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Thursday, October 16, 2008

International oil prices sank on Thursday as investors worried that a looming global recession will lower demand.

Crude oil for future delivery fell to below US$71 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its lowest price in more than a year. In London, Brent crude oil for November dropped below $66 a barrel.

Oil prices have dropped more than 50 percent since hitting a record high of $147 a barrel in July. A report released today showed an unexpected increase in inventories. Analysts expected only a 1.9 million barrel increase last week, but the actual amount was 5.6 million barrels

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut its estimate for crude oil demand next year in a report released Wednesday. OPEC, which was planning on having an emergency meeting next month on the issue of lower oil prices, pushed forward the meeting to next week. The cartel is expected to cut production by 500,000 barrels a day, in a bid to boost oil prices. Saudi Arabia, which initially did not support the cut a few weeks ago, now supports such a move.

Some Asian governments are under pressure to reduce domestic fuel prices in light of the decline of the price of oil. In China, some drivers are paying more for gas than drivers in the United States, which last occurred several years ago. India, China, and Indonesia appear to be to content to keep the price at the same level; however, some other Asian governments have lowered the price already. Malaysia and Vietnam have cut prices and are expected to do the same if oil drops some more.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

United States political consultant and gay rights (LGBT) activist Fred Karger of California took some time to discuss his Republican Party presidential campaign with Wikinews reporter William Saturn. Karger holds the distinction as the first openly gay person to seek the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party.

Before entering electoral politics, Karger worked as an adviser for such prominent Republicans and former U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Since retiring as an adviser in 2004, he has been involved in LGBT issues: opposing California Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state; and leading investigations of such same-sex marriage opponents as the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Mormon Church).

In 2010, Karger first announced his intentions to seek the Republican presidential nomination, but did not officially announce until March 2011. One of his early campaign goals was to participate in a GOP presidential debate, but was never invited due to polling thresholds. However, Karger argued that he did meet the requirement for an August debate, but was still excluded after the organizers deemed polls he cited as inadequate.

So far, Karger has appeared on four Republican primary ballots including Puerto Rico, where he was able to top Congressman Ron Paul, who, at the time was one of the four major candidates in the race. Karger will next appear on the ballots in California on June 5, and in Utah on June 26.

Karger brands himself as “a different kind of Republican” that wants to open the party to outsiders. He backs gay marriage, is pro-choice on abortion, and wants to lower the voting age. However, he also holds some traditional Republican views: he favors a strengthening of the private sector and believes the U.S. should be steadfast in its support for the nation of Israel.

In talking to Wikinews, Karger discusses his personal political background and activism, the 2012 presidential election and his GOP campaign, as well as his political views on both domestic and foreign affairs.

Friday, November 28, 2008

At least two people have been shot and killed in Palm Desert, California, after a gunman opened fire inside a Toys “R” Us toy store.

A spokesman for the Riverside County sheriff’s office said shots were reported to have been fired inside the store, and that two people had been shot and killed. Witnesses say that a fight erupted between two men. It then got louder and louder, when one pulled out a gun and began to shoot.

One man told the Associated Press that he thought the argument might have been due to a toy the men were fighting over.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., is traditionally known as the biggest shopping day in the country when many retailers have deep discounts and sales on many products. Shoppers generally wake up early and spend much of the day shopping.

Earlier today, a worker was killed and at least three others were injured in a Black Friday door-buster sale stampede at a Wal-Mart in Long Island, New York. They had been knocked over and trampled by a crowd of other shoppers entering the store when it opened.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

A passerby pushed a man, who was threatening to commit suicide, off Haizhu Bridge in Guangzhou, China.

The 66-year-old passerby, Lai Jiansheng, told China Daily that “I pushed him off because jumpers… are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interests.”

Lai initially volunteered his services to police to persuade the man not to jump, but police rejected these. Following this, Lai broke through a police barrier to push the man.

The pushed man, Chen Fuchao, survived with spinal and elbow injuries, because he landed on a partially-inflated air cushion 8 metres (26 feet) below. Lai was taken away by police.

The man threatening to jump was in 2,000,000 yuan (U.S.$293,000) of debt.

At least 12 people have threatened to jump off the bridge since the start of April, causing “traffic … to become worse” according to a spokesman for the Guangzhou public security bureau.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

A University of Calgary research team developed a new method for extracting carbon dioxide (CO₂) directly from the air — a fundamental shift in carbon capture technology enabling capture of the most common greenhouse gas from so-called diffuse sources like aircraft, trucks and automobiles that represent half of the greenhouse gases emitted globally.

Professor David Keith, Director of University of Calgary’s (UofC) Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy (ISEEE) and a team of researchers from UofC’s Energy and Environmental Systems Group built and operated a prototype system this summer producing results that compared favourably with commercial carbon capture systems. Two ‘provisional’ patents have been filed on the technology but Keith warns there are still “many pitfalls along the path to commercialization.”

Using a process adapted from the pulp-and-paper industry that halves the cost of CO₂ air capture in their custom-built tower, Professor Keith and his team captured the equivalent of about 20 tonnes per year of CO₂ (approximately equal to the yearly output of one person in North America) directly from the air with less than 100 kilowatt-hours of electricity per tonne of carbon dioxide on a single square metre of scrubbing material.

“This means that if you used electricity from a coal-fired power plant, for every unit of electricity you used to operate the capture machine, you’d be capturing 10 times as much CO₂ as the power plant emitted making that much electricity,” explains Professor Keith.

A report co-authored by Keith in the American Chemical Society’s journal Environmental Science & Technology explains “nearly all current research on carbon capture and storage (CCS) focuses on capturing CO₂ from large, stationary sources such as power plants. Such plans usually entail separating CO₂ from flue gas, compressing it, and transporting it via pipeline to be [stored] underground.”

Using CO₂ air capture technology, “a company could, in principle, contract with an oil sands plant near Fort McMurray to remove CO₂ from the air and could build its air capture plant wherever it’s cheapest — China, for example — and the same amount of CO₂ would be removed,” says Professor Keith in a UofC press release.

“While it’s important to get started doing things we know how to do, like wind power, nuclear power, and ‘regular’ carbon capture and storage,” Professor Keith continues, “it’s also vital to start thinking about radical new ideas and approaches to solving this problem.”

ISEEE’s Executive Director David Layzell points out that “energy-efficient and cost-effective air capture could play a valuable role in complementing other approaches for reducing emissions from the transportation sector, such as biofuels or electric vehicles.”

Sunday, November 6, 2016

The following is the sixth and final edition of a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2016 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail: the Free & Equal Foundation holds a presidential debate with three little-known candidates; three additional candidates give their final pleas to voters; and past Wikinews interviewees provide their electoral predictions ahead of the November 8 election.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

A Scottish woman who set out before Christmas to purchase a turkey finally made it home on Monday, after being cut off by snow for a month. Kay Ure left the Lighthouse Keeper’s cottage on Cape Wrath, at the very northwest tip of Great Britain, in December. She was heading to Inverness on a shopping trip.

However on her return journey heavy snow and ice prevented her husband, John, from travelling the last 11 miles to pick her up. She was forced to wait a month in a friend’s caravan, before the weather improved and the couple could finally be reunited.

They were separated not just for Christmas and New Year, but also for Mr Ure’s 58th birthday. With no fresh supplies, he was reduced to celebrating with a tin of baked beans. He also ran out of coal, and had to feed the couple’s six springer spaniels on emergency army rations.

“It’s the first time we’ve been separated”, said Mr Ure in December. “We’ve been snowed in here for three weeks before, so we are well used to it and it’s quite nice to get a bit of peace and quiet.”

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

It has been reported recently by Blabbermouth and DotMusic.com that two fans of Finnish theatrical hard rock band Lordi were robbed at gunpoint on Friday in Louisville, Kentucky, United States and the band’s manager as well as a bodyguard were shot at. No-one was injured.

Following a gig in Louisville the band had split up, with three of the members going to a nearby bar for a drink. Lead vocalist Mr. Lordi, his wife, and keyboardist Awa had entered the tour bus, while manager Rikk Scholvinck and a bodyguard were escorting two fans towards the bus.

According to those at the scene, a van pulled up next to the bus and several youths emerged, at least one of which was carrying a gun. Mr Lordi describes what happened next: “One of the men with a gun took a fan, a girl, put the gun to her head and forced her to lie down on the ground. Also one of the boys froze on the spot while the others fled away, including Rikk and the bodyguard while another man started shooting at them. Luckily he missed and no one was hurt. Rikk ran to the bar and called the police who arrived soon. In a moment we were surrounded by like five police cars but the guys managed to escape. They were a group of drug addicts that had stolen the car earlier that night, and police were already looking for them but have still not managed to catch them.”

“The girl that was held at gunpoint is obviously very shocked. We did our best to comfort and calm her down, but one can only wonder what could happen when people start running around with guns and even using them! It is a bit amusing that the boy fan was just happy he didn’t lose the t-shirt he was wearing with all the autographs on it, even if they both lost everything else.”

Both the fans were given lifelong all access passes to Lordi concerts worldwide to compensate.

Lordi has had previous altercations with criminals in the US. Earlier this year the bus the band was using for their tour as part of Ozzfest was hijacked with several of the technical crew on board. During the same tour, two other fans were also robbed. “This was like a deja vú of that, once again we were surrounded by police cars and their flashing lights,” Mr Lordi commented.