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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Homebush Bay, New South Wales —

Wikinews sat down with Great Britain men’s national wheelchair basketball player Ade Oregembe before a practice session at the Rollers & Gliders World Challenge in Sydney.

Nigerian-born Oregembe, one of twenty-four children, contracted polio when an infant. He started playing basketball after a random person suggested he take up the sport. Oregembe stated he’d never previously seriously considered any other sport. His wheelchair basketball journey has taken him to Spain (to play in their local league) and around the world with the Great Britain national team.

Oregembe was asked about two of the big Paralympic stories: Oscar Pistorius, and 5 point players —able-bodied competitors— competing in their sport at the Paralympics. He did not support Pistorius’s inclusion in the Olympics, nor inclusion of able-bodied athletes in wheelchair basketball at the Paralympics.

While the United Kingdom has a reputation for sport-related racism, Oregembe said he had not experienced much of it on the courts. Elsewhere though, it was a different issue as he had experienced racism both to his face and behind his back, noting it was a particular problem in Spain.

Oregembe’s Great Britain side kicks off their London campaign on August 30 against the Germany men’s national wheelchair basketball team.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

According to reports, authorities in Belgium have seized documents, financial records and computer equipment from the local branch of the Church of Scientology (Church) and then sealed off the building.

The reports state that the Church in Belgium is being investigated for extortion and fraud for allegedly posting false job openings in newspapers and then attempting to get those who applied to join the Church. Several ex-members of the Church have also reportedly approached authorities with accusations of intimidation and extortion.

Police in Belgium have been investigating the Church for nearly ten years which resulted in the raid on Thursday.

In a statement to the press, the Church says that the police “violated their fundamental rights” as a religious organization and accused the police of “malicious justice operations.” The Church plans to contest any charges filed against it. They also state that the postings were requests for volunteers and not employees.

So far no arrests have been made, but some employees of the Church were detained and questioned by police.

The building remains closed as of publication.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Although prom may have taken place over two weeks ago at Maine’s Sanford High School, the fact that students elected a gay couple as prom king and queen remains the talk of the local community.

During the May 14 event, 17-year-old Christian Nelsen was named prom queen, running as a write-in candidate. One of Nelsen’s friends, Holly Smith, spoke of the help they provided in getting him elected: “The day of prom, we went downstairs, and he was yelling ‘Vote for Christian Nelsen!’ And I was helping people spell his name, or telling them how to write it on the ballot”.

Nelsen’s boyfriend, Caleb Jett, was elected prom king. “I kinda got voted in because he got queen, and it was like ‘Who do we vote for king?’ and it was like ‘Oh, well, his boyfriend, obviously, because that makes sense,'” he said. The two young men wore suits, shirts, and ties to the prom. When the results of the election were announced, they danced the king-queen dance together, Jett wearing his crown and Nelsen his tiara.

Maine is one of only two states in New England that have not recognized same-sex marriages. Though they are aware that not everyone supports them, the couple ran to combat high school stereotypes and to encourage more tolerance. Nelsen commented, “It doesn’t matter if it’s a guy or a girl who wins prom king or prom queen from now on. Anyone can win, and on that same notion any type of person can win. And I’m talking about the tolerance level of all people when I talk about that, so anyone who is bullied or even just under the radar can win this type of thing.”

Minister of a parish of the United Church of Christ Reverend Diane Wendorf supported the couple, citing her church’s values of tolerance and diversity. “I’m glad, too, that they were crowned king and queen, because there are all different kinds of people in this world.” Some Sanford residents a local news agency interviewed did not approve of the gay couple’s crowning, though none agreed to go on camera — out of concerns that their comments might offend someone.

The matter is expected to be brought up by interested citizens at an upcoming school committee meeting. Committee Chair Mark Lucier stated that the school is gathering information on the election, and that the committee may decide if it needs to address the future selection of prom kings and queens.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

WikiLeaks has released a mass of “secret” material from the United States’ involvement in Afghanistan in the five years from 2004 to 2009.

The material was scrutinised in co-operation with the main stream newspapers The Guardian and The New York Times, and the German magazine Der Spiegel, who cross-referenced the leaked documents with published material to check the veracity of the material.

The material makes explicit the accusation that the Taliban is receiving support including man portable anti-aircraft missiles from Iran, and Pakistan. However, despite being condemned by the authorities in the United States, commentators have said that nothing in the released material would come as a surprise to anyone who has been following the war.

Friday, June 23, 2006

Matt Hanson aims to raise £1 million to fund the production of a feature-length film which would be distributed freely via the Internet under a Creative Commons licence, all funded through 50,000 people each donating £25 to the project, which he’s called ‘A Swarm of Angels‘.

No stranger to filmmaking, Matt has produced numerous digital short films, a series of books on digital filmmaking and set up the digital film festival onedotzero, now in its tenth year. He wants to finally make a feature length film, and decided that it was better to turn to the Internet for help and funding rather than plod through the usual ‘development hell‘.

“I wanted to put into practice what I’ve been preaching as a film futurist for ten years, and the technology and Internet infrastructure has just really caught up with that vision now for me to put it into practice.”

The process is inspired by the ‘web 2.0‘ movement, using social and collaborative communities on the Internet. Matt doesn’t see the funding as coming from donations, but as people paying a subscription to become part of a ‘Swarm’. “Rather than the ‘many producer’ model, this is more of an ^[sic] ‘smart consumer’ model … members can help implement and bring their expertise into play, and so become more actively involved in the production.”

The project hopes to use professional actors and crew, but use qualified members from the swarm as much as possible. The cast and the crew, including any volunteers that get chosen, would be paid for their work on the film, with Matt suggesting that this is “a great way for people to get into the industry”.

Those members not directly involved in making the film can still participate in the process by discussing ideas on a messageboard, and having a vote on certain crucial decisions such as which script gets chosen for production. Asked how he would balance his own creative direction with input from members, Matt said “my vision will lead the project forward and define the parameters, but the Swarm can influence that, and indeed offer improvements or insights I might not think of alone”.

“Remember filmmaking is always a team effort – whether you are Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick or Jean Luc Godard, you promote people within the project that will complement and bring something extra to the vision of the film. Give it more life. With the Swarm we are making that process more democratic, and giving a wider range of people an opportunity to shine and have creative input.”

Members are promised a collector’s edition DVD of the end product and exclusive merchandise, but the main distribution of the film will be via the Internet, using ‘BitTorrent‘ and peer-to-peer networks. “Unlike many other filmmakers, I’m not wedded to cinema projection as the ‘be all and end all’ – I’m much more excited about people viewing remixed versions on their video iPods,” explains Matt.

The ‘remixing’ of the film will be possible thanks to it being distributed under a Creative Commons licence. Matt suggests that the ‘younger generation’ is more used to being involved with and interacting with entertainment, and points to remixes of the Star Wars films (eg ‘The Phantom Edit‘) as an example of these ‘mashups’. “At the end of the project I would love to have an event that showcased five wildly different versions of the film, different visions from people other than my definitive initial edit,” he suggests. The licence will be for non-commercial use only, however, and so commercial TV stations would still have to pay in order to screen the film.

The project is partly inspired by the success of ‘The Million Dollar Homepage‘, in which British student Alex Tew aimed to raise a million dollars to fund his university education, simply by selling advertising space on a single web page. The publicity surrounding the idea, coupled with the ‘viral’ effect of Internet users passing the page on, meant that he eventually managed to make himself the million dollars.

The success of these projects partly seems to depend on them being interesting and original enough to attract enough attention, and it’s often difficult to see how they could be repeated. Copy-cat versions of the million dollar homepage have so far failed to hugely take off. When asked about this idea, Matt responded “I already expect people to copy the model we are inventing with A Swarm of Angels – it’s a perfect way to create cult media, where the director gets more creative control and organically funds a project, and the fans of the project get more involvement within it. If the market gets too crowded with these projects though, then they’ll have to be packaged differently to stand out. But that’s what traditional film and media projects need to do anyway.”

Over 600 members have signed up to the ‘swarm’ so far, which Matt comments is already an early success, but 50,000 members in total will be needed in order to fully fund the £1 million budget. Matt suggests that getting to the next stage, of reaching 1,000 members, followed by the phase of getting 5,000 members, will be the hardest part, as after that the film will be more ‘tangible’. He expects to raise the full budget, but comments that if the fundraising stalls, “options will be presented by advisors and The Swarm, and based on some kind of consensus we’ll come up with the best option for moving forward.”

Traditionally, independent films are funded either through persuading wealthy individuals to invest, who sometimes are sometimes given ‘Executive Producer‘ credits, or through organisations like the UK Film Council, who award funds from the National Lottery. A tax credit for producers making small films in the UK was announced by the government in 2005, in a bid to give a boost to the UK independent film industry.

Matt says that the film will be “a thriller with soft science fiction elements”, which he says will suit his target audience. “But it will have an indie edginess to it, and be far more visually inventive than you would get with a ‘normal’ British independent feature.” Contributors to the project include artists The Kleptones, who will help with the soundtrack, comic book writer Warren Ellis and documentary filmmaker Grant Gee.

The Swarm of Angels project is online at aswarmofangels.com and costs £25 as an individual to become a member.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

On Monday, Google added the “+1” button to its search results. It works similarly to the Facebook “Like” button. Today, Google began planning to add it to text ads, globally known as “AdSense”.

Google Product Manager Nick Radicevic commented at Google’s AdSense blog: “Today, +1’s will start appearing on Google search pages globally. …. We’ll be starting off with sites like google.co.uk, google.de, google.jp and google.fr, then expanding quickly to most other Google search sites soon after.”

Individual websites also can use this feature. People with a Google account can add a “+1” button to their personal websites. If a large number of readers click the button, the site will move closer to the top in Google search results.

Google also plans to eventually add the “+1” button to its text advertisements, globally known as “AdWords”. A user would be able to add rank to an ad and optionally make it available at their Google profile.

Google expects the experiment to be useful to improve search results and to combat poor websites and content farms.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Darcy Richardson, the historian who challenged U.S. President Barack Obama in several 2012 Democratic Party primary races, has notified Wikinews he will now “actively seek” the presidential nominations of the Reform Party of the United States of America and several third parties with single-state ballot access.

Richardson initially ran as a progressive alternative to Obama, concerned largely with the president’s economic policies. Discussing his qualms in detail during a November 2011 Wikinews interview, Richardson cited Obama’s extension of the Bush tax cuts, his inability to include a public option in his health care bill, his failure to renew the Glass-Steagall Act and pass cap-and-trade legislation, and his seeming reluctance to defend Social Security and Medicare. He also mentioned Obama’s continued use of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and prosecution of the War in Afghanistan.

As a Democrat, Richardson qualified for primary ballots in New Hampshire, Missouri, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas. His strongest showing proportionally came in Oklahoma, where he won 6.36 percent of the vote. Overall he received a total of 41,386 votes in the five states, 25,296 of which came during the May 29 Texas primary, after he had already suspended his campaign.

Last April, Richardson ceased all campaign operations, and shifted focus to his news blog Uncovered Politics. At the time, he said he planned to support Americans Elect and Reform Party presidential candidate Buddy Roemer, in part due to his economic plans, such as the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. Richardson described Roemer as a “straight-talking, anti-Wall Street former governor of Louisiana who is … head and shoulders above any other potential third-party candidate in his conception of the current economic crisis.”

After Roemer ended his presidential campaign as a whole following Americans Elect’s board decision to not nominate a 2012 ticket, Richardson was left to decide whether to support Obama’s re-election or reconsider his own campaign. He ultimately chose to relaunch his campaign, and like Roemer, run for Reform Party nomination. He concluded:

I can’t in good conscience support President Obama’s re-election. He’s a good man, but entirely out of his league in putting the country on a path to economic recovery. The American people are hurting, and they’re hurting badly. President Obama squandered the first two years of his presidency on a health care bill that nobody wanted while essentially ignoring the private sector in his $787 billion stimulus package in 2009 — legislation that did little other than preserve the bloated payrolls of public sector employees across the country. We need a President who understands what it will take to end this depression, somebody with extensive private sector experience. Unlike President Obama, I have spent my entire life in the business community.

Currently, six other individuals are seeking the Reform Party presidential nomination: Blake Ashby, who challenged President Bush in the 2004 Republican primaries; fitness model Andre Barnett, the only candidate remaining who participated in the January 2012 Wikinews Reform Party forum; Dow Chemical worker Edward Chlapowski; consultant Kenneth Cross; economic adviser Dick McCormick; and estimator Michael Edwin Whitley.

The Reform Party currently has ballot access in four states, but with the aim of achieving access in a dozen, Richardson will also compete for the nominations of ballot-qualified third parties with single-state access elsewhere.