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Thursday, May 13, 2010

Wikinews reporter Iain Macdonald has performed an interview with Dr Isabella Margara, a London-based member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). In the interview Margara sets out the communist response to current events in Greece as well as discussing the viability of a communist economy for the nation. She also hit back at Petros Tzomakas, a member of another Greek far-left party which criticised KKE in a previous interview.

The interview comes amid tensions in cash-strapped Greece, where the government is introducing controversial austerity measures to try to ease the nation’s debt-problem. An international rescue package has been prepared by European Union member states and the International Monetary Fund – should Greece require a bailout; protests have been held against government attempts to manage the economic situation.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen AG’s CEO, resigned yesterday after it was discovered the German motor vehicle company has been rigging emissions tests for their diesel vehicles.

The company has not announced who his successor will be, but plans to discuss the issue tomorrow. Winterkorn has said that he was “shocked” by the rigging of the emissions tests. “Above all, I am stunned that misconduct on such a scale was possible in the Volkswagen Group”, Winterkorn said in a statement issued yesterday.

This resignation came after he issued an apology on Sunday about the emissions test rigging, which involved installing a program onto the company’s diesel vehicles to manipulate test results. The program, referred to as a “defeat device”, causes the vehicles to emit less nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant contributing to smog and possibly linked to asthma, during testing.

Volkswagen’s share value has dropped by one third, The Toronto Star reported. The stock prices of France car manufacturers Citroen, Renault, and Peugeot have also dipped. The Associated Press states that this may be due to concerns other car manufacturers are also engaging in illegal acts.

Monday, June 26, 2006

Police in the Australian state of New South Wales have arrested a 22-year-old man following an incident in Narrabeen, a Northern suburb of Sydney on Saturday. Police allege the man dragged a dead possum behind his car along a busy Sydney road.

According to a police statement, a number of citizens contacted them after seeing a vehicle driving along the Wakehurst Parkway in Narabeen with what appeared to be an animal tied to the rear. The police were told that the animal was dragged for several hundred metres before breaking free from the rope.

After receiving further information from the public, police found the body of a brush tail possum on the side of the road. Witnesses then provided police with further information that assisted them to locate a 22-year-old male, believed to have been driving the vehicle the possum was tied to.

Police attended a house where the man was staying and took him to Dee Why police station where he was interviewed. Police have stated that another three youths have been interviewed regarding the incident.

The 22 year-old man was charged with offensive conduct and is to appear in court on a later date. Under NSW law, the maximum penalty the man faces is 3 months in jail or an AUD$660 fine.

Police and the RSPCA will conduct an autopsy on the possum, which they expect will confirm that the possum was already dead before being dragged.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

A suicide car bomb attack in northwestern Pakistan has killed at least 30 people, including some children.

Investigators say the bomb exploded Tuesday on a busy street near a market in the city of Charsadda, 40 kilometers north of Peshawar. The blast wounded dozens of people and destroyed several buildings.

“The death toll has gone up to 32 and more than 100 people have been wounded in this suicide attack,” said Bashir Bilour, the Senior Minister of North West Frontier Province.

Hazrat Ali, a shopkeeper, was a witness to the event. He recounted his experiences to the Agence France-Presse news agency. “I was buying something before closing my shop. A car was parked on the other side of the road and all of a sudden there was a huge blast. There was smoke and darkness everywhere. I passed out.” Ali sustained shrapnel injuries to his forehead and torso.

This was the third bombing in the area in three days. On Monday, a suicide bomber in a rickshaw blew himself up at a checkpoint in Peshawar, killing three people. A suicide bomber killed thirteen people in a crowded market outside the city on Sunday.

A compilation of brief news reports for Monday, December 1, 2008.

Approximately 150 whales have died after being beached in a remote coastal area of Australia’s Tasmania island state. They were discovered on Saturday. Many of the whales had been badly cut by jagged rocks lying on the shore.

Rescuers managed to save a pod of thirty whales that were trapped in shallow reefs by shepherding them out to the open sea by boat.

Last week another 60 whales were also stranded on another part of the island.

Sources

• “Beached whales die in Australia” — BBC News Online, December 1, 2008
• “Stranded whales in Tasmania all die” — The Sydney Morning Herald, December 1, 2008

A group of at least twelve gunmen have murdered eight people at a seafood restaurant in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a city along the border with the United States.

According to Chihuahua state prosecutor’s office spokesman Alejandro Pariente, the gunmen arrived at the restaurant in three separate cars, approached a group of people, and started shooting. Pariente added that no arrests were made.

Juárez has seen escalating levels of violence this year, mostly connected to the illegal drug industry.

Sources

• “Mexican diners killed by gunmen” — BBC News Online, December 1, 2008
• “Gunmen kill 8 in Mexican border restaurant” — USA Today, December 1, 2008

The Democratic Liberal Party (PD-L) claimed victory in the first nationwide Romanian national elections since the country joined the European Union. With 71% counted, the PD-L has 33% of the vote.

Preliminary results suggest that the Social Democratic Party obtained approximately 32% of the vote, while the National Liberal Party received 18%. Voter turnout in the election was about 39%.

The results are not yet official.

Sources

• “Romania: early count shows president’s party ahead” — Associated Press, December 1, 2008
• “Romania election outcome unclear” — BBC News Online, December 1, 2008
• Agence France-Presse. “Left-wing claims victory in Romania vote” — The Sydney Morning Herald, December 1, 2008

Thursday, October 16, 2008

International oil prices sank on Thursday as investors worried that a looming global recession will lower demand.

Crude oil for future delivery fell to below US$71 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its lowest price in more than a year. In London, Brent crude oil for November dropped below $66 a barrel.

Oil prices have dropped more than 50 percent since hitting a record high of $147 a barrel in July. A report released today showed an unexpected increase in inventories. Analysts expected only a 1.9 million barrel increase last week, but the actual amount was 5.6 million barrels

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut its estimate for crude oil demand next year in a report released Wednesday. OPEC, which was planning on having an emergency meeting next month on the issue of lower oil prices, pushed forward the meeting to next week. The cartel is expected to cut production by 500,000 barrels a day, in a bid to boost oil prices. Saudi Arabia, which initially did not support the cut a few weeks ago, now supports such a move.

Some Asian governments are under pressure to reduce domestic fuel prices in light of the decline of the price of oil. In China, some drivers are paying more for gas than drivers in the United States, which last occurred several years ago. India, China, and Indonesia appear to be to content to keep the price at the same level; however, some other Asian governments have lowered the price already. Malaysia and Vietnam have cut prices and are expected to do the same if oil drops some more.

Sunday, July 28, 2019

Chase Briscoe took his first win of the 2019 NASCAR Xfinity Series auto racing season on Saturday at the Iowa Speedway in Iowa, United States, passing Christopher Bell in the final laps after using pit strategy. This is Briscoe’s first win at an Xfinity Series race on a Midwestern US short track. He spent much of his early auto racing career on short tracks in the region.

Briscoe, 24, of Mitchell, Indiana, took his second career victory in his 36th series start. Bell was left in second place after leading 234 of the race’s 250 laps.

Bell was attempting to win his third Xfinity Series race at Iowa Speedway, and looked to do so for a significant portion of the race, leading 232 of the race’s first 240 laps. Briscoe used a late restart on lap 229 to work his way up from the fourth position, eventually getting past Bell and leading the final seven laps of the race. He credited his pit crew for saving his last set of tires for later in the race, as compared to other competitiors who were finishing the race on old, worn-out tires. With the win, Briscoe snapped the streak of the Xfinity Series’ “Big Three” of Bell, Cole Custer and Tyler Reddick, who had won nine of the series’ last ten races.

The race may have looked different, however, if all of regular players were there for the end. Twelve cars retired from the race, including three drivers currently in position to make the NASCAR Xfinity Series playoffs (Custer, Austin Cindric and Brandon Jones). While many of the DNFs were for routine issues like on-track scuffles or mechanical issues, one of them stuck out: Dillon Bassett, making his third series start, crashed into a cleanup truck while trying to enter pit road in the latter stages of the race. Bassett was forced to retire from the race from front-end damage resulting from the incident.

In part due to the attrition, a number of drivers scored career efforts. Shane Lee finished seventh, the first top-ten finish for team H2 Motorsports, who debuted at this track earlier this year. Ryan Vargas, making his series debut, finished seventeenth for JD Motorsports. In his first race with RSS Racing, Camden Murphy finished 24th for his best Xfinity Series finish.

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Tuesday, February 21, 2006

The Australian government has confirmed it will send an extra 200 troops to Afghanistan as part of a security and reconstruction team. Prime Minister John Howard says troops will leave from late July and will spend about two years in Afghanistan separate from the Special Forces and commandos already serving there. In a press conference in Canberra today, Mr Howard said the deployment was “further evidence of the government’s ongoing commitment to assist the people of Afghanistan in consolidating their embrace of democracy and resisting any attempt on the part of the Taliban to come back.”

The Australian Greens oppose the deployment of new troops. In a press release, Senator Bob Brown voiced his opinion on the matter, and said the following about Australia’s deployment: “The announcement that Australia will be sending 200 more troops to Afghanistan comes hard on the heels of the Bush administration announcing the withdrawal of 3000 troops from the same theatre,” he said. “Without the US withdrawal there would be no Australian deployment. This is John Howard once again using the ADF to meet the Bush administration’s political shortcomings. Our troops should be kept at home.”

“The ADF contribution will be a mixed security and reconstruction taskforce of approximately 200 personnel and will be deployed over a period of two years,” Howard told reporters. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) troops will be deployed from late July and work alongside Dutch soldiers as part of a NATO force. The extra 200 troops will bring the number of ADF personnel to more than 500.

Australia sent 1,550 troops to Afghanistan in 2001, including special forces, to join the U.S.-led strikes against the Taliban regime. Australia’s only fatality in Afghanistan came in February 2002 when a soldier was killed after his vehicle hit a land mine. Violence has intensified in Afghanistan in recent months, particularly in the south and east, with a wave of raids, roadside and suicide bombings killing dozens of people.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Wikinews spoke with three people associated with the early political career of U.S. businessman Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential nomination. Those interviewed include longtime political operative Roger Stone, a close associate of Trump and director of Trump’s 2000 presidential exploratory committee; journalist Dave Shiflett, co-writer of Trump’s 2000 campaign book The America We Deserve; and political consultant Russ Verney, who served as chairman of the Reform Party of the United States of America which Trump briefly joined.

In Trump’s highly publicized 2016 campaign, he has run under the banner of Make America Great Again, advocating a Mexican-funded wall along the U.S.–Mexico border, renegotiation of trade terms with other nations, and a temporary halt on the immigration of Muslims to the United States. He holds a considerable lead in Republican National Convention delegates over his opponents, winning 15 of the first 24 primary and caucus contests. Though this is Trump’s most visible campaign, it is not his first foray into electoral politics. He flirted with Republican presidential runs: first in 1987, when he purchased newspaper advertisements on foreign policy and delivered a campaign-like speech in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire; and then in 2011, when he briefly led nationwide opinion polls for the presidential nomination after questioning the citizenship of President Barack Obama. Trump’s most extensive campaign before now came during the 2000 presidential election when he opened an exploratory committee to consider seeking the presidential nomination of the Reform Party.

For 2000, Trump conducted various speeches and media appearances in support of his potential presidential campaign. He placed Stone in charge of his exploratory committee and hired Shiflett to work on what would become The America We Deserve. His chief opponent for the nomination was paleoconservative icon and eventual nominee Pat Buchanan who entered the race after ending his third unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Based on Buchanan’s comments against American involvement in World War II, Trump attacked Buchanan as a “Hitler lover” and anti-Semite. Trump’s campaign received support from then-Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, the highest ranking elected official in the Reform Party. This placed Trump at odds with the faction of industrialist Ross Perot, the party’s founder and two time presidential candidate. Verney, a Perot confidante, was chairman of the party during Trump’s exploration. Though initially dismissive of the campaign, Verney eventually welcomed Trump into the race. However, the deep divisions within the party precipitated the exit of Ventura, and Trump did not seek the nomination. Despite leaving the race, Trump still appeared on Reform Party presidential primary ballots in California and Michigan, winning both states.

Over a five month period, Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn contacted the three previously involved in Trump’s politics to get their thoughts on his current presidential campaign, learn more about Trump’s political past including the true nature of his 2000 effort, and obtain details on his personality.