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Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Santa Clara, CALIFORNIA — Computer vendor Sun Microsystems released on Tuesday the first offerings of its OpenSolaris operating system code for free, under a license which allows anyone to use or work on the code and distribute the changes they make..

The full operating system is expected to be released for download sometime in the second quarter of 2005. Following along with the system source code are 1,670 patents Sun will make available for use by open-source developers. Sun hopes to leverage greater innovation in software from the open source community, in return for allowing the code to be used without charge.

“This is not an EOL (end of life) release. It’s a supercharged, turbocharged rocket launching,” Sun CEO Scott McNealy said. “No one else has done what we have just done.”

The move follows a recent move by IBM to grant use of 500 patents freely to open source software developers. Open source developers had been becoming concerned that bureaucracy and legal issues associated with software patents could be damaging to their livelihoods and to innovation. The moves by Sun and IBM seem intended to placate this growing fear.

Dynamic Trace, or DTrace is the first OpenSolaris component to be released. DTrace is a performance-analysis tool that tells developers how to optimize their applications for maximum performance.

The code is to be released under Sun’s own licensing scheme, the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) Version 1.0. This license has been approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI).

Sun’s license is based on the Mozilla Public License. The Free Software Foundation has stated on its website that Sun’s license, while free, is not compatible with the GNU Public License (GPL) used for the popular open source Linux operating system. This does not mean that Linux software and OpenSolaris software cannot be used together, but limits the extent of integration which may be achieved.

Sun had previously allowed free use of the operating system Solaris by some users, for example students. This move greatly extends the range of free uses permitted, and allows users to read and modify the source code without charge or non-disclosure agreement.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

The International Labor Organization (ILO), a branch of the United Nations concerned with labor and workers’ rights issues, issued a report Wednesday explaining how the global economic crisis could create a global employment crisis by the end of the year.

“By the end of 2008 working poverty, vulnerable employment and unemployment were beginning to rise as the effects of the slowdown spread,” the report states. “If the recession deepens in 2009, as many forecasters expect, the global jobs crisis will worsen sharply.” Even for those who keep their jobs, the report predicts that “earnings and other conditions of employment will deteriorate.”

In a worst-case scenario, the ILO says 51 million jobs could be lost in 2009, meaning that 7.1% of the world’s working population would be out of a job. In a more realistic scenario, the report foresees a loss of 30 million jobs, with a global unemployment rate of 6.5%. The unemployment rate has increased in recent years, from 5.7% in 2007 to an estimated 6% in 2008.

Even the report’s most optimistic scenario for this year, a loss of 18 million jobs at an unemployment rate of 6.1%, is not much different than the ILO’s October 2008 prediction of 20 million jobs lost this year due to the financial crisis.

The report warns that developing countries in South Asia and Subsaharan Africa will be harshly affected by the economic crisis. Although working poverty – defined as having daily wages of US$2 or less – is on an overall decline, these regions are still characterized by poor working conditions, low salaries, and an insecure job market. This will only worsen in 2009, according to the ILO.

“Taking into account that a wage and salary job in poor regions may still not ensure all the components of a decent job, it becomes understandable that only a minority of working people have a job that is well paid, respects their fundamental rights and ensures some security in case of job loss, personal or family illnesses, or other difficulties.” The report says that by the end of 2008, nearly 53% of workers around the world could be in “vulnerable employment”.

In terms of actual unemployment, however, developed countries are the ones most likely to be affected by the downturn, as they are more tied to the global financial system. The unemployment rate in the European Union and other developed economies increased by 0.7 percentage points in 2008, the largest increase of all regions. “Globalization combined with rapid technological advances is another challenge for labour markets in the region,” the ILO says. “It is important for workers and employers to be ready and able to adjust quickly to change and to stiffer competition.”

Still, the unemployment rate of 6.4% in these developed countries is far less than in North Africa and the Middle East, which had unemployment rates of 10.3% and 9.4% respectively. East Asia had the lowest unemployment rate of the regions at 3.8%.

The report urged global economies to take cooperative measures, including working with the United Nations, in order to stem the economic crisis. It also asks governments to address the “negative social consequences of globalization” by placing on emphasis an social justice-based programs targeted toward women, youth, and other “vulnerable groups”.

In particular, the ILO says governments should establish public infrastructure projects such as road construction, expand health insurance and unemployment benefits, and focus on the creation of green jobs when devising their stimulus plans. “When governments design fiscal stimulus packages, it is important that they consider employment-related goals, including explicit employment growth targets,” the report concluded.

“In the world, there remains a huge untapped labour potential, and economic growth and development could be much higher if everyone was given the chance of a decent job.”

Friday, March 9, 2012

On Super Tuesday, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, known more commonly as ‘Joe the Plumber’, won the U.S. Republican Party primary for Ohio’s 9th congressional district, which represents Toledo. He defeated real estate agent Steve Kraus, 51 percent to 48 percent, and will now face incumbent Democratic Representative Marcy Kaptur, who has held the seat since 1983.

Wurzelbacher received notice during the 2008 presidential election, when he asked a question about taxes to future president Barack Obama. Obama, who at the time was the Democratic Party presidential nominee, famously responded, “when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” After this, Republican presidential nominee John McCain used Wurzelbacher as a representation of the average American worker, and attacked Obama’s response as socialist.

Following the exchange, students from the University of Massachusetts tried to draft Wurzelbacher to run against Kaptur in the 2010 congressional race, calling on him to “Plunge the crap out of Washington.” He initially expressed interest, but at that time did not run. In 2011, though, he announced his candidacy for 2012.

In the Republican primary, Wurzelbacher out-raised his opponent $60,000 to $10,000 and benefited from the endorsement of former 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain. Wurzelbacher said of partisanship, “Democrat, Republican…it’s something that the media uses to try to divide us as Americans…I’m not working for the Republican Party or Republicans, I’m working for the American people, and that includes all of us.”

In the Democratic primary, Kaptur defeated Representative Dennis Kucinich, who challenged her after his district was redrawn. Kaptur argues that Wurzelbacher is “going to have his own issues dealing with the electorate as he moves forward…I think the nature of the District is quite different than his value set.”

Wurzelbacher concedes that he lives in a largely Democratic and pro-Union community, but says the people are “all really good friends of mine…we agree on a lot of things, and ultimately what it comes down to [is] we want jobs, we want security, we want stability.”

Saturday, November 4, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Scarborough East (Ward 43). One candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Paul Ainslie, Amarjeet Chhabra, Mujeeb Khan, Glenn Kitchen, John Laforet, Abdul Patel, Jim Robb, and Kumar Sethi.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.

Monday, December 31, 2007

What would you tell your grandchildren about 2007 if they asked you about it in, let’s say, 20 year’s time? If the answer to a quiz question was 2007, what would the question be? The year that you first signed on to Facebook? The year Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse fell apart? The year author Kurt Vonnegut or mime Marcel Marceau died, both at 84?

Let’s take a look at some of the international stories of 2007. Links to the original Wikinews articles are in bold.

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Wikinews extended invitations by e-mail on March 23 to multiple candidates running in the Texas’ 6th congressional district special election of May 1 to fill a vacancy left upon the death of Republican congressman Ron Wright. Of them, the office of Democrat Daryl Eddings, Sr. agreed to answer some questions by phone March 30 about their campaigns and policies. The following is the interview with Ms Chatham on behalf of Mr Eddings, Sr.

Eddings is a federal law enforcement officer and senior non-commissioned officer in the US military. His experience as operations officer of an aviation unit in the California National Guard includes working in Los Angeles to control riots sparked by the O. J. Simpson murder case and the police handling of Rodney King, working with drug interdiction teams in Panama and Central America and fighting in the Middle East. He is the founder of Operation Battle Buddy, which has under his leadership kept in touch with over 20 thousand veterans and their families. He was born in California, but moved to Midlothian, Texas. He endeavours to bring “good government, not no government”. Campaign manager Faith Chatham spoke to Wikinews on matters ranging from healthcare to housing.

An Inside Elections poll published on March 18 shows Republican candidate Susan Wright, the widow of Ron Wright, is ahead by 21% followed by Democrat Jana Sanchez with 17% and Republican Jake Ellzey with 8% with a 4.6% margin of error among 450 likely voters. The district is considered “lean Republican” by Inside Elections and voted 51% in favour of Donald Trump in last year’s US presidential election. This is down from 54% for Trump in 2016’s presidential election, the same poll stated.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

London, England — Yesterday, Wikinews interviewed Michael Hartung, the Australian Deputy Chef de Mission at the Australian team quarters in the Paralympic Village.

((Hawkeye7)) What does the Deputy Chef de Mission do?

Michael Hartung: Makes the chef look good! (laughter) No, my role here is in support of our Chef de Mission and the team. There’s two of us, myself, and Kate McLoughlin is the other Deputy Chef de Mission. She focuses on the operations side of things, the logistics and travel and all that sort of stuff, the foundations of preparing the team and really getting here and back home safely with all their gear. The part of the team that I look after is the performance side of things, so in my particular area I have guys in the sports science and sports medicine grew, which is managed by Alison Campbell. We have classification in my area which is managed by Geoff Han. We’ve got high performance and coach support, which is Chris Nunn, and the media guys fit under my side of things, and they are managed by Tim Mannion. All of those guys are all staff at the APC, and they’ve been working with us for a considerable amount of time. They are all experts in their areas so as far as the performance elements of the team are concerned we’ve got a great bunch of people that come in here and its a continuation of the the job that we prepare for and that we do every day. So that’s been good, we’re not a bunch of outsiders who’ve come together just for this team. We’re professionals who work in these fields, doing these jobs day in and day out, so we should be experts when we get to the games in how it should be delivered.

((LauraHale)) Is everything going according to plan for you guys? You’ve got more gold medals than you got in Beijing.

Michael Hartung: Yep. Still not there yet in total but we’re happy. Our goal coming into this, one main goal was to finish top five, and we’re just hanging on. It’s tough. That’s the reality of Olympic sport. We’re having a really good games at the moment. The sub goal of ours was to just beat the medal tally at Beijing which we’ve achieved on gold, which is terrific, and we should achieve on total as well if things keep going the way they are for the next couple of days. That’s a terrific result and it just shows the strength of the Paralympic movement, and the strength of our competitors that there are so many nations fighting it out to be in that top five, and we’re certainly not there by any means. The nation that’s just behind us, the USA, is a traditional powerhouse of Paralympic sport, and a nation that has done extremely well over the history of Paralympic sport. So where we are right now is in a really good position and if we stay where we are now, and pick up a few more medals, we’ll be really happy with the performance of the team and where it’s gone on the medal tally.

((LauraHale)) In the lead up to this there was a lot of coverage of how much money the government gave you for stuff like the recovery centre inside here. How fundamental has that government support been towards this?

Michael Hartung: The Federal government provides us with basically all the funding that we give to the sport programs to deliver sport programs to athletes. And without the Federal government’s support, we cannot do the job that we do. It is essential, and without their investment we certainly wouldn’t be seeing the results that we have here. That been said we’ve also had great support in addition to funding from ministers and senators that have come across here and supported the team. Senator Kate Lundy is here. She’s departing tonight, but has been here for most of the games. It’s been terrific for us and the team to have had that sort of support for us here.

((LauraHale)) Classification has been a big issue in these games. To an extent the Americans lost some… Oscar’s classification’s been a big deal… There hasn’t been much Australian news related to classifications.

Michael Hartung: No, which is a really good sign. I think that shows all the work we’ve put in over the years to classification. We’ve got a program that’s been led by Jim MacMahon that we consider to be a world leading program. Which means that our policies and procedures and our work at a national level to ensure that people know where they fit in the classification spectrum, and no doubt early on is very important to us. So we minimise the risk of an athlete turning up and having a change in classification. This is really the Big Show. This is where it really matters, and for athletes to come here and not be 100% sure about their classification is something that we absolutely want to avoid. We should know where they sit, and there is a lot of money that is now invested through Federal funding and through the states’ institutes and academies and so on. A lot of money gets invested and we need some surety about where that investment is going, and which athletes are prospects for medals when they turn up.

((LauraHale)) We’ve talked to the Oceania people who’ve said they’ve got tremendous support from the APC with the Wales thing. Are you guys going to continue to do that support? Because they couldn’t say enough nice things about the APC and the coaches talking to their athletes.

Michael Hartung: Yeah, that’s terrific. I think that we certainly have an ongoing role that we have played and continue to play in Oceania in helping those countries really develop. New Zealand’s doing great and they’re certainly self-sufficient, and here as a great sporting nation, but for some of our other, smaller neighbors, it’s great that we’ve been able to provide support. We’ve provided opportunities for them to come and be part of the Cardiff staging environment we set up for our team. We started preparations for that back in 2007. So they joined us there, and hopefully that’s helped then achieve their great results here, with Fiji winning a gold medal. That’s a tremendous achievement for Oceania as a whole, not just Fiji, and that’s been terrific to know that the staging camp has assisted with that, along with the other support that we provide. We helped establish the Oceania Paralympic Committee not so long ago. We have Paul Bird, one of our Vice Presidents, as the President of the Oceania Paralympic Committee, and so we have a really close working relationship with those nations. It’s terrific to see them succeed, and to be successful.

((LauraHale)) Have you had a chance to see many of your athletes compete? And has there been any performance that has really stood out, Australian or not Australian?

Michael Hartung: Yeah! I’ve been fortunate to see a lot of our guys compete, right across the board. There’s many, many highlights for me. I don’t think there’s been one stand out performance. Natalie Smith getting a bronze medal to get us underway on the first day was such an incredible achievement, knowing where the shooting program was four or five years ago, not really being able to crack the medals, and to finally do it here in the first event, and to be the first medal was wonderful. Jacqui Freney’s performances here to win seven gold medals has been amazing, and she’s had a great meet here. Matt Cowdrey breaking the record and becoming the athlete to win the most gold medals for Australia has been a real achievement. But then seeing some of the things we’ve seen on the track and track cycling, Michael Gallagher and the other guys, they’ve had a great performance here at the games, incredibly well, and I think the most satisfying element of all of those performances is knowing the work that’s gone into supporting those athletes from the the people around them, but the work that those individual athletes have put into achieving success, because coming here, you can see that this is an elite sporting environment, and only the best in the world will achieve success, and you don’t become the best by doing it half arsed; you have to give it 150%, and that’s what it takes. No one wins unless they do that.

((LauraHale)) Anything else that we should know?

Michael Hartung: Apart from what we’ve just spoken about, I think that the London Organising Committee has done a terrific job with these games. They’ve made a sensational environment. Every games has its challenges, but the challenges here have been quite minor, and haven’t caused any major disruptions. It enabled us to create an environment here which is really performance based. That’s what the Australian Paralympic Committee is working on all the time is to create the best environment for our athletes. So that’s been great. The crowds here have been tremendous and the support of the British public, and that started long ago with the acknowledgment of both Olympic and Paralympic. Whenever they say things, they say “Olympic and Paralympic”. It’s not been just about one games, primarily the Olympic Games or whatever, and that’s been really good in terms of the psyche of the British people, because they know about Paralympic sport. They’re a very knowledgeable audience, and that’s been really great for the crowds here. They’ve cheered really loudly for the British athletes, but they’ve also been giving all the other athletes a big cheer as well, which is wonderful. And taking away from these games, the crowd, and the involvement and the support of all the athletes that have competed has been wonderful.