message was that the president and his new premier will have to pay serious attention to relations with Beijing.

“A new message from the people [is] demanding the government to pay more attention to enhance cross-straits interaction,” he said.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

While nearly all coverage of the 2008 Presidential election has focused on the Democratic and Republican candidates, the race for the White House also includes independents and third party candidates. These parties represent a variety of views that may not be acknowledged by the major party platforms.

Wikinews has impartially reached out to these candidates, throughout the campaign. We now interview independent Presidential candidate Frank Moore, a performance artist.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Yesterday, NASA announced their spacecraft Juno has reached Jupiter orbit. It was launched almost five years ago to investigate the largest planet of the Solar System, especially its past.

Charles Bolden, NASA administrator, said, “Independence Day always is something to celebrate, but today we can add to America’s birthday another reason to cheer — Juno is at Jupiter”. He also added the spacecraft would help study the evolution of the Solar System and explore Jupiter’s radiation belts.

NASA spent US$1.1 billion for Juno. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) reported Juno was confirmed in Jupiter’s orbit at 0353 UTC. Including the camera, the probe has nine scientific instruments. Juno has covered 2.7 billion kilometres (1.7 billion miles) to reach Jupiter.

NASA said non-essential equipment was turned off for the approach. They expect photos in some days. The first orbital revolution period is 53 days. Juno is expected to orbit the planet 37 times keeping an altitude of 5000 kilometres (3100 miles) above the Jovian clouds and then fall into the planet in 2018.

NASA’s Galileo, launched in 1989, found evidence of saline water on Jovian satellites Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

The electronics have been encased in titanium to protect them from high-energy radiation.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Delegates at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Indonesia are wrestling with a proposal that would allow developing nations to earn billions of dollars through carbon trading by leaving idle forests such as those in Borneo, the Amazon and Congo basins.

The news comes on the same day that it was announced that forest clearance in the Amazon Rainforest was falling compared to previous years.

Delegates from about 190 countries are negotiating a plan for private companies and wealthy nations to pay poorer nations to keep their forest intact. It is called the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries, or REDD proposal.

Environmental scientists say tree cutting in tropical areas accounts for about 20 percent of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming. Tropical forests soak up vast amounts of carbon dioxide; burning timber to clear land releases it.

Marcelo Furtado with Greenpeace in Brazil says the REDD plan is needed to fill gaps in the current Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to limit emissions of greenhouse gases which does not include ways to preserve forests.

“We would like to see, at the very least, a REDD mechanism moving forward, because we want to see countries taking action now. We don’t want to wait to 2013 to start seeing this action taking place. And this is something this convention, this group of countries could deliver,” said Furtado.

Frances Seymour, Director General for the Indonesia-based Center for International Forest Research, is concerned a premature REDD agreement could do more harm than good.

“Because in many forested countries, land tenure rights to forest lands and resources are either unclear or contested or both. And you can imagine that if a potential new income stream is available for those who can present themselves as owners of the forest, this could create conflict and create conditions under which some of the world’s poorest people, who are people who live in forests, could be pushed aside,” said Seymour.

Financial analysts are also cautious about the proposal.

Charlotte Streck, the director of Climate Focus, a Rotterdam-based consultancy, said investors are worried about how governments would monitor their forests and ensure the carbon stored in them remains intact.

“This is what makes the private sector nervous, because these are risks that they cannot hedge properly, and that they cannot evaluate in the same manner as the project related risks,” she said.

Conference delegates are still debating how to monitor the world’s remaining tropical forests, how to stop logging in one place without shifting the problem to another area, and how to estimate the amount of carbon in a piece of land.

Yvo de Boer, the U.N.’s climate change chief, said a REDD agreement is unlikely during this conference, but a group working on the details is making significant progress.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

United States political consultant and gay rights (LGBT) activist Fred Karger of California took some time to discuss his Republican Party presidential campaign with Wikinews reporter William Saturn. Karger holds the distinction as the first openly gay person to seek the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party.

Before entering electoral politics, Karger worked as an adviser for such prominent Republicans and former U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Since retiring as an adviser in 2004, he has been involved in LGBT issues: opposing California Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state; and leading investigations of such same-sex marriage opponents as the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Mormon Church).

In 2010, Karger first announced his intentions to seek the Republican presidential nomination, but did not officially announce until March 2011. One of his early campaign goals was to participate in a GOP presidential debate, but was never invited due to polling thresholds. However, Karger argued that he did meet the requirement for an August debate, but was still excluded after the organizers deemed polls he cited as inadequate.

So far, Karger has appeared on four Republican primary ballots including Puerto Rico, where he was able to top Congressman Ron Paul, who, at the time was one of the four major candidates in the race. Karger will next appear on the ballots in California on June 5, and in Utah on June 26.

Karger brands himself as “a different kind of Republican” that wants to open the party to outsiders. He backs gay marriage, is pro-choice on abortion, and wants to lower the voting age. However, he also holds some traditional Republican views: he favors a strengthening of the private sector and believes the U.S. should be steadfast in its support for the nation of Israel.

In talking to Wikinews, Karger discusses his personal political background and activism, the 2012 presidential election and his GOP campaign, as well as his political views on both domestic and foreign affairs.