Thursday, May 13, 2010

Wikinews reporter Iain Macdonald has performed an interview with Dr Isabella Margara, a London-based member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). In the interview Margara sets out the communist response to current events in Greece as well as discussing the viability of a communist economy for the nation. She also hit back at Petros Tzomakas, a member of another Greek far-left party which criticised KKE in a previous interview.

The interview comes amid tensions in cash-strapped Greece, where the government is introducing controversial austerity measures to try to ease the nation’s debt-problem. An international rescue package has been prepared by European Union member states and the International Monetary Fund – should Greece require a bailout; protests have been held against government attempts to manage the economic situation.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

San Fernando, Chile — Ten students from the Liceo María Luisa Bombal of Rancagua, O’Higgins Region were detained by the local police yesterday. Following their release, the students told the media they were required to remove their clothes at the police station.

The students, seven men and three women, took control of the building of the school early yesterday morning in response to the long delay in re-construction of the liceo, following the earthquake of 2010. At around 08:00 local time (1200 UTC), Leonardo Fuentes, general secretary of the Municipal Educational Corporation of Rancagua, authorized the police to clear out the students.

Student leader Jennifer Olivares told Diario VI Región the police “stripped off [their] clothes” ^{((es))Spanish language: ?Al llegar a la comisaría nos desnudaron.} upon their arrival at the police station, Comisaría de Rancagua, something which Lieutenant Colonel of Carabineros Iván Guajardo did not deny. However, police stated the students will be charged by the public prosecutor with robbing food from the school. “It’s a bit illogical that they stripped off our clothes, with the knowledge that there were minors and without [us] being delinquents, but students who took the school peacefully” ^{((es))Spanish language: ?Es un poco ilógico que nos desnuden habiendo menores de edad y no siendo delincuentes, sino estudiantes que estábamos en una toma que había sido pacífica}, said Olivares. Ignacio Muñoz, former leader of the occupation of the Liceo María Luisa Bombal, told El Rancahuaso “the Mayor [Eduardo Soto] promised to begin the reconstruction works last summer, and it’s August already and they don’t even begin to take the debris outside” ^{((es))Spanish language: ?El alcalde se comprometió a comenzar los trabajos de reconstrucción durante el verano de este año, y ya estamos en agosto y aún no comienzan ni moviendo los escombros del interior}. Education Regional Secretary (Seremi de Educación) Pedro Larraín said the government “does not share” ^{((es))Spanish language: ?No compartimos las tomas} such actions, “because they harm education” ^{((es))Spanish language: ?porque perjudican a la educación}.

The Region of Libertador General Bernardo O’Higgins was one of the first in 2012 to resuscitate the previous year’s student protests, more specifically at the Liceo Industrial de San Fernando, which was taken control by the students in late July, and which as of yesterday was still taken. The students of the Liceo Industrial were particularly affected, after the president of the school’s centro de alumnos Guillermo Horta Farías was stabbed outside the educational establishment on July 31; his fellow schoolmates subsequently organized a march in his honour in Rancagua, on August 8. As of August 11, eight high schools have been taken control of by students, in response to the government’s failure to satisfy the secondary and university students’ requests.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

A rescue operation is underway after sixteen-year-old American Abby Sunderland, attempting to sail around the world by herself, lost contact with her family while in the Indian Ocean.

Sunderland, from Thousand Oaks, California, had originally hoped to become the youngest person to sail around the world nonstop by herself. She departed from Marina del Rey, California on January 23, 2010 and was about halfway through the attempt when Sunderland’s family lost communication with her Thursday morning. That night, an Australian plane was able to locate her 40-foot (12.2-metre) long boat, Wild Eyes, which had lost its mast earlier.

Sunderland had been sailing amid a rough storm in the Indian Ocean early Thursday when her boat was flipped over. The mast broke off as a consequence. After losing contact, the teenager activated two manual distress radiobeacons, or EPIRBs, and a search-and-rescue operation was formed. As part of the operation, a Qantas Airways Airbus A330 was sent over the ocean by Australian authorities. The plane’s crew was able to make radio contact with Sunderland, and confirmed that she was not injured and that her boat was upright, but was unable to continue sailing. The closest rescue boat, a French fishing ship, was about 24 hours away from Sunderland’s location when she was found, and is expected to meet her later today. She was stranded about 2000 miles (3218.7 kilometres) southwest of Australia’s coast.

This is not Sunderland’s first obstacle during the journey. Near the beginning of the voyage, she made a stop at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, after the boat’s generators were not producing enough power. She resumed the attempt in February, but autopilot problems forced another stop at Cape Town, South Africa for repairs in April, and she had to give up going for the unassisted record.

Sunderland’s parents, Laurence and Marianne, have vigorously defended against claims that their daughter was too young to be attempting such a feat. They have also been criticized for allowing her to depart the United States at the beginning of the year, because Sunderland would likely arrive in the Indian Ocean during the region’s winter. Marianne Sunderland has said that Abby would likely not try “something of this magnitude again.” Last year, her brother Zac had completed a circumnavigation when he sailed solo around the world at the age of seventeen. She had begun preparing for this journey at the age of thirteen.

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 e-mail interview with him (which started about three weeks ago) about the history and the future of the web and his life and work.

Wikinews: At the start of this interview, we would like to offer you a fresh pint on a terrace, but since this is an e-mail interview, we will limit ourselves to a virtual beer, which you can enjoy here.

Robert Cailliau: Yes, I myself once (at the 2nd international WWW Conference, Chicago) said that there is no such thing as a virtual beer: people will still want to sit together. Anyway, here we go.