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Thursday, April 1, 2010

US President Barack Obama has announced that he will ease the country’s ban on offshore oil drilling, which has been in place since the 1980s.

According to the plan, offshore drilling would now be allowed in parts of the Atlantic, from Delaware down to 125 miles beyond the shoreline of Florida, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

The move, however, does have some restrictions; drilling further northeast or along the West Coast is still prohibited. Contracts in Bristol Bay, Alaska were also suggested, but were scrapped due to environmental concerns.

The president remarked that he decided the move was needed to lessen the country’s need for additional energy, adding that he had studied the issue for over a year. “This is not a decision that I’ve made lightly,” he said.

“We’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources,” Obama continued, speaking at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. “My administration will consider potential new areas for development in the mid and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Drilling alone can’t come close to meeting our long-term energy needs, and for the sake of our planet and our energy independence, we need to begin the transition to cleaner fuels now. I know that we can come together to pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation that’s going to foster new energy — new industries, create millions of new jobs, protect our planet, and help us become more energy independent.”

Obama said that the plan was partially intended to garner support from Republicans in Congress for a climate-change bill to lower greenhouse gas emissions, which has been languishing for months due to lack of support from Republicans.

Some environmental groups, however, condemned Obama’s move. Phil Radford, who is with the Greenpeace group, said that “[e]xpanding offshore drilling in areas that have been protected for decades threatens our oceans and the coastal communities that depend on them with devastating oil spills, more pollution and climate change.” Greenpeace also said that lifting the ban fuelled the US’ “addiction to oil”.

Republican leader for the House of Representatives John Boehner, meanwhile, said he agreed with lifting the ban in the Atlantic, but remarked that it “makes no sense” not to have lifted it in other areas as well. “Opening up areas off the Virginia coast to offshore production is a positive step, but keeping much of the Pacific Coast and Alaska, as well as the most promising resources off the Gulf of Mexico, under lock and key makes no sense at a time when gasoline prices are rising and Americans are asking ‘Where are the jobs?'”, he said.

“Today’s announcement is a step in the right direction, but a small one that leaves enormous amounts of American energy off limits,” said the Senate Minority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell.

According to the US Minerals Management Service, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and parts of the Atlantic south and east of the continent could contain up to 5.8 billion barrels of oil and 40.5 trillion cubic feet of gas. The West Coast, meanwhile, which remains off limits for drilling, contains 10.5 billion barrels of oil with 18 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Friday, June 29, 2007

The anonymous individual responsible for suggesting, 14 hours before police discovered the body, that WWE wrestler Chris Benoit’s wife was dead is saying his/her comment was a “terrible coincidence.”

In a post made at 12:26 AM EDT Friday morning to the talk page of a Wikinews article headlined as the “Death of Nancy Benoit rumour posted on Wikipedia hours prior to body being found”, the user admitted to writing that Nancy Benoit was dead at the Wikipedia article page for Benoit came from information that was garnered from “rumors and speculation online.”

The IP Address of the individual making the apology was identical to that of the one who posted the Nancy Benoit rumor, a strong confirmation of the admission’s authenticity. The lengthy apology was not signed, with the individual claiming, “I am just an everyday individual who posted a wrongful remark at the time that received so much attention because it turned out to actually happen.”

Wikinews originally broke the story about the suspicious edit after receiving a tip from Wikipedia administrators. The fact the edit originated from a computer in Stamford, Connecticut (the site of WWE headquarters) appears to be another coincidence.

The anonymous editor left a lengthy apology to the Wikimedia community, explaining, “I hope this puts an end to this speculation that someone knew about the tragedy before it was discovered.”

Wikinews is continuing to follow the story, but the anonymous user has declined an interview.

Below is the full, unedited apology:

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell announced Tuesday morning that a deal had been struck between state and local officials and the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey franchise. The Penguins organization will formally announce the deal tonight, prior to the Penguins game against the Buffalo Sabres at the Mellon Arena. The deal will ensure that the Penguins will remain in the city with a 30 year lease on a new arena to be built in downtown Pittsburgh. The framework of the deal was constructed in an emergency meeting last Thursday in Philadelphia, when both government and franchise officials indicated that progress had been made, with the details laid out over the weekend. With the new deal, the Penguins organization would be expected to pay $3.8 million per year, as well as $7.5 million per year from both Don Barden, owner of Majestic Star Casino, and the state economic development fund. The Penguins organization has also been given the option of building a parking garage on property of the Pittsburgh Sports Authority between Centre and Fifth avenues, by contributing $500,000 per year.

The new arena is expected to cost approximately $290 million, and should be completed and ready to host hockey games by 2009. The Penguins will sign a temporary lease to keep the team at Mellon Arena until the new building is finished.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Santa Clara, CALIFORNIA — Computer vendor Sun Microsystems released on Tuesday the first offerings of its OpenSolaris operating system code for free, under a license which allows anyone to use or work on the code and distribute the changes they make..

The full operating system is expected to be released for download sometime in the second quarter of 2005. Following along with the system source code are 1,670 patents Sun will make available for use by open-source developers. Sun hopes to leverage greater innovation in software from the open source community, in return for allowing the code to be used without charge.

“This is not an EOL (end of life) release. It’s a supercharged, turbocharged rocket launching,” Sun CEO Scott McNealy said. “No one else has done what we have just done.”

The move follows a recent move by IBM to grant use of 500 patents freely to open source software developers. Open source developers had been becoming concerned that bureaucracy and legal issues associated with software patents could be damaging to their livelihoods and to innovation. The moves by Sun and IBM seem intended to placate this growing fear.

Dynamic Trace, or DTrace is the first OpenSolaris component to be released. DTrace is a performance-analysis tool that tells developers how to optimize their applications for maximum performance.

The code is to be released under Sun’s own licensing scheme, the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) Version 1.0. This license has been approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI).

Sun’s license is based on the Mozilla Public License. The Free Software Foundation has stated on its website that Sun’s license, while free, is not compatible with the GNU Public License (GPL) used for the popular open source Linux operating system. This does not mean that Linux software and OpenSolaris software cannot be used together, but limits the extent of integration which may be achieved.

Sun had previously allowed free use of the operating system Solaris by some users, for example students. This move greatly extends the range of free uses permitted, and allows users to read and modify the source code without charge or non-disclosure agreement.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

A Canadian man was arrested in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand Friday and is facing charges of sexual abuse of a child under 15 and illegal detention. He is also suspected of posting about 200 online images of child abuse on the Internet.

According to the BBC, Thai authorities are ordering Neal to stay in custody for 12 days for questioning before the official trial starts. Under Thai law he can be held for up to 84 days before trial.

Thirty-two-year old Christopher Paul Neil, from Maple Ridge, British Columbia, could face up to 20 years in jail if convicted.

Neal was working in South Korea as an English teacher. He has been working in Vietnam, South Korea, Cambodia, and Thailand since 2000. Neal was recorded on a security camera at Bangkok airport on October 11.

Thai courts have ruled that he will be charged in Thailand. For now it is up to the Canadian and Thailand authorities to discuss.

“But if something took place here, we would want to have the person held accountable here, but that is very premature and it may even be speculative at this stage,” said Wally Oppal, attorney general of British Columbia (B.C.). Neal could be charged in Canada because of a law which allows paedophiles to be charged in Canada even if they didn’t do the crimes in Canada.

The RCMP are investigating to see if Neal has committed any crimes in B.C., which could mean charges will also be laid in Canada.

Interpol, just last week, issued a public search for Neal. A 15-year-old, who was one of Neal’s victims, alerted authorities of the man. On Thursday Thai courts issued an arrest warrant. Authorities had been able to unscramble the face of a man in the 200 online photos, which had been digitally scrambled. The unscrambled images were used to identify the suspect.

Phyakrut News Agency reported that Neil’s feet were trampled on by reporters until they bled. It was also noted that the picture of the man issued by Interpol had a very hairy chest whereas the suspect arrested had a quite hairless chest, the faces also looked remarkably different raising the question as to whether the real “Mr Swirly Lollipop” has in fact been caught. Police Major General Wimon Powintara stated however that Neil is now wanted for having sex with boys and girls and that one victim identified him as the one that lured him from an Internet cafe to play video games in his apartment where he was orally raped before being given 200 Thai Baht compensation (US$6).

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Shona Bracken is running for the Communist Party in the Ontario provincial election in Toronto—Danforth. Wikinews interviewed her regarding her values, her experience, and her campaign.