Monday, March 2, 2009

According to officials, João Bernardo Vieira, the president of Guinea-Bissau, was shot to death on Monday in his palace by renegade soldiers.

“President Vieira was killed by the army as he tried to flee his house which was being attacked by a group of soldiers close to the chief of staff Tagme Na Waie, early this morning,” Zamora Induta, a military spokesman, said to Agence France-Presse, insisting that “this was not a coup d’etat.”

“We reaffirmed our intention to respect the democratically elected power and the constitution of the republic,” he said. “The people who killed President Vieira have not been arrested, but we are pursuing them. They are an isolated group. The situation is under control.”

Induta also said that the president was “taken down by bullets fired by these soldiers,” and that afterwards they looted his home. “They were taking everything they could carry, his personal belongings, the furniture, everything,” Induta said.

The assassination is believed to be a revenge for a bomb blast that killed one of Vieira’s rivals, the army chief of staff General Batista Tagme Na Waie, just a few hours earlier.

The constitution says that the nation’s parliament chief, Raimundo Pereira, is to succeed Vieira in the case of his death.

Jean Ping, the chief executive of the African Union, said that the assassination of the president was a “criminal act”.

Guinea-Bissau, located on the western coast of Africa, has had a history of coups, and is one of the world’s poorest countries. It is notorious as being a transit point for the cocaine trade between Europe and South America.

João Bernardo Vieira, born in 1939, came to power in Guinea-Bissau during a coup in 1980, but was forced out in 1999 when a civil war started. In 2005, he returned from his exile in Portugal to participate in the nation’s elections, and won the vote.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Besides becoming a political stomping ground for the Pan-Green and Pan-Blue coalitions, there are other changes from past years of Taipei Audio Video Fair (TAVF). With those changes in mind, Wikinews reporter Rico Shen interviewed You-peng Wang, chairman of the Taipei Electrical Commercial Association (TECA), the main organizer of TAVF, about the 60th year anniversary of TECA and the changes to the show.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

In the centre of the English city of Birmingham, three vehicles collided and eight people are reported injured. The crash was on the Aston Expressway; of the eight injured two are said to be in a serious condition. No fatalities have been reported.

The two people most seriously injured are both female, one in her 30s and the other an elderly woman. Both women had to be freed from the vehicle they were in when the crash occurred at approximately 1845 UTC yesterday. According to a spokeswoman for West Midlands Ambulance Service: “The elderly woman sustained chest and abdominal injuries and the woman in her 30s suffered head and pelvic injuries in the crash.” Both were transported to Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham by ambulance.

Meanwhile, two women in another car also had to be freed from the vehicle they were in. One of them was injured in the shoulder while the other female’s collar bone was fractured. “Both were immobilised with neck collars and spinal boards before being conveyed by land ambulance to City Hospital,” according to the ambulance service spokeswoman. Two males in the same vehicle were also taken to City Hospital, Birmingham, having experienced minor injuries.

A man and a woman travelling in a separate vehicle managed to escape serious injury in what the ambulance spokewoman called a “significant collision”. They were taken to Heartlands Hospital by ambulance.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Computer systems used by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) for the handling of tax filing data for Canadians have been temporarily shutdown due to infrastructure problems. ^[1] A March 7 article in the Toronto Star ^[2] states that due to errors in the electronic filing system, Canada Revenue Agency will be unable to accept any tax filings electronically or corrections to prior filings.

A fact sheet from the CRA ^[3] states that “until the problem is resolved, we cannot process returns filed on paper, or returns filed electronically before the system interruption. Refunds will be delayed until processing is resumed”.

A check of the taxing authority’s website ^[4] regarding the issue states “We have temporarily shut down public access to electronic services to ensure the integrity of taxpayer information.” and that “We have now traced the source of the problem to software maintenance conducted on March 4, 2007. We are currently working to bring all systems back online gradually.”

A CRA press release dated March 6 ^[5] states “Commissioner of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) Michel Dorais today instructed some computer applications related to personal income tax filing to be temporarily halted.” he also said, “there is no indication that this situation was caused by intrusion, hacking, or computer virus”. Further, “These applications include online services like Efile, Netfile, and My Account. Mr. Dorais said that he instructed that this preventative measure be taken following indications that CRA computer systems have run into infrastructure problems. In order to safeguard existing systems and to maintain the integrity of CRA’s taxpayer information holdings, Mr Dorais ordered tax filing processes halted.”

An article in The Globe and Mail ^[6] states that taxpayers “can wait for Netfile to return to service, or they can print their returns and mail them to the CRA”, which will be processed when the computer glitch is resolved.

The deadline for Canadians to submit tax returns is April 30. The CRA indicates it is too soon to speculate on whether the filing deadline will be extended. They expect to restore all services, including EFile and Netfile, well in advance of the filing deadline. ^[7]

The shutdown also affects third-party companies that prepare tax returns and electronically file the data using the EFile facility on behalf of clients. According to the CRA, millions of individual Canadians use the Netfile service each year.

The Agency will provide updates daily to the media until the situation is resolved.

A compilation of brief news reports for Wednesday, March 7, 2007.

The European Union has banned the 35 planes in the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) 45 aircraft fleet from flying in EU airspace. The reason provided by EU was that these plans do not fulfill the safety requirement for international planes and thus were banned. PIA has redeployed its Boeing 777 jets from US to EU flights to facilitate passengers in Europe. Flights PK 782 and PK 790 are still running on time from Toronto in Canada.

Sources

• “EU bans old PIA planes” — Gulf Daily News, March 6, 2007
• “EU imposes ban on all but seven PIA planes” — Pakistan Dawn, March 6, 2007

The Oklahoma Senate approved a bill introduced by lawmaker Patrick Anderson of Enid that enables police to seize vehicles when drivers fail to produce proof of insurance. The bill was tacked onto a measure to prohibit inserting microchips into people without their permission. 91,000 drivers have been ticketed for lack of insurance in Oklahoma to date.

Sources

• RON JENKINS, Associated Press. “Senators approve bill to allow vehicles to be seized” — Bartlesville Examiner Enterprise, March 6, 2007
• Associated Press. “Senators approve bill to allow vehicles to be seized” — FOX23, March 6, 2007

The New Orleans Saints have released All-Pro wide receiver Joe Horn because of money issues. The Saints hope to draft LSU (Louisiana State University) wide receiver DeWayne Bowe in the NFL Draft to fill Horn’s place.

Sources

• BRETT MARTE,LCanadian Press. “New Orleans Saints release four-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Joe Horn” — CBC News, March 1, 2007
• “Saints release Horn from his contract” — The News-Star, March 1, 2007

Friday, May 22, 2009

United States law enforcement officials announced the arrest Thursday of four men in connection with a plot to blow up two synagogues in The Bronx, a borough of New York City, and shoot down military airplanes flying out of the Stewart Air National Guard Base.

The men allegedly placed car bombs wired to cell phones outside the Riverdale Temple and nearby Riverdale Jewish Center in the Bronx area of the city. New York City Police Department commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said one of the suspects placed what he believed were homemade bombs, or improvised explosive devices, in separate vehicles parked outside the synagogues. The other three suspects served as lookouts.

According to a joint statement released by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the FBI and the New York City Police Department, the men were returning to the vehicle and were planning to attack aircraft at the Air National Guard base at Stewart airport in Newburgh, with Stinger surface-to-air guided missiles when law enforcement stopped them.

As the men were returning to the vehicle, the signal was given for the arrest. An 18-wheel New York City Police Department vehicle blocked the end of the street. The FBI informer also served as the driver of the suspects’ vehicle. Another armored vehicle arrived, and officers from the department’s Emergency Service Unit, according to witnesses, smashed the blackened windows of the SUV, removed the men from the vehicle, and handcuffed them on the ground. None offered resistance.

The men had previously conducted surveillance of military planes at the Air National Guard base including taking photographs.

Both the car bombs and the missiles were actually fakes given to the plotters with the help of an informant for the FBI, who posed as a Pakistani militant affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Each of the two homemade bombs was equipped with about 37 pounds of inert material labeled as C-4 plastic explosives, but the devices had been ‘totally disabled by the FBI,” and “there was no danger to anyone,” Commissioner Kelly said.

“While the bombs these terrorists attempted to plant tonight were – unbeknownst to them – fake, this latest attempt to attack our freedoms shows that the homeland security threats against New York City are sadly all too real,” said Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City.

The suspects are reported to be four Muslim men; three U.S. citizens, one Haitian. The Daily News reports that three of the men are jail-house converts to Islam.

James Cromitie, 53, the reported leader, claims that his parents live in Afghanistan and told the FBI informant that he was angry about the U.S. military killing Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He had lived in Brooklyn and had a record of “as many as 27 arrests” for minor crimes “both upstate and in New York City.”

The other suspects are David Williams, Onta Williams, and Laguerre Payen a native of Haiti.

At the arraignment held Thursday, attorney for Laguerre Payen, Marilyn Reader, told the court that Payen has “a very low borderline” intelligence quotient and receives medication for schizophrenia.

Monday, March 30, 2009

First becoming famous in her native Ukraine in the 1990s, long-haired self-described “Amazon” Ruslana gained international recognition for winning the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest with her song “Wild Dances,” inspired by the musical traditions of the Hutsul people of the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains.

In the five years since, Ruslana has decided to use her name and public status to represent a number of worthy causes, including human trafficking, renewable energy, and even the basic concept of democratic process, becoming a public face of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution and later serving in Parliament.

Currently, she is on an international publicity tour to promote her album Wild Energy, a project borne out of a science fiction novel that has come to symbolize her hopes for a newer, better, freer way of life for everyone in the world. She took time to respond to questions Wikinews’s Mike Halterman posed to her about her career in music and her other endeavors.

This is the fifth in a series of interviews with past Eurovision contestants, which will be published sporadically in the lead-up to mid-May’s next contest in Moscow.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

A man dressed as the Star Wars antagonist Darth Vader robbed a bank in Setauket, New York. The robber was dressed in a character themed mask and blue cape. Armed with a hand gun, the robber stole an undetermined amount of cash from the Chase bank branch.

The robber entered the bank saying that he was robbing it. Customers initially thought it was a joke and began laughing. Detective William Lamb of the Suffolk County Police Department said that one customer attempted to tackle the robber and was attacked. He can be seen in the background of surveillance photographs. The robber then approached a teller and demanded cash while brandishing a weapon.

This robbery is the latest in a string of odd bank robberies in the New York metropolitan area. Yesterday the New York Police Department arrested a man who robbed banks while carrying flowers and potted plants. Police are also looking for an apparent cross-dressing robber who held up a bank in Long Island.