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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) selected Pyeongchang, South Korea as host of the 2018 Winter Games today. The committee meeting in Durban, South Africa, made its selection in the first round of voting. The South Korean city won over Munich, Germany and Annecy, France after failing in two previous tries.

It was an emphatic success for South Korea after its unsuccessful applications for the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics. This time its hour-long presentation to the committee focused on the sports with the theme “New Horizons” rather than geopolitical location and included South Korean president Lee Myung-bak and Kim Yu-na, the winner of the 2010 Olympic figure skating gold medal winner. On the first round of secret ballots, cast by the IOC’s 95 voting members from 76 countries, Pyeongchang received 63 votes to Munich’s 25 and 7 for Annecy.

IOC President Jacques Rogge opened the sealed envelope and made the announcement in front of the entire IOC membership and the representatives from the three candidate cities. A loud cheer erupted from the Pyeongchang detachment, as they jumped up, hugged each other, and waved South Korean flags.

The host for the Winter Olympics was awarded on the first ballot in 1995 to Salt Lake City, Utah for the 2002 winter games, the last time the host was selected on the first ballot. Only twice before have the Winter Games been awarded to a country in Asia, both times to Japan.

The 2016 Summer Games have previously been awarded to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which will be the first South American city to host the games. Sochi, Russia was selected in 2007 for the 2014 Winter Games, giving Russia its first hosting of the Winter Games.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Famed English actor, singer and author Sir Christopher Lee died last Sunday morning in London aged 93, after being admitted to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for heart failure and respiratory problems. News of his death only became public on Thursday, as his wife of 54 years, Birgit Krøncke Lee, wished first to inform friends and family.

A spokesman for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea confirmed the issuing of his death certificate.

Lee first rose to prominence in the 1950s starring in Hammer Horror films as the classic movie monsters Dracula and Frankenstein and was more recently seen as Saruman the White in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films as well as portraying the villainous Count Dooku in the Star Wars films Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

In 2010 Lee released a heavy metal album titled Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross followed by another metal album in 2013, Charlemagne: The Omens of Death and several collections of Heavy Metal cover songs including A Heavy Metal Christmas, A Heavy Metal Christmas Too and Metal Knight.

In 2008 Lee was knighted for services to drama and charity, and in 2001 received a Bafta Fellowship.

Lee is survived by his wife Birgit and daughter Christina.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Besides becoming a political stomping ground for the Pan-Green and Pan-Blue coalitions, there are other changes from past years of Taipei Audio Video Fair (TAVF). With those changes in mind, Wikinews reporter Rico Shen interviewed You-peng Wang, chairman of the Taipei Electrical Commercial Association (TECA), the main organizer of TAVF, about the 60th year anniversary of TECA and the changes to the show.

Monday, April 23, 2018

March 20, Mark Meechan of Scotland was found guilty of “being grossly offensive” in violation of the Communications Act of 2003. Meechan, who goes by “Count Dankula” on YouTube, posted a video on the social media site in which he trained a pug, a small companion dog, to respond to spoken words such as “Sieg Heil” and “Gas the Jews”. Sentencing for Meechan has been scheduled for <L>April 23</L>.

In April of 2016, Meechan uploaded a video titled “M8 Yer Dugs A Nazi” to YouTube in which he trained the dog to respond to certain spoken commands. The dog, which belongs to his girlfriend Suzanne Kelly, learned to raise its front paw when the “Sieg Hitler” command was given, and jumped for joy when the words “Gas the Jews” were spoken. The video was viewed three million times before it was put on ‘restricted mode’ on YouTube. In the video, which runs 2m:23s, Meechan states that he is not a racist. The prosecution called the video “an odious criminal act that was dressed up to look like a joke.”

Meechan’s defense, led by attorney Ross Brown, centered around the video being a joke. Meechan wanted to annoy his girlfriend because he didn’t really like the dog. Brown further argued that Meechan expected the video to be viewed only by Kelly and a few other friends and didn’t expect it to go viral. Kelly testified to Meechan never expressing any antisemitic views.

Director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities Ephraim Borowski, testified for the prosecution. “In many ways, the bit I found most offensive was the repetition of ‘gas the Jews’ rather than the dog itself,” said Borowski. “Material of this kind goes to normalize the antisemitic views that frankly we thought we had seen the last of… The Holocaust is not a subject for jocular content.”

The sheriff court with Derek O’Carroll presiding in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire found that Meechan was guilty because the video was “anti-Semitic and racist in nature”. O’Carroll elaborated: “This court has taken the freedom of expression into consideration, but the right to freedom of expression also comes with responsibility.”

O’Carroll further said, “The accused is quite obviously an intelligent and articulate man. The accused knew that the material was offensive and knew why it was offensive. Despite that the accused made a video containing anti-Semitic content and he would have known it was grossly offensive to many Jewish people.”

After the conviction, some British comedians voiced their support for Meechan. Ricky Gervais tweeted: “If you don’t believe in a person’s right to say things that you might find “grossly offensive”, then you don’t believe in Freedom of Speech.” David Baddiel also tweeted, saying “an actual Nazi would not be teaching his *pug* to Hitler salute.”

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Saturday, May 12, 2007

An object that fell through the roof of a New Jersey home in January was not a meteorite, according to Jeremy Delaney, a geologist at Rutgers University. Instead, it appears the object was space junk or orbital debris.

“Basically, it’s a piece of stainless steel. There’s huge amounts of material that have been left by the various space programs of the world,” said Delaney.

The meteorite shaped object was not from a naturally occurring substance and had a silver like reflection. It weighed about the same as a small can of soup, 13 ounces (about 370 grams), but was no bigger than a golf ball.

Earlier during the incident, scientists from Rutgers examined the object visually along with police who were at the scene, and determined it was a meteorite. But further tests by geologists confirmed that it was not a meteorite, but probably a metal piece from a rocket or satellite. They had earlier thought it was made of iron.

“That’s the nature of science. If the conclusion from the test says it’s not a meteorite, then it’s not a meteorite. We have to move forward,” said Srinivasan Nageswaran, a member of the family that found the object.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

The United States Federal Trade Commission filed charges against five companies for “deceptive advertising of bogus cancer cures”. An additional six companies also named in the federal agency’s complaint have settled and their cases will not go into litigation; however, they will be required to send letters to their former customers, and four will be forced to offer reimbursement

The five companies charged are Omega Supply, San Diego, California; Native Essence Herb Company, El Prado, New Mexico; Daniel Chapter One, Portsmouth, Rhode Island; Gemtronics, Inc., Franklin, North Carolina, and Herbs for Cancer, Surprise, Arizona. According to Lydia Parnes, director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, “There is no credible scientific evidence that any of the products marketed by these companies can prevent, cure, or treat cancer of any kind.”

Attorney Richard Jaffe who represents the firm Native Essence, one of the companies charged, protested against the FDA’s action. “In our view it’s a battle between the right to speak and the government’s censorship.” Native Essence sells herbal supplements and informs customers of herbs that have historic use for cancer and other ailments. Jaffe asserts the claim of historic use is truthful and does not necessarily mean that the herb is effective. Other items marketed by the companies named in the action include laetrile, essiac tea, mushroom extracts, and black salve. FDA representative Douglas Stearn expressed concern that people who have cancer may select these items instead of treatments that have been studied and found effective, or that unstudied herbal treatments could produce drug interactions with conventional medicine.

Before filing legal action the FTC sent over 100 warning letters and many firms dropped or changed the health claims for their products. In conjunction with the announcement the FDA announced a new website http://www.ftc.gov/curious that urges cancer patients to discuss all treatments they consider trying with their physicians, warns about the dangers of delaying or stopping cancer treatments in favour of alternative medicine, and gives advice about spotting and reporting false health claims.