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Sunday, June 15, 2014

Japanese officials announced on Friday the country’s annual whaling expedition to the north-west Pacific Ocean has captured and killed 30 minke whales. This comes after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) banned Japan from continuing its Antarctic scientific whale hunting programmes in March this year.

The Australian and New Zealand governments had brought the Antarctic whaling issue to the attention of the ICJ earlier this year. The JARPA II whaling programme had been officially classified as scientific research, however when the programme had been investigated at the ICJ, the court decided there wasn’t enough science involved to justify it. They ordered Japan to stop whaling in the Antarctic, but this ruling only mentioned JARPA II — not the annual Pacific whaling hunts.

This has allowed whaling to continue in the north-west Pacific Ocean. Even after the court had ordered the termination of JARPA II, sixty per cent of Japanese citizens still believed scientific whaling should go on, as measured in a poll conducted by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper in April 2014.

This sentiment was echoed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who recently stated he intended “the resumption of commercial whaling by conducting whaling research in order to obtain scientific data indispensable for the management of whale resources.”

The International Fund for Animal Welfare says up to 200 minke whales can be hunted during the North Pacific expedition. Japan has maintained scientific whaling programmes intend to understand the global whale populations, with the research programmes aiming to prove the global whale population is sustainable, allowing commercial whale hunting to resume.

Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries had also planned to petition the International Whaling Commission next year with a new Antarctic whaling proposal.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

2008 Computex Taipei (a.k.a Taipei International Information Technology Show), the second largest IT show in the world, will start on June 3 to 7 at the TWTC Hall 1 & 3, Taipei International Convention Center (TICC), and TWTC Nangang, in conjunction with 2008 WiMAX Expo Taipei, which will start earlier at the Taipei Show Hall 2. With two IT-related industry shows will be concurrently showcased in different venues, it will bring on many convergences and opportunities for networking and mobile-related industries worldwide including Taiwan.

Since the Taipei Computer Association, Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), and Industrial Technology Research Institute preliminary imported the “WiMAX Forum Showcase & Conference” into the TICC, WiMAX-related topics were mostly focused by several worldwide media and industrial elites. In extremity, some technologies and solutions like eSNG, wireless medical care, wireless transmission, and mobile entertainment were showcased there. And the MOEA also signed MOUs with 5 world-class WiMAX companies to help the networking industry last year in Taiwan.

Even though the signing of MOUs and new technologies will bring opportunities for WiMAX-related industries, and the mobile devices will be progressively popular in the future and more slim like an UMPC, but some companies from information security industry were worried about the future trend because of invisible threats on the Internet.

As of “Asia-pacific IT Security Forum” and “IT Security Pavilion” of SecuTech Expo 2008, there were several changes on participation from IT industry, but due to a major impact of “Edison Chen’s photo scandal“, several crisis were exposed with improper habits on modern people when using the Internet.

It’s a real deal that the WiMAX will bring different kind profits and benefits for different industries, but before the WiMAX became the trend, if Internet users didn’t cultivate proper habits on using the Internet, the WiMAX will still bring on threats for end-users and industries.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

On Monday, South Korea’s TOP Media entertainment management company announced Seo Minwoo, lead singer of K-pop band 100%, had died at his home in South Korean capital Seoul on Sunday; reportedly, in the evening, local time. In the official statement, the agency said, “The deceased was found to have a cardiac arrest in his home in Gangnam, Seoul. 119 [helpline number] paramedics were dispatched, but he was found to have died.” ^{((ko))Korean language: ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ??? ?? 119???? ?????? ????? ?????.}

Seo was 33 years old. He made his acting debut more than a decade ago, in 2006. He appeared in Korean television series Sharp 3. A year later, Seo appeared in The King and I. In 2012, Seo took up singing, and became the lead singer of 100%.

In 2014, Seo rendered compulsory military service. He featured in another television drama in 2016 called Twenty thousand won to Pyongyang.

“The funeral will be held quietly according to the will of the family” ^{((ko))Korean language: ???? ???? ?? ?? ??? ?? ?????}, TOP media’s announcement read. The boy band had concerts scheduled for April 21 and April 30 in Japan.

A compilation of brief news reports for Friday, May 15, 2009.

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed budget cuts and layoffs for California yesterday.

Californian education budgets would be cut by $3 billion USD for the next five years if California voters gave a yes votes to the budget-related measures for May 19’s special election.

Schwarzenegger is also ready to sell state properties including the San Quentin State Prison and the Los Angeles Coliseum to raise money for the state.

Sources

• Associated Press. “Schwarzenegger Proposes Layoffs, Deep Budget Cuts” — FOXNews.com, 14 May 2009
• Christie, Jim. “California governor sees $15.4 billion gap, urges deep cuts” — Reuters, 14 May 2009

Nintendo DS sales hit one million units last April. However, even with Nintendo’s moderate success with their DS gaming system, all video game sales have declined 17%.

GameSpot writer Tor Thorsen claims that Nintendo DSi, the current release of the Nintendo DS, is an acronym for “Dominating Sales in America.”

Sources

• Thorsen, Tor. “NPD: US April sales slide 17%, DS tops 1 million” — GameSpot, 14 May 2009
• “UPDATE 1-U.S. video game sales down 17 pct in April-NPD” — Reuters, 14 May 2009

Eight-time gold medalist Michael Phelps, in a recent conference Thursday, told reporters he will enter a swimming competition today.

This is Phelps’ first swim meet since he was photographed with a marijuana pipe in his mouth.

Phelps will swim the 200-meter freestyle and 100-meter butterfly races.

After the marijuana pipe photo was released, Phelps was unsure of whether he would swim again.

Sources

• Crouse, Karen. “Phelps Has Company on Comeback Trail in Charlotte” — The New York Times, 14 May 2009
• Newberry, Paul. “Phelps ready for 1st race since Beijing” — Associated Press, 14 May 2009

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Around 9:00 a.m. local time (0800 UTC) today, an explosion occurred at Barajas International Airport, in Madrid, Spain.

A car bomb exploded in the Level-D Parking Garage of the recently completed Terminal 4. A Spanish official declared that the police first received a telephone call warning them about the bomb, and then a second call with the type of vehicle. The second caller claimed the attack for the Basque nationalist group ETA. Thanks to the telephone call, the police could evacuate most of the area. One man is reported missing after the explosion, and 26 people including two police officers were reported to be injured in the blast. The terminal sustained serious damage, and the situation in the airport became chaotic on one of the busiest days of the year.

Arnaldo Otegi, spokesman of ETA’s political wing Batasuna, did not condemn the attack, but said the peace talks are not interrupted by the explosion. The Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba condemned the attack, saying that it “breaks nine months without violence on the part of ETA, which breaks the permanent ceasefire.” Only in June, the Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced peace talks with ETA. But tonight, Zapatero ordered the suspension of all dialogue, because “with violence, there can be no kind of dialogue.”

Thursday, November 8, 2007

What you are about to read is an American life as lived by renowned author Edmund White. His life has been a crossroads, the fulcrum of high-brow Classicism and low-brow Brett Easton Ellisism. It is not for the faint. He has been the toast of the literary elite in New York, London and Paris, befriending artistic luminaries such as Salman Rushdie and Sir Ian McKellen while writing about a family where he was jealous his sister was having sex with his father as he fought off his mother’s amorous pursuit.

The fact is, Edmund White exists. His life exists. To the casual reader, they may find it disquieting that someone like his father existed in 1950’s America and that White’s work is the progeny of his intimate effort to understand his own experience.

Wikinews reporter David Shankbone understood that an interview with Edmund White, who is professor of creative writing at Princeton University, who wrote the seminal biography of Jean Genet, and who no longer can keep track of how many sex partners he has encountered, meant nothing would be off limits. Nothing was. Late in the interview they were joined by his partner Michael Caroll, who discussed White’s enduring feud with influential writer and activist Larry Kramer.

Saturday, April 23, 2005

The president of Romania, Traian B?sescu, said on Friday that his country will do everything possible in order to free the three Romanian journalists kidnapped in Iraq a few weeks ago, after Islamic militants released a video threatening to kill them.

Al-Jazeera reported a few days earlier that the Iraqi militants would kill the journalists unless the Romanian government withdraws its troops from the country within four days. With 850 troops, Romania has one of the largest contingents in Iraq. In January this year, after President B?sescu was elected, he pledged to send more peacekeeping troops in Iraq.

On Friday evening, the colleagues and relatives of the journalists gathered in front of the Cotroceni Palace, B?sescu’s residence, to call for their release. After learning of the released tape, B?sescu returned from the GUUAM summit in Chi?in?u, Republic of Moldova, where he was an observer, to Bucharest, where he called for a meeting with the relevant departments to discuss the issue.

The families of the journalists were also invited to Cotroceni, and sympathy was expressed for them. The President told them that, “The state institutions are doing everything we can [to save the three journalists].”

Reporter Marie-Jeanne Ion, from Prima TV, and cameraman Sorin Dumitru Miscoci and reporter Ovidiu Ohanesian, from newspaper România Liber?, were kidnapped in Baghdad on March 28, one day after President B?sescu made an unexpected visit to Iraq to announce a supplement of troops.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Police have bailed the driver of a coach which crashed on Tuesday in Cornwall, England, killing two people.

The driver was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving following fatal injury of two elderly women when the coach reportedly hit a wall. A further seven passengers, seriously injured in the crash, were hospitalised.

Devon and Cornwall Police reported being alerted to the incident, about three miles (five kilometres) from the town of Looe, at approximately 1:00pm local time (1200 UTC) on Tuesday. The force arrested the 57-year-old male coach driver from Exeter on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. He has been released on bail.

The cause of the crash is not yet known although police say they are investigating the incident, in which no vehicle other than the coach was involved. The passengers were travelling on a coach trip from Exmouth to Looe with Age UK.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Twenty-four cars of a west-bound Canada Pacific train were thrown from the tracks after the train collided with a semi tractor-trailer in poor weather and visibility near Regina, Saskatchewan around 11 a.m. Tuesday morning. The driver was rushed to hospital.

The accident took place on a level section of Highway 46 just north of Highway 1, about 25 kilometres east of Regina. The RCMP spokesperson reported the crossing is marked with lights, but weather may have played a role.

“Road conditions were wet and sloppy and it’s foggy,” RCMP Cpl. Brian Jones said to the CBC. The bad weather, including a heavy overnight snowfall, may have contributed to the accident.

Most of the 93 cars in the train were empty bulk transit cars, used for moving agricultural products such as grains. The RCMP report that neither train or truck were transporting any hazardous materials.