News briefs:May 27, 2010| Wikinews Audio Briefs Credits |
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Fiat Chrysler recalls 7,810 Jeep SUVs for software vulnerabilitySunday, September 6, 2015
7,810 Jeep SUVs are to be recalled in order to address a software vulnerability in the vehicles’ entertainment systems which allows the vehicles to be “hacked” — allows vehicle software security to be compromised — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles US (FCA US) said on Friday. This recall affects some 2015 model Jeep Renegades.
FCA US said exploiting the vulnerability would take “unique and extensive technical knowledge, prolonged physical access to a subject vehicle and extended periods of time to write code.” They said there are no known instances where the software vulnerability has caused injury to anyone.
They said owners of affected cars can fix the software vulnerability by inserting a device containing a software patch into a USB port inside the car.
Another 1.4 million vehicles manufactured by the company have also been recalled last month, when white hat hackers discovered they were able to hack and disable the engines of the affected vehicles remotely.
Suicide bomber strikes Afghanistan restaurantSunday, November 26, 2006
A suicide bomber has killed at least seven people in an attack on a restaurant situated in south-eastern Afghanistan. Twenty people are seriously injured in the attack.
The attack took place in the Urgun district of Paktika province, which shares its border with that of Pakistan.
Governor Mohammed Akram Akhpelwak said that most of those killed are civilians. He added that intention of the attack could have been to target a senior provincial official and an Afghan special forces commander.
Wikinews interviews Frank Moore, independent candidate for US PresidentSaturday, 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.
Additional damage to reservoir prompts evacuation of Kolontar, HungarySaturday, October 9, 2010
Kolontar, Hungary is currently being evacuated as new damage was discovered at the burst reservoir that spilled hazardous sludge on Monday 04 October 2010 in Western Hungary. If the embankment dam of the storage pond that already released about 700,000 cubic meters of highly alkaline (pH ~13) red sludge into the area would entirely collapse, an extra volume of 500,000 cubic meters of red mud could be released.
A second spill containing more sediments from the bottom of the reservoir would be heavier and thicker than the first one, and would move less rapidly. The flash flood of Monday already killed seven people, chemically burnt 150 others, and left the land and the surface water devastated by the sodium hydroxide and the iron oxides bearing also traces of heavy metals. According to Reuters the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, arrived in the village Saturday morning.
It is also being reported that the newly discovered damage is minor; however, disaster crews do not want to take any chances and are evacuating the village’s 800 inhabitants as a precaution. The evacuees are being taken to a sports hall and two high schools, which are eight kilometers away from the reservoir in a town called Ajka.
Here’s An Opinion On:
byAlma Abell
If you haven’t found a job you’re passionate about yet, don’t give up trying. You have one life to live and it will be so much more enjoyable doing a job you love. Never give up searching for something you’ll be proud of doing. If you’re a person who likes to travel, loves freedom and the ability to earn a good living, it’s possible driving one of the big rigs is just for you. There are schools available that train students to drive the big trucks properly and safely. They teach all students to keep watch and to always anticipate what is going on up the road.
Truck driver training schools train students and get them ready to take and pass the CDL test. First of all, you’ll sign up for the training, then you’ll study for your CDL permit and be able to drive and learn when your actual school time begins. Some schools have students study for their permit using up precious school time when they should be out driving the truck and getting more experience each day. When a student becomes a full-fledged, licensed driver, there are many employment opportunities in Trucking Industry jobs they’ll be able to do.
There are many different types of trucks to drive. Having a CDL license is going to open up an entirely new way of life for good students. Just about everywhere you look, trucks of many sizes are involved in businesses from driving the very large semi tractor trailers across the country to driving a box truck throughout cities making deliveries. There are moving and delivery companies needing people to deliver everything from packages to flowers, to manufacturing companies wanting boxes delivered up state. Once a student realizes there are many employment opportunities in Trucking Industry job searches, they’ll realize the world has opened up to them.
Check into one of the truck driving schools that offers job placement assistance and has financial aid available. Apply for a grant that won’t need to be paid back. Use every avenue you can to get most of your schooling paid for. If you’re a veteran, you may be able to take advantage of one of the programs the government has available just for military personnel. If you’re a displaced worker, there are programs available for you, plus there are installment plans, discounts and other options available.
An interview with Jimbo WalesWednesday, February 22, 2006
| This article mentions the Wikimedia Foundation, one of its projects, or people related to it. Wikinews is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. |
Just five years ago, when Jimbo Wales founded Wikipedia, the project’s goal of 100,000 articles [1] seemed ambitious. Yet today, the project, now one of the top 25 websites in the world according to Alexa, is nearing closer 1,000,000 articles in English, and 3.5 million articles across all languages. This week, we interviewed Jimbo Wales.
Color-free version
Wikinews: Raul654 asks: “Recently, there were revelations about organized attempts by US Congressmen to whitewash their articles. What is your take on this, as well as earlier reports of Corporate astroturfing?”
Jimbo Wales: The question is invalid. There were no revelations of organized attempts by US Congressmen to whitewash their articles. Not any evidence of “corporate astroturfing” of which I am aware. There was evidence that some congressional staffers edited Wikipedia in inappropriate ways. But the internal evidence of the type and style of these edits do not suggest “organized attempts”.
WN: Nichalp asks: “Budget permitting, are there any plans to increase the number of Wikipedia servers, specifically into the less developed countries?”
JW: We are always buying new servers. There are no specific plans to add servers in less developed countries, but we have looked into it as a possibility. We are particularly interested in doing so if it helps increase access and reduce costs for those users.
WN: An anonymous reader asks: “How much of a role do you feel the Wikipedia community (and the communities of its sister projects) should have in the running of the Wikimedia Foundation? Do you see an increasing separation of the organization from the projects? If so, do you regard that as beneficial or a potential problem?”
JW: The community has always been and will always be absolutely crucial to the running of the Wikimedia Foundation. We are increasing the community input and activity in the foundation through a new series of committees to delegate things to community members which have traditionally been handled by me or the Board. I do not see any increasing separation of the organization from the projects, quite the opposite. I consider the increasing integration of the community and the foundation as overwhelmingly beneficial.
WN: ALoan asks: “English Wikipedia is approaching 1 million articles, but less than 1 in a thousand are Featured articles. The list of featured articles English Wikipedia should have has few featured articles, and recent surveys of articles chosen at random show that many articles are poorly written. How can we get from here to an encyclopedia of well-written articles? Or should we not worry too much about coverage and content?”
JW: We should be tightly focused on the quality of our coverage and content. The goal of Wikipedia is to create and distribute a freely licensed high quality encyclopedia. The path to that goal will require us to be flexible and thoughtful. The first steps will come soon with the article review system, which will initially be used simply to gather data. After we have data, we can begin to work on how we will focus our attention to improve quality.
WN: GeorgeStepanek asks: “You’ve said that ‘Wikimedia’s mission is to give the world’s knowledge to every single person on the planet in their own language.’ But very few of the wikipedias in the languages of third-world countries are seeing as much activity as the first-world language wikipedias. Do you have any ideas on how this could be turned around?”
JW: I am a believer in outreach. I would like for the Foundation to raise money specifically to pay one or more minority language co-ordinators. The goal would be to reach out in a more organized way to professors and graduate students and expat communities who have good Internet access, to seed projects for languages where the majority of speakers have poor internet access.
WN: Jacoplane asks: “How do you feel we will be able to reach Wikipedia 1.0? The tools currently available for vetting our articles are crude at best. The Featured article process seems too slow, and the article validation feature seems to have died a quiet death. Are you planning a big push on this front?”
JW: Isn’t that the same question as the quality question? The article validation feature has not died a quiet death at all.
WN: Quadell asks: “Most important decisions on Wikimedia projects are handled with consensus. However, we sometimes have to deal with legal issues, especially related to copyright law. For instance, we as a community may need to decide whether to consider a certain use “fair”, or how to deal with conflicting copyright claims. Dealing with this through consensus is problematic, since we can’t do something illegal even if there is widespread misguided support for it. In general, how can we as a community deal with these issues?”
JW: I don’t think there is any real problem with this. The community is strongly in support of following the law. I don’t know of any particular cases of widespread misguided support for something illegal. In particular cases, there can of course be [dis]agreement, but I have never seen anyone in the community argue that we should not listen to the advice of our legal team.
WN: Raul654 asks: “Where do you see Wikipedia in 10 years?”
JW: I don’t know. My favorite answer to this is to say, the real question is: where will the world be after 10 more years of Wikipedia. 🙂 Seriously, I think we’ll eventually see a tapering off of new article creation in the large language wikipedias as more and more “verifiable” topics are covered. At this point, most changes will be expansions and updates and quality improvements to existing articles. But in 10 years, it seems likely to me that many languages which are now quite small will have very large Wikipedia projects. Our community will continue to become more diverse as more and more people worldwide come online.
WN: Kevin Myers asks: “The values reflected in certain Wikipedia policies (anti-censorship, neutral point-of-view) are problematic in cultures where freedom of expression is limited, as the blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China and arguably the Muhammad cartoons controversy attest. As Wikipedia expands internationally, do you foresee Wikipedia becoming increasingly controversial in countries where “Western values” are seen as a potential threat?”
JW: I don’t think that neutrality and objectivity are really controversial among most people of the world. It is true that the leadership in some places does not value these things, and may actually work against these things, but we can not deviate from our goals to accommodate them.
WN: On a similar topic, Vsion asks: “Are there currently any efforts being undertaken by the Foundation to address the People’s Republic of China’s blocking of Wikipedia or to alleviate its effect?”
JW: Beijing-area Wikipedians are working to have the block lifted. Our position is that the block is in error, even given China’s normal policies. Wikipedia is not propaganda, it is basic information. We expect that the block will be lifted.
WN: David.Monniaux asks: “The Foundation receives daily accusations of libel from semi-well-known people who have an entry on Wikipedia or are mentioned in some Wikipedia entry. What do you propose? Would a strict application of the rule of citing controversial claims suffice, in your opinion?”
JW: Yes. I think that our current systems do a good job of addressing these sorts of complaints, although it is very time-consuming for us here in the office. What really works wonders is a very strict application of the rule of citing controversial claims particularly relating to biographies of living persons. The new policy on biographies of living persons is a very strong step in the right direction.
WN: Tony Sidaway asks: “In the past six weeks the number of userboxes on English Wikipedia has risen from 3500 to 6000 and, despite your appeals for restraint, the number pertaining to political beliefs has risen from 45 to 150. Can the problem of unsuitable userboxes still be resolved by debate?”
JW: My only comment on the userbox situation is that the current situation is not acceptable.
WN: Larsinio asks: “How can Wikipedia effectively explain to the public its open-contribution model without simultaneously worrying the public about inaccurate information?”
JW: I think we do a reasonably good job of that. The best thing is to point to our overall quality while at the same time pointing out that we are currently a work in progress. Over time, this answer will change as we move toward ‘1.0’. At that time, we can point to ‘1.0’ for those who are made nervous by the live editing.
WN: Rob Church asks: “Do you consider the encyclopedia to be ‘finished’? Do you think it ever can be?”
JW: Nothing is ever finished. Human knowledge is always growing.
WN: Raul654 and Pavel Vozenilek both asked, “What kind of cool new features/announcements can we expect to see in the next year or two?”
JW: I think this question is too hard for me to answer. I almost never “announce” anything, and features are developed publicly by the community. I think other people have a better idea than I do what will happen in the next year or two. 🙂 Ask Brion [Vibber].
WN: Celestianpower asks: “If you had not founded Wikipedia, and had just been referred to it by a friend, how active a contributor do you think you would be?”
JW: [I] dream fondly of such a scenario. I might actually get to edit articles then. Instead of spend the morning (this morning) documenting transactions and taking phone calls.
WN: OpenToppedBus asks: “The last fundraising drive was less successful than had been anticipated. Do you see a shortage of money holding back Wikipedia/Wikimedia in the short-to-medium-term, and are there any plans to bring in income from sources other than individual donations?”
JW: The last fundraising drive was more successful than had been anticipated, by a long shot. It was the most successful fund drive in our history. [Regarding a quoted goal of $500,000], Mav wrote something like that somewhere, in a scratchpad kind of way. That number was just a placeholder and had nothing to do with me or the official view of the foundation. He’s apologized repeatedly for it.
WN: Thryduulf asks: “What is your single greatest wish for Wikipedia?”
JW: I would have to just point back to our original goal: a freely licensed high quality encyclopedia for every single person on the planet. That’s what I remain focused on daily.
Daughter of Yuko Ikeda kidnapped to ransom in Tokyo; freed 13 hours laterTuesday, June 27, 2006
Ikeda Kanako, a 21-year-old senior student of the Meiji Gakuin University and the first daughter of celebrity surgeon Yuko Ikeda, was kidnapped at about 1225 (UTC+9), June 26, 2006, in Shibuya, Tokyo.
A bullet was fired and one officer slightly cut when police stormed a Kawasaki apartment to rescue the girl.
Kanako was dressed in a white light half-sleeved cardigan, blue jeans with a bistre belt made of leather, a spring green camisole and carried a bag of Vuitton when she was abducted at a bus stop.
She was found unharmed 13 hours later by Japanese police at a condominium located in Nakahara-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa. The young woman’s make-up was not disordered; Kanako’s long brown fringe was not disheveled at all and she was wearing what she had been when she was kidnapped.
The kidnapping of Kanako was a big story in Japanese media in June, 2006. The story appeared in many newspapers as the front-page news on June 27, 2006.
Kanako and her kidnappers had been in touch with her mother using Kanako’s mobile phone. The effort to free her was helped greatly by a woman who witnessed the moment Kanako was taken; she wrote down the license plate of the van and other details.
Police traced mobile phone calls and were able to locate the van in Kawasaki where they detained two of the kidnappers as they went shopping.
One conspirator Li Yong, 29, from China, led the policemen to the apartment and tricked Kaneo Ito, 49, from Japan, to open the door. Ito managed to discharge one bullet before being restrained by an assistant police inspector, the first man in the room.
The other man involved in the kidnap of Kanako was Choi Gi Ho, 54, from South Korea. Kanato was freed unharmed.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department arrested three men on suspicion of conspiring to kidnap a woman and hold her to a reported 300 million yen ransom.
Fires out at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage TerminalTuesday, December 13, 2005
After two days, the 2005 Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal fire has finally been extinguished.
The fires began after a series of explosions early on the morning of 11 December 2005. The terminal, known locally as the Buncefield Depot, is an oil storage facility located near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. These were some of the largest explosions ever to occur in the country and the incident has been described as the biggest of its kind in peacetime Europe.
The Hertfordshire Fire Service chief Roy Wilsher said: “There are still some small bund (concrete container) fires, but the tanks are out.”
Fire crews would remain at the scene over the next few days cooling the area to ensure fires did not break out again, he said.
A few residents are being allowed to return to their homes within an exclusion zone set up around the site.
Police shut down Edmonton pizza restaurant for illegally delivering alcoholSaturday, October 17, 2015
Edmonton police have closed down an Edmonton, Alberta, Canada pizza restaurant for a single day for delivering alcoholic beverages despite not being licensed to do so. It is unclear when this incident occurred, but the CBC reported that it occurred “recently”, after police searched the shop in September.
The alcohol was being delivered in paper bags and pizza boxes, with the same delivery vehicles used to deliver pizza. Curtis Hoople, a Sergeant in the Edmonton Police Service, says that alcohol was also being sold within the restaurant’s premises.
It is estimated that the seized alcohol was worth around CAD$4,000, Hoople said.
Four of the restaurant’s employees were issued a summons, and were accused of violating the Gaming and Liquor Act.
Police have not named the restaurant in question.