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Sunday, November 5, 2006 

Figures released by Simon Power, law and order spokesman for the National party, show that the New Zealand Labour led government lets 81% of all prisoners not do any work while in prison. Newspaper, Sunday News says that some Christchurch prisoners have been given a barbecue for good behavior.

Simon Power’s figures show that of the 7,612 prisoners only 19% (1,470) of them took part in Corrections Inmate Employment during 2006. But in 2005 it was at 23% and in 2004 it was at 26%. He says that the prisons with the least amount of inmates working are: Rolleston with 8.6%, Mount Eden with 8.7%, Rimutaka with 11%, Christchurch Women’s with 13.5% and Dunedin with 13.8%. Mr Power said: “These figures are an appalling indictment on this Government’s approach to prisoner rehabilitation and preparing them for release.”

“In May, Corrections Minister Damien O’Connor announced a strategy that he said would help in ‘significantly increasing the number of prisoners in work and training. But a week later this was shown to be nothing more than window dressing when the Budget increased funding for prisoner employment by a measly $336,000 – up 1%.”

“They have cut funding [on the Corrections Department] by 27% since 2001/02, from $46.5 million to $34 million.”

Mr Power blames the low work rate on the big prison construction budget of $490 million. “There would have been more than a miserable $336,000 extra to spend on effective rehabilitation and work schemes,” he said.

“[Mr O’Conner] seems happier to spend $11 million on landscaping four new prisons and allow prisoners to sit around playing Playstations and Xboxes on their flat-screen TVs than he is about helping them get better prepared for when they are released.”

“Prisoners should be doing meaningful work, training or study while they are in prisons, and I imagine the public would agree,” Mr Power added.

Mr Power, commenting on the barbecue, said: “These people are in prison because they were found to be in serious breach of the law. The victims of their crimes will be grossly offended by the idea that they are being rewarded for anything. This is the just the latest in a long line of incredibly bad decisions made by the Corrections Department over the past year and taxpayers have had enough.”

Bevan Hanlon, president for the Corrections Officers Association, said: “The Mobsters getting a BBQ was a “joke”. (Christchurch Prison) staff are reporting the smell of dope every day. Mobsters are threatening staff on a daily basis and there appears to be high cellphone use (mobile phones are banned in jail). So what happens? They are given a BBQ.”

Sunday, May 1, 2005 

A UCLA team, headed by Brian Naranjo, has observed the nuclear fusion of deuterium nuclei in a tabletop device. The device uses a lithium tantalate (LiTaO₃) pyroelectric crystal to ionize deuterium atoms and accelerate the ions towards a stationary erbium deuteride (ErD) target. Fusion of two deuterium nuclei results in the emission of helium nuclei (alpha particles), neutrons and gamma rays. The team anticipates applications of the device as a tabletop neutron generator, or in “microthrusters” for space propulsion. It is possible that there may be applications related to nuclear weapons, although this possibility is not discussed in the research paper.

This development is not related to earlier claims of tabletop fusion or “cold fusion” having been observed during sonoluminescence. In fact, the leader of the team behind this development was one of the main critics of earlier low-temperature fusion claims.

This device is not the first reliable tabletop fusion device; the Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor, developed in the early 1960s in the laboratory of Philo T. Farnsworth who was instrumental in developing television, is sold commercially as a neutron source. Research by Dr. Todd Rider of MIT suggests that the kind of non-equilibrium fusion produced in these sources will never be usable as an energy source (see his PhD thesis).

Chelsea v Arsenal – Kickoff: 7:45 pm

Wigan v Newcastle United – Kickoff: 1 pmBlackburn Rovers v Portsmouth – Kickoff: 3 pmTottenham Hotspur v Bolton Wanderers – Kickoff: 3 pm

No Games Today

Barcelona v Athletic Bilbao – Kickoff: 8 pmGimnastic v Valencia – Kickoff: 6 pmVillarreal v Mallorca – Kickoff: 4 pmReal Betis v Recreativo – Kickoff: 4 pmOsasuna v Espanyol – Kickoff: 4 pmLevante v Real Zaragoza – Kickoff: 4 pmGetafe v Sevilla – Kickoff: 4 pmCelta Vigo v Racing Santander – Kickoff: 4 pm

Cagliari v Lazio – Kickoff: 2 pmCatania Calcio v Internazionale – Kickoff: 2 pmFiorentina v Empoli – Kickoff: 2 pmLivorno v Ascoli – Kickoff: 2 pmMessina v Siena – Kickoff: 2 pmRoma v Reggina – Kickoff: 2 pmUdinese v Parma – Kickoff: 2 pmAC Milan v Sampdoria – Kickoff: 7:30 pm

Lens v Nancy – Kickoff: 5 pmBordeaux v Valenciennes – Kickoff: 6 pmParis St. Germain v St. Etienne – Kickoff: 8 pm

Borisia Monchenchengladbach v Werder Bremen – Kickoff: 4 pmShalke v Bayern Leverkusen – Kickoff: 4 pm

ADO Den Haag v Feyenoord – Kickoff: 11:30 amAZ Alkmaar v Ajax – Kickoff: 11:30 amExcelsior v NAC Breda – Kickoff: 2:30 pmRKC Waalwijk v Vitesse – Kickoff: 2:30 pm

The Islamic Republic News Agency (Persian: ???????? ?????? ?????? ??????), or IRNA, is the official news agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is government-funded and controlled under the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. The agency also publishes the newspaper Iran. As of 2010^[update], the Managing Director of IRNA is Mohammad Khodaddi. IRNA has 60 offices in Iran and 30 more in various countries around the world.^[1]

In 1934, Pars Agency was established by the Foreign Ministry of Iran (Persia) as the country’s official national news outlet.^[2] For the next six years it operated under the Iranian Foreign Ministry working to disseminate national and international news. Pars Agency published a bulletin twice daily in French and Persian, which it circulated among government officials, international news agencies in Tehran and the local press. In May 1940, the General Tablighat Department was founded and the agency then became an affiliate of the department. Agence France Press (AFP) was the first international news agency whose reports Pars Agency used. Gradually, the Iranian news agency expanded its sources of news stories to include those of Reuters, the Associated Press (AP) and the United Press International (UPI). An agreement with the Anatolia News Agency of Turkey further expanded the agency’s news outlets to countries worldwide. The link-up also enabled it to provide classified bulletins to a limited number of high-ranking public officials.

In 1954, following a coup the reforms of the White Revolution helped to modernize the Pars Agency, leading to expanded news coverage, improved professional services and a better-educated staff. It went on air with radio broadcasts of international news translated into Persian, which it offered to local subscribers. Under the new regime, it operated under the supervision of various state offices and ministries such as the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Post, Telegraph and Telephones, Office of the Prime Minister and the Labor Ministry until 1947. In 1957, the General Department of Tablighat fell under the supervision of the Publications Department of Tehran Radio as an independent department. In 1963 the activities of Pars Agency were brought under the newly created Information Ministry. Its name was changed to Pars News Agency, or PANA, and it began operating around the clock. In July 1975 the Iranian legislature passed a bill establishing the Ministry of Information and Tourism and changing the status of Pars News Agency to a joint public stock with capital assets of about 300 million rials. It then became an affiliate of the new ministry. Its Articles of Association in 23 paragraphs and notes were adopted by the then National Consultative Assembly of Iran.

After the Iranian Revolution in February 1979, the Revolutionary Council (Shawra-ye-Enqelab), in June 1979, renamed the Ministry of Information and Tourism to the National Guidance Ministry (or Ministry of National Guidance). The same year Pars News Agency was renamed as the Islamic Republic News Agency.^[2]

IRNA’s professional activities are aimed at securing Iranian national interests. Efforts of management and professional personnel of IRNA are thus focused on achieving higher ground each day in fulfillment of its stated goal. The organization functions as the “mother source of information dissemination” within the country, feeding its authorities, nationals and various publications with various types of news, bulletins, research works, opinion polls and stories of general interest through its various telex lines. It also provides channels for online foreign dispatches and photographs around the clock. IRNA’s external services include those rendered to leading international news agencies in accordance with contracts signed with them, active membership in international news clubs, up-to-date news stories on the country supplied internationally through its International News Line, and an active presence in the Internet through its Persian, English and Arabic websites. For its services, IRNA is aided by a professional core of executive and administrative staff who work inside and outside the country in its various local, regional and overseas branches. It also takes full advantage of stringers around the globe and has an organizational set-up that allows all its facilities to be used inside or outside the country on contractual arrangement. To effectively carry out its responsibilities it has set up the following guidelines:

IRNA’s administrative efforts are focused on an expansion of its international news branches around the globe. Branches ostensibly are given the task of producing news items or selecting from those produced by various news agencies, translating and disseminating them through its various news lines. Its management is also constantly on the look-out for possible new ways of expanding its level of news dissemination in qualitative and quantitative terms. It also seeks to expand its level of cooperation with various foreign news agencies and corporations. Personnel of IRNA branches abroad are currently in charge of monitoring their respective countries’ radio, television, satellite and Internet networks to bring out news items not already found in news dispatches. The offices also organize regional news dissemination corporationswith IRNA as a member, as well as monitor and program activities of its branches.

IRNA’s editorial board is made up of eight main news desks:

IRNA has divided its activities into four news regions around the world manned by four head offices:^{[citation needed]}

IRNA cooperates with leading international and regional news agencies. This cooperation at the professional level started decades ago. IRNA’s cooperation with regional and international agencies takes any of the following forms:

IRNA has spent tremendous efforts to convince news agencies of Third World countries to actively work within the framework of regional news agencies. The establishment of pools of news agencies, many of which have already gained international prestige, is thus indebted to the pioneering efforts of IRNA. Multinational and regional news pools therefore have the right to vote in international gatherings of news agencies and thus play the essential and critical role of safeguarding Third World interests in such venues. IRNA is currently a member of the following news pools:

IRNA has played an active role as a member of the newly established regional news pools mentioned above. Its varied activities in cooperation with these various organizations may be summarized as follows:

IRNA is one of the first to join the Internet in Iran. It joined the web on 16 December 1996, starting at the speed of 19,200 kbit/s. On 23 March 1997, IRNA opened its own website, which reached the speed of 512,512 kbit/s a year later. Due to interest shown on the wide range of information available in the Internet IRNA decided to offer lines for lease and dial-up services for its clients. IRNA has also increased the bandwidth of its satellite band up to 2MEG/2MEG to meet the ever-increasing demand for this medium. To provide services to all interested parties wishing to gain access to Internet information, IRNA has established an Internet cafe (Coffeenet) on the ground floor of its Tehran headquarters.

Information on the high-quality goods and services available in the Iranian market produced by leading producers and manufacturers in the various production and technical fields may now be obtained through IRNA’s online IRNANET. IRNANET accepts advertisements and aims to be an effective global marketing tool for interested subscribers. The IRNA website on the Internet^[4] has over 20,000,000 viewers all over the globe with the exact number of people who use it in each country available at any moment on the site.

IRNA has a photo archive established 40 years ago simultaneous with the birth of this news agency. It is one of the richest in Iran and relies on the expert work of its professional photographers. The photo archive now has over 3,000,000 frames in the various political, social, sports and cultural fields. Some of the best shots in its files depict the acts of bravery of Iranians during the eight-year sacred defense.^{[clarification needed]}

IRNA currently publishes seven dailies and periodicals. Among these periodicals is the Persian-language Iran newspaper, which is vastly popular among middle class Iranians.

After conducting a series of research work on the country’s need for a high-level academic institution to provide training in news reporting and various fields of news dissemination, and after obtaining a permit from the Ministry of Sciences, Research and Technology, IRNA established the School of Media Studies (News College). Studies in the School of Media Studies offer two sections: long-term or short-term courses.

These courses lead to a university degree major in any one of the four now offered by the college:

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I love these guys.

They spray a little paint and maybe break a vase and the cops are all over the media trying to make out like they’re the weathermen. They aren’t.

They are poor people who can’t afford airtime so they splash some paint to make us listen.

No one was hurt. It wasn’t a heinous crime.

What’s heinous is poor people made out as having no value to society. While they’re being starved out and ostracised by this messed up society that is more concerned about the paint used in this crime of poverty, and the value of the property underneath the paint.

Paint can be painted over. Humans in misery can’t.

oh, wait, right. This (BC) is the province where more than 20 hookers can disappear into a pig farm. Why should anyone notice them missing? They’re not people.

Once someone is poor they become a thing here. Not a human, a thing. –C.T.–

If you break the law, you pay the price. Period. A crime is a crime regarless of the ‘do gooder’ cause you may hide behind. Trying to drape yourself in a flag of moral superiority is pathetically transparent. 205.210.225.100 16:50, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

What exactly was the point of splattering paint all over the Premier’s office building? All it’s going to do is cost even more of their tax money to clean it up. –Kitch – (talk) 18:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

So is wikinews keeping people from posting comments? Then what’s the point of it? I have reentered my comment on this page 4 times. Everytime I return to the page, kirsch’ comment is there and mine is invisible. It seems fishy. Like a propoganda machine.

Monday, June 16, 2008 

The Canadian Environmental Law Assocation and the Canadian organization Environmental Defence jointly conducted a study that was released to the public on Thursday, saying that chemicals released by new vinyl curtains may pose a significant health risk.

The study noted that many shower curtains contain more than 100 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), phthalates and organotins, some of which may be released into the air when first taken from a package. These chemicals, responsible for the characteristic smell of new vinyl, may cause damage to kidneys, the liver and the central nervous systems, respiratory problems, nausea, headaches and loss off coordination, according to the report.

These vinyl curtains are also said to contain traces of metals like lead, cadmium and mercury.

Jennifer Foulds of Environmental Defence advises consumers to seek alternatives to new vinyl products such as shower curtains and table cloths. Older products are thought to be safe, as they have already released most of the allegedly dangerous chemicals.

Critics of the study have called it “fear-mongering”, and some health professionals agree that the risk is being overblown. Warren Foster, a professor in the obstetrics and gynecology department at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario points out that, “the difference between hazard and risk is great, and without knowing the actual human exposure, it’s premature to make any judgement.”

Foster further commented that the study was not performed in a rigorous manner by not having controls or random sampling.

Five brands of shower curtain were examined in the study; they were purchased from American stores including Bed Bath & Beyond, Kmart, Sears, Target and Wal-Mart. Curtains of the same brand are also available in major Canadian stores.

Marion Axmith, director general of the Vinyl Council of Canada calls the report a “blatant attempt to manipulate consumers and retailers into thinking shower curtains pose a danger, and they don’t.” She noted that, “as far as we know, nobody’s ever been harmed by a shower curtain.”

Vinyl has long been a point of dispute between environmentalists and those in the chemical industry. A chemical used to make vinyl is known to be a risk for liver and other cancers for chemical plant workers, and the phthalates in vinyl products have been linked to interference with normal male hormone production.

Friday, October 24, 2008 

On August 21, the Polish weekly Przekrój published an advertisement for Dan-Mark exercise books, bearing the logo of 4fun.tv, a Polish music/interactive TV station. Part of the advertisement contained a definition of the word “exercise book”. The wording looked familiar, and Wikinews consulted Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia.

Upon seeing the Wikipedia definition, it appeared that the entry quoted in the promotional material was identical to the initial two paragraphs of the relevant Wikipedia entry.

Freelance reporters for the Polish Wikinews decided to find out the reason for such a similarity and whether either of the texts (the advertisement’s or Wikipedia’s) might be a case of copyright violation.

The reporters contacted a Jaros?aw Janas, Creative Director of 4fun.tv., where the ad appeared. His reply included the following claim:

Copyright on text does not last for fifty years as claimed by Janas, but for 70 years after the death of the author.

To investigate the authenticity of the above claims, Wikinews asked the main author of the two paragraphs in question, Wikipedian Julo, about the sources used to write the entry. He confirmed that he had written the text in question, and not copied it from an encyclopedic publication as claimed by Jana.

It is therefore impossible that both Julo and the people responsible for the exercise book advertisement have used the same uncopyrighted encyclopedia, thus coincidentally creating identical texts. The reporters also noted that the first draft of the introduction to the article was written by WaldemarWolskiHuta (February 2006). Afterward the text had undergone some modifications by Julo (September 2006), as well as Picus viridis and Beno (March 2008). However, the text presented in the press promotional material, which – according to 4fun.tv – came from an old-print encyclopedia is identical to the Wikipedia entry after the changes mentioned above had been made. Julo added that he was still alive, together with the other authors of the article in question who constituted the group of the copyright co-holders. This naturally led to a conclusion that neither 50 nor 70 years could have passed since their death. He left 4fun.tv’s actions with a comment that although the contents he and the other Wikimedians had made public and free, they are far from making them available in any “free style”, but under a specified license.

In follow up messages to Jaros?aw Janas, Wikinews reporters confronted the creative director over his seemingly inaccurate claims.

Wikinews was told in a reply that 4fun.tv would ignore the claims unless they see permission from the author of the original content to investigate this story. They were also informed that further e-mails without any specifics sent by the reporter would be qualified as spam. 4fun.tv’s creative director further added that he found the reporter’s picture on the Internet and asked how the person would feel if this picture was to appear on billboards or press releases that advertised the TV station.

Wikipedia does allow copying of its content under certain conditions. The encyclopedia’s content is released under the GNU Free Documentation License, which means that it can be copied, modified, and used commercially and non-commercially – under the conditions that the license’s text is included with the copied content and the five main authors are mentioned. If a part of the article is used, like in the example quoted in this news story, a “right to quote”, recognized by Polish law, may be used. In such a case it suffices to mention the source of the text (Polish Wikipedia) and the author of the excerpt. 4fun.tv met none of these conditions, meaning that copyright has been violated.

Over a year ago Polish Wikinews reported on a similar problem, regarding the use of free-licensed photographs. Since that time such “borrowings” have become less frequent, however photos are still being used in discordance with the license. Journalists have gotten used to citing sources, e.g. Wikipedia, although licensing conditions require attributing the actual author, not the source. So instead of attributing John Doe for his contribution, agencies like Polska Agencja Prasowa (Polish Press Agency) are attributing the source, Wikipedia.

In early September 2008 a similar situation occurred in relation to the Polish edition of Wiktionary. Gazeta Wyborcza, a Polish daily, published an IKEA advertisement, on the opening page of which an almost word-for-word Wiktionary entry was placed; additionally the advertisement used the characteristic MediaWiki layout. The reference to the external source used was missing.

In April 2008, an example of an Australian professor was cited; the scientist, in a reply to a news story, quoted a Wikipedia definition almost word-for-word. The same professor condemned the use of Wikipedia in his previous press appearances.

In 2005 Wikipedia material was discovered in the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, which acknowledged its fault and published appropriate apologies in place of the article in the online edition.

Frontline magazine in 2007 was found using an image from Wikipedia without proper credit. When pointed out the magazine acknowledged the failing and a correction was promptly given in the subsequent issue.