Author: Admin

Sunday, March 23, 2008 Copies of The Profit, a 2001 film blocked from distribution in the United States due to a court injunction won by the Church of Scientology, appeared on the Internet Friday on peer-to-peer file-sharing websites and on the video sharing site YouTube. Directed by former film executive Peter N. Alexander, the movie has been characterized by critics as a parody of Scientology and of its founder L. Ron Hubbard. Alexander was a Scientologist for twenty years, and left the organization in 1997. The film was funded by…

Saturday, July 7, 2007 At least 38 new cases of the H5N1 strain of bird flu have been found in wild birds in eastern Germany today. These discoveries, in conjunction with the fifth outbreak in France in 17 months, have prompted both countries to raise the bird flu risk assessment level. German scientists discovered the outbreak after receiving 38 confirmed cases, all of which came from the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. In France, three swans have been found dead in an Assenoncourt pond sparking a massive response from…

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 A federal court in New York, New York ruled Monday that American financier Bernard Madoff can remain free on a US$10 million bond. Madoff faces charges of securities fraud in case that may reveal losses as large as US$50 billion. He was originally arrested on December 11, 2008. Federal prosecutors had argued that Madoff had violated terms of his bail by mailing valuables to relatives from his Manhattan apartment, where he is under house arrest. Judge Ronald L. Ellis ruled that, “The government fails to provide…

Tuesday, July 27, 2010 Chris Christie, governor of the US state of New Jersey, complained on ABC’s Sunday morning talk show This Week that TV series Jersey Shore promotes a negative image of the state. Prompted by a feature in The New York Times on Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, one of the stars of the MTV show, interviewer Jake Tapper asked the governor whether he thought the series was positive or negative for the state. Christie unequivocally answered that the show was “negative for New Jersey… It takes a bunch of…

Thursday, September 13, 2007 Having worked as an aide, advisor, and Executive Assistant to municipal and provincial politicians, Sheila White is running for the Ontario New Democratic Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Scarborough-Rouge River riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed her regarding her values, her experience, and her campaign. Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian,…

Thursday, August 16, 2007 The name Robert Cailliau may not ring a bell to the general public, but his invention is the reason why you are reading this: Dr. Cailliau together with his colleague Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, making the internet accessible so it could grow from an academic tool to a mass communication medium. Last January Dr. Cailliau retired from CERN, the European particle physics lab where the WWW emerged. Wikinews offered the engineer a virtual beer from his native country Belgium, and conducted an…

Saturday, May 3, 2008 The Olympic torch has returned to Chinese soil. More than 1 million Hong Kong residents and visitors ignored light showers on Friday to greet and cheer the Olympic torch relay. Hong Kong is the first Chinese destination to welcome the Olympic flame after its month-long journey across the world, spanning 19 cities. It was the Hong Kong’s first Olympic torch relay since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The eight-hour torch run included carrying the flame aboard a dragon boat across the Shing Mun River, and on horseback…