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Tuesday, May 2, 2017

A hacker, or group of hackers, operating under the alias of The Dark Overlord uploaded ten episodes of Netflix’s web TV series Orange is the New Black on Friday and Saturday on The Pirate Bay after they said the online streaming service failed to meet their demands. Netflix had planned to release the season on June 9.

According to The New York Times, the unreleased content from the upcoming fifth season of Orange is the New Black was likely stolen from a postproduction company Larson Studios, based in Los Angeles. Netflix in a statement said, “A production vendor used by several major TV studios had its security compromised and the appropriate law enforcement authorities are involved.” In a tweet on Saturday, the hacker said, “Who is next on the list? FOX, IFC, NAT GEO, and ABC. Oh, what fun we’re all going to have. We’re not playing any games anymore.”

The hacker tweeted about uploading the first episode on The Pirate Bay on Saturday saying, “Let’s try to be a bit more direct, Netflix”. The hacker allegedly demanded an amount of money which they publicly described as “modest”, from Netflix for not releasing the episodes prematurely. The New York Times reported that the final three episodes were not pirated since the security breach occurred before the postproduction studio was handed those episodes. In January, the hacker erased the data from the servers of a Muncie-based charity called Little Red Door Cancer Services of East Central Indiana demanding 50 bitcoins to restore their data, which was estimated to be about US$43,000.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is reportedly investigating this cyber crime. Netflix has more than 100 million subscribers, CEO Reed Hastings announced recently. Variety noted that Netfilx’s shares experienced a 0.57% loss on the day the first episode was uploaded by the hacker.

Friday, September 22, 2006

The upcoming 2006 Mississauga municipal election, to be held November 13, features an array of candidates looking to represent their wards in city council.

Wikinews contributor Nicholas Moreau has contacted as many candidates as possible, including Tony Ciufo, asking them to answer common questions sent in an email. There is no incumbent in the newly created ward; the sixteen resident competing for the position are Shah Rukh Alam, John Briers, Jamie Dookie, Dale D’Souza, Prag Euclid, Adnan Hashmi, Elias Hazineh, Jack Janiak, Fasal Javaid, Craig Lawrence, Sue M. McFadden, Patrick Mendes, Barbara Polis, Graziano Roti, Ali Tahmourpour, and Scott Wilson.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

According to Médecins Sans Frontières the health care system in Sierra Leone causes loss of life because the poor cannot afford medical treatment.The maternal death rate and the child mortality rate in Sierra Leone are the highest in the world.Experiences of Médecins Sans Frontières had shown that free care or low fees lead to a dramatic increase in the number of patients.Nonetheless the national health system of Sierra Leone demands payment for all treatment with simple consultations costing as much as 25 days of income.According to Action Against Hunger the number of children with acute malnutrition has reached almost twice the level of the WHO‘s emergency threshold of 2% in the Moyamba district of Sierra Leone.

The Los Angeles Times writes that Sierra Leone, in spite of decades of foreign aid, has not yet increased the standard of living of its people considerably and 60% of the public spending of Sierra Leone come from other governments and nonprofit organizations.Since 2002 the country received $1 billion in aid but the infant mortality rate is almost the highest in the world, lower than Angola but higher than Afghanistan. The newspaper further reports that the United Nations state that 1 in 8 Sierra Leonean women die giving birth, as compared to 1 in 4,800 in the United States and that life expectancy in Sierra Leone is merely 41 years while in Bangladesh life expectancy reaches 60 years.

The government of Sierra Leone had expressed its intend to abolish user fees for women and children with a new plan for a fairer health care system that was to be revealed on the Sierra Leone Investment and Donor Conference, which was held in London on November 18 and 19.

“The Sierra Leone government has publicly stated its commitment to abolish user fees, and the UK government and other donors have promised to help,” said Seco Gerard, advisor at Médecins Sans Frontières’s analysis and advocacy unit. “What is crucial now is that Sierra Leone actually receives the necessary funding and technical assistance to realise this objective. It is time that words are being followed up by concrete action. If not, people who could otherwise be saved will continue to die needlessly every day.”

The Telegraph reports that president Bai Koroma was also hoping to secure a significant increase in aid donations with his new health plan.While Germany declined to support president Bai Koroma’s “Agenda for Change” and urged to give more consideration to women’s welfare the country received support from the European Union, DFID, UNIPSIL, World Bank, IFAD and the African Development Bank. From the pledges of $850 million the government of Sierra Leone was hoping for only about $300 millions could be secured, with attached conditionalities concerning the use of funding.

In a presentation at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in Freetown the Unicef representative for Sierra Leone, Mr. Mahimbo Mdoe, expressed gratitude about a pledge of about $1.3 million conveyed by the Ambassador of Japan to Sierra Leone, His Excellency Mr. Keiichi Katakami, and about earlier donations to UNICEF-Sierra Leone in the past years, amounting to over $20 million.The intended application of the funding is the goal to half child and maternal mortality by 2010, to introduce a social health insurance scheme, to improve equipment and to train health professionals.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

2020 Melbourne Lord Mayor candidate Wayne Tseng answered some questions about his campaign for the upcoming election from Wikinews. The Lord Mayor election in the Australian city is scheduled to take place this week.

Tseng runs a firm called eTranslate, which helps software developers to make the software available to the users. In the candidate’s questionnaire, Tseng said eTranslate had led to him working with all three tiers of the government. He previously belonged to the Australian Liberal Party, but has left since then, to run for mayorship as an independent candidate.

Tseng is of Chinese descent, having moved to Australia with his parents from Vietnam. Graduated in Brisbane, Tseng received his PhD in Melbourne and has been living in the city, he told Wikinews. Tseng also formed Chinese Precinct Chamber of Commerce, an organisation responsible for many “community bond building initiatives”, the Lord Mayor candidate told Wikinews.

Tseng discussed his plans for leading Melbourne, recovering from COVID-19, and “Democracy 2.0” to ensure concerns of minorities in the city were also heard. Tseng also focused on the importance of the multi-culture aspect and talked about making Melbourne the capital of the aboriginals. Tseng also explained why he thinks Melbourne is poised to be a world city by 2030.

Tseng’s deputy Lord Mayor candidate Gricol Yang is a Commercial Banker and works for ANZ Banking Group.

Currently, Sally Capp is the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the Victorian capital. Capp was elected as an interim Lord Mayor in mid-2018 after the former Lord Mayor Robert Doyle resigned from his position after sexual assault allegations. Doyle served as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne for almost a decade since 2008.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Japanese multinational company Fujitsu launched a website for a dog pedometer which allows customers to monitor their dog’s health online. The device measures data while attached to the dog’s collar. Customers are also able to add more data to the website manually, then it displays the complete set of data graphically. Fujitsu launched the website today (Tuesday) and plans to start the sales in Japan tomorrow (Wednesday).

The pedometer is called “Wandant”, from Japanese “Wan” equivalent to “woof”, and the “dant” of “pendant”. The latter refers to the pedometer, because it is attached to a dog collar. The users can transfer data to an Android phone using a touch-card to make it available online.

Fujitsu said Wandant would be the first cloud-based dog health-care service.

The data include walking, temperature, and shaking motion statistics. The users can manually enter additional data such as food quantities, weight, custom notes, and photos.

Fujitsu said, “The data are presented graphically on a custom website that makes trends in the dog’s activities easy to understand at a glance. This helps owners get a stronger sense of their dog’s health, while enabling communication with the dog.”

Monday, April 25, 2005

Children who spend more time playing with other children are less likely to end up getting childhood cancers, a UK study published today in the British Medical Journal has found. The finding supports the researchers’ theory that reduced exposure to common infections in the first year of life increases the risk of developing acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).

A total of nearly 10,000 children took part in the study, located in 10 regions across the UK. Amount of time spent in daycare and social activity, during the first year of life, were used to gauge the level of exposure of the infants to common infections such as cold and flu.

Day care in the first year of life for at least two days a week, with at least three other kids, halved a child’s chance of contracting ALL. Those who were rated in the category “any social activity” still had an improvement over the children rated as “no social activity”: they had about 3/4 the chance of getting the disease.

The study describes that effect was “more striking” for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia — a cancer affecting blood and the immune system — than it was for the set of all other cancers. Increasing levels of activity saw decreasing chances of childhood cancers, when compared against children who during their first year had no regular social activity outside the home.

Theories have been around since the 1940s that childhood exposure to infection was related to the development of childhood leukaemia — one, like the working theory of the UK study, said that lack of immune challenge was a factor, another that leukaemia developed as a delayed result of some type of infection.

The research was conducted by the Institute of Cancer Research in London and in Sutton, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of York, Christie Hospital and Central Manchester and Manchester Children’s University Hospitals NHS Trusts, and the University of Edinburgh.

Sunday, February 5, 2006

The man who was suspected of attacking three men in a gay bar in Massachusetts died early Sunday morning after being shot in a gun battle with Arkansas State Police.

Jacob D. Robida, 18, fled Massachusetts on Friday after a warrant was put out for his arrest in the aforementioned gay bar attack. Along the way he picked up his girlfriend, 33-year-old Jennifer Rena Bailey, in Charleston, West Virginia. Robida was pulled over in a traffic stop by Gassville, Arkansas Police Officer Jim Sell. Sell asked Robida to get out of the car, and Robida shot him three times before getting back in the car and leaving. A witness called 911, but Sell died at the scene.

Robida led Baxter County, Arkansas sheriff’s officers and Arkansas State Police officers on a high-speed chase. Robida ran over spike strips in Norfolk and drove on two flat tires for a while. He ultimately wrecked his car into some parked vehicles while trying to avoid a roadblock on Arkansas State Road 5. Robida shot at the officers, who returned fire, shooting Robida twice in the head. Bailey was killed in the gunfight; though some witness said Robida shot her before firing on the officers, an autopsy and forensic investigation will determine how she died.

Robida was rushed to Cox-South Hospital in Springfield, Arkansas, where he was pronounced dead at 3:38 a.m. CST (0938 UTC).

Wednesday, September 6, 2006

15-year-old teenager, Ngatai Reweti was sentenced and jailed today at Auckland’s High Court for four years after killing Christopher Currie by throwing an eight kilogram chunk of concrete at Auckland’s Southern Motorway.

Currie, from Taupo, was driving along the Auckland Southern Motorway with his friends when the concrete smashed through his windscreen from the Princes Street, Otahuhu over-bridge, killing Currie instantly.

Reweti was originally convicted of the murder of Currie on August 19, 2005 but in July, 2006 a jury overturned this conviction and instead of murder charged him with manslaughter.

Justice Winkelmann, during the sentencing, said: “Reweti’s actions were serious and of breathtaking stupidity worthy of condemnation.” She said it was a mindless act that killed Mr Currie and irreparably damaged the lives of others.

Winkelmann has suggested that he should serve his sentence at a youth justice residence and said that it was not premeditated unlike what the crown said.

Currie’s family are outraged at the sentence. “We feel let down by the justice system. I feel the judge has disrespected us as good people and good people all over New Zealand,” said Wayne Currie, father of Christopher Currie.

Reweti’s family had said that Ngatai was gentle and loving but the deputy principal from his school said that he was often absent and very challenging. Reweti had taken full responsibility for the killing even though he had been smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol the day before Currie died.

Aaron Perkins, crown prosecutor, said: “The sentence should deter others from committing such acts and people should be able to travel on the roads without the fear of a missile being thrown and the consequences of that.”

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Wikinews held an exclusive interview with Wayne Allyn Root, one of the candidates for the Libertarian Party nomination for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

Root is the founder and chairman of Winning Edge International Inc., a sports handicapping company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. In addition, he is an author and a television producer, as well as an on-screen personality both as host and guest on several talk shows.

Root, a long-time Republican, declared his candidacy for the Libertarian Party on May 4, 2007.

He says he is concerned about the qualities of many who run for president, and fears that they do not know the needs of American citizens. He also says that they cater to big businesses instead of small ones.

He has goals of limiting the federal government and believes that the US went into Iraq for wrong reasons. A strong supporter of the War on Terror, he feels that it was mishandled. He has conservative values and came from a blue collar family in New York. He graduated from Columbia University with fellow presidential hopeful Barack Obama in 1983.

Root believes that America is in trouble and hopes to change that if elected.