Monday, July 31, 2006

Tents began sprouting in Mexico’s capital Sunday afternoon after leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador called on his supporters to set up camp on the capital until a recount is ordered by the Federal Electoral Tribunal.

The encampments are to be placed along a 4.6-mile stretch of the city. As of now, the number of people in the camps is unknown but the encampments themselves are expected to block most of the streets in the city, an expectation made much more believable by the fact that in Sunday, only hours after Obrador’s message, one of the capital’s major avenues was blocked for miles. This was only the latest action in a series of protests after the controversial elections that took place in July 2, when Felipe Calderón beat López Obrador, the candidate considered most popular, by less than a percentage point. López Obrador stated he will only back down if the recount is made and a winner is re-chosen, subsequently the protests are not expected to stop until the Federal Electoral Tribunal makes a decision upon the disputed election.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

What would you tell your grandchildren about 2008 if they asked you about it in, let’s say, 20 years’ time? If the answer to a quiz question was 2008, what would the question be? The year that markets collapsed, or perhaps the year that Obama became US president? Or the year Heath Ledger died?

Let’s take a look at some of the important stories of 2008. Links to the original Wikinews articles are in all the titles.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a drug-resistant strain of bacteria, killed nearly 19,000 Americans in 2005 alone, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That is more people than were killed by AIDS in the United States. More than 94,000 Americans were afflicted with MRSA infections in 2005.

Although the supergerm, or superbug, is primarily found in hospitals, a growing number of cases have been contracted at public gyms and schools. In Moneta, Virginia, a high school senior died from an infection that spread to his kidney, liver, lungs and heart. In Bedford County, where Moneta is located, school officials have reported five cases of the Methicillin-resistant strain of the Staph bacteria. County officials closed the schools to clean them.

“Certainly, MRSA now has to be viewed as a very important target for prevention and control,” said Dr. David A. Talan, an infectious diseases specialist at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center.

Friday, February 28, 2014

In statements to the press on Monday and Tuesday, Dr. Salem Salama, a member of the Hamas Palestinian Legislative Council’s economic committee, said signs of a natural gas deposit were found off the coast of the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Salama said the gas field had been found by Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip, who noticed bubbling in the water which they first assumed was from fish or plants moving underwater. He added, samples from the site had been taken by navy personnel to the Islamic University, where they were verified. In a statement to AFP he said “preliminary tests carried out by experts from the Islamic University suggest that there is a natural gas field near the coast”.

In an interview to the Gazan radio station Sout Al-Aqsa, Salama said the gas deposit lies only 200 to 300 meters from the central coast of the Gaza Strip, which would “facilitate the work of any company that might invest in this field. The return will be great for the Gaza Strip, in economic terms”.

Deputy Hamas Prime Minister Mr. Ziad Al-Zaza calmed down the excitement regarding the issue in a comment to AFP. “[W]e need to conduct further studies to confirm that there is any gas”, he said. “This requires probing by specialist companies because we don’t have the adequate laboratories and experts here”.

The Gaza Strip, which has been governed by Hamas since 2007, is now experiencing the most severe energy crisis in its history. Following the lack of fuels, the residents of the Gaza Strip sometimes need to manage with only 12 hours of electricity a day. This evidence of natural gas fields may offer a resolution to the crisis.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

An American inventor has patented a pair of new time formats with a footprint less than 50% of that of conventional four-digit time. The more unusual of the two new formats, called “TWELV”, dispenses with numerals altogether. In place of clock hands or digits, the new clock uses color to convey the hour and a moon image to convey the minute, which moon slowly grows throughout the course of an hour from a narrow crescent to a full-fledged circle.

The second and more approachable of the new formats retains numerical digits to indicate the minute but uses colors to convey the hour.

Early critics question whether the aesthetic benefits of the moon-clock will be sufficient to encourage users to learn the color-based time-telling system. However, the size advantages of the new system may make it particularly suitable for mobile applications, particularly cell phones, wearable computers, and head-mounted displays.

Sunday, June 23, 2019

On Friday, thousands of Hong Kong protesters wearing black clothes, face masks, and helmets gathered around Hong Kong’s principal police complex, blocking the exits as they chanted slogans and threw eggs. This comes after weeks of protests against a proposed change to Hong Kong’s extradition law that would allow the Chinese government to remove people who had been accused of crimes from Hong Kong to the mainland.

The protest began outside the Legislative Council Complex but later moved a few blocks to the Hong Kong Police Headquarters, with some protesters heading for Revenue Tower instead.

The bill in question would allow people living in or visiting Hong Kong, including fugitives, to be removed to mainland China and subjected to its legal system, which the BBC describes as “marred by allegations of torture, forced confessions and arbitrary detentions.”

The bill was suspended after last week’s protests, one of which drew two million people. Hong Kong student groups had given the government until Thursday to throw it out entirely, but this deadline was not met.

Protesters’ demands include investigation of alleged police violence against protesters on June 12, the release and dropping of charges against protesters who were arrested, that the government cease referring to the protests as “riots,” and complete dismissal of the extradition bill. They had asked Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who is supported by the mainland Chinese government, to resign from her position, but this has been dropped from the list of demands. Legal and religious groups have also called for the bill to be dropped.

The British relinquished control of Hong Kong to China in 1997. Since then, the territory has been governed under the “one country, two systems” model, meaning the Chinese government has allowed Hong Kong citizens more freedom than people in the rest of the country. Specifically, Hong Kong has its own legislature, justice system and remains under a capitalist economic system.