Larry Stevens is running for the Libertarian Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Kitchener-Conestoga riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his 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, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.
B2B Trade Area moved to 2nd floor this year. Image: Rico Shen.
B2B Trade Area of Taipei Game Show, criticized by trade buyers last year, but accompanied with 2008 Taiwan Digital Content Forum, moved to the second floor at Taipei World Trade Center for world-wide participants with a better exchange atmosphere this year.
Not only local OBMs (Softstar Entertainment, Soft-World International Corp., International Games System Corp., …, etc.) but also companies from New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea showcased different specialists with multiple styles. Especially on South Korea, participated members from G? Trade Show (Game Show & Trade, All-Round, aka Gstar) showcased gaming industry of South Korea and the G? upcoming at this November with brochures.
Local participants showcased their excellences on brochures and posters. Image: Rico Shen.
In the 2-days Digital Content Forum, world-class experts not only shared industry experiences, members from Taiwan Gaming Industry Association also discussed and forecasted marketing models for gaming industry. With participations from governmental, industrial, and academical executives world-wide, this forum helps them gained precious experiences of digital content industry from several countries.
According to the Taipei Computer Association, the show and forum organizer, the digital content industry in Taiwan was apparently grown up recent years as Minister of Economic Affairs of the Republic of China Steve Ruey-long Chen said at Opening Ceremony yesterday. Without R&Ds from cyber-gaming, and basic conceptions from policies and copyright issues, this (digital content) industry will be fallen down in Taiwan. If this industry wanted to be grown up in sustainability, gaming OBMs in Taiwan should independently produce different and unique games and change market style to market brands and games to the world.
Ian Narev, the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, this morning “unreservedly” apologised to clients who lost money in a scandal involving the bank’s financial planning services arm.
Last week, a Senate enquiry found financial advisers from the Commonwealth Bank had made high-risk investments of clients’ money without the clients’ permission, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars lost. The Senate enquiry called for a Royal Commission into the bank, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
Mr Narev stated the bank’s performance in providing financial advice was “unacceptable”, and the bank was launching a scheme to compensate clients who lost money due to the planners’ actions.
In a statement Mr Narev said, “Poor advice provided by some of our advisers between 2003 and 2012 caused financial loss and distress and I am truly sorry for that. […] There have been changes in management, structure and culture. We have also invested in new systems, implemented new processes, enhanced adviser supervision and improved training.”
An investigation by Fairfax Media instigated the Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning division and ASIC.
Whistleblower Jeff Morris, who reported the misconduct of the bank to ASIC six years ago, said in an article for The Sydney Morning Herald that neither the bank nor ASIC should be in control of the compensation program.
Queensland voters will go to the polls on March 24.
The 2012 Queensland election has been officially set as Premier Anna Bligh advised Governor Penelope Wensley to issue the writs — the formal announcement of the election.
“Absolutely looking forward to it, the 24th of March,” Ms Bligh told reporters, referring to the date of the election.
To lose the ability to govern in its own right, the currently governing Australian Labor Party (ALP) would need to lose sevens seats in Queensland’s unicameral legislature.
Australian Labor Party — 51Liberal National Party — 31Independents — 5Katter’s Australian Party — 2
Total seats — 89
The ALP, of which Ms Bligh is leader, holds 51 seats.The opposition Liberal National Party (LNP), being lead in this campaign by the yet-to-be-elected Cambell Newman, currently holds 31 seats. Two seats are now held by the Katter’s Australian Party (KAP).Five independents make up the 89 Members of Parliament.
The KAP does not plan to direct preference to the major parties, but to consider for individual seats amongst independents and minor parties. “We will look at the merits or otherwise of their policy positions and what they believe in,” said Aidan McLindon.
While the Greens haven’t announced any preference directions, they point out that it is up to the voter how to direct preferences. “If I’m unsuccessful [in being elected in Mt Coot-tha], their vote flows at full value to their second preference,” Greens candidate Adam Stone said.
Cambell Newman, LNP leader and Ashgrove seat candidate Image: U.S. Navy.
Anna Bligh, ALP leader and current premier Image: Flickr user ‘djackmanson’.
Aidan McLindon, Katter’s Australian Party leader in the Queensland parliament Image: Bernard Gaynor.
Adam Stone (right), lead candidate for the Greens. Here with party members Video: Patrick Gillett.
The selection of March 24th as the election date drew criticism because it ultimately forced the rescheduling of local government elections — originally scheduled for March 31.
“Why are 73 local government elections around Queensland being pushed back? That adds more months of uncertainty when she has had a year to separate out the two elections,” said Leader of the Liberal National Party, Campbell Newman. Newman will have to win the seat of Ashgrove if he is to become premier.
Local government elections are now scheduled for late April.
This mosaic was created from two high-resolution images that were captured by the narrow-angle camera when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft flew past Enceladus and through the jets on Nov. 21, 2009. Image: NASA/JPL/SSI.
NASA’s Cassini–Huygens spacecraft has discovered evidence for a large-scale saltwater reservoir beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The data came from the spacecraft’s direct analysis of salt-rich ice grains close to the jets ejected from the moon. The study has been published in this week’s edition of the journal Nature.
Data from Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer show the grains expelled from fissures, known as tiger stripes, are relatively small and usually low in salt far away from the moon. Closer to the moon’s surface, Cassini found that relatively large grains rich with sodium and potassium dominate the plumes. The salt-rich particles have an “ocean-like” composition and indicate that most, if not all, of the expelled ice and water vapor comes from the evaporation of liquid salt-water. When water freezes, the salt is squeezed out, leaving pure water ice behind.
Cassini’s ultraviolet imaging spectrograph also recently obtained complementary results that support the presence of a subsurface ocean. A team of Cassini researchers led by Candice Hansen of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, measured gas shooting out of distinct jets originating in the moon’s south polar region at five to eight times the speed of sound, several times faster than previously measured. These observations of distinct jets, from a 2010 flyby, are consistent with results showing a difference in composition of ice grains close to the moon’s surface and those that made it out to the E ring, the outermost ring that gets its material primarily from Enceladean jets. If the plumes emanated from ice, they should have very little salt in them.
“There currently is no plausible way to produce a steady outflow of salt-rich grains from solid ice across all the tiger stripes other than salt water under Enceladus’s icy surface,” said Frank Postberg, a Cassini team scientist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
The data suggests a layer of water between the moon’s rocky core and its icy mantle, possibly as deep as about 50 miles (80 kilometers) beneath the surface. As this water washes against the rocks, it dissolves salt compounds and rises through fractures in the overlying ice to form reserves nearer the surface. If the outermost layer cracks open, the decrease in pressure from these reserves to space causes a plume to shoot out. Roughly 400 pounds (200 kilograms) of water vapor is lost every second in the plumes, with smaller amounts being lost as ice grains. The team calculates the water reserves must have large evaporating surfaces, or they would freeze easily and stop the plumes.
“We imagine that between the ice and the ice core there is an ocean of depth and this is somehow connected to the surface reservoir,” added Postberg.
The Cassini mission discovered Enceladus’ water-vapor and ice jets in 2005. In 2009, scientists working with the cosmic dust analyzer examined some sodium salts found in ice grains of Saturn’s E ring but the link to subsurface salt water was not definitive. The new paper analyzes three Enceladus flybys in 2008 and 2009 with the same instrument, focusing on the composition of freshly ejected plume grains. In 2008, Cassini discovered a high “density of volatile gases, water vapor, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, as well as organic materials, some 20 times denser than expected” in geysers erupting from the moon. The icy particles hit the detector target at speeds between 15,000 and 39,000 MPH (23,000 and 63,000 KPH), vaporizing instantly. Electrical fields inside the cosmic dust analyzer separated the various constituents of the impact cloud.
“Enceladus has got warmth, water and organic chemicals, some of the essential building blocks needed for life,” said Dennis Matson in 2008, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
“This finding is a crucial new piece of evidence showing that environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life can be sustained on icy bodies orbiting gas giant planets,” said Nicolas Altobelli, the European Space Agency’s project scientist for Cassini.
“If there is water in such an unexpected place, it leaves possibility for the rest of the universe,” said Postberg.
Modbury Hospital, where the first case in South Australia’s COVID-19 cluster presented.Image: User:AussieHero.
With five active cases of the Delta variant of COVID-19, South Australia begun a one-week lockdown on Monday. Announcing the lockdown, state Premier Steven Marshall declared “we have no alternative but to impose some fairly heavy and immediate restrictions”.
The first case out of South Australia’s active cases was presented to Modbury Hospital on Sunday night, having returned from Argentina earlier this month. The fifth, which Premier Marshall noted as “far more worrying”, visited The Greek on Halifax restaurant at the same time as someone who was later confirmed to be carrying the virus. Chief Public Health Officer for the state Nicola Spurrier said “if anyone has been at The Greek on Halifax they need to get into quarantine and get tested”.
In accordance with new regulations, there are only five reasons for South Australians to leave home: essential work, shopping for essential goods such as food, exercise, but only with people from the same household and within 2.5 kilometers (2 mi) of home, medical reasons (which includes testing and vaccination against the coronavirus, but excludes elective and cosmetic surgery), and caregiving.
Schools have closed for all but children of essential workers, with online learning having begun on Thursday. Face masks are also be mandated for those who leave home. ABC News reported that “support for businesses is expected to be announced…”, with all non-essential retail required to close under the new regulations.
Wikinews interviewed author Amy Scobee about her book Scientology – Abuse at the Top, and asked her about her experiences working as an executive within the organization. Scobee joined the organization at age 14, and worked at Scientology’s international management headquarters for several years before leaving in 2005. She served as a Scientology executive in multiple high-ranking positions, working out of the international headquarters of Scientology known as “Gold Base”, located in Gilman Hot Springs near Hemet, California.
Syria has rejected a proposed United Nations resolution, backed by both the United States and France, for a cease fire in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.
Syria’s foreign minister has said that the resolution is a “a recipe for the continuation of the war,” and “adopted Israel’s point of view only.”
Syria has also warned that their armed forces are under orders to respond immediately if Israel attacks. Syria’s foreign minister said that “If Israel attacks Syria by any means, on the ground, by air, our leadership ordered the armed forces to reply immediately,” and that “Syria is ready for the possibility of a regional war if the Israeli aggression continues.”
Sunday, August 26, 2007Miami Dade Fire Rescue, Urban Search and Rescue Florida Task Force 1 Members were on the scene since last night. Search dogs worked the scene all night.
According to current reports, sometime early this morning, an apartment building in Brittons Hill, Barbados fell into a cave below.
Five family members are known to be trapped in the collapse, although reports have not be made as to whether these are the only individuals involved. Rescue workers, as well as several prominent politicians are currently on the scene; two cranes have been deployed to remove debris. Evacuation has occurred, with an extension of this area being discussed.
Miami Dade Police arrived on the scene late Sunday night and are now in a joint effort with the Barbados Defence Force, Barbados Fire Service and Royal Barbados Police Force to rescue possible survivors. Prime Minister Owen Arthur also stated that surveys are currently being conducted to determine the stability of the surrounding area, and only after these reports have been compiled will residents know whether they will be able to return to their homes.
A cadaver dog was sent into the cavern and has identified two areas where there are possible dead bodies. Sadly it is no longer a rescue mission but recovery one.